Infy loses Rs. 109 crore to strong Re

Strengthening of the rupee vis-a-vis the dollar has hurt Infy. The IT major has taken a hit of Rs. 272 crore in billing due to the appreciating rupee in the last fiscal. However, the company has minimised its losses by hedging $203 million over the year. With this, the company was able to restrict the losses to Rs. 109 crore. “The company has hedged $203 million at Rs. 44.60 per dollar during the year,” said Infosys chief financial officer Mohandas Pai.

During the last year, the rupee has appreciated 8.5 percent and in the last quarter it has appreciated 5.3 percent. In the third quarter itself, the company had lost Rs. 41.25 crore on billing.

For Infosys, insurance, banking and financial services contributed 33.2 percent of the revenues, while the telecom sector added 20 percent to the total revenues.

In geographical terms, the North American market is still the biggest market with 71.2 percent contribution towards Infy’s revenues.

In the previous year, the North American market had accounted for 73 percent of the total revenues. In the last quarter of 2003-04, revenues from the North American market declined to 65.5 percent while in the third quarter it was 72.2 percent. Commenting on the declining growth in the North American market, S Gopalakrishnan, Infosys board member and chief operating officer said, “As per the company policy, we are focusing on other parts of the global market like China and Australia. We do not want to depend only on one market.”

The firm added 38 new clients during the fourth quarter with net addition of 2,425 employees. Infosys hired 9,758 people during 2003-04 to reach a total of 25,634 employees.

Source: ZDNet India