iGATE scripts steady revenue growth

Bangalore, Apr 11 (UNI) Shrugging off its sluggish growth in the last two years, iGATE Global Solutions, the integrated Technology and Operations (iTOPS) company, registered a revenue growth of ten per cent at Rs 636 crore for the financial year 2005-06, as against Rs 580 crore in the previous year.

iGATE CEO Phaneesh Murthy, announcing the financial results at a press conference here, said revenue in the fourth quarter was Rs 167.37 crore, up by 15 per cent from the same period last year.

Operating profit during the period was Rs 16.13 crore, up by 43 per cent from the corresponding period in the previous year. The company saw an 89 per cent jump in operating profit at Rs 61.4 crore, with significant increase in client base during the fiscal despite hike in wages by about ten per cent.

Expressing satisfaction over the revenue growth, he said iGate, which was restructuring its entire operations since the last two and a half years, had steadied now and aimed at reaching 15 per cent revenue growth this fiscal. From negative revenue in 2004, it had achieved six per cent growth in 2005 and ten per cent in 2006. With the second wave of offshoring gaining momentum and pricing looking comfortable in the country, iGATE stands to move forward, he added.

The iGATE Board, which met recently, had recommended 30 per cent dividend.

Mr Murthy said the company added 36 new customers in the financial year, of which 24 were Fortune 1000 companies. iGATE, which had employed over 5,100 people across the world, hired 1,200 this year and planned to recruit another 1,200 during 2007. Due to the immense opportunities, the attrition level was high at 20 per cent and iGATE was trying to reduce it to around ten to 12 per cent.

He said North America contributed over 76 per cent of the revenue, 11 to 12 per cent from Europe and the rest from the Asia-Pacific region. iGATE proposed to shift its operations from Wuxi in China to Dalian, considered the IT hub of China. Dalian was one of the main Chinese cities, attracting a huge amount of foreign investments and having a large base of IT companies, particularly focusing on the Japanese market.

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