The company reported a 6 per cent sequential rise in consolidated revenue from operations for the quarter, while consolidated net profit grew nearly 2.5 per cent in the same period. While the topline was slightly ahead of Street’s estimates, the bottom line missed the mark by some distance.
That said, here are the other major takeaways from the IT giant’s first quarterly earnings of this financial year.
Guidance upgrades on strong deal wins
Infosys won large deals worth $2.6 billion in the June quarter, picking up from where it had left in the March quarter. The strong deal win momentum saw the company upgrade its full-year revenue growth guidance to 14-16 per cent for 2021-22 from 12-14 per cent earlier. With nearly every vertical of the company clocking double-digit growth, Infosys finds itself in a sweet spot.
Staffing crisis to worsen
While an upbeat view of the management on the revenue front may ease investor concerns over the sector’s slowing momentum, the company is facing an immense struggle in retaining talent just like its peers. Last 12-month attrition rate jumped 13.9 per cent from 10.9 per cent in the previous quarter reflecting the ongoing struggle to secure staff. Infosys said it expects attrition to remain high in the coming quarters as supply issues may not ease soon enough despite commitments to hire more 35,000 freshers worldwide.
ITR portals issues to ease soon
Infosys’ reputation took a major knock in the recent weeks after the botched rollout of a new online portal for filing of income-tax returns in India. The company is the vendor for the new online ITR portal, which has been beset with issues from its debut in June. Chief Operating Officer UB Pravin Rao said that the company was working on resolving the current issues and has enlarged the team on the project but highlighted that no post-mortem has been done on why such issues cropped up in the first place.
Infosys wants staff back at office
Although Infosys has accepted that the future would include a hybrid working model for its staff, Pravin Rao asserted that Infosys expects to have around 30 per cent of the staff working from its offices over the next six months provided that the impact of the third wave is minimal. About 10 per cent of the company’s staff is fully vaccinated while 59 per cent have received at least one COVID-19 jab. Rao highlighted that there has been push back from employees in tier-2, tier-3 cities to come back to offices, while those living in metros have expressed need for flexibility.
