Third of incremental demand coming from data and AI: HCLTech CEO
HCLTech garnered about a third of incremental demand from data and artificial intelligence (AI) verticals, helping India’s third largest software services provider post better-than-expected revenue — 6.7% higher from a year earlier — in the fiscal second quarter.
Speaking to ET, CEO and managing director C Vijayakumar declined to elaborate on revenues earned from data and AI businesses. “It (data and AI revenues) is spread across different verticals, and every client situation is different, so I'm not able to quantify it. But I think at least a third of the (incremental) demand seems to be coming from AI and data, roughly,” he said.
Announcing the September quarter results on Monday, the Noida-based company reported revenue of Rs 28,862 crore, up 6.7% from a year ago and 2.6% sequentially. Revenue surpassed the Rs 28,710 crore ET estimate for Q2. The company also raised its lower-end guidance for revenue growth to 3.5-5.0% from the earlier 3.0-5.0% for FY25.
“To grow at 3.5%, we need to grow, maybe 0% for Q3 and Q4, and to grow at 5%, we have to grow at 2% in Q3 and Q4; that's the math on the demand environment,” Vijayakumar said in a post-earnings call.
“We see good demand in financial services, that's also extending to other verticals. But we are a little cautious about extrapolating this for a longer period of time. We are going to take it one quarter at a time…We believe in the mid-to-long term, of course, the levers are sustainable, but quarter to quarter, there can always be variations,” he said.
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