Tata Group bellwether Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS) reported results for the September quarter after market hours on Thursday, October 8, which were in-line to marginally below analyst expectations.
TCS reported constant currency revenue growth of 0.5%, while the CNBC-TV18 poll had projected the figure to be 0.6%.
For the September quarter, TCS reported a net profit of ₹13,884 crore, compared to ₹13,349 crore during the June quarter. The comparable figure though for the base quarter, is ₹13,849 crore as it included a one-time exceptional item of ₹668 crore due to settlement of a legal claim.
TCS’ revenue in rupee terms stood at ₹73,188 crore. The CNBC-TV18 poll had projected that figure to be ₹73,225 crore. On a sequential basis, TCS reported revenue growth of 1.3%. In US Dollar terms, TCS reported a topline of $7,642 million, which is in-line with the CNBC-TV18 poll estimate of $7,657 million.
TCS’ revenue from the Artificial Intelligence crossed the $3 billion mark during the September quarter, and now contributes to more than 10% of the overall company topline. AI revenue from the previous quarter stood at $2.6 billion.
Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) for the quarter stood at ₹17,553 crore, marginally lower than the CNBC-TV18 poll projection of ₹17,738 crore.
EBIT margin remained flat during the quarter to 24%, marginally lower than the CNBC-TV18 poll of 24.2%. TCS’ margins during the June quarter also stood at 24%. Margin expansion was already expected to be subdued as 170 basis points reversal of the first quarter wage hikes is partially reinvested into AI and other data center capabilities.
Deal wins during the quarter stood at $9.6 billion, which is the midpoint of the analyst projections which ranged between $9 billion and $10 billion.
A key aspect for the deal wins that the street would expect the management to shed more clarity on is the mega Porsche deal, under which TCS will be acquiring 100% of Porsche’s management & IT consulting subsidiary MHP for an enterprise value of €320 million.
Porsche and TCS have signed a five-year strategic partnership valued at €1.5 billion and this deal will help TCS scale the AI vertical across the mobility value chain and the SDV platforms.
TCS is targeting double-digit growth from the synergies but analysts expect the initial period of the deal consummation to result in a margin dilution of around 50-60 basis points.
“I would rate them little better than expectation, while they are slightly higher than estimate but the expectation was even more bad. Because in last few days because of some developments on AI player side, people were expecting numbers to be even bad. From that perspective, numbers are decent,” Sandeep Agarwal of Sowlio Investment Managers told CNBC-TV18. He awaits more clarity from the management on the margin outlook as he did not find anything negative as such in the results.
Shares of TCS had opened 3% higher on Thursday, but faced selling pressure in-line with the market sell-off, and eventually ended below the flat line at ₹2,077. The stock is down 36% so far this year.