Domestic focus boosts HCL Info's profits

Increased focus on domestic market has boosted the bottomline of HCL Infosystems, a computer hardware maker, during the fourth quarter and the financial year to June 30, 2004.

The company, which has a presence in telecommunications too, has announced that its net profit went up by 34.26 per cent year on year to Rs 45.85 crore in the fourth quarter. Net sales grew 47 per cent to Rs 1,295.97 crore.

In the financial year to June 30, 2004, the firm's bottomline shot up by 89 per cent to Rs 175.11 crore, while the top line increased by 65 per cent to Rs 4,307.65 crore.

Ajai Chowdhry, chairman and chief executive officer, said, "Our decision to go deep into domestic market has reflected in our growth and results." "The domestic market offers a lot of opportunity and we have merely scratched the surface."

In keeping with its policy of announcing a dividend every quarter, the company has announced a final dividend of 70 per cent for the final quarter. This takes the yearly dividend for the financial year 2003-04 to 210 per cent.

While refusing to give the guidance, Chowdhry said, "We are in the two growing areas "" telecom and computers "" at a right time. Both these sectors are doing extremely well and will be engines of our growth." HCL Infosystems has seen a phenomenal growth in the last two years with revenues growing 3.2 times and net profit growing 11.3 times.