Hinduja Global Solutions profit dips 17.8% to Rs 44.8 cr in March quarter

Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS), the BPO arm of the diversified Hinduja group, has posted a decline of 17.8 per cent in consolidated net profit at Rs 44.8 crore in the March 2020 quarter.

The company had registered a net profit of Rs 54.5 crore in January-March 2019, HGS said in a regulatory filing.

HGS' revenue from operations, however, grew 2.6 per cent to Rs 1,318.6 crore in the quarter under review, as against Rs 1,284.6 crore in the year-ago period.

"Revenue growth in constant currency terms was 6.4 per cent. Revenue growth in Q4 was lower due to the exit of domestic business, which accounted for only one month of our Q4 operating revenues," the filing said.

For the full-year, HGS' net profit was up by 16.6 per cent to Rs 205.6 crore, while net sales grew 8.7 per cent to Rs 5,235.4 crore as compared to FY2019.

"HGS continued its strong momentum of FY2020 in the fourth quarter. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic posing some challenges in March 2020 and the sale of the India domestic customer relationship management (CRM) business, our topline in Q4 FY2020 grew by 2.6 per cent y-o-y," HGS Wholetime Executive Director and CEO Partha DeSarkar said.

De Sarkar further said "the growth was led by good performance in both Healthcare and CES (Consumer Engagement Services) verticals across geographies".

He added that looking ahead, the company is confident of facing the challenges posed by Covid-19 pandemic.

"We continue to strengthen and scale our Work from Home operations to service our clients, as well as maintain our focus on managing cost and improving the overall profitability of the business," he said.

HGS had announced the sale of its India domestic CRM business to Altruist Technologies in November 2019.

As part of the transaction, HGS transferred client contracts, about 7,000 employees and delivery centre assets in India to Altruist at the end of January 2020.

As of March 31, 2020, HGS had 221 core BPM clients and 686 HRO/Payroll processing clients.

Its employee headcount stood at 37,460 and the company had 61 global delivery centres across seven countries at the end of March 2020 quarter.