Digital era to be large opportunity for TCS: N Chandrasekaran

TCS' creating history as the first Indian IT major to hit the coveted USD 100 billion market cap is a result of consistent value creation and is poised to leverage the global digital opportunity, Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran said today.

Riding high on the back of record quarterly profit and a weak rupee, the IT arm of the Tata conglomerate saw its market cap push above the USD 100 billion (Rs 6,80,912.10 crore) mark after its shares climbed as much as 4.6 per cent to a record high of Rs 3,557.9.

The stock closed with a gain of Rs 8.8 at Rs 3,415.20 on BSE, implying a market cap of Rs 6.53 lakh crore (about USD 98.3 billion).

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries is the only other Indian company which had breached the USD 100 billion mark, way back in 2007. At today's rupee-dollar exchange rate and stock price, it had a m-cap of Rs 5.92 lakh crore.

"TCS has been able to create value consistently by making the right investments not only in terms of technology, but also in terms of creating capabilities, building leadership and talent, seeding new markets and developing scalable world-class solutions," Chandrasekaran said in a statement.

He added that the "Digital era" is going to be a large opportunity for TCS.

"Organisations are transforming into real-time enterprises driven by data, analytics and automation irrespective of business and TCS is well-positioned to make an impact and continue to deliver value," he added.

The spike in m-cap has come within days of strong performance reported by the company, which posted 4.3 per cent jump in annual revenue for FY18 to Rs 1.23 lakh crore.

The Tata group flagship, which contributes around 85 per cent of the group's profit, reported its highest revenue growth in 14 quarters at 11.7 per cent in dollar terms.

It also announced a 1:1 bonus of shares and a dividend of Rs 29 a share, taking the total payout to shareholders at Rs 50 for the year.

TCS is the country's most valued firm followed by Reliance Industries Ltd with a m-cap of Rs 5,92,427.82 crore, HDFC Bank (Rs 5,01,643.92 crore), ITC (Rs 3,35,801.17 crore) and Hindustan Unilever Ltd (Rs 3,14,938.94 crore) in the top-five list.

TCS, which competes with the likes of Infosys and Wipro, had hit the USD 50 billion m-cap mark in December 2010, and then scaled up to USD 75 billion milestone in June 2014.

Rajesh Gopinathan, CEO and Managing Director of TCS, said employees and customers had played an instrumental role in helping the company achieve the milestone.

"...what is exciting for us is the whole business 4.0 journey and the great opportunity to be a digital partner of choice to our customers in their growth and transformation journey," he added.

As part of its 'Business 4.0' strategy, TCS is looking at new age-technologies like automation, cloud and Internet of Things (IoT) driving digital revenues of the company to over USD 5 billion this year.