KPIT Q2 net profit up 6% at Rs 60 cr

IT firm KPIT today said its consolidated net profit grew by 6.3 per cent to Rs 59.72 crore for the second quarter ended September 30, 2017.
This is against a profit (attributable to owners of the company) of Rs 56.18 crore in the year-ago period.
KPIT's sales in the quarter under review was up 10.23 per cent to Rs 916 crore from Rs 830.9 crore in the September 2016 quarter.
"We have a good business momentum with the H1 growth performance. This puts us in a good position to close the financial year with a double digit growth," KPIT co-founder, CEO and MD Kishor Patil said in a statement.

He added that the company has to focus more on profitability improvement, which it believes "will take a couple of quarters for a meaningful and sustainable improvement".
Sachin Tikekar, President and Board Member at KPIT said the growth in the second quarter was broad-based with Asia leading the growth, followed by the US and Europe.

"We are beginning to see the results of the investments made by us over the last 18 months. We remain fairly positive for the remainder of the year, albeit Q3FY18 will be a flattish quarter due to seasonality," he added.
In dollar terms, the revenue for the quarter stood at USD 141.8 million, a year-on-year growth of 15 per cent.

The company said its profitability during the quarter was impacted by wage hikes to the extent of around 180 to 200 basis points of revenue.
The cash balance as on September 30, 2017 stood at Rs 529.4 crore. Its total headcount stood at 11,666 people at the end of September, 2017.
Automotive vertical, which contributed 43.3 per cent of total revenue for the quarter, registered a quarter-on-quarter growth of 12.3 per cent. Manufacturing vertical, contributed 30.5 per cent of total revenue, a sequential growth of one per cent.
Energy vertical grew 9.1 per cent, while utilities business fell 5.3 per cent this quarter compared to the preceding three-month period.

The results were announced after the closure of trading hours for the day.
Shares of the company closed at Rs 148.20 apiece, up 5.97 per cent from its previous close on the BSE.