Mid-sized deals coming through in digital services: Anant Gupta

HCL Tech President and CEO says there is a strong demand for digitalisation across the Europe and the US

A strong demand for digital services in the US and Europe is helping strengthen the topline of HCL Technologies with mid-sized deals in the range of $10-25 million coming through this quarter for the IT services major.

The country's fourth largest software services exporter is confident that the market is set to grow further in the coming years as clients look forward to improve their services and optimise operational costs.

"We are beginning to see mid-sized deals, between $10-25 million. Though these are not big today, but they will grow," HCL Technologies President and CEO Anant Gupta said.

He added that there is a strong demand for digitalisation across the Europe and the US.

"Though Europe still remains a cost play, clients are looking at upping the game using digitalisation...There is also a great interest from the US. Companies is looking at technology not as an enabler anymore, its business today," he added.

Gupta said digitalisation is finding early adopters in sectors like financial services, consumer products, retail, telecom, media and publishing.

HCL Technologies had posted a 28% jump in consolidated net profit at Rs 1,915 crore for the December 2014 quarter, helped by strong growth in engineering services and rising customer preference for digital solutions.

The city-based firm, which follows July-June fiscal year, saw its revenues grow by 13.4% to Rs 9,283 crore in the same quarter.

In dollar terms, the company's net profit rose by 27.3% to $307.2 million in the reported quarter, while revenues grew 12.8% to $1.43 billion.

Americas, which accounted for 57.4% of the October-December 2014 quarter's revenue for HCL Tech, grew by 11.3%, while Europe (31.7% of the revenues) registered 21.1% year-on-year growth.

Rest of the World (RoW) contributed 10.9% of the quarter's revenues, growing 6.1% y-o-y.

During the second quarter of the ongoing fiscal, HCL won a multi-service delivery engagement with a financial services leader to build and support its digital IT platform.

Besides, it has also bagged a digital deals from a global fast food giant and a marketing services agency in the said quarter.

HCL's larger peer Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has already said it expects digital platforms like cloud, Big Data and mobility solutions to bring in cumulative revenues of over $5 billion in next few years for the country's largest software services firm.