Business
Infosys aims to become $20 bn company by 2020
Chennai, April 24
Information technology
bellwether Infosys Ltd is targeting to become a $20 billion revenue
company by 2020 with an average revenue per employee at $80,000, said a
top company official near here on Friday.
Speaking to reporters,
chief executive officer and managing director Vishal Sikka said: "It is
an aspirational goal. We use that to organize our thoughts. I believe we
can get there."
According to him, the goal would be achieved by a mix of organic and inorganic growth.
Queried
about how realistic was the goal of average revenue per employee
growing up to $80,000 from the current $50,000, he said many of the
routine works would be automated and more number of employees would be
deployed in such work that would fetch higher revenue.
He said an
additional head count of 70,000 would be added to the company rolls in
the process towards achieving the five-year goal.
Sikka said that by 2020 the company would have around 250,000 employees.
Queried
about the fourth quarter and the annual results for 2014-15, Sikka said
his philosophy is not to worry about transient things like quarterly
growth but to look at annual numbers.
Infosys reported net profit
of Rs.3,097 crore for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014-15 with a 3.5
percent growth over the corresponding period the previous year.
The company posted a revenue of Rs.13,411 crore for the period under review, up by 4.2 percent over the previous year.
According to Infosys, the revenues are expected to grow 8.4-10.4 percent in Indian rupee terms.
For the full year, the company posted a consolidated revenue of Rs.53,319 crore, logging an year-on-year growth of 6.4 percent.
The net profit stood at Rs.12,329 crore, up by 15.8 percent.
The company has given a guidance of 10-12 percent growth in constant currency terms for the current fiscal.
The
company also announced a definitive agreement to acquire around 500
employees Kallidus Inc, and its affiliate, a leading provider of digital
experience solutions, including mobile commerce and in-store shopping
experiences to large retail clients.
Infosys also said it has
entered into an agreement for an early state investment of $2 million in
Airviz to acquire minority stake.
Airviz is a personal air quality monitoring start-up and spinout from Carnegie Mellon University.
Infosys recently completed the acquisition of Panaya, a provider of automation technology.
According
to the company, its liquid assets stood at Rs.32,585 crore as on March
31, 2015 as compared to Rs.34,873 crore as on December 31, 2014 and
Rs.30,251 crore as on March 31, 2014.
The company board that met
near here on Friday recommended a bonus issue of one equity share for
every equity share held and a stock dividend of one American Depositary
Share (ADS) for every ADS held as on a record date to be determined.
The
Board recommended a final dividend of Rs.29.50 share per share for
fiscal 2015 (equivalent to Rs.14.75 per share after 1:1 bonus issue).
The
board decided to hike the dividend pay-out ratio to up to 50 percent of
post tax profits effective from fiscal 2015 -- from 40 percent.
During
the year, the gross employee additions were over 50,000 while the
quarterly annualized attrition declined to 13.4 percent.
"Services growth in the fourth quarter was lower than we expected though we saw healthy growth in Financle and our Edge suite.
Pricing
continues to be under pressure due to increasing commoditisation in the
traditional outsourcing business, requiring us to ramp up productivity
through automation and enhance our differentiation in large
engagements," U.B. Pravin Rao, chief operating officer was quoted as
saying in the statement.
Meanwhile investors gave a thumbs down
for the company stock. The scrip after opening at Rs.2,135 at the NSE
closed at Rs.1,995.20 down from Rs.2,122 the closing price on Thursday.