Coforge outshines in Q2 as tech rivals navigate haze

Coforge’s optimism contrasts IT’s Big Five who are still uncertain about the environment

- Jas Bardia [e-mail]

Coforge has jumped three places in Indian IT's pecking order within a year.

Coforge Ltd reported the fastest growth among nine of the country’s 15 largest information technology (IT) services companies which have declared earnings so far.

This marks the fifth straight quarter of outperformance for the company, as banks and travel firms continued to drive growth in a challenging macroeconomic environment.

India’s seventh-largest IT outsourcer ended the September quarter with $462 million in revenue, up 4.5% sequentially and 26.6% on an annual basis.

With this, Noida-based Coforge, which jumped three places in Indian IT’s pecking order within a year, also exceeded analysts’ expectations. According to a Bloomberg poll of 26 analysts, Coforge was expected to report $461.6 billion in revenue for the second quarter.

Among the companies earning $1-5 billion in annual revenue, ninth-largest Persistent Systems Ltd reported $406.2 million, up 4.23% from the preceding three months, whereas sixth-largest LTIMindtree Ltd reported $1.18 billion in revenue, up 2.3% sequentially. Twelfth-largest L&T Technology Services Ltd grew the slowest last quarter, reporting a 0.5% increase in revenue to $337 million. Only four of the eight mid-caps have declared earnings so far.

In stark contrast to peers, the Coforge management was optimistic about the demand environment.