Among the big-four of the India-listed IT majors, HCL Technologies has clearly come out on top in the March quarter as its key service lines and verticals fired and helped it beat market expectations.

Wipro, which too came out with its results on Thursday, also put up an impressive show.

During the quarter, HCL’s revenues grew 3 per cent sequentially in dollar terms, while net profit rose 9.4 per cent.

Wipro managed 2.5 per cent growth in revenues, while TCS grew its topline by 1.9 per cent. Infosys witnessed a decline in this regard and was the underperformer on some parameters.

Key verticals grow

HCL managed to grow its financial services vertical at an impressive 6.8 per cent during the quarter, much higher than its peers for whom the segment expanded at a tepid pace. Manufacturing as a segment grew well for HCL and Infosys. Another key segment – retail, that was weak for TCS and Infosys, actually delivered impressive growth of 1.7-2.8 per cent for Wipro and HCL.

Again Europe led the growth for the IT majors with the geography growing at 1-5 per cent sequentially, while North America remained tepid for all the players.

Infrastructure services led the charge with a 5.1 per cent growth for HCL as it continues to be among the top players in the segment. The company’s application services portfolio too grew at an impressive pace.

Client addition for all the four players has been prominent in the $10-60 million band during the quarter, though TCS did have a couple of customers added to its $100 million clientele. This indicates that mid-size deals are more prevalent and sought after by the IT majors as margins tend to be better for such contracts.

Operational front

On the operational front, HCL had a utilisation rate of 84.2 per cent slightly ahead of TCS and much higher than the 75-78 per cent managed by Wipro and Infosys. The momentum seems to clearly be with HCL as it has continued to remain consistent for the last 2-3 years now. TCS, despite a slow fourth quarter, has given bullish indications for FY15.

With Wipro too returning to consistency with an impressive show for three quarters in a row, the polarization in performance between the top four players may not be as pronounced as in the past.

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