Infosys’ distractions in a seasonally soft quarter affected our performance: Sikka

Infosys has announced its results for the quarter ended March 2017 and the company has missed the analysts expectations. The company’s consolidated net profit fell 2.83% to INR 3,603 crore against consolidated net profit of INR 3,708 crore in the previous quarter ended December 31, 2016. The stock fell 2.88% in early trade.

According to reports, revenue fell 0.88% to INR 17,120 crore compared with INR 17,273 crore previous quarter. The company has also announced a dividend of INR 14.75 per share. The consolidated revenue of the company also fell 0.89% QoQ and 3.44 % YoY to INR 17,120. The company claims that the poor results in Q4 are due to the execution challenges.

“Unanticipated execution challenges and distractions in a seasonally soft quarter affected our overall performance. At the same time, we continued to see many positive signs of our strategy execution; our software-led offerings continued to show strong momentum and client success, with continued adoption of Mana, our AI platform; Zero Distance marked its 2-year anniversary as a grassroots cultural movement for innovation with strong client resonance,” said Vishal Sikka in a statement during the meeting today.

According to average of estimates of analysts polled by CNBC-TV18, profit for the quarter was expected at INR 3,570 crore on revenue of INR 17,235 crore. Infosys claims to grow 6.5-8.5% revenue for the fiscal year ending March 2018 which is lower than the expected analysts' forecast of 7-9%.

The company has also appointed Ravi Venkatesan, Independent Director as the Co-Chairman of the Board. According to reports, the company approved 37,100 RSU and 73,600 stock options with effect from May 2, 2017, to few eligible and identified employees of the Company and its subsidiaries under the 2015 Stock Incentive Compensation Plan (2015 plan).

The company’s March quarter annualized standalone employee attribution was 13.5% as compared to 12.6% last year. March quarter annualized consolidated employee attribution stood at 17.1% against 17.3% year ago.  This shows that the company has changed the focus to better employee engagement. The company has also added 71 new clients in the $100mn category.