To be in the Billion-Dollar Club

 TCS is already up there as the only Indian software company to clock the billion-dollar mark in annual revenues. The company had posted a 20% growth in revenues at Rs 5,012 crore (Rs 50.1 billion or $1.1 billion) for the year ending March 31, 2003. 

Now, it looks like two listed Bangalore-based companies Infosys and Wipro may enter that cherished league. Announcing its half yearly results, Wipro corporate executive VP-finance Suresh Senapathy proudly said, “Translating second quarter’s IT revenues of $268 million on an annualised basis puts us into the billion-dollar league.” Wipro chairman Azim Premji said that the company’s combined IT business showed strong growth during the second quarter, as it crossed the annualized revenue run rate of $1 billion. Wipro’s global IT services business beat its own guidance of $210 million by about 5.7% to touch revenues of $222 million during the second quarter. 

Buoyed by good results, Infosys was also confident of touching the billion-dollar mark by the end of the financial year. “We have revised our guidance upwards and we now expect our revenues for the financial year ending March 31, 2004, to exceed one billion dollars,” said Infosys CEO Nandan

Nilekani.

“In 1999, the revenues of this company were $121 million, which means in five years the revenues of this company would have grown from a little over $100 million to over a billion dollars. Two years back, the revenues of this company were about half a billion dollars. What it means is in two years, the revenues would have doubled from half a billion to over a billion,” he added.

T V MAHALINGAM in Bangalore