Indian Software Company Passes $1 Billion In Revenue

BANGALORE, India (AP) -- Software company Infosys Technologies Ltd.'s profit rose 38.5 percent in its latest fiscal year as its revenue climbed 41 percent and surpassed $1 billion for the year.

Infosys, India's second-largest software maker after Tata Consultancy Services, also said Tuesday it was proposing paying a one-time special cash dividend of about $1.15 as well as a dividend of one additional share for each of its U.S. shares.

The company earned $270 million for the fiscal year ended March 31 compared with $195 million a year earlier. Revenue rose to $1.06 billion for the year from $754 million for the previous year.

"We have improved our non-U.S. revenue particularly in the last quarter (and) that aided revenue growth," chief executive Nandan M. Nilekani told reporters after announcing the results at Infosys' head office in this southern city.

Infosys shares rose 6.8 percent on the Bombay Stock Exchange after the announcements.

"Infosys' generous bonus share issue fired up the entire technology sector," said Shankar Char, head of institutional sales at Cholamandalam Securities, a Bombay-based brokerage firm.

Infosys earned 33.3 percent of its revenues exporting software to countries other than the United States, particularly Australia, the United Kingdom and Japan. That was up from 25.5 percent in the previous year.

While the United States remains Infosys' largest market, America's share in total revenues fell to 65.5 percent from 71.7 percent a year earlier.

Nilekani said that decline was the result of a "derisking strategy" adopted by the company to increase revenues from other countries and reduce dependence on the United States.

"In general, we have focus both on Asia-Pacific and European regions," Nilekani said.

The shift in strategy was sparked by a rising backlash in the United States against the practice of farming out white-collar work to firms in low-wage countries such as India, Nilekani said.

He also said Infosys will invest $5 million in China to hire about 200 software engineers and market Infosys services there.

But Nilekani said the United States still sends Infosys a steady flow of business, and will continue to be the company's single-largest market.