Infosys Posts Robust Increase In Second Quarter Sales, Profits

Indian IT services provider Infosys Technologies continues to benefit from the boom in offshore outsourcing. The Bangalore-based company on Tuesday said revenues for its second quarter increased 38.3%, compared to the same period a year ago, to $524 million. Per-share earnings jumped to 51 cents from 36 cents a year earlier.

Infosys also added 34 new customers and grew from 40,000 to more than 46,000 employees during the period ended September 30.

For the first six months of its fiscal year, Infosys' sales topped the $1 billion mark, a level it took the company a full year to reach as recently as 2004.

In a statement, Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani said the company's robust growth was due in part to moves to offer "a broad array of services" by diversifying beyond basic IT work and deliver higher value offerings, such as consulting and business-process outsourcing.

Among the new customers Infosys added during the quarter was Dutch financial services giant ABN Amro. Infosys was among a team of vendors picked by the bank to manage its infrastructure and application services under contracts worth more than $2 billion. Infosys' portion of the work is expected to be worth at least $125 million.

Looking ahead, Infosys said it expects its revenues for its fiscal year ending March 2006 to total about $2.14 billion.