Bangalore, April 15: It bellwether Infosys Technologies Ltd sent out a ‘growth is still on’ message for 2008-09 despite client surveys indicating flat or pruned budgets for IT spend in the US, which is heading towards a recession. For the quarter-ended March 2008, the company posted a net profit of Rs 1,249 crore, up 9.2 per cent over the corresponding period in 2006-07. On a sequential basis, though, it was only 1.5 per cent higher than the net profit in Q3, 2007-08. Infosys’ revenue for the quarter grew 20.4 per cent to Rs 4,542 crore. Sequentially, it was 6.3 per cent more than the Q3 revenue.

The company’s revenue for the full year stood at Rs 16,692 crore, up 20.1 per cent compared with 2006-07 and its net profit jumped 20.8 per cent to Rs 4,659 crore — in dollar terms, the first $1 billion-plus profit for the company.

Going forward, Infosys has projected a 21.1-21.4 per cent year-on-year growth in revenue for the first quarter of 2008-09 and a 19.2-21.1 per cent growth in revenue for the full financial year. “While there could be short-term challenges due to global economic uncertainties, we see significant growth opportunities in the medium-to-long term,” CEO and managing director S Gopalakrishnan said. “Our global delivery model combined with our consulting and solution capabilities provides a strong platform for customers seeking efficiencies in their IT spend,” he added.

For the current financial year, 76 per cent of the company’s clients had indicated a flat or a reduced IT spend budget, chief operating officer S D Shibulal said. As many as 19 per cent of the clients have indicated budget cuts of 10 per cent or above, he said. The company was seeing multiple challenges on the global economic front but had put in place strategies like less reliance on the North American market and increased focus on India and the rest of the world, he said.

Apart from reduced IT budgets, new challenges include restructuring and changes in leadership of client companies leading to delays in decision making, the COO said.

On the back of the satisfactory performance for 2007-08, Infosys has decided to “buy peace with investors” and the board of directors has recommended a final dividend of Rs 7.25 per share and a special dividend of Rs 20 per share for the year. The board has also decided to increase dividend payout ratio to 30 per cent of net profit for the current financial year from 20 per cent in FY2008.

The special dividend is to celebrate the one billion dollar in net profits registered by the company - despite an 11 per cent appreciation in the rupee and the Rs 2,400 crore loss due to this factor during the year, CFO V Balakrishnan said.

The company has projected a hire of 25,000 employees over the next year to add to the existing employee strength of 91,187 at the end of March 2008. “We can afford to pay our employees for one whole year even with zero earnings. We are a strong company,” head of human resource development, education and research T V Mohandas Pai said.