Infosys lowers guidance for FY18 as Q4 revenue dips; attrition was high in FY17

BANGALORE, INDIA: Infosys today posted a profit of Rs 3,603 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2017, with a QoQ decline of 2.8 per cent  against Rs 3,708 crore in previous quarter. The revenue also saw a decline of 0.9 per cent QoQ but increased 3.44 per cent YoY to Rs 17,120 crore.

FY17 revenue, however, grew 9.7 per cent to Rs 68,484 crore in INR terms and 8.3 per cent in constant currency terms.

Infosys has also kept the revenue growth guidance lower than the street estimates at 6.5-8.5 per cent in constant currency terms and 2.5-4.5 per cent in INR terms for FY18. The street was expecting a guidance of 7-9 per cent growth.

Commenting on the performance, Dr. Vishal Sikka, CEO said, “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, and our employee engagement continued to drive down attrition, especially with top performers.”

But more people left the company in FY17 as compared to the year before, although Infosys' attrition rate dropped marginally to 13.5 per cent at the end of the March, as against 14.9 per cent in the December quarter. The number of people who left the company in FY16 was 34,688, which increased to 37,915 in FY17. Consolidated attrition rate from the company was at 19.2 per cent for FY17 as against 18.7 per cent for FY16.