Cogencis, Thursday, Jan 3
By Nikita Periwal
MUMBAI - The best performing sector of 2018 is set to start the New Year on a sour note as companies take note of slowing global economic growth, which could deter spending on technology.
The revival in growth of Indian IT companies in early 2018 and strength over the course of the year resulted in sharp gains for their shares, but a repeat of this trend is unlikely this year, analysts said.
Deteriorating trade conditions between the world's two largest economies, US and
Some of these concerns have already been factored in the share prices, as the Nifty IT index fell by a sharp 9% in the December quarter, underperforming the benchmark Nifty 50 index by a massive 820 basis points.
US-based Accenture recently said that it expects growth to remain weak in the February quarter, after its banking, financial services and insurance vertical grew a mere 1% sequentially in the November quarter. Cognizant, too, cut the higher end of its sales growth guidance for 2018.
Given that large technology companies such as Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys get close to half of their sales from BFSI in the
Flattening of the yield curve in the US could further hit demand from the banking sector, while higher costs of operations in the country is expected to eat into the profitability of Indian companies.
Apart from higher costs of obtaining visas, the struggle of technology companies to find adequate talent locally in the US is also seen affecting margins as companies then have to resort to a mix of subcontracting and offshore or nearshoring to meet demand.
"Even as IT companies have stepped up local hiring, the fact is that talent is not easily available at the mid-level," Kotak Institutional Equities said in its pre-earnings note for the sector.
Mid-cap company Hexaware Technologies citied lack of talent as one of the reasons for its weak performance in the September quarter, and expects the problem to persist up to June. Industry bellwether TCS also acknowledged that the issue of talent scarcity in the
Edelweiss Securities said that it prefers shares of large-cap technology companies over those of mid-sized companies because of their ability to cope with the shortage of human resources in the
Though a likely softness in guidance could dissuade investors from buying shares of technology companies like they did in 2018, this pressure could be offset by likely corporate actions–-particularly share buybacks or hefty dividends.
Infosys is seen announcing a $1.6-bln buyback and buy back shares at 800 rupees each, in line with its plan of returning $2 bln to investors announced at the start of the year, Antique Stock Broking said in a report.
Wipro could also announce a share buyback, the brokerage said.
OCT-DEC EARNINGS
Though the December quarter is seasonally weak for most technology companies due to lesser number of working days and year-end holidays, weakness in the Indian currency will once again come to their rescue.
The rupee has fallen 2.7% on an average during the quarter, which will help protect margins of these companies.
The operating margins of top five technology companies are likely to rise by 70-100 basis points sequentially, Edelweiss Securities said. Apart from the weakness in the rupee, greater use of automation and wage hikes and higher visa costs being taken earlier through the year is expected to help these companies.
"However, the impact will be limited due to lower utilisation owing to furloughs, investments in digital and localisation, and training of freshly inducted employees," Edelweiss said.
However, margins of Bengaluru-based Infosys are seen under pressure due to reinvestments in business and transition costs in large deals.
Sharp gains in the Indian currency towards the end of the December could also result in translational foreign exchange losses.
The net sales of 10 Indian technology companies are likely to rise 4% on quarter, and the bottomline is expected to grow by 6%, an average of estimates of four brokerages compiled by Cogencis showed.
Of these, the sales growth of TCS, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, Wipro and HCL Technologies is seen 3% sequentially, with a 6% growth in profits. Wipro's profit is seen surging 23% on quarter led by the full-quarter benefit from the Alight Solutions deal.
Larsen & Toubro Infotech is seen leading sales growth in the mid-cap space. The overall sales growth in tier-II companies is seen stronger than that in tier-I helped by momentum in the past few quarters.
Given that the continued momentum in digital services has been a major growth driver for most technology companies, their outlook on this segment will also be watched, analysts said.
The Tata group flagship, TCS, will be the first IT company to announce earnings on Jan 10, followed by Infosys a day later.
Following are the estimates for Oct-Dec earnings of companies as compiled by Cogencis:
| Company name | Sales | PAT | Sales | PAT | Sales | PAT | EBITDA | Result date |
| ------Average------- | -----(Q-o-Q)----- | -----(Y-o-Y)----- | (in mln rupees) | |||||
| (in mln rupees) | --------------% Change-------------- | |||||||
| TCS + | 379,190 | 84,077 | 3 | 6 | 23 | 28 | 107,530 | Jan 10 |
| Infosys + | 212,433 | 41,609 | 3 | 1 | 19 | (19) | 53,474 | Jan 11 |
| Tech Mahindra + | 89,601 | 11,359 | 4 | 6 | 15 | 23 | 17,104 | -- |
| HCL Tech + | 154,732 | 26,320 | 4 | 4 | 21 | 27 | 36,915 | -- |
| Wipro + | 151,785 | 23,104 | 4 | 23 | 11 | 20 | 26,059 | -- |
| L&T Infotech + | 24,362 | 3,895 | 5 | (3) | 29 | 38 | 5,187 | -- |
| L&T Technology Services + | 12,998 | 1,711 | 3 | (10) | 34 | 35 | 2,497 | -- |
| Mindtree + | 17,997 | 1,939 | 3 | (6) | 31 | 37 | 2,818 | Jan 16 |
| Hexaware Tech + | 12,577 | 1,540 | 4 | (10) | 25 | 27 | 2,093 | Jan 30 |
| Persistent Systems + | 9,264 | 9,264 | 11 | 11 | 17 | 17 | 1,711 | Jan 28 |
| Total | 1,064,937 | 204,817 | 4 | 6 | 20 | 13 | ||
| Note: |
| + Consolidated Figure |
| Y-o-Y: Year-on-Year |
| Q-o-Q: Quarter-on-Quarter |
| N.A.: Not Available |
| Rs: Rupees |
| Estimates from: |
| Kotak Institutional Equities, Emkay Global Financial Services Ltd, Edelweiss Securities Ltd and Nirmal Bang Equities Pvt Ltd.
End
|
Table compiled by Mukesh Saroj and Shivaji Jagtap
Edited by Maheswaran Parameswaran
