Auto segment continues to be matter of concern, says HCLTech MD & CEO C Vijayakumar post Q3 results.
Watch him in conversation with Niraj Shah.
#hcltech
For more videos subscribe to our channel: / @ndtvprofitindia
Visit NDTV Profit for more news: https://www.ndtvprofit.com/
Don't enter the stock market unaware. Read all Research Reports here: https://www.ndtvprofit.com/research-r...
Follow NDTV Profit here
Twitter: / ndtvprofitindia , / ndtvprofit
LinkedIn: / ndtv. .
Telegram: http://t.me/ndtvprofitnews
Questions asked in this interview
8
1:30And is that the way to think of business right now as well, CVK?
2:02So is this a case of justice delayed and not justice denied, in that maybe post this quarter things will improve?
2:34Is this time slightly different because the Trump swearing in is yet to happen?
3:30Okay, so which is, I was trying to understand: so you do believe that there is an improvement, and there could be even further improvement, and further clarity that could come in at the end of this quarter round?
4:51How do you – is it possible to guess about what 2025 could throw up in terms of the nature of deal wins?
6:10How do you foresee spends by auto majors and thereby revenues for companies which are pure-play R&D or like yours which have got this large presence?
A quick conversation with C Vijayakumar on what is to be anticipated in the year to come, more importantly in quarter 4 as well, which is going to be very, very important. Here I hear him out.
Q3 went largely in line with our expectations. The services business actually did a little better than our expectations; we grew 2.2% sequentially. The software business, obviously this is an ally strong quarter; it grew very strongly, but on a year-over-year basis there is a slight decline. That was a little below our expectations. Overall, top line more or less in line with what we expected. In terms of margins, performance has been good. We had launched Project Ascend to bring a lot of efficiencies across multiple aspects of our overall operations; that is also showing good results, so we delivered a very good margin performance as well. Our total contract value booking, while the overall number is somewhat in the same range, but I think the little nuance there is the annual contract value growth is year on year 23%. That is again a very positive sign that smaller deals are getting converted and smaller tenure deals are increasing in the overall booking.
Is that going to be supportive of near-term growth? Almost everybody believes that will be the case, so therefore that's right, that's right – you would second that as well. And is that the way to think of business right now as well, CVK? Because it might be difficult to really forecast 12, 18, 24 months out.
Yeah, I think obviously you need to make some assumptions and create a plan, but I think the confidence on what would happen in the near term, one or two quarters, is a much better estimate than a full-year estimate, I would think.
Got it. You alluded to the software business BFSI growth which was a bit lower than you expected. Some people are talking about this due to a delay in signing certain large deals and renewals. So is this a case of justice delayed and not justice denied, in that maybe post this quarter things will improve?
Yeah, definitely. I mean, you have to see how those deals really – I mean, they're delayed now. Will they positively convert or not is something which is still not certain, so we are still working on them.
Okay. A more macro question, CVK. And that's something that when we talk to analysts as well, or market experts, they are also trying to understand that usually clients' budgets would have been getting formed up in the month of January, especially in the US geography or maybe others. Is this time slightly different because the Trump swearing in is yet to happen? Some of the policy clarity is yet to happen.
Yeah, I'm only kind of making a judgment based on what we saw in end of September versus end of December. We saw an improvement in the demand environment. Now obviously, in the next few days there can be significant changes in the overall business landscape, and the impact of that, I think it's very difficult to really factor in at this point because there are too many unknowns. So once we have clarity, that will probably be at the end of this quarter, we can provide you good commentary on that.
Okay, so which is, I was trying to understand: so you do believe that there is an improvement, and there could be even further improvement, and further clarity that could come in at the end of this quarter round?
9 more exchanges in this transcript
Sign in free to read the rest of this interview. No card required.
Vijayakumar, C. (2025, January 13). Q3 Was Largely In Line With Our Expectations: HCLTech's C Vijayakumar | HCLTech Q3 Results [Interview transcript]. NDTV Profit. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1054270/
MLA
C Vijayakumar. "Q3 Was Largely In Line With Our Expectations: HCLTech's C Vijayakumar | HCLTech Q3 Results." NDTV Profit, 13 Jan. 2025. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1054270/.
BibTeX
@misc{vijayakumar2025_1054270,
author = {C Vijayakumar},
title = {Q3 Was Largely In Line With Our Expectations: HCLTech's C Vijayakumar | HCLTech Q3 Results},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, NDTV Profit. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2025},
month = {jan},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1054270/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
