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Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (4029)	4/8/1999 11:26:00 PM
From: Mohan Marette	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12475

India's Infosys FY99 Profit May Have Doubled to 1.36 Bln Rupees India's Infosys FY99 Profit May Have Doubled to 1.36 Bln Rupees Bangalore, April 9 (Bloomberg) -- Infosys Technologies Ltd.,India's best known software developer, may have doubled its profit in fiscal 1999, as it won increasingly complex software contracts abroad for which it charged higher rates. Bangalore-based Infosys, which became the first Indian company to trade in the U.S. after it sold American Depositary Receipts last month, will report earnings for the quarter and fiscal year ended March 31 by 10 a.m. local time. The announcement flags off India's quarterly earnings season which, analysts say, will reassure investors that software companies remain their best bets as the rest of the economy slumped for the third year. Infosys may unveil profit of 1.36 billion rupees ($32 million) for the twelve months ended last month, compared with 603.7 million rupees for the same period a year ago, according to a Bloomberg survey of three analysts. Profit for the fourth-quarter may have risen to 435 million rupees, from 191 million rupees for the same quarter last year, they said. ''They moved up the value chain (fetching higher profit margins), increased productivity and won a lot of reengineering contracts,'' said Jignesh Bhate, an analyst at Indosuez W.I. Carr Securities India Pvt. Higher profits from developing software which help companies such as Reebok International Ltd. distribute its shoes worldwide and Nordstrom Inc. manage its inventory in its department stores,helped Infosys accelerate its profit in fiscal 1999, from a 62 percent expansion in the previous year. Infosys, along with other hot Indian software companies have climbed more than 150 percent, making them among Asia's best-performing stocks even as the region was hit by an economic meltdown. New Customers Infosys won new customers in Europe and Japan as it branched out of the U.S., its main market. The share of U.S. sales in the company's total sales dropped to 80 percent in fiscal 1999, from 85 percent in the previous year, analysts said. The foray into new markets is expected to drive future profit growth, analysts said. Last month, Dell Computer Corp.'s Japan unit hired Infosys to develop software which will help Dell sell its computers to customers worldwide through the Internet. Expectations of surging demand for its expertise drove up Infosys shares 91 percent since Jan. 1. The stock tripled in the last year and recorded a high of 3410.80 on March 3 in the run up to the Nasdaq listing. It rose 2 percent yesterday to 2,825.00 rupees. quote.bloomberg.com