India’s Infosys passes $2 billion in revenue

Riding an overall boom in offshore outsourcing to India, the country’s second largest software and services outsourcer Infosys Technologies Friday announced that its revenue had crossed $2 billion for its fiscal year ended March 31.

The company also announced a stock dividend to shareholders in the ratio of two for one, subject to shareholder approval.

Infosys of Bangalore reported revenue of $2.15 billion for the year, up by 35% over revenue of $1.6 billion in the previous fiscal year. The company’s profits for the year at $555 million were 32% higher than in the last fiscal year.

The company has forecast that its revenue will grow between 28% to 30% in its current fiscal year ending March 31, 2007.

The results are based on U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).

India’s software and services exports are likely to have grown by 32% to $23.4 billion in the fiscal year to March 31, according to data released in February by the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) in Delhi. The country is on track to achieve $60 billion in exports by 2010, NASSCOM said.

Other top Indian outsourcers are also expected to report strong growth in revenue and profit for the fiscal year ended March 31. The country’s largest outsourcer, Tata Consultancy Services of Mumbai, and the third largest outsourcer, Wipro of Bangalore are scheduled to announce their results next week.

Infosys added 15,965 employees during the year, taking the total number of employees to 52,715 as on March 31. The company competes for staff with other Indian outsourcers as well as the Indian operations of multinational services companies such as IBM Corp. and Accenture Ltd.