NIIT has reported a net profit jump of 31.44 percent in the second quarter (Q2). The company's net profit rose to Rs 48.3 crore in the quarter ending March 2001 up from Rs 36.77 crore in the same quarter last year. The company's global revenue, including those of its subsidiaries fell from Rs 353.74 crore in the corresponding quarter last year to Rs 351.82 crore for the quarter under review.
The company has also recorded 26 percent growth in Global Learning Business and also 26 percent rise in Global Software Services Business.
Net sales of the company increased 3.38 percent to Rs 217 crore from Rs 209 crore. The overall results beat analysts forecast of 25.4 percent net profit rise. Global Learning Solutions recorded revenues of Rs 159.5 crore up 26 percent as compared to the same quarter last year. This revenue now constitutes 45 percent of NIIT's global revenues.
The reach of NIIT's education centers was expanded to 2,228 centers. This includes 108 international centers in 26 countries outside India. In Q2, 155 new education centers were added as against 95 centers in Q1.
The company got a huge gain, as there is an increase in its other income, from Rs 2.55 crore in the same quarter last year to Rs 15.64 crore this quarter. The scoop in other income was the result of making subsidiaries of its two business, its sales training arm, NIS-Sparta, which fetched Rs 5.54 crore and the online learning business, which fetched Rs 7 crore.
The company has also got a $ 4.5 million new order from the ING, in Netherlands, (part of ING Group, a finance and insurance conglomerate). This is a strategic project to consolidate core IT functions for ING's key business and a $ 5 million software development contract from Channel 4 Television Corporation, one of UK's leading commercial TV channels. The project will re-engineer and transform Channel 4's mission critical system into a Java based application.
The company has also slowed down its recruitment this quarter with total recruitment this quarter ended March 2001 at 130, compared to 300 in the previous quarter of this year. Rajendra Pawar, Chairman, NIIT Ltd said "While gearing up for an uncertain 6-9 month period we are investing in re-training our workforce on new technologies; aggressively building the NIIT brand, creating new content and curriculum; building re-usable software components and upgrading process quality in the software factories to gear up for the inevitable growth."