Software company Syntel reported a 31 percent decline in its net profit at USD 40 million for the first quarter ended March 31, 2015 on account of sluggish business activity and spending cuts by clients.
The Nasdaq-listed firm had posted net profit of USD 58.1 million in the year-ago period, it said in a statement. Revenue rose marginally to USD 220.6 million in January- March quarter of 2015 fiscal from USD 219.5 million in the same quarter of 2014 fiscal.
Syntel follows January-December as the fiscal year. On a sequential basis, Syntel's net profit fell 43 percent from USD 70.7 million in October-December of 2014 and revenue was down by 6 percent from USD 235.3 million during the same period.
Commenting on the performance, Syntel CEO and President Nitin Rakesh said: "While the first quarter is typically a seasonally weaker period for us, this Q1 got off to a slower start than usual as some of the projects we are engaged on were slow to ramp."
This quarter's performance is not characteristic of Syntel and the firm has taken actions to ensure that it stays on the growth path, he added.
The firm, however trimmed the upper end of its revenue outlook for the current fiscal. It now expects 2015 revenue of USD 985 million to USD 1.015 billion.
In February this year, during the Q4 2014 results, Syntel had said it "expects 2015 revenue of USD 985 million to USD 1.025 billion."
On 2015 outlook, Rakesh said: "We are maintaining our 2015 outlook for EPS and the lower end of our revenue range as the broader environment remains favourable and our pipelines continue to build. "We are optimistic that current market conditions support a continuation of the discretionary spending trends seen last year."
During the first quarter, Banking and Financial Services accounted for 47.8 percent of the total revenue, with Retail, Logistics and Telecom at 17.1 percent, Healthcare and Life Sciences at 15.6 percent, Insurance at 15.6 percent and Manufacturing at 3.9 percent.
During Q1, Syntel spent USD 4.4 million in CAPEX, largely in support of campus infrastructure and ended the quarter with cash and short-term investment of USD 867 million.
The firm ended the quarter with 24,534 employees, which is up by 1 percent from the year-ago period.
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