‘We have filed zero H-1Bs from India in the last 12 months’, says Persistent Systems CEO Sandeep Kalra

Sandeep Kalra, CEO and Executive Director, Persistent

Persistent Systems chief executive Sandeep Kalra said that the mid-tier IT services firm has not filed a single H-1B application from India to deploy employees in the US in the past 12 months, despite getting nearly 80 percent of its revenue from the North America.

His comments come a month after the US government raised the H-1B visa fee to $100,000 newer applications, triggering concerns over short-term disruptions in workforce deployment for IT companies in North America.

H-1B visas are non-immigrant visas that allow US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations such as science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM), and IT.

Kalra told Moneycontrol that the company will not file for any new H-1B visas either, to avoid further impact of the US President Donald Trump government’s changing visa policies.

Following the fee announcement on September 23, the Department of Homeland Security had also unveiled a proposal to overhaul the lottery-based H-1B visa system by introducing a wage-based selection process prioritising higher-paid, higher-skilled applicants.

What did Persistent’s CEO say?

“If you look at the last 12 months, we filed zero H-1Bs from India. Whatever H-1Bs we have in the US are our earlier employees or transfers that we have done or subcontracting and so on. We are not in the business of filing newer H-1Bs, so it (policy changes) does not necessarily impact us,” Kalra said.

He emphasised that the industry dynamics are also largely shifting as customers look for more onshore and nearshore delivery, which may involve investing more to build nearshore delivery centers in Canada and Mexico.

Moreover, AI lets companies like Persistent invest in a way that it optimises profitability not only on the cost side but also through AI productivity gains.

“This will be a zero-sum game or a better game going ahead; but all of this will get impacted over the next several quarters not one quarter,” he added.

On demand environment

Persistent Systems on October 14, reported a robust set of numbers for the second quarter of FY26, comfortably surpassing Street estimates with double-digit growth in revenue and profit.

Consolidated net profit rose 45.1 percent year-on-year to Rs 471.4 crore. Revenue from operations increased 23.6 percent YoY to Rs 3,580.7 crore.

Vinit Teredesai, Chief Financial Officer, said, “BFSI has been performing very very well for us for the last couple of quarters. We believe looking at the current order book and the pipeline, it will continue to do so for the next couple of quarters.”

“Healthcare which was a little bit subdued and in a consolidation phase in the last two quarters has again seen a pickup. We believe that it will continue the momentum going forward and hi tech is also looking pretty much promising,” Teredesai told Moneycontrol.

Hitting the $2-bn revenue target

Persistent Systems is also on track to hit its $2-billion revenue target by FY27, Kalra noted.

“If you look  our growth rate and if  we continue that then we are pretty much on that trajectory. Also, at any point in time we can look at some acquisitions, small or big. Even if we were to do a small token acquisition that will further smoothen the ride to the $2 billion part and so we’ll let it pan out. It's an aspirational goal not a forward looking guidance, but we are on that trajectory,” Kalra said.

On wage hike cycle

The company has started rolling out wage hikes effective from October 1, 2025 after a delay of a quarter.

“Hikes were is in line with both the industry standards as well as what we had given in last year," Teredesai said.

Kalra added that the hikes were in the range of 3-7.5 percent, similar to what was given last year.