BENGALURU (Reuters) – India’s LTIMindtree reported a lower-than-expected fourth quarter profit on Thursday as expenses rose and margins shrank, while the industry grappled with falling client budgets and worries of a upcoming recession in the United States.
The IT services and consulting firm’s consolidated net profit came in at 11.14 billion rupees ($136.18 million) for the three months ended March 31, compared to 11.09 billion rupees year ago.
Analysts, on an average were expecting a profit of 11.97 billion rupees, according to Refinitiv IBES data.
LTIMindtree, formed by the merger of Larsen & Toubro’s IT unit with Mindtree, said its earnings before interest and taxes, or EBIT, margins fall to 16.4% from 18.1%, a year ago.
Total expenses jumped by nearly 25% from a year ago.
Bigger rival Wipro Ltd forecast weak IT services revenue, while Tech Mahindra Ltd reported a slump in profits.
Revenue from operations rose 22% to 86.91 billion rupees.
Its board recommended a final dividend of 40 rupees per share, the company said in an exchange filing.
Shares of the Mumbai based IT firm ended 3.9% higher on Thursday ahead of results, vs 1.1% gain in Nifty IT index.
($1 = 81.8050 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Yagnoseni Das in Bengaluru)
