Infosys on Friday reported strong third quarter profit which was up by 25 per cent. The rise was based on growth from its markets other than the US, rise in prices and addition of 47 new clients in the quarter.

The company’s net profit after tax (PAT) for the quarter ended December 31, 2007 stood at Rs 1,231 crore, a quarter more than Rs 983 crore in the same period last year.

However when compared with the September quarter, PAT was up only 12 per cent. Infosys’s revenue for the December quarter at Rs 4,271 crore registered a y-o-y growth of 17 per cent and it was up only 4 per cent on q-o-q basis.

Spreading out

Infosys’ efforts to grow its business beyond USA, in Europe, Australia, China, Japan, Middle-East & India, etc as a de-risking effort is yielding results. Non-USA business now accounts for 38 per cent of the company’s revenue.

Infosys has also increased its pricing across all verticals by 3 to 4 per cent. It also commented that the US slowdown had no major impact on its business and felt that the outsourcing opportunities for India were positive.

“We foresee several opportunities for growth in newer markets and are also looking towards opportunities in the Indian market. We have concluded several multi-year, multi-million deals and the outlook is positive,” said Infosys Technologies CEO & Managing Director S Gopalakrishanan speaking at a press conference here. V Balakrishnan, Infosys Chief Financial Officer commented that there were no signs of a slowdown .

Infosys, in the last nine months has crossed $3 billion in revenues. For quarter ending March 31, 2008, Infosys expects the income to be in the range of Rs 4,477 to Rs 4,501 crore, a y-o-y growth of 18.7 to 19.3 per cent. For the fiscal year ending March 31, 2008 the company expects its income to be in the range of Rs 16,627 - 16,651 crore, suggesting a y-o-y growth of 20 per cent. Shares of Infosys Technologies on Friday ended at 1.56 per cent lower.