HCL Tech to hike salaries; gross margin to dip by 130 bps

"We have decided to increase the wages of the employees effective from October 1, 2009 by 0-10 per cent and this will result in our gross margin dropping by 130 basis points for the next two quarters," HCL Tech CE0 Vineet Nayar told reporters here after announcing the first quarter results.

At the end of September 30, HCL Tech's total employee strength stood at 54,443. The company added 665 professionals in the IT services segment during the period. Further, the company is looking at acquisitions aggressively to 'fill in the gap' in its service areas and offerings.

"Acquisition is a part of our growth strategy. You will see acquisitions hopefully in BPO, enterprise application space, engineering and cloud computing side," Nayar said. "We have successfully managed five acquisitions in the last 3-4 quarters. Our margins are back to its original level of 19 per cent," he said, adding there is no fixed price tag for the acquisition.

For the first quarter ended September 30, HCL Technologies today reported 18.50 per cent growth in its net profit at Rs 300.75 crore. Shares of HCL Tech were trading at Rs 317.80, down 0.56 per cent in afternoon trade on the BSE.