HCLTech jumps as margin beat, deal wins outweigh software weakness

HCLTech's shares surged as much as 4.9% in early trading on Tuesday following brokerages' assessment of a better-than-anticipated quarterly margin performance, significant deal wins, and rising revenue from advanced AI services. These factors helped offset concerns about weaker software sales. The IT firm's net profit increased by 21.2% to 51.32 billion rupees ($538.85 million), surpassing analysts' estimates of 48.59 billion rupees.

HCLTech's annualized advanced AI revenue grew to $219 million from $171 million in the previous quarter. Analysts from Jefferies and Nomura noted that HCLTech is among the few major IT companies to project revenue growth visibility of more than 5% in constant currency for fiscal year 2028, alongside steady margin delivery. The company's revised revenue growth guidance of 2.5% to 4% suggests a positive outlook for the services segment, leading Jefferies to upgrade the stock to "hold" from "underperform."

Brokers Systematix and others highlighted strong deal bookings, expanding into large accounts, ongoing investments in AI, and the company's long-term AI ambitions as key factors supporting their optimism about HCLTech's outperformance in the industry within the next few years.