Cognizant rounds off Indian reporting season

(By Anthony Miller) Cognizant, the fourth largest of the India-based SIs, comfortably beat its prior guidance, turning in 31% revenue growth in the September quarter ($735m). Management is holding to its 32% FY growth expectations ($2.81bn), even though this implies less than 2% Q4 seq. growth. Given that Cognizant has turned in 7% seq. growth in each of the last three quarters, I’d have to say this looks a pretty safe call, even in these troubled times. European revenues grew over 50%, impeded by unfavourable currency movements, though with some 20% of sales coming from this region, Cognizant is still relatively undernourished compared to larger peers. No news on Cognizant’s tie-ups with NL-based mid-cap SI, Ordina, or with Deutsche Telekom's troubled IT services arm, T-Systems, (I’m a bit sceptical about both relationships, by the way) but I hope to find out more in due course. In any event, I’ll be catching up with UK MD Sanjiv Gossain next week to get a better idea of the inroads Cognizant is making over here.