Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on Monday posted a good set of numbers for the three months to March 2022 in line with Street estimates. The highlight of the quarter was an order win of $11.3 billion, a near-50% jump over the $7.6 billion seen in the December 2021 quarter.

Revenues in Q4FY22 stood at Rs 50,591 crore, a sequential increase of 3.5% while net profits came in at Rs 9,926 crore, a quarter-on-quarter increase of 1.6%. Despite it being a typically weak quarter for the IT sector, the ebit margins came in at a strong 24.96%, flat sequentially.

The IT major exited FY22 with revenues of Rs 1.92 trillion, up 16.8% over the previous year and with net profits of Rs 38,327 crore, an increase of 18%. The ebit margin for the year stood at 25.3%.

The software giant reported dollar revenues of $25.7 billion for the year, a growth of 15.4% on a constant currency basis. The total order wins for the year amounted to $34.6 billion.

Rajesh Gopinathan, MD & CEO, said at a press conference that the demand environment continues to be strong and that the company’s services are resonating with the markets. “The growth momentum is strong,” Gopinathan said, adding that technology spends by clients were getting prioritised even though there was some pressure on budgets. “The tech spends will be the last to be slashed if there is a squeeze on budgets,” the TCS chief added.

The trend line on deals is growing steadily, the CEO said, adding, “We used to be in the band of $6-7 but now we have moved up to $8-8.5 range and that’s the sustainable path for us.” The investments in services, such as cloud and digital, Gopinathan noted, were beginning to pay off. Moreover, the company had rolled out a new operating structure to double down on customer intimacy.

Samir Seksaria, chief financial officer, TCS, said that pricing has been positive for the year. He observed that long-term cost structures are in place to deliver good margins in the band of 26-28% though there may be some volatility in the near term. Better realisations would be a lever that we would be looking at as also a better portfolio mix and a reduction in operational slack. The biggest lever is growth and we also look forward to help from the currency.

Among the key geographies for TCS, the US market led growth for the March quarter. While the BFSI vertical was the strongest, despite the high base in Q4FY21, the retail vertical, too, fared well. The company now has 58 customers that fetch revenues of over $100 million, it said.

TCS added 35,209 employees on a net basis in Q4FY22, taking the employee headcount stood to 592,195, a net addition of 103,546 during the year, an all-time high. Attrition continues to be a problem at 17.4%. Nonetheless, while IT attrition during the quarter ticked up on an absolute basis, it was flat on a percentage basis.