HCLTech Q2 FY27 财报：AI 收入同比增 78%、净利创新高，但全年指引维持不变且管理层警示需求波动

U.S. stocks open mixed amid small moves ahead of bank earnings, CPI this week
Introduction & Market Context
HCLTech (NSE:HCLTECH) presented its second quarter fiscal 2027 results in October 2026, showcasing robust financial performance driven by accelerating artificial intelligence adoption and operational efficiency improvements. The Indian IT services giant reported its highest-ever quarterly net income while maintaining cautious full-year guidance amid what management described as a volatile global environment.
The presentation, dated October 2026, revealed total revenue of $3,724 million, representing 2.3% sequential growth and 2.6% year-over-year growth in constant currency terms. More significantly, the company’s advanced AI revenue reached $219 million, surging 78% year-over-year in constant currency, validating HCLTech’s strategic investments in the full AI stack.
Trading at $1,223 per share, up 0.52% from the previous close, HCLTech’s stock remains within its 52-week range of $1,030 to $1,780.1, suggesting investors are weighing strong operational results against broader market uncertainties.
Executive Summary
The Q2 FY27 presentation highlighted three key themes from HCLTech’s leadership team. As illustrated in the following leadership commentary section, executives emphasized the company’s AI-driven growth trajectory, record bookings, and improved capital efficiency.
Chairperson Roshni Nadar Malhotra noted that "accelerating growth in Advanced AI revenue validates their business strategy," positioning HCLTech as a trusted technology partner through strategic partnerships and investments across the AI ecosystem.
CEO C Vijayakumar reported "a strong quarter with new bookings of $3.3 billion (up 27% YoY), marking a record high for first-half bookings." He highlighted EBIT margin expansion of 131 basis points quarter-over-quarter to 18.2%, while services revenue grew 3.0% sequentially with broad-based growth across verticals and geographies.
CFO Shiv Walia confirmed the company achieved "the highest-ever quarterly Net Income of INR 5,132 Crores (up 11.0% QoQ and 21.2% YoY)," attributing this to superior revenue growth and improved profitability. He emphasized the company’s "razor-sharp focus on improving capital efficiency" resulted in a last-twelve-months return on invested capital of 41.2%, up 261 basis points year-over-year.
Quarterly Performance Highlights
The comprehensive key performance indicators demonstrate HCLTech’s multi-dimensional growth story across revenue, profitability, and strategic metrics.
Total revenue reached ₹35,620 crores ($3,724 million) in Q2 FY27, growing 3.0% quarter-over-quarter and 11.5% year-over-year in reported terms. In constant currency, which removes the impact of foreign exchange fluctuations, revenue grew 2.3% sequentially and 2.6% year-over-year.
The company’s EBIT margin of 18.2% represented a significant 131 basis point improvement from the previous quarter and a 71 basis point gain year-over-year. Notably, this margin includes an 84 basis point impact from restructuring costs, meaning the underlying operational margin reached 19.0% when excluding these one-time expenses.
Net income of ₹5,132 crores represented 14.4% of revenue, marking an 11.0% sequential increase and 21.2% year-over-year growth. This translated to diluted earnings per share of ₹70.22, up 5.0% quarter-over-quarter and 12.2% year-over-year. The company declared a dividend of ₹12 per share.
Revenue per employee on an annualized basis reached $65,400, essentially flat quarter-over-quarter but up 2.4% year-over-year, demonstrating improving productivity. Free cash flow conversion remained strong at 87% of net income on a last-twelve-months basis, while ROIC reached 41.2%.
The company’s quarterly performance trends reveal consistent improvement in profitability metrics despite some revenue volatility, as shown in the following charts.
These trend analyses demonstrate that while revenue has shown modest sequential growth, margin expansion has been more pronounced, particularly in the most recent quarter. The EBIT margin of 18.2% including restructuring costs, or 19.0% excluding such costs, represents the highest level in recent quarters.
AI Business Momentum
HCLTech’s advanced AI business emerged as a standout performer in Q2 FY27, with revenue of $219 million representing 28.4% sequential growth and 78.0% year-over-year growth in constant currency. This growth rate significantly outpaced the company’s overall performance, positioning AI as a key growth engine rather than an experimental pilot program.
On an annualized run-rate basis, advanced AI revenue now stands at approximately $876 million, representing a meaningful portion of the company’s $14.8 billion in total annual revenue. Management emphasized that AI is now central to every large deal won during the quarter, reflecting the technology’s evolution from a niche offering to a core component of enterprise transformation.
The presentation detailed nine key advanced AI deals across various industries, demonstrating the breadth of HCLTech’s AI capabilities:
These engagements span AI-native infrastructure partnerships, agentic AI frameworks for banking, AI-powered manufacturing quality assurance, and healthcare data platforms. The diversity of use cases suggests HCLTech has developed comprehensive AI capabilities across the technology stack, from infrastructure and platforms to industry-specific applications.
Segment & Geographic Performance
HCLTech’s business operates across three primary segments, each contributing differently to overall performance and profitability, as detailed in the following breakdown.
IT & Business Services, representing 75.4% of revenue mix, grew 4.4% year-over-year in constant currency with an EBIT margin of 18.6%. This core segment showed strong profitability improvement of 229 basis points year-over-year and 160 basis points sequentially.
Engineering & R&D Services, comprising 16.7% of revenue, grew 2.1% year-over-year with a 15.2% EBIT margin. While this segment showed solid revenue growth of 4.1% sequentially, margins declined 231 basis points year-over-year, reflecting investment in capabilities and competitive pressures.
HCLSoftware, accounting for 7.9% of revenue, posted 11.2% year-over-year growth with a 20.1% EBIT margin. However, this segment experienced a 5.8% sequential decline, which management attributed to the timing of multi-year license renewals rather than fundamental demand weakness.
Geographically, the United States remained HCLTech’s largest market at 56.1% of services revenue, growing 3.5% year-over-year. Europe, representing 26.9% of revenue, declined marginally by 0.3%, while Rest of World markets at 13.6% grew strongly at 11.4%. India, though only 3.4% of revenue, posted exceptional 21.8% growth.
Among verticals, Financial Services led at 22.4% of services revenue with 7.1% growth, while Retail & CPG showed the strongest growth at 14.0%. Technology & Services grew 5.9%, and Manufacturing expanded 3.9%. However, Lifesciences & Healthcare and Telecommunications both declined 2.1%, indicating pockets of demand weakness.
The detailed segment performance metrics reveal varying profitability and growth dynamics across the portfolio.
Client Metrics & Deal Wins
HCLTech’s client base expansion and deal momentum provided evidence of market share gains and deepening relationships. New deal bookings totaled $3,258 million in Q2 FY27, representing what management called a record high for first-half bookings and a 27% increase year-over-year.
The company’s client pyramid showed consistent growth across all revenue tiers, as illustrated in the following long-term trends and client category analysis.
The number of $100 million-plus clients reached 23, up from 17 a year earlier. Clients generating $50 million or more increased from 42 to 62, while those above $20 million grew from 128 to 161. The $10 million-plus category expanded from 220 to 291 clients, and the $5 million-plus tier grew from 356 to 433.
Notably, client concentration decreased, suggesting more balanced revenue distribution. The top 5 clients contributed 11.4% of revenue, down from 12.4% a year earlier. The top 10 clients accounted for 18.4%, down from 19.9%, and the top 20 represented 27.4%, down from 29.5%.
Detailed client metrics show both the growth in client numbers and the improving revenue distribution across the customer base.
Days sales outstanding improved to 58 days from 59 days in the previous quarter, though slightly up from 56 days a year earlier, indicating stable collections performance.
Beyond AI-focused engagements, HCLTech secured numerous significant deals across its service portfolio, including enterprise-wide transformations, SAP implementations, and digital workplace modernizations.
These wins spanned retail network modernization, cloud operations consolidation, and manufacturing digital integration, demonstrating HCLTech’s ability to compete for large, complex transformation programs beyond pure AI projects.
Strategic Positioning & Recognition
HCLTech’s strategic investments in talent, innovation, and partnerships received external validation through numerous industry awards and analyst recognitions during the quarter.
The company’s human capital metrics showed headcount reaching 230,339 employees as of September 30, 2026, representing a net addition of 6,450 during the quarter. Notably, 6,136 freshers were added, indicating continued investment in entry-level talent. Attrition on a last-twelve-months basis stood at 12.8%, while women represented 30.0% of the workforce.
Revenue per employee of $65,400 on an annualized basis grew 2.4% year-over-year, while R&D expense remained at 1.9% of revenue. The company’s Value Creation Portal engaged 19,660+ employees, generating 5,600+ approved ideas and 1,900+ implemented initiatives that delivered $318 million in customer-approved value.
HCLTech filed 38 patent applications and received 21 patent grants during the period, demonstrating ongoing innovation. The company was named to TIME’s World’s Best Companies list for the third consecutive year and won three Gold Brandon Hall Excellence Awards in diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging categories.
The presentation highlighted over 90 leadership positions in analyst recognitions across digital business, digital foundation, AI & GenAI, digital operations, engineering services, and software categories.
These recognitions included leadership positions in Gartner Magic Quadrants, IDC MarketScape assessments, Forrester Wave evaluations, and Everest Group PEAK Matrix rankings across multiple service lines and geographies.
HCLTech’s software business also secured significant customer wins across its product portfolio, from database and commerce platforms to endpoint management and automation solutions.
Forward-Looking Guidance
Despite the strong Q2 performance, HCLTech maintained its full-year FY27 guidance unchanged, projecting constant currency revenue growth of 2.5% to 4.0% at the company level and 3.0% to 4.0% for the services business. EBIT margin guidance remained at 17.5% to 18.5%.
Management’s decision to keep guidance unchanged despite beating quarterly expectations reflects caution about the external environment. During the earnings call referenced in contemporaneous reporting, executives described demand conditions as volatile and macro trends as uncertain, with uneven spending patterns in some client accounts.
However, management indicated that the services business should perform better than the midpoint of guidance, suggesting confidence in the core business trajectory even as the company maintains conservative overall projections.
Strategically, HCLTech emphasized continued investment in AI capabilities, partner ecosystems including new relationships with Anthropic alongside existing partnerships with OpenAI and NVIDIA, and talent development. The company also announced plans to expand AI infrastructure in India.
The presentation concluded with comprehensive financial statements and detailed segment reporting, providing transparency into the company’s financial position. The consolidated balance sheet showed total assets of ₹120,422 crores ($12,567 million) as of September 30, 2026, with a healthy equity base of ₹76,126 crores ($7,944 million) and modest borrowings of ₹954 crores ($100 million).
Cash and cash equivalents totaled ₹10,046 crores ($1,048 million), while total gross cash including fixed deposits and investment securities reached ₹25,457 crores ($2,656 million), resulting in net cash of ₹24,503 crores ($2,556 million) after deducting borrowings.
The company’s strong cash generation supported both strategic investments, including ₹3,742 crores ($392 million) in acquisitions during the quarter, and shareholder returns through dividends of ₹3,245 crores ($337 million).
HCLTech’s Q2 FY27 presentation painted a picture of a company successfully navigating the transition to AI-driven services while maintaining operational discipline and financial strength. The 78% year-over-year growth in advanced AI revenue, record bookings, and expanding margins demonstrate execution against strategic priorities. However, the unchanged guidance and management commentary about external volatility suggest the company remains watchful of macroeconomic headwinds even as it capitalizes on the AI transformation wave sweeping enterprise technology.
Full presentation:
This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.