The firm, which has development centres in India, the United States, Europe, Japan and Singapore, said its revenues for the September quarter jumped 26 percent to 6.3 billion rupees.

"The sequential revenue growth of 9.36 percent in dollar terms in the second quarter was the highest in the last 10 quarters and was spread across all major verticals as well as the various technology segments," said Satyam chief B. Ramalinga Raju.

"Besides the evident demand growth in offshore outsourcing... (the) packaged software business, which now accounts for a quarter of the revenue, showed a strong sequential growth of 15.5 percent reinforcing our leadership position in this space," Raju said.

He said prices, which are billed by the hour, were stabilising.

"The main issues which continue to engage us relate to attrition, cost management and unabated appreciation of the rupee. These will have some effect on near term margins," he said.

The Indian currency has appreciated by more than two percent in the past two months.

Satyam closed down 7.40 rupees at 270.0 rupees Thursday on profit taking.

"The company has posted good results, but if one reads closely it is the other income which is boosting the bottomline," said a software analyst with a foreign brokerage.

"The results were expected on these lines, as Satyam had earned nearly 140 million rupees from sale of its stake in subsidiary Satyam Infoway which is reflected in the other income. Purely from operations, Satyam can be said to be a stable earner."

The company, which has a presence in 45 countries serving 290 global companies, including 80 Fortune 500 corporations, said it recruited an additional 610 software professionals in the second quarter taking the total employees to 10,447.

Revenues from software exports for the second quarter increased by 18 percent from the same period last year to 5.8 billion rupees while domestic sales contributed 166 million rupees.

The country's fourth largest software exporter said it added 27 new customers during the quarter including five Fortune 500 customers.

Raju said Satyam was revising upwards the revenue growth forecast for the whole fiscal year to March 2004.

"The revenue growth in dollar terms is expected to be between 26 percent and 28 percent, up from 18 percent to 20 percent earlier," he said.

"In order to achieve this growth and to prepare for the coming year, our net addition of employees in the current financial year is expected to be 3,000 compared to the 1,500 indicated earlier," he said.

Raju said there were signs that technology spending would go up.

"Looking at the long term, a revival of growth in technology spending seems to be on the cards based on early indicators.

"This, together with the increasing adoption of offshore outsourcing by global customers and the pre-eminence of leading Indian IT services companies in this space, will ensure high growth opportunities in the coming years," Raju said.

He said to capitalize on this growth Satyam was investing in customer relationship management, increasing global presence and brand building.

SPACE.WIRE