HCLTech Q2 Profit Rises 21% as AI Revenue Jumps 78%; Firm Signs Global Anthropic Partnership

HCLTech reported a 21.2% year-on-year rise in consolidated net profit to Rs 5,132 crore for the July-September quarter, after market hours on Monday. Profit was Rs 4,235 crore in the same quarter last year. Revenue from operations grew 11.5% to Rs 35,620 crore, up from Rs 31,942 crore.

The bigger story for the technology sector may be what sat alongside the numbers. HCLTech's advanced AI revenue grew 28.4% quarter on quarter and 78% year on year in constant currency. The company also announced a global partnership with AI developer Anthropic.

Margins widen

Chief executive C Vijayakumar said operating (EBIT) margin rose 131 basis points from the previous quarter to 18.2%. The services business grew 3% sequentially, with growth across industry verticals and regions, while overall revenue rose 2.3% quarter on quarter.

By segment, IT and business services revenue rose to Rs 26,938 crore from Rs 23,693 crore a year earlier. Engineering and R&D services brought in Rs 5,973 crore, up from Rs 5,423 crore.

New deal wins for the quarter totalled $3.26 billion. That gives the company a fresh order pipeline as clients keep reshaping their technology budgets around AI projects.

Guidance and dividend

HCLTech now expects FY27 revenue to grow 2.5% to 4% in constant currency, with the services business projected at 3% to 4%. Some reports describe the services range as a raise from an earlier 1-4% band, and note that it includes about one percentage point from the acquisitions of Jaspersoft and HPE's telco solutions business. EBIT margin guidance for the year is 17.5% to 18.5%, and the second-quarter margin is already near the top of that range.

The board declared a second interim dividend of Rs 12 per share. The record date is October 16 and payment is due on October 26.

The Anthropic tie-up

Under the new Global Premier Partnership, HCLTech will set up a dedicated Anthropic business unit and a centre of excellence to build agentic AI solutions on Anthropic's Claude models. Its services teams plan to create industry-specific offerings using Claude, Claude Code and Cowork. HCLSoftware, as an Anthropic independent software vendor partner, will embed these tools in selected enterprise products. The company said it will also offer secure sandbox environments for enterprise Claude deployments, supported by forward-deployed engineers.

The deal follows a run of similar alliances between Indian IT services companies and AI model makers, as the industry tries to turn generative AI from a perceived threat to traditional outsourcing work into a new source of revenue. HCLTech is focusing its pitch on safety, cybersecurity and governance, the areas large enterprise clients most often raise before moving AI agents into production.

Context in the sector

HCLTech's results follow TCS, which opened the earnings season last week with a roughly 15% rise in profit. HCLTech shares closed 0.47% higher at about Rs 1,220 on Monday, before the results came out. Tuesday's trading will give the first reaction to the numbers and the new guidance.

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