COGNIZANT (CTSH): Teuer, aber sehr gut - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

[Simonswald]

Cognizant ist ein Outsourcing-Tech-Dienstleister, der für von den grossen Konzernen IT-Services übernimmt und in Indien erledigen lässt.

Gehört für mich zu den besten Tech-Aktien derzeit.
Ein traumhafter Chart (astreiner Aufwärtstrend seit 1999, Korrektur in 2000/2001 wurde schnell aufgeholt).
Das KGV ist mit 40 ziemlich hoch. Aber teuer war sie schon immer, und ist trotzdem immer noch höher gelaufen.
Auch fundamental schaut es ganz gut aus (Umsatz seit 2001 verfünffacht, auch in 2005 wieder +50%!!!).

Wenn jetzt Tech wieder in Mode kommmen sollte, dürfte auch eine CTSH davon profitieren, und falls nicht, sollte sie trotzdem weiterlaufen.

Einziges Problem: Falls es mal ne Umsatzenttäuschung geben sollte, dann sind steht sie wahrscheinlich sofort 20 bis 30% tiefer.

[spaceistheplace]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 27.113.135 von Simonswald am 22.01.07 16:46:19

Hallo Simonswald,
ich beobachte die Aktie seit ein paar tagen und die geht gerade ja ab wie nix. Ich will eigentlich einsteigen, jedoch denke ich, dass eine Konsolidierung kommen sollte. was meinst Du? Soll ich kaufen? Du kennst das Papier besser wie ich´...
Gruss space

[Pontiuspilatus]

hi space,
bin auch durch simonswald auf cognizant aufmerksam geworden und bin am 23.01 eingestiegen. Danach ging die Aktie ab wie schmidts katze
Fand die aktie damals schon sehr teuer und wollte fast nicht einstiegen.
Wollte nach den erstklassigen Zahlen beinah schon verkaufen aber hab mich jetzt entschieden drin zu bleiben.
Aktie ist ein absoluter Globalisierungsgewinner der von der Verlagerung von IT Dienstleistungen nach Indien profitiert.
Gewinne und Umsätze steigen in atemberaubenden Tempo (erwartetes KGV 2007: ca 60, KGV 2008 ca 32).

Nach dem run infolge der guten Zahlen würd ich mit dem einstieg warten bis sich der kurs etwas beruhigt hat. Man muss sich aber auch bewusst sein das sich die Aktie aufgrund der sehr hohen bewertung (Marktkapitalisierung entspricht dem 7 fachen erwarteten Umsatz 2007)nach einer verfehlung von erwarteten Zahlen innerhalb kurzer Zeit auch mal halbieren kann.
Jedoch war die Bewertung in den letzten Jahren immer in dieser größenordnung gelegen.

Kurzum Aktie ist sehr teuer aber auch sehr gut.
Kommt drauf an wieviel Risiko du verträgst.
gruss

Pontius

[Pontiuspilatus]

Kgv 2009 bei den Momentanen Gewinnerwartungen ca 24

[spaceistheplace]

Hallo pontius, ich bin seit Kurzem mit ner kleinen Position dabei.
Grundsätzlich ist das teil heiß und man muss aufpassen. Stimmen einmal die zahlen geringfügig nicht, d.h. sie müssen eigentlich immer über den Erwartungen liegen, dann kracht es im Gebälk und da sind schnell mal 30% Minus drin...
Ich denke, wir bekommen im Frühjahr noch ein bisschen freundlichere Kurse, im Sommer kann es dann mal wieder ungemütlicher werden...daher aufpassen...

Gruss space

[Pontiuspilatus]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 27.653.466 von spaceistheplace am 12.02.07 08:45:23

Mutig von dir nach dem run. Aktie hält sich gut und sehr ruhig auf dem hohen niveau. Anscheinend kein großer verkaufsdruck.
Bin auch nur mit einer kleinen position drin.
Ich wünsch uns noch viel glück

[spaceistheplace]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 27.693.950 von Pontiuspilatus am 14.02.07 00:20:51

klar bin ich mir bwußt, dass ich evtl. nicht den optimalen Einstiegszeitpunkt erwischt habe, aber wer weiss....
Entscheidend für mich ist, ob ich kaufen will oder nicht, wenn ja, mache ich das sofort. Oft bin ich schon steigenden Kursen hinterhergerannt...
Und als Investor, der nicht wider nach ein paar Monaten verkauft, außer es bahnen sich Schwierigkeiten im Unternehmen an, kann ich auch erst mal ne Durststrecke durchschreiten....
Klar, ich wünsche uns allen wenigen hier viel Glück und Spass mit der CTSH!
Gruss space

[Pontiuspilatus]

stimmt hast schon recht. Man kann ja nachkaufen falls ne korrektur kommt

[spaceistheplace]

ich bi heute auch aus CTSH raus, mir deucht als kommt mal ne Korrektur...habe auch schon Roche und Coach rausgehauen...ich werde mal ein bißchen cash anhäufen.
Gruss space

[Pontiuspilatus]

ich bleib in cogni drin hab nur ne kleine position und stock auf wenns die aktie zereisst

[Pontiuspilatus]

bin ich jetzt der letzte deutsche der cognizant aktien hält oder gibts noch jemanden.

Haallo fühle mich einsam

[spaceistheplace]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 28.184.741 von Pontiuspilatus am 08.03.07 15:39:20

Hi Pontius, ich bin ja noch da, leider mit leeren Händen, was Cogni angeht. Hoffentlich findet sich noch einer hier in Deutschland, der investiert ist. mach Dir aber nicht so viel Hoffnung, viele geben ja ihr geld einer Telekom oder eine Daimler-Aktie und leiden lieber jahrelang...
Morgen schreibe ich im Resmed-Thread...
Gruss space

[Pontiuspilatus]

ja zu den Telekomgeschädigten gehöre ich ja neuerdings auch
Die müssten echt schwmerzensgeld an ihre aktionäre zahlen.

Cognizant hält sich im übrigen fantastisch und das trotz der hohen bewertung. Gefällt mir immer besser die aktie

[spaceistheplace]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 28.300.809 von Pontiuspilatus am 14.03.07 22:50:40

Tja, Pontius...wie hat mal Kosto gesagt. Geld an der Börse ist Schmerztensgeld...zuerst kommen die Schmerzen, dann das Geld. Bei der telekom steht aber der 2. teil immer noch aus. das ist und bleibt ein Scheissladen, sorry. beamtentum, halb Stattsbetrieb, schwerfällig, nicht innovativ, die Kunden laufen weg. Zudem kommen die gebühren bei Handies z.B. immer noch weiter ins Fallen, wenn ich nur den neuen Base Tarif sehe, da kann die telekom nicht mithalten.
Verkauf das gelumpe wieder und schichte um, wenn Telekom, dann doch lieber in Telefonica. ich würde aber grundsätzlich die Telekombranche wie evtl. den ganzen Hightech-Bereich außen vor lassen.

Nun gut....
jedenfalls mache es viel Spass sich mit Dir hier die Gedanken auszutauschen....
Gruss space

[spaceistheplace]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 28.300.809 von Pontiuspilatus am 14.03.07 22:50:40

ich wäre trotzdem vorsichtig, was Cogni angeht, da ist viel Zukunft im Kurs....sehe z.B. gerade Starbucks dahinsiechen, weil die wohl das hohe erwartete Wachstum nicht mehr so aufrecht erhalten können...

[Pontiuspilatus]

Cognizant steigt weiterhin wesentlich schneller als der markt.Starbucks sehe ich bei der Kursentwicklung die nächsten 10 jahre so wie coca cola die letzten 10 jahre. SBUX ist viel zu teuer, bin schon 2 Jahre draussen.

Cognizant ist schwer einzuschätzen da der Markt in dem diese tätig sind noch relativ jung ist. Es könnte sein das die 1i 3 Jahren sehr viel höher stehen.

Aber man muss hier wegen der hohen bewertung natürlich besonders aufpassen

gruß Pontius

[spaceistheplace]

jou Pontius, ich gebe Dir recht. SBUX ist viel zu teuer, waren sie immer, doch aktuell sehe ich einen verfall, bzgl des Images, an dem immer mehr gekratzt wird, und die zunehmende Konkurrenz. daher tippe ich auf Wachstumsraten von max. 15-20% die näcshten jahre gegenüber 25-30% bisher. KGVs von über 30 sind da absolut nicht mehr haltbar.
Bei COGNI musste halt aufpassen, da kann auch mal was daneben gehen. Ich habe auch letzt gelesen, dass z.B. die Löhne in Indien stark ansteigen, aber wie sich das auswirkt...keine Ahnung. Jedenfalls lass sie laufen. Wenn man schon hoch im Gewinn ist machen auch mal ein Rückschlag nicht so viel aus als wenn man neu drin steckt. Zumindest empfinde ich das so.
Gruss space

[Pontiuspilatus]

Cognizant Technology Solutions
Even in the fast-growing outsourcing industry, Cognizant is a standout. Propelled by the increased outsourcing of health-care data processing and by a growing number of European clients, Cognizant’s 2006 sales jumped 61%. Its bread and butter, though, remains managing financial and information-tech services for U.S. clients; companies such as Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and Aetna account for 86% of its sales. To keep growth humming, CEO Francisco D’Souza plans to hew to the company’s policy of investing aggressively in operations and staff, adding 16,000 workers, mostly in India and China. And he plans to spend $200 million on more office space and infrastructure in India, where Cognizant has 70% of its operations. The outlay comes at the cost of margins lower than Indian rivals Wipro and Infosys Technologies, but so far these bets have paid off in growth.

[Pontiuspilatus]

dass nenne ich nen chart. leider hab ich die aktie auch erst relativ spät entdeckt.

[spaceistheplace]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 28.474.170 von Pontiuspilatus am 24.03.07 15:26:08

sorry, Pontius, aber mir ist das teil wohl doch zu hoch bewertet. Klar, besser gehts nicht, ohne Frage. Ich bleibe aber außen vor und werde mal nen Rückschlag abwarten, sollte dieser mal kommen. Und wenn nicht, dann guck ich eben nur zu...
Gruss space

[Pontiuspilatus]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 28.480.207 von spaceistheplace am 25.03.07 11:49:08

stimmt schon ist sehr hoch bewertet. bin aber gut im gewinn. sollte sich die situation verschlechtern zieh ich die notbremse. Tatsache ist jedenfalls das die aktie von der korrektur kaum getroffen wurde.

[Pontiuspilatus]

rückschlag kommt sicher. Leider weiss man nie wann. Ich hoff ich schaffs das teil heil über die spekulationsfrist zu bekommen

[Pontiuspilatus]

und wieder im plus
will den thread hier für die nachwelt am leben erhalten.

ctsh scheint neue höhen anzustreben. unheimlich stark in einem schwachen markt.

@space: Bzgl der von dir erwähnten steigenden löhne in indien.
ja es stimmt wirklich das diese mit 10% p.a anziehen. jedoch von so niedrigen niveau aus das es noch jahrzehnte dauert bis us oder eu niveau erreicht ist.

ich persönlich halte indien in zukunft für wesentlich wachstumsstärker als china da erstens indien heute da ist wo china vor 10 jahren war, ein großer teil der bevölkerung englisch spricht, es ein demokratisches land ist und die bevölkerungsentwicklung unvorhersehbar weit in die zunft sehr positiv ist. In china hingegen drohen die demographischen problleme in 20jahren stärker zu werden als in dem westlichen ländern ( folge der 1 kind politik) d.h. cjina wird als erstes land in derr geschichte schneller alt als reich werden. den indischen sensex nachbildende zertifikate sind deshalb auch die einzigen zertifikate die ich kaufen würde ( bzw vor 3 jahren gekauft habe und für mindestens 20 jahre zu halten gedenke) da hier eine verhundertfachung möglich ist wenn indien einigermassen die prognostizierte entwicklung schafft.

aber nun bin ich abgeschweifft. ich sehe ctsh solange positiv wie die löhne erheblich unter den hiesigen liegen. und dies ist vermutlich noch lange der fall.

[Pontiuspilatus]

so nun reichts aber für heute

[spaceistheplace]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 28.510.428 von Pontiuspilatus am 27.03.07 00:35:55

Holla Pontius, Nachtschicht eingelegt...
Jou, CTSH ist echt sehr stabil, keine Frage. Auch was Du über Indien schreibst erfährt meine Zustimmung. ich glaube gar, dass die im methamatischen Bereich die fittesten Leute auf der Erde sind, die stechen alle Westeuropäer und Amis vom Wissen / Intuition aus. Ich habe vor 2 Jahren bei einem Urlaub in den USA die Koryphäe der Clusterrechnung zufällig kennengelernt, der jetzt in Rente ist. Hat das nachbarhaus meines Onleks. So einen intelligenten menschen habe ich noch nie kennengelernt...er sagte zudem, dass viele Inder dermassen "schlau" sind, dass es nicht normal ist. Sogar SAP erkennt das gerade, die wollen auch immer mehr in Indien entwickeln lassen. Und dann noch die Spott-Löhne...
des passt scho...

Gruss space

[Pontiuspilatus]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 28.513.598 von spaceistheplace am 27.03.07 10:32:37

schreibts sich leichter nachts
ja mathe scheint denen in den genen zu liegen

[spaceistheplace]

solche Pfeiffen...reduzieren ohne jegliche Begründung...

Cognizant Technology market perform (Piper Jaffray)


Rating-Update:
Minneapolis (aktiencheck.de AG) - Die Analysten von Piper Jaffray stufen die Aktie von Cognizant Technology Solutions (ISIN US1924461023/ WKN 915272) von "outperform" auf "market perform" herab. Das Kursziel werde von 105 USD auf 90 USD reduziert. (11.04.2007/ac/a/u)
Analyse-Datum: 11.04.2007

Analyst: Piper Jaffray
Rating des Analysten: market perform

[Pontiuspilatus]

Ja die reduzieren halt um den kurs noch ein bisschen zu drücken und günstiger an die aktie zu kommen

[Pontiuspilatus]

Cognizant Technology Solutions Schedules First Quarter 2007 Earnings Release and Conference Call
Wednesday April 18, 10:54 am ET

TEANECK, N.J., April 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation (Nasdaq: CTSH - News), a leading provider of global IT and business process outsourcing services, will announce results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2007 on Wednesday, May 2, 2007 pre-market open.

[spaceistheplace]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 29.052.579 von Pontiuspilatus am 29.04.07 07:05:32

wird wohl auch spannend werden...
Gruss space

[spaceistheplace]

die aktuellen zahlen sind da. Riesen Wachstum, vorbörslich aber leicht im Minus mit 2%.
Gruss space

Cognizant Q1 Profit Surges 60% On Strong Top Line Growth; Guides Q2, Lifts FY07 View - Update



(RTTNews) - Teaneck, New Jersey-based IT consulting and technology services provider Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. (CTSH) reported Wednesday, before the bell, that its first quarter profit surged 60% from previous year, driven by a 61% upside in revenues, which beat the company's as well as analysts' projections. Excluding stock based compensation expense, non-GAAP earnings per share grew 50%, and came in above the company's forecast. Cognizant attributed the strong results primarily to higher demand and an 84% surge in European revenue. Further, the company provided second quarter earnings and revenue forecast, while lifting fiscal year 2007 view.

Q1 Results

The company's first quarter GAAP net income was $75.45 million that climbed 60% from $47.16 million a year earlier. On a per share basis, earnings jumped 56% to $0.50 from $0.32 in the corresponding quarter in the previous year. Excluding stock based compensation expense of $0.04 per share in both period, non-GAAP earnings were $0.54 per share, up 50% from $0.36 per share in the prior year quarter.

Cognizant was looking for first quarter GAAP earnings of $0.47 per share and non-GAAP earnings of $0.52 per share, excluding a stock-based compensation expense of $0.05 per share.

On average, 21 analysts polled by First Call/Thomson Financial estimated earnings of $0.48 per share for the quarter. On a sequential basis, first quarter net income increased from $69.53 million or $0.46 per share in the fourth quarter, while non-GAAP earnings per share increased from $0.50 sequentially.

Quarterly revenues surged 61% to $460.27 million from $285.5 million in the year ago quarter, and beat eighteen Wall Street analysts' consensus estimate of $451.1 million. Cognizant's revenue expectation for the first quarter was about $448 million, a growth of 57% from first quarter of 2006. Sequentially, revenues rose 8% from $424.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2006.

Income from operations in the first quarter climbed to $83.60 million from last year's $53.16 million. Excluding stock based compensation expense, non-GAAP income from operations was $91.04 million, compared to $60.76 million in 2006. GAAP operating margin for the quarter was 18.2%, while non-GAAP operating margin was 19.8%, in-line with the company's targeted 19% to 20% range.

Cognizant's first quarter cost of revenues increased to $254.91 million from $158.59 million a year ago. Selling, general and administrative expenses climbed to $109.50 million from $66.71 million a year ago.

Commenting on the results, Francisco D'Souza, President and CEO, said, "We are very pleased with our first quarter performance and our strong start to 2007. During the quarter, we experienced diversified demand for our services from both new and existing customers across key vertical and geographic markets. Revenue in Europe, which now represents approximately 14% of Cognizant's total revenue on an annualized basis, grew 84% from the first quarter of 2006, continuing to outpace the Company average. We also expanded our global delivery platform to South America, opening Cognizant's first development center in Buenos Aires."

Competitors

In early April, IT-enabled business solutions provider Infosys Technologies Ltd. (INFY) said its fourth quarter net income surged 70.4% to $259 million from $152 million in the previous year. On a per American Depository Share or ADS basis, and adjusted for stock-split, earnings climbed 66.7% to $0.45 from $0.27 in the corresponding quarter last year.

The Bangalore, India-based company noted that excluding tax reversal, the earnings for the quarter would have been $0.41 per ADS, resulting in a year-over-year growth of 46%. The company's fourth quarter revenues came in at $863 million that jumped 45.5% from $593 million in the prior year fourth quarter.

Another peer, Wipro Ltd. (WIT), a Bangalore, India-based global IT services company, reported on April 20 that its fourth quarter net income climbed 44% to Rs. 8.61 billion or $199.86 million from Rs. 5.98 billion in the year-ago quarter. Earnings per share for the period were Rs. 5.94 or $0.14, compared to Rs. 4.16 in the prior-year period. Quarterly revenues jumped 42% to Rs. 43.35 billion or $1.00 billion from Rs. 30.54 billion a year earlier.

Outlook

Looking ahead to the second quarter, Cognizant forecasts GAAP earnings of $0.51 per share, and non-GAAP earnings, excluding $0.05 stock- based compensation expense, of $0.56 per share. Quarterly revenues are expected to be at least $500 million. Analysts estimate earnings of $0.51 per share and revenues of $496.33 million for the first quarter.

Further, Gordon Coburn, Chief Financial and Operating Officer, stated, "Based on our strong financial performance in the first quarter and the positive demand environment, we are pleased to raise our guidance for full-year 2007."

For the fiscal year 2007, the company currently expects GAAP earnings of at least $2.13 per share, and non-GAAP earnings of $2.34 per share. Full year non-GAAP results exclude the impact of stock-based compensation expense of $0.21 per share. Annual revenues are expected to be at least $2.07 billion. Street earnings estimate is $2.16 per share on revenues of $2.08 billion.

While announcing its fourth quarter results, the company forecasted full year GAAP earnings of $2.10 per share, and non-GAAP earnings of at least $2.31 per share. Annual revenues were anticipated to be at least $2.04 billion.

Further, Cognizant currently expects total headcount by end of 2007 to be approximately 55 thousand, reflecting its plan to increase utilization throughout the remainder of the year. earlier, the headcount projection was 56 thousand.

Stock Quote

CTSH closed Tuesday's regular trading session at $88.47, down $0.93, on a volume of 2.57 million shares. For the past 52 weeks, shares have been trading in a wide range of $57.24-$95.55.

On April 12, brokerage firm Cowen & Co. reiterated its 'Outperform' rating on Cognizant.

[Pontiuspilatus]

ja da sieht man wie hoch hier die erwartungen sind. ich denke jedoch das es denen weiterhin gelingt die erwartungen zumindest zu erfüllen so das sie über kurz oder lang in ihre bewertung reinwachsen werden.

bei rückschlag kaufen

[spaceistheplace]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 29.099.314 von Pontiuspilatus am 02.05.07 18:24:30

ja, pontius, bei nem Rückschlag, aber der müsste noch mal 20-30% nach unten gehen. Vorher steige ich da wohl nicht ein.

Gruss space

[Pontiuspilatus]

so mit ca 60 meinst du? mal sehn vielleicht hast du glück und es geht wirklich soweit zurück. Ich denk das es maximal bis 70 zurückgeht.

Schau ma mal

Das unternehmen ist jedenfalls top. Hohe bewertung zeigt jedenfalls ein großes vertrauen der börse in das zukünftige potential der firma an. Ich steige jedenfalls nicht aus kann nämlich wirklich keine spek. gewinne brauchen

[Pontiuspilatus]

Cognizant Tech Dips on Hiring Concerns
Wednesday May 2, 3:01 pm ET
Cognizant Technology Solutions Slips on Planned Lower Headcount

NEW YORK (AP) -- Shares of Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. declined on Wednesday, as investors focused on the company's decision to scale back hiring, instead of a robust first-quarter report.

The information technology services provider's stock tumbled $3.80, or 4.3 percent, to $84.67, despite reporting a 60 percent higher quarterly profit and boosting 2007 guidance.

ADVERTISEMENT
In a conference call with analysts, the company said it was slowing hiring to stay within its target margin range.

Cognizant reduced its headcount goal by about 1.5 percent and said for every one point of improvement in global utilization, operating margin improves about 50-basis points.

Prudential Equity Group analyst Bryan C. Keane said Cognizant now expects fiscal 2007 headcount growth of 42 percent, from previous expectations of 44 percent, while aiming to boost utilization rates.

"This 1,000 employee reduction in target headcount, versus guidance provided at the end of fiscal 2006, will likely cause investors to wonder if management anticipates slowing demand," Keane wrote in a client note.

Keane said first-quarter headcount of 43,000 is up 61 percent from a year ago, "so unless Cognizant is being conservative, headcount growth will slow considerably."

Given the "blowout" quarter and revenue guidance, Keane kept an "Overweight" rating on the shares and a $116 price target, implying upside of 31.1 percent from Tuesday's closing price of $88.47.

Cowen & Co. analyst Moshe Katri said the pullback in the stock price is a buying opportunity, as a number of fundamentals remain strong.

"While the skeptics will conclude that management's decision to cap headcount growth reflects early signals of a weaker spending environment ... we side with the bull camp, pointing to strong secular growth and recent healthy pricing trends," Katri wrote in a client note.

[spaceistheplace]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 29.101.420 von Pontiuspilatus am 02.05.07 20:25:10

okay, pontius, 60 Dollar sind vielleicht etwas tief gegriffen, aber bei 70 könnten wir schon noch landen. Da liegt dann ne Unterstützung. Ja, 70 wäre wohl ein ideales Kaufniveau. Mal sehen...und wenns nicht so kommt, ist es auch nicht so schlimm, ich MUSS die Aktie nicht unbedingt haben.

Gruss space

[spaceistheplace]

jetzt liegen wir genau an der 200-Tagelinie. Mal sehen, ob die hält..

Gruss space

[Pontiuspilatus]

ja mal sehn. könnt schon noch ein wenig runtergehn.
ich glaub unser 2006-2040 thread ist defekt

[spaceistheplace]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 29.223.614 von Pontiuspilatus am 09.05.07 07:56:11

pontius,

ja, unser super thread funzt nicht mehr richtig, aber wenn Du auf die Funktion "posting für posting" (obenm rechts bei Ansicht) anklickst, dann bekommst Du sie, in der Gesamtübersicht sind sie weg, warum auch immer.

Zu CTSH: Die präsentieren sich nach den Quartalszahlen schlecht, bzw. zeigen ganz klar ne rel. Schwäche zum Markt, aber das wird sich wieder geben. ich warte noch ein bißchen ab, spätestens, wenn die teile bei 70 stehen steige ich ein, vielleicht auch schon früher,, wenn sich ein Boden bildet. Auch das Aufsetzen auf der 200-Tagelinie könnte einen rebound bringen...mal sehen...

Gruss space

[Pontiuspilatus]

2008 kgv übrigens 28
immer noch teuer aber das unternehmen ist schon so ziemlich das beste was auf dem kurszettel zu finden ist. Die letzten zahlen waren ja auch phantastisch.

Gibt glaub ich wenige firmen die so von der globalisierung und outsourcing profitieren wie cogni

[spaceistheplace]

Hier noch ne meldung von vor ein paar tagen. Diese Ordina-Aktie ist ja auch ein heisses teil zudem mit nem KGV von 13 in 2008 eigentlich spottbillig (wachsen mit rfd. 15% anscheinend), aber das hat bestimmt einen Haken. Will mich da jetzt auch nicht drum kümmern....
Für CTSH ist es allemal gut.

Gruss space

04.05.2007 10:14
Cognizant und Ordina schliessen bedeutende Outsourcing Vereinbarung mit Rabobank
Amsterdam, Niederlande und Teaneck, New Jersey (ots/PRNewswire) -

- Strategische Partnerschaft von Cognizant (Nachrichten) und Ordina (Nachrichten) Hauptfaktor bei europäischem Kundengewinn

Cognizant (Nasdaq: CTSH), ein führender Anbieter von globalen Outsourcingdiensten für Informationstechnologie und Geschäftsprozesse und Ordina (EURNEXT NV: ORDI), einer der am schnellsten wachsenden und grössten Anbieter von Beratungs-, ICT- und Outsourcingdiensten in den Niederlanden und Belgien, meldeten heute den Abschluss einer bedeutenden Outsourcing Vereinbarung mit Rabobank, der grössten Bankengruppe in den Niederlanden.

Cognizant und Ordina werden zusammenarbeiten, um im Rahmen einer siebenjährigen Vereinbarung mit der Rabobank Group Outsourcingdienste bereitzustellen, die u.a. Anwendungs-Design, sowie Entwicklungs- und Testservices umfassen. Als Schlüsselpartner dieser Vereinbarung wird Cognizant die Onsite-/Offshore-Bereitstellung von Diensten verwalten. Andere Bedingungen der Vereinbarungen wurden nicht bekannt gegeben.

Piet van Schijndel, ein Mitglied des Board of Management der Rabobank Group, sagte: "Unsere Entscheidungsfindung ist von der Beschäftigungskontinuität und den Dienstleistungen abhängig. Viele unserer Systeme werden über die nächsten Jahre ersetzt werden. Ordina, mit Firmensitz in den Niederlanden, bietet gute Services, sowie Karriereperspektiven für unsere Mitarbeiter. Cognizant ist schon seit geraumer Zeit unser Offshore-Service-Provider und hat unter Beweis gestellt, dass er qualitativ hochwertige Dienste liefern kann."

"Diese Vereinbarung bestätigt unsere Führungsposition im ICT- und Outsourcingmarkt in den Niederlanden", sagte Ronald Kasteel, Chief Executive Officer von Ordina. "Unsere strategische Partnerschaft mit Cognizant in den Benelux-Ländern bedeutet, dass wir über ein starkes Offshore-Angebot verfügen. Die Führungsposition Ordinas im Benelux-Markt, seine tiefgreifenden Kenntnisse des Finanzdienstleistungsmarkts und seine Systementwicklungskompetenzen, kombiniert mit der globalen Bereitstellungsplattform und der weitläufigen Expertise Cognizants in der Finanzdienstleistungsbranche und im Technologiesektor bieten der Rabobank ein integriertes Wertangebot, das der Bank dabei hilft, ihre strategischen Geschäftsziele zu erreichen."

"Dieser Gewinn eines Schlüsselkunden erlaubt es uns, unsere langfristige Beziehung mit Rabo über Ordina auszuweiten. Darüber hinaus unterstreicht dies die Vorteile der Nutzung der lokalen Marktführerschaft und der Expertise Ordinas für Finanzdienstleistungen in den Benelux-Ländern, sowie des globalen Bereitstellungsmodells Cognizants, um den Maximalwert zu liefern. Gleichzeitig wird die Bank in die Lage versetzt, ihre zentralen IT-Ressourcen auf Innovation und Geschäftsumwandlung zu fokussieren", sagte Francisco D'Souza, Präsident und CEO von Cognizant. "Darüber hinaus unterstreicht unsere Partnerschaft mit Ordina unser Engagement dafür, die Präsenz Cognizants in europäischen Schlüsselmärkten auszuweiten. Sie versetzt beide Unternehmen in die Lage, durch die Stärke unserer kombinierten Geschäftsmodelle strategische Kundenbeziehungen zu einzugehen."

[spaceistheplace]

Florierender Services-Markt

Thomas Mach 10|5|2007

Der weltweite IT-Servicemarkt wächst ungebremst, im vergangenen Jahr um acht Prozent. Vor allem Beratung, Systemintegration und Offshore-Services florieren dabei. Der IT- und BPO-Servicemarkt ist aber nach wie vor stark fragmentiert. Den Marktforschern von Datamonitor zufolge entfiel knapp die Hälfte der im vergangenen weltweit erzielten Umsätze (49 Prozent) auf die 50 größten Anbieter.

Generell zeichnet der Markt ein positives Bild. Vor allem das Geschäft mit Beratung und Systemintegration floriert, auch die zunehmende Nutzung von Offshore-Ressourcen ist ein Wachstumstreiber. Die 50 größten Anbieter nahmen 2006 insgesamt 293,7 Mrd. Dollar ein, das sind 7,3 Prozent mehr als ein Jahr zuvor. Der Gesamtmarkt ist laut Datamonitor noch stärker gewachsen: um 8,3 Prozent auf 557 Mrd. Dollar.

IBM ist seit mehr als zehn Jahren der unangefochtene Marktführer in diesem Bereich. Mit einem Umsatz von 48 Mrd. Dollar 2006 nahm der IT-Serviceriese mehr als doppelt so viel ein wie die Nummer zwei im Markt, EDS (21,3 Mrd. Dollar). Die am schnellsten wachsenden Anbieter kamen allesamt aus Indien. Vor allem Cognizant ist hier zu nennen: Die Einnahmen des Offshorers legten 2006 um 61 Prozent auf 1,42 Mrd. Dollar zu. Insgesamt erzielten die fünf größten indischen Anbieter – TCS, Wipro, Infosys, Satyam und Cognizant – einen Umsatz von rund 14 Mrd. Dollar. Die Konsolidierung des Markts schreitet weiter voran. Vergangene Woche kündigte Fujitsu Services a, den französischen Wettbewerber GFI zu übernehmen. Auch Getronics, ACS und Atos Origin werden in der öffentlichen Diskussion als potenzielle Übernahmeobjekte gehandelt.

Auch der Trend zum selektiven Outsourcing hält an: Viele Anwender arbeiten lieber mit mehreren Providern zusammen, als einen Komplettanbieter zu wählen. Gleichzeitig wollen sie Partner, die ihnen Kostenvorteile durch Nearshore- und Offshore-Resourcen sowie einheitliche Services über alle Standorte und Länder hinweg bieten können.(cowo/tm)

[Pontiuspilatus]

wie kommen die drauf das cognizant ein indisches unternehmen ist?
Unternehmenssitz ist jedenfalls new jersey.
Klar die machen vermutlich 98 % des geschäfts in indien aber entscheidend ist ja immer noch der unternehmenssitz

[spaceistheplace]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 29.243.581 von Pontiuspilatus am 10.05.07 08:26:49

ja, pontius, ist mir auch gleich aufgefallen, da sieht man mal, wie unsere Schreiberlinge recherchieren. Trotzdem finde ich den bericht noch rel interessant. Im technologie-Sektor dürfte die Dienstleistungsbranche die aussichtsreichste sein. Von dem ganzen Hardware-Bereich halte ich mich fern...

Es dauert nicht mehr lange, dann steige ich ein....

Gruss space

[spaceistheplace]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 29.249.619 von spaceistheplace am 10.05.07 13:29:46

mit meinem Einstieg gings schneller als gedacht. Ich habe gerade aus charttechnischen Gründen eine kleine Position zu 95,10 EUR gekauft. Guck Dir den Stochastic an, der generiert gerade ein kaufsignal(braune Linie durchkreuzt von unten nach oben die blaue). War in den letzten Monaten ein paar mal schon so, danach gings nach oben...mal sehen...
und wenns ein Fehlsignal ist, machts auch nix, CTSH ist wohl eine der besten Aktien im Tech/Outsourcing-Sektor.

Gruss space

[Pontiuspilatus]

ganz deiner meinung. ich denk das es maximal bis 75 zurückgeht um dann wieder richtung alte hochs zu laufen. das durchschnittswachstum der nächsten 5 jahre beträgt gemäß der durchschnittlichen schätzungen übrigens 35 % p.a.

da ist ein kgv von knapp 28 nicht zu teuer wenn das so oder in ähnlicher form eintreten sollte.
Outsourcing ist ein starker trend der sich z.B im fall einer rezession noch verstärken würde da die firmen dann noch schneller die arbeitsplätze nach indien verlegen werden.

Das geschäftsmodell ist jedenfalls phantastisch . Kurzfristig mag die firma zwar etwas teuer sein. Aber bei den aussichten ist das wahrlich kein wunder

[Pontiuspilatus]

das 2009 KGV beträgt gemäß der schätzungen übrigens nur knapp 21
wart mal ein halbes jahr dann ist das langsam die bezugsgrüße bei der bewertung.

[Pontiuspilatus]

könnte in einer bodenbildung sein

[Pontiuspilatus]

Cognizant Leaps in Rankings of BusinessWeek's InfoTech 100
Friday July 6, 6:00 am ET
New Jersey-Based Leader in Global IT Services Named Among "Fastest Growing" in 2007 Rankings

TEANECK, N.J., July 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation (Nasdaq: CTSH - News), a leading provider of global IT and business process outsourcing services, today announced that it has been named to the 2007 InfoTech 100, BusinessWeek's annual ranking of the top technology performers. Of significant importance were two major performance measures where Cognizant outpaced all of its technology outsourcing industry competitors in this year's rankings: 1) jumped up 14 places in overall rankings, which is the highest leap among all technology outsourcing firms, 2) placed as the fastest growing company among all technology outsourcing firms and 9th overall on the "Fastest Growing" sub-list, with a 62% year-over-year revenue growth rate.

ADVERTISEMENT

The report appears in BusinessWeek's July 2, 2007 issue, with an expanded look on BusinessWeek.com at www.businessweek.com/it100/. BusinessWeek notes that all of the companies in this year's rankings distinguish themselves by their ability to successfully take advantage of growth opportunities in emerging markets and an ability to diversify into new and existing markets.

"We are honored to be ranked among the best known technology companies in the world industry," said Francisco D'Souza, president and CEO, Cognizant. "We have experienced strong growth and ongoing business success in global IT services and share a passion for innovation among the companies that BusinessWeek designates as this year's Info Tech 100. Our passion for making our customers' businesses stronger is evident in the commitment of Cognizant's talented associates around the world and our ability to deliver consistently strong financial performance and value for our shareholders."

BusinessWeek's Info Tech 100 list is based initially on financial data provided by Standard & Poor's Compustat, which maintains financial and operating data on more than 28,000 publicly traded corporations, and narrowed down by industry sector, revenue, sales and performance.

[Pontiuspilatus]

heute plus 5,6 %

[spaceistheplace]

vielleicht ist ja das für den CTSH-Anstieg am Freitag verantwortlich:

06.07.2007 16:23
Cognizant nimmt in der InfoTech-100-Rangliste von BusinessWeek mehrere Stufen auf einmal
Teaneck, New Jersey (ots/PRNewswire) -

- Das in New Jersey ansässige, führende globale
IT-Dienstleistungsunternehmen zählt zu den "am schnellsten wachsenden
Unternehmen" des Jahres 2007

Cognizant Technology Solutions (Nachrichten) Corporation (Nasdaq: CTSH), ein
führender Anbieter globaler IT- und
Geschäftsprozessoutsourcing-Dienstleistungen, gab heute bekannt, dass
das Unternehmen in die jährliche InfoTech-100-Liste der führenden
Technologieunternehmen des Jahres 2007 von BusinessWeek aufgenommen
wurde. Besonders wichtig waren zwei Leistungskriterien, bei denen
Cognizant alle Mitbewerber in der Technologie-Outsourcing-Branche in
diesem Jahr ausstechen konnte: 1. kletterte das Unternehmen in der
Gesamtrangfolge um 14 Stellen nach oben (der grösste Sprung aller
Technologie-Outsourcing-Firmen) und 2. ist es mit seinem
62-prozentigen Jahresumsatzplus das am schnellsten wachsende
Unternehmen in der Technologie-Outsourcing-Branche und liegt an 9.
Stelle in der Unterliste der am "schnellsten wachsenden" Unternehmen.

Der Bericht erscheint in der BusinessWeek-Ausgabe vom 2. Juli
2007, wobei ein erweiterter Überblick auf BusinessWeek.com unter
www.businessweek.com/it100/ zur Verfügung steht. BusinessWeek merkte
an, dass alle Unternehmen der diesjährigen Rangliste sich durch die
Fähigkeit auszeichnen, Wachstumsgelegenheiten in aufkommenden Märkten
zu nutzen und sich auf neuen oder vorhandenen Märkten zu
diversifizieren.

"Wir fühlen uns sehr geehrt, dass wir zwischen den weltweit
bekanntesten Technologieunternehmen der Branche eingereiht wurden",
sagte Francisco D'Souza, Präsident und CEO von Cognizant. "Wir sind
stark gewachsen und waren mit dem Geschäft im Bereich der
IT-Dienstleistungen weiterhin sehr erfolgreich. Wir teilen mit den
anderen Unternehmen, die BusinessWeek in die diesjährige
Info-Tech-100-Rangliste aufnahm, dieselbe Innovationsbegeisterung.
Cognizants Leidenschaft, das Geschäft der Kunden zu stärken, zeigt
sich am deutlichsten im Engagement unserer talentierten, weltweiten
Mitarbeiter und in unserer Fähigkeit, eine konsistent hohe
Finanzleistung und Wertschöpfung für unsere Aktionäre zu erreichen."

Die Info-Tech-100-Rangliste von BusinessWeek beruht ursprünglich
auf Finanzergebnissen, die von Compustat von Standard&Poors zur
Verfügung gestellt wurden. Compustat führt Finanz- und
Betriebsergebnisse von über 28.000 börsennotierten Unternehmen, die
nach Branche, Umsatz, Verkauf und Leistung aufgeschlüsselt werden.

Informationen zu Cognizant

Cognizant (Nasdaq: CTSH) ist ein führender Anbieter globaler IT-
und Geschäftsprozessoutsourcing-Dienste. Cognizant ist auf
strategische IT-Lösungen spezialisiert, die direkt auf die komplexen
Geschäftsanforderungen des Kunden ausgerichtet sind. Das Unternehmen
nutzt hierfür sein hauseigenes On-Site/Offshore Outsourcing-Modell
und bietet Anwendungsmanagement, Entwicklung, Integration,
innerbetriebliche Umstrukturierung, Infrastrukturmanagement,
Geschäftsprozess-Outsourcing und zahlreiche angegliederte Dienste wie
z.B. Unternehmensberatung, Technologiearchitektur, Programmmanagement
und Änderungsverwaltung.

Cognizant beschäftigt über 45.000 Mitarbeiter, die sich für
langfristige Kundenbeziehungen einsetzen und so dank der
Entwicklungszentren in Indien und der Kundenteams vor Ort für den
Kunden wertvolle, qualitativ hochstehende und dennoch kostengünstige
Lösungen anbieten können. Cognizant wird von einem unabhängigen
Drittgutachter kontinuierlich als P-CMM, SW-CMM und CMMI Maturity
Level 5 bewertet und zählte in der "Hot Growth Companies"-Liste von
BusinessWeek und der "Global 2000"-Liste von Forbes zu den führenden
IT-Unternehmen. Die Aktien von Cognizant werden im NASDAQ-100 Index
und im S&P 500 Index geführt. Weitergehende Informationen zu
Cognizant stehen unter www.cognizant.com zur Verfügung.

Diese Pressemitteilung enthält Aussagen, die eventuell
zukunftsweisende Aussagen im Sinne der Safe-Harbor-Bestimmungen des
Private Securities Litigation Reform Act von 1995 darstellen. Diese
unterliegen von Natur aus Risiken, Unwägbarkeiten und Annahmen
bezüglich künftiger Ereignisse, die sich als falsch herausstellen
können. Zu den Umständen, die dazu führen können, dass die
tatsächlich eintretende Ergebnisse wesentlich von den explizit oder
implizit angegebenen Ergebnissen abweichen, zählen die allgemeine
Wirtschaftslage und die Umstände, die in unseren jüngsten bei der
Securities and Exchange Commission eingereichten 10-K- und anderen
Unterlagen erörtert werden. Cognizant übernimmt keinerlei
Verpflichtung, zukunftsweisende Aussagen aufgrund neuer
Informationen, künftiger Ereignisse oder aus anderen Gründen zu
aktualisieren bzw. zu korrigieren.

Website: http://www.cognizant.com
http://www.businessweek.com/it100
http://BusinessWeek.com

ots Originaltext: Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation
Im Internet recherchierbar: http://www.presseportal.ch

Pressekontakt:
Ansprechpartner für die Presse: Kirsten Paragona, Director Corporate
Media Relations, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation,
[phone], [e-mail]. Ansprechpartner für
Investoren: Scot Hoffman, FD, [phone], [e-mail],
im Auftrag von Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation

[spaceistheplace]

schöner rebound gerade von Cogni! Kann CTSH den Gewinn in den nächsten 5 Jahren um jeweils 30% steigern, ist die Akztie wahrlich nicht zu teuer. Jedenfalls mit das Beste, was man sich im Techsektor zulegen kann!
In den letzten 7 Jahren hat CTSH die Umsätze jeweils um über 50% gesteigert.

Gruss space

[spaceistheplace]

gegen 110 Dollar habe ich ja gar nichts einzuwenden...

Cognizant Technology buy (UBS)


Zürich (aktiencheck.de AG) - Das Analystenteam der UBS stuft die Aktie des US-amerikanischen Unternehmens Cognizant Technology (ISIN US1924461023/ WKN 915272) weiterhin mit "buy" ein.
Cognizant Technology profitiere derzeit vom Wachstum bei Infosys Technologies. Die Haupterkenntnis aus den Ergebnissen des dritten Fiskalquartals von Infosys Technologies sei die Bestätigung des starken Nachfragetrends. Das Fehlen größerer negativer Signale aus der Industrie dürfte Cognizant Technology im Vorfeld der Bekanntgabe der Gewinnzahlen am 1. August dienlich sein. Laut der gestrigen Pressemitteilung beschäftige das Unternehmen derzeit mehr als 45.000 Mitarbeiter. Cognizant Technology müsse den Mitarbeiterzuwachs demnach im Vergleich zum Vorjahr lediglich um 44,3% steigern, um das für das Fiskaljahr 2007 ausgegebene Ziel von 55.000 Arbeitnehmern zu erreichen.

Wenn man die als konservativ eingeschätzten Prognosen der Analysten für das Fiskaljahr 2007 in das Umsatzmodell der Analysten übertrage, könne man von einem Wachstum von ca. 53% ausgehen. Das kurzfristige Aufwärtspotenzial erscheine also sehr aussichtsreich. Die EPS-Schätzungen der Analysten für die Fiskaljahre 2007 und 2008 würden bei 2,13 USD und 2,84 USD liegen. Das Kursziel der Aktie sehe man bei 110 USD.

In Erwägung dieser Fakten lautet das Rating der Aktienanalysten der UBS für das Wertpapier von Cognizant Technology unverändert "buy". (Analyse vom 13.07.07) (13.07.2007/ac/a/a)
Analyse-Datum: 13.07.2007

Analyst: UBS
Rating des Analysten: buy

[spaceistheplace]

Dem Kurs tut es gut heute:

Cognizant Technology positive (Susquehanna Financial)


Rating-Update:
Bala Cynwyd (aktiencheck.de AG) - Die Analysten von Susquehanna Financial stufen die Aktie von Cognizant Technology (ISIN US1924461023/ WKN 915272) von "neutral" auf "positive" herauf. (19.07.2007/ac/a/u)
Analyse-Datum: 19.07.2007

Analyst: Susquehanna Financial
Rating des Analysten: positive


Quelle: aktiencheck.de 19.07.2007 16:00:00

[spaceistheplace]

Wenn ich richtig informiert bin, kommen heute VORBÖRSLICH die aktuellen CTSGH-Quartalszahlen. Es wird dann spannend...

Gruss space

[Larry.Livingston]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 30.963.314 von spaceistheplace am 01.08.07 10:30:56

Ja Space, bist richtig informiert, heute kommen Cognizant und Moodys. Wäre natürlich schön wenn die Werte sich mit guten Zahlen gegen den Trend behaupten könnten. Vor allem bei CTSH sind die Erwartungen recht hoch.

[spaceistheplace]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 30.964.111 von Larry.Livingston am 01.08.07 11:15:19

Ja, die Erwartungen sind hoch...mal sehen...
Moodys könnten gute Zahlen auch nicht schaden, so wie der Kurs zurückgegeangen ist.

Gruss space

[spaceistheplace]

hier sind die aktuellen Cognizant-Zahlen: Gewinn-Prognose war 0,54 cent, also übertroffen.

Gruss space

Cognizant Reports Strong Second Quarter Results

*Surpasses $2 Billion Annualized Revenue Run Rate in Second Quarter

*Plans to Invest Additional $100 Million in India Infrastructure Expansion

*Raises Outlook for Full Year 2007

TEANECK, N.J., Aug. 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Cognizant Technology
Solutions Corporation (Nasdaq: CTSH), a leading provider of global IT and
business process outsourcing services, today announced financial results for
the second quarter ended June 30, 2007.

Highlights - Second Quarter 2007

- Quarterly revenue increased to $516.5 million, up 53% from the year-ago
quarter.
- Quarterly diluted EPS on a GAAP basis was $0.54, compared to $0.37 in
the year-ago quarter.
- Quarterly diluted EPS on a non-GAAP basis was $0.59, excluding stock-
based compensation expense of $0.05, compared to $0.41 in the year-ago
quarter.

Revenue for the second quarter increased to $516.5 million, up 12% from
$460.3 million in the first quarter of 2007, and up 53% from $336.8 million in
the second quarter of 2006. GAAP net income was $82.3 million, or $0.54 per
diluted share, compared to $55.1 million, or $0.37 per diluted share, in the
second quarter of 2006. GAAP operating margin for the quarter was 17.6%.
Excluding stock based compensation expense of $9.5 million, non-GAAP operating
margin was 19.4%, in-line with the Company's targeted 19 to 20% range.
Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP operating results
and diluted EPS are included at the end of this release.
"We are very pleased with our strong second quarter financial results,
which further extend our track record of industry-leading growth," said
Francisco D'Souza, President and CEO of Cognizant. "During the quarter, we
surpassed the $2 billion annual revenue run rate, achieving this milestone
just six quarters after surpassing a $1 billion annual revenue rate in the
fourth quarter of 2005. Our rapid achievement of this milestone is a clear
testament to the success of our long-term strategy of reinvesting in our
business to meet the unique needs of our clients and drive value for our
shareholders. Our operating margin for the quarter was within our target
range and reflects our ability to effectively manage our business to offset
macroeconomic headwinds, such as the recent appreciation of the Indian Rupee,
while continuing to expand our proven growth platform around the world."
D'Souza continued, "Cognizant's second quarter performance was driven by
growth across all dimensions of our business: vertical industry segments,
service-areas and geographies. We increased our strategic customers by five,
including two in Europe, where revenue grew 79% year-over-year and continues
to outpace the Company average. Revenue from our Financial Services business
segment, which includes banking, financial services and insurance customers,
grew over 13% sequentially, and we experienced strong growth during the
quarter from our telecommunications and healthcare customers. Demand across
our broad range of solutions continued to rise, especially in ERP, Data
Warehousing and Business Intelligence, Testing, and Infrastructure Management.
Moving forward, we believe that the steadfast execution of our strategy and
our commitment to expanding our global platform will continue to translate
into strong financial and operating results."

2007 Outlook - Third Quarter & Full Year

Based on current visibility, the Company is now providing the following
guidance:

- Third quarter 2007 revenue anticipated to be at least $550 million.
- Third quarter 2007 diluted EPS expected to be $0.56 on a GAAP basis,
and $0.62 on a non-GAAP basis, which excludes the impact of stock-based
compensation expense of $0.06.
- Fiscal 2007 revenue now anticipated to grow more than 48% to at least
$2.11 billion.
- Fiscal 2007 diluted EPS expected to be at least $2.20 on a GAAP basis,
and at least $2.40 on a non-GAAP basis, which excludes the impact of
stock-based compensation expense of approximately $0.20.
- Total headcount by end of 2007 expected to be approximately 55,000,
reflecting the Company's plan to increase utilization throughout the
remainder of the year.

"Our second quarter results clearly reflect our ability to effectively
maintain our operating targets while continuing to reinvest in the growth of
the business," said Gordon Coburn, Chief Financial and Operating Officer. "In
order to support our future growth, Cognizant's Board of Directors has
approved plans to make an additional $100 million investment in our previously
announced infrastructure expansion program across India. The expanded
construction plan at our new Chennai campus, located in a Special Economic
Zone ("SEZ"), has now doubled in size with over two million square feet of
capacity currently under construction. We have also increased the size of the
first phase of planned construction of our SEZ facility in Coimbatore to over
725,000 square feet, and are acquiring additional property in Hyderabad and
Chennai. We expect this investment to enhance our flexibility to meet the
escalating demand for our services from both new and existing customers around
the world. As a result of the strong demand environment, we are raising our
guidance for full year 2007."

Conference Call
Cognizant will host a conference call today, August 1, at 10:00 a.m. (ET)
to discuss the Company's quarterly results. To listen to the call please dial
[phone] domestically or [phone] internationally. The call will
also be broadcast live via the Internet at Cognizant's web site,
www.cognizant.com. Please go to the web site at least fifteen minutes prior
to the call to register, download and install any necessary audio software. A
replay will be made available on the web site at www.cognizant.com or by
calling [phone] for domestic callers and [phone] for
international callers and entering "7027903" from two hours after the end of
the call until 11:59 p.m. (ET) on August 8, 2007.

About Cognizant
Cognizant (Nasdaq: CTSH) is a leading provider of global IT and business
process outsourcing services. Focused on delivering strategic information
technology solutions that address the complex business needs of its clients,
Cognizant uses its own on-site/offshore outsourcing model to provide
applications management, development, integration, and reengineering;
infrastructure management; business process outsourcing; and numerous related
services, such as enterprise consulting, technology architecture, program
management, and change management.
Cognizant has more than 46,000 employees who are committed to partnerships
that sustain long-term, proven value for customers by delivering high-quality,
cost-effective solutions through its development centers in India and on-site
client teams. Cognizant maintains P-CMM, SW-CMM and CMMI Maturity Level 5
assessments from an independent third-party assessor and ranked among the top
information technology companies in Business Week's Hot Growth Companies.
Cognizant is a member of the NASDAQ-100 Index and the S&P 500 Index. Find
additional information about Cognizant at www.cognizant.com.

This press release includes statements which may constitute forward-
looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, the accuracy of which are
necessarily subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions as to future
events that may not prove to be accurate. Factors that could cause actual
results to differ materially from those expressed or implied include general
economic conditions and the factors discussed in our most recent Form 10-K and
other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Cognizant
undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements,
whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

About Non-GAAP Financial Measures
To supplement the consolidated financial statements presented in
accordance with GAAP, this press release includes the following measures
defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission as non-GAAP financial
measures: non-GAAP operating margin and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share.
These non-GAAP measures are not based on any comprehensive set of accounting
rules or principles and should not be considered a substitute for, or superior
to, financial measures calculated in accordance with GAAP, and may be
different from non-GAAP measures used by other companies. In addition, these
non-GAAP measures, the financial statements prepared in accordance with GAAP
and reconciliations of Cognizant's GAAP financial statements to such non-GAAP
measures should be carefully evaluated.
We seek to manage the company to targeted operating margin, excluding
stock-based compensation costs, of 19% to 20% of revenues. Accordingly, we
believe that non-GAAP operating margin and non-GAAP diluted earnings per
share, excluding stock-based compensation costs, are meaningful measures for
investors to evaluate our financial performance. For our internal management
reporting and budgeting purposes, we use financial statements that do not
include stock-based compensation expense related to employee stock options and
employee stock purchases for financial and operational decision making, to
evaluate period-to-period comparisons and for making comparisons of our
operating results to that of our competitors. Moreover, because of varying
available valuation methodologies and the variety of award types that
companies can use under FAS 123R, we believe that providing non-GAAP financial
measures that exclude stock-based compensation allows investors to make
additional comparisons between our operating results to those of other
companies. Accordingly, we believe that the presentation of non-GAAP operating
margin and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share, when read in conjunction with
our reported GAAP results, can provide useful supplemental information TO our
management and investors regarding financial and business trends relating to
our financial condition and results of operations.
A limitation of using non-GAAP operating margin and non-GAAP diluted
earnings per share versus operating margin and diluted earnings per share
calculated in accordance with GAAP is that non-GAAP operating margin and non-
GAAP diluted earnings per share excludes a cost, namely, stock-based
compensation, that is recurring. Stock-based compensation has been and will
continue to be for the foreseeable future a significant recurring expense in
our business. In addition, other companies may calculate non-GAAP financial
measures differently than us, thereby limiting the usefulness of these non-
GAAP financial measures as a comparative tool. We compensate for this
limitation by providing specific information regarding the GAAP amounts
excluded from non-GAAP operating margin and non-GAAP diluted earnings per
share and evaluating such non-GAAP financial measures with financial measures
calculated in accordance with GAAP.



COGNIZANT TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS CORPORATION
CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS
(Unaudited)

(In thousands, except per share data)


Three Months Ended Six Months Ended
June 30, June 30,
2007 2006 2007 2006

Revenues $516,514 $336,836 $976,784 $622,315

Operating Expenses:
Cost of revenues (exclusive of
depreciation and
amortization expense shown
separately below) 292,326 188,320 547,235 346,908
Selling, general and
administrative expenses 120,464 80,044 229,963 146,749
Depreciation and amortization
expense 13,053 7,801 25,313 14,831
Income from operations 90,671 60,671 174,273 113,827

Other income (expense), net:
Interest income 6,450 3,853 13,121 7,290
Other income / (expense), net 529 1,508 512 1,467
Total other income /
(expense), net 6,979 5,361 13,633 8,757

Income before provision for
income taxes 97,650 66,032 187,906 122,584

Provision for income taxes 15,373 10,961 30,183 20,349

Net income $82,277 $55,071 $157,723 $102,235

Basic earnings per share $0.57 $0.39 $1.10 $0.73

Diluted earnings per share $0.54 $0.37 $1.04 $0.68

Weighted average number of
common shares outstanding 144,052 140,542 143,477 140,103

Weighted average number of
common and dilutive shares
outstanding 152,048 150,493 151,903 149,924



COGNIZANT TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS CORPORATION
CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF FINANCIAL POSITION (Unaudited)
(In thousands)

June 30, December 31,
2007 2006

Assets

Current Assets

Cash and cash equivalents $268,985 $265,937

Short-term investments 441,251 382,222

Trade accounts receivable, net of
allowances of $5,283
and $3,719, respectively 348,878 259,210

Unbilled accounts receivable 54,721 39,265

Deferred income tax assets, net 78,728 61,257

Other current assets 37,007 32,500

Total Current Assets 1,229,570 1,040,391

Property and equipment, net 265,749 220,154

Goodwill 43,351 27,190

Intangible assets, net 14,755 20,463

Deferred income tax assets, net 6,275 1,024

Other assets 24,654 16,759

Total Assets $1,584,354 $1,325,981

Liabilities and Stockholders' Equity

Current Liabilities

Accounts payable $24,619 $27,839

Deferred revenue 15,004 19,401

Accrued expenses and other liabilities 219,496 202,263

Total Current Liabilities 259,119 249,503

Other noncurrent liabilities 7,992 2,979

Total Liabilities 267,111 252,482

Stockholders' Equity 1,317,243 1,073,499

Total Liabilities and Stockholders' Equity $1,584,354 $1,325,981



COGNIZANT TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS CORPORATION
Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Financial Measures to Comparable GAAP Measures
(Unaudited)
(In thousands, except per share data)

Three Months Ended June 30,
2007 2007 2007
GAAP Adjustments Non-GAAP

Income from operations $90,671 $9,512 (a) $100,183

Operating margin 17.6% 1.8% (a) 19.4%

Diluted earnings per share $0.54 $0.05 (e) $0.59


Three Months Ended June 30,
2006 2006 2006
GAAP Adjustments Non-GAAP

Income from operations $60,671 $6,769 (c) $67,440

Operating margin 18.0% 2.0% (c) 20.0%

Diluted earnings per share $0.37 $0.04 (e) $0.41


Six Months Ended June 30,
2007 2007 2007
GAAP Adjustments Non-GAAP

Income from operations $174,273 $16,950 (b) $191,223

Operating margin 17.8% 1.8% (b) 19.6%

Diluted earnings per share $1.04 $0.09 (e) $1.13


Six Months Ended June 30,
2006 2006 2006
GAAP Adjustments Non-GAAP

Income from operations $113,827 $14,371 (d) $128,198

Operating margin 18.3% 2.3% (d) 20.6%

Diluted earnings per share $0.68 $0.08 (e) $0.76


(a) Adjustment to exclude stock-based compensation of $9,512 from income
from operations of which $4,828 was reported in cost of revenues and
$4,684 was reported in selling, general and administrative expenses
in our unaudited condensed consolidated statements of operations.

(b) Adjustment to exclude stock-based compensation of $16,950 from income
from operations of which $8,096 was reported in cost of revenues and
$8,854 was reported in selling, general and administrative expenses
in our unaudited condensed consolidated statements of operations.

(c) Adjustment to exclude stock-based compensation of $6,769 from income
from operations of which $3,332 was reported in cost of revenues and
$3,437 was reported in selling, general and administrative expenses
in our unaudited condensed consolidated statements of operations.

(d) Adjustment to exclude stock-based compensation of $14,371 from income
from operations of which $6,479 was reported in cost of revenues and
$7,892 was reported in selling, general and administrative expenses
in our unaudited condensed consolidated statements of operations.

(e) Adjustment to exclude the per share effect of stock-based
compensation expense net of the related tax benefit.

SOURCE Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation
-0- 08/01/2007
/CONTACT: Gordon Coburn, Chief Financial & Operating Officer, Cognizant
Technology Solutions Corporation, [phone], Investors: Gordon McCoun or
Christina Corcoran, Press: Brian Maddox or Scot Hoffman, [e-mail],
all of Financial Dynamics, [phone]/
/First Call Analyst: /
/FCMN Contact: [e-mail] /
/Web site: http://www.cognizant.com /
(CTSH)




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[spaceistheplace]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 30.964.979 von spaceistheplace am 01.08.07 12:21:13

sorry Gewinnprognose war 0,52 Dollar, 0,54 sind GAAP, non-GAAP 0,59. ASlsdo nicht markant drüber, aber zumindest dürfte es nicht enttäuschend sein. Zudem guidance angehoben. we will see....
Gruss space

[spaceistheplace]

vorbörslich 1,2% im Minus

Cognizant Raises 2007 Outlook
Wednesday August 1, 8:19 am ET
Cognizant Technology Solutions Lifts Full-Year Earnings, Revenue Outlook


TEANECK, N.J. (AP) -- Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp., a provider of information technology and outsourcing services, lifted its full-year guidance on Wednesday.
The company now expects full-year earnings of $2.20 per share, up from a May projection for earnings of $2.13 per share. Excluding certain expenses, the company raised its full-year earnings forecast to $2.40 per share, up from previous guidance for earnings of $2.34 per share.

ADVERTISEMENT


Cognizant expects full-year revenue of $2.11 billion, up from previous guidance for $2.07 billion.

Analysts expect, on average, full-year earnings of $2.19 per share on $2.1 billion in revenue, according to a Thomson Financial survey.

For the third quarter, the company is projecting earnings of 56 cents per share on $550 million in revenue. Excluding stock-based compensation expenses, Cognizant expects 62 cents per share. Analysts expect 56 cents per share on $546.2 million in revenue.

The company also said it plans to invest an additional $100 million in an infrastructure expansion program across India.

[Larry.Livingston]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 30.966.840 von spaceistheplace am 01.08.07 14:33:18

Ist doch ganz OK.

Wo nimmst du eigentlich so schnell immer die News her? Hast du einen eMail Dienst oder durchforstest du immer eine bestimmte Seite? Danke.

[spaceistheplace]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 30.966.931 von Larry.Livingston am 01.08.07 14:40:11

Hallo Larry,
auf Finanznachrichten.de bekommst Du sehr viele nachrichten auch englische, wenn nicht sogar fast alle news zu einzelnen Unternehmen. Du kannst Dir das ne Aktienliste anlegen und bekommst dann alle news chronologisch.
Zudem beziehe ich bei meinen Depotwerten auch direkte news alerts von deren website.

Vorbörsliche Kurse von der Nasdaq gibts hier:
http://dynamic.nasdaq.com/asp/PMI.asp

Nachbörsliche Kurse aller US-Werte gibts bei Marketwatch.com , leider hier keine vorbörslichen Kurse.

Gruss space

[Larry.Livingston]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 30.967.057 von spaceistheplace am 01.08.07 14:48:58

Danke Space!

Eigentlich ist es kein Problem das ich das ganze immer in BB abfrage, wird aber etwas umständlich auf Dauer und die Funktion das automatisch eine Mail generiert wird gibt es nicht. Werde mir mal Finanznachrichten.de anschauen und ein Portfolio anlegen.

[spaceistheplace]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 30.967.298 von Larry.Livingston am 01.08.07 15:05:34

Cognizant, TCS plan new campuses in Hyderabad

Syed Amin Jafri in Hyderabad










August 01, 2007 18:37 IST

The Andhra Pradesh government on Wednesday ratified the allotment of 40 acres of land to Cognizant Technology Solutions India Pvt Ltd and 75 acres to Tata Consultancy Services [Get Quote] at Adibatla on the outskirts of Hyderabad.

Briefing newsmen after the cabinet meeting, Information & Public Relations Minister Anam Ramnarayan Reddy said the land, currently under the state-owned AP Industrial Infrastructure Corporation, would be allotted to these companies at a rate of Rs 40 lakh per acre (that is, Rs 20 lakh towards land cost and Rs 20 lakh towards development charges).

The Memoranda of Understanding had already been signed with Cognizant Technology Solutions on February 24 and with TCS on April 19 this year.

While Cognizant has committed to invest Rs 330 crore (Rs 3.3 billion) and build around 20 lakh (2 million) square feet for accommodating 12,000 employees by 2012, TCS is to invest Rs 400 crore (Rs 4 billion) and build around 15 lakh (1.5 million) sft for accommodating 15,000 employees by 2013.

"Growth of IT and ITES industry in Andhra Pradesh, more particularly in Hyderabad, is a success story. In order to reduce the congestion in Hitec City area and to open up new vistas for IT growth In Greater Hyderabad, Adibatla is the new IT destination," the minister said.

[spaceistheplace]

01.08.2007
Cognizant bleibt auf dem Wachstumspfad

TEANECK - Der amerikanische IT-Servicespezialist Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation (Nasdaq: CTSH, WKN: 915272) kann im vergangenen zweiten Quartal 2007 seine Umsätze steigern und seine Gewinne um 49 Prozent steigern.

So berichtet das in den USA und Indien tätige Unternehmen von einem Umsatzsprung auf 516,5 Mio. US-Dollar, was einem Zuwachs von 53 Prozent gegenüber dem Vorjahr entspricht. Der Nettogewinn schnellte auf 82,3 Mio. US-Dollar oder 54 US-Cent je Aktie nach oben, nach einem Plus von 55,1 Mio. Dollar oder 37 US-Cent je Aktie im Jahr vorher.


Mit den vorgelegten Zahlen konnte Cognizant die Erwartungen der Analysten übertreffen. Diese hatten im Vorfeld mit Einnahmen von 505,2 Mio. Dollar sowie mit einem Nettogewinn von 52 US-Cent je Aktie kalkuliert.

Aufgrund des positiven Geschäftsverlaufs hob das Unternehmen seinen Jahresausblick an. So rechnet das Unternehmen auf Jahressicht nunmehr mit Einnahmen von 2,11 Mrd. Dollar, nach dem man zunächst Einnahmen von 2,07 Mrd. Dollar prognostiziert hatte. Der Nettogewinn soll auf 2,40 Dollar je Anteil klettern, nachdem man im Mai ein Plus von 2,34 Dollar je Anteil in Aussicht stellte.

Für das laufende dritte Quartal hält Cognizant einen Umsatz von 550 Mio. Dollar sowie einen Nettogewinn von 62 US-Cent je Aktie für erreichbar. Darüber hinaus kündigte der IT-Spezialist an, 100 Mio. Dollar in Infrastrukturprojekte in Indien investieren zu wollen. (ami)

[spaceistheplace]

Cognizant Technology Solutions Q2 2007 Earnings Call Transcript
Posted on Aug 1st, 2007 with stocks: CTSH

Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation (CTSH)
Q2 2007 Earnings Call
August 1, 2007 10:00 am ET

Executives

Scot Hoffman - Financial Dynamics
Francisco D'Souza - President and CEO
Gordon Coburn - Chief Financial and Operating Officer

Analysts

Julio Quinteros - Goldman Sachs
Rod Bourgeois - Sanford C. Bernstein
Ed Caso - Wachovia Securities
Julie Santoriello - Morgan Stanley
Mark Scuntows - Piper Jaffray
Ashwin Shirvaikar - Citigroup
Joseph Vafi - Jefferies & Co.

Presentation

Operator

Good morning. My name is Cynthia and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Cognizant Technology Solutions' Second Quarter 2007 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions).

Thank you. Mr. Hoffman at Financial Dynamics. Please go ahead sir.

Scot Hoffman

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. By now, you should have received a copy of the company's second quarter 2007 earnings release. If you have not, please call our offices at 212-850-5600, and we'll be sure to get a copy sent to you.

The speakers we have on the call today are Francisco D'Souza, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Gordon Coburn, Chief Financial and Operating Officer of Cognizant Technology Solutions.

Before we begin, I would like to remind you that some of the comments made on today's call and some of the responses to your questions may contain forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to the risks and uncertainties as described in the company's earnings release and other filings with the SEC.

I would now like to turn the call over to Francisco D'Souza. Please go ahead, Francisco.

Francisco D'Souza

Thank you, Scot, and good morning, everyone. Thank you all for joining us today for Cognizant's second quarter 2007 earnings call. This morning I'll provide an overview of our second quarter results and discuss the key drivers of our financial and operating performance. I am joined on today's call by our Chief Financial and Operating Officer, Gordon Coburn who will take you through our financial and operating results in greater detail.

I am pleased to report that the steadfast execution of our long-term strategy has enabled us to surpass an annualized $2 billion revenue run rate during the quarter, just six quarters after surpassing the $1 billion annualized revenue run rate in the fourth quarter of 2005. Our rapid achievement of this milestone is a testament to the strong fundamentals of our business, the success of long-term strategy, our dedication to client satisfaction and our commitment to delivering value to our shareholder.

Cognizant's tremendous growth was also recently recognized by Business Week, which once again named Cognizant's among the InfoTech 100, Business Week's annual ranking of the top technology industry performers. Cognizant outpaced all of its industry competitors in this year's InfoTech 100 and placed ninth overall on the fastest growing sub list, with a 62% year-over-year revenue growth rate for the 12-month period measured by Business Week.

These achievements were a result of our approach and culture of partnering with our customers every day to build stronger businesses and deliver a tangible return on their IT investments. Our ability to maintain these results oriented client-centric culture while scaling the business rapidly, essential to our ability to maintain industry leading growth which was again evident in our second quarter results.

Turning to our second quarter financial results in more detail. We once again exceeded our internal forecast and our guidance generating $516.5 million in revenue, an increase of 12% sequentially and 53% from the second quarter of 2006. As in recent quarters, our strong performance this quarter was the result of broad-based growth across our business.

As we've said in the past, we believe that the majority of our strategic accounts still have considerable growth potential and this was evident in the growth of our largest client relationships during the quarter. Revenue from our top five clients grew by 9% sequentially, and revenue from our top 10 clients grew by 11% from the first quarter. We expect these relationships will expand further as the needs of our customers evolve over the long-term and we continue to expand the range of solution offerings that help strengthen our customers businesses.

We also generated significant new business potential during the quarter, increasing our number of active clients to over 430. In addition, the number of accounts that we consider to be strategic, which means that they have the potential to generate between $5 million and $40 million or more in annual revenue for Cognizant over the long-term, increased by 5 during the quarter bringing our total number of strategic clients to 97. Strategic clients spanned broadly across industries, banking and financial services, healthcare and retail, as well as geographies including the U.S. and Europe.

Revenue growth across all of our business segments were strong including growth in our two largest segments, financial services and healthcare. Revenue from our financial services segment customers increased 13% sequentially and 49% year-over-year, as we continue to leverage on leadership position in the market and deep domain expertise that we bring to the world's top banking, financial services, and insurance companies.

We had a very strong second quarter in our Healthcare Segment, growing 62% over the second quarter of last year, and adding two strategic clients.

Turning to the cost side of the business, GAAP EPS was $0.54 for the quarter, up 46% from the year ago quarter. Non-GAAP EPS, which excludes stock-based compensation expense, was $0.59 compared to $0.41 in the second quarter of 2006. We achieved this strong performance while proactively addressing several challenges facing the entire offshore outsourcing industry.

During the quarter, we executed on the plan we outlined on our last conference call to offset anticipated pressure on our cost structure stemming from the Indian Rupee's appreciation, as well as seasonal wage increases. We addressed these headwinds through a combination of increasing utilization of our stock by approximately 2%, as well as taking advantage of SG&A scale efficiency saving.

As a result of better utilization and other scale efficiencies, our operating margin for the second quarter, excluding equity-based compensation expense, was a solid 19.4%, slightly above our guidance for the quarter and well within our historical target range of 19% to 20%, which also excludes equity-based compensation expense.

The successful execution of our plan demonstrate our flexibility to quickly pull operating leverage to effectively offset macro economic headwinds to enable us to meet our financial and operating targets.

Our execution in the quarter also underscores our focus on delivering consistently strong bottom-line results, while upholding our commitment to reinvesting in the future growth of the company.

On the operational side of our business during the quarter, we continued to make investments in our people and infrastructure. We added a net of over 2,000 employees during the quarter, bringing our total employee base to approximately 45,500 worldwide. Employee additions during the quarter were low compared to historical levels given our goal of increasing utilization from Q1 levels. During the second half of the year, we expect to return to a more normalized pattern of hiring and are on track to end 2007 with our previously stated goal of approximately 55,000 employees.

This is consistent with our expectations and intention to increase utilization throughout the year and manage the business within our target operating margin range of 19% to 20%, excluding equity compensation expense.

Employee attrition increased slightly to 17%, which is consistent with seasonal trends and attrition for the second quarter. This increase was due primarily to the seasonal tendency for certain employees to leave during the second quarter to pursue higher education. We continue to monitor employee attrition closely and take necessary short and long-term steps to manage it.

In terms of infrastructure, as demand for our services escalate throughout the world and our client base grows, we are focusing on building infrastructure to capitalize on these growth opportunities. As we announced this morning, Cognizant's board of directors has approved plans to make an additional $100 million investment in our previously announced infrastructure expansion program across India. This brings our total real estate investment platform to $300 million. Gordon will provide more details on this initiative later in the call.

Before turning the call over to Gordon, I would now like to comment briefly on some broader industry trends and highlight the investments that we are making to drive our ongoing growth.

First, we continue to see broad based demand for our services including our newer service offerings. This is evidence of Cognizant's ability to expand our relationships with our customers and to bring innovative new services to our markets.

Our growth platform continues to expand across industry verticals driven by the investments we've been making and cultivating market leading expertise in each of the industry segments we serve. In our core business segments of financial services and healthcare, we continue to demonstrate a market leading position. For instance, in June Cognizant was named to the Healthcare Informatics 100, a list of the industry's leading healthcare IT solutions and services providers based on revenue growth. Cognizant has been named to this distinguished list for several years and this year we move to the top 20, affirming our leadership in this key industry.

Similarly in financial services, our growth continues to be strong as we continue to make investments to solidify our position in that industry segment. We have been able to effectively extend our financial services practice to Europe, where we are now doing work for 11 strategic clients in the financial services area.

During the second quarter, we also experienced growth across our range of horizontal service offerings, with particularly strong performance in ERP, data warehousing and business intelligence, testing and infrastructure management. As an example, our testing group has experienced remarkable growth and today we are an acknowledged leader with over 6,000 career test professionals serving more than 200 customers, driven by our ability to provide best-in-class solutions, such as enterprise level managed care centers.

We are also seeing very strong demand for our testing offering in Europe, where we have engaged with several large banking, financial services, insurance, and retail customers.

Second, as we've said in the past, European clients continue to aggressively adopt offshoring strategies and as a result we continue to see strong returns on our investments in expanding and globalizing our business. European revenues grew 17% sequentially and 79% from the second quarter of 2006, driven by expansion of our business with European companies and when two of our strategic clients wins during the quarter are well [defined].

Growth was particularly strong in continental Europe year-over-year, demonstrating that the investments we would be making in expanding our business across Europe are paying off for us. Our success in Europe was also evident in attendance at our annual Cognizant community event in Europe during the second quarter, which brings together clients and prospective clients to discuss the benefits, challenges and opportunities of global service delivery. [Again] on this year, more than doubled from last year and consistent of CIO level leaders, representing a broad range of industries along with an impressive assortment of Europe's leading companies.

Another key trend that we've been observing is the willingness of clients to engage Cognizant much earlier in the life cycle to play a role in defining solutions, not just implementing them. This is a trend which Cognizant is particularly well positioned to capitalize on given our historical strong investment in our front-end client facing team. Cognizant's ability to engage in a consultative fashion very early in the life cycle is validation of these investments and allows us to build deeper and longer lasting relationships with clients.

Last quarter, I talked about our domain consulting group within banking, which is comprised of experts across nine industry sub-sectors. Our success in financial services is increasingly driven by our NBAs and industry experts who enable us to capitalize on the demand for higher value consulting services. Our strategy is to invest in replicating that consulting business model within our other business areas.

Telecommunications is an example of a newer vertical in which we are focused on replicating our consulting model. The success of this strategy is evident in our strong revenue growth and expanding list of market clients.

Revenue in the second quarter increased by 29% from last quarter and 73% compared to the second quarter of 2006. This growth is a result of the successful acquisition and integration of Fathom Solutions, a telecom consulting firm that strengthened our communications and domain consulting capabilities.

Since the acquisition of the business two years ago, our combined offering has attracted major industry players who choose Cognizant for our unique ability to integrate high end consulting capabilities with efficient global delivery. They are also attracted by our thorough leadership in next generation industry issues that can help take their businesses to the next level.

By using the same domain experts drive both consulting service work and the ensuing systems implementation, Cognizant becomes a full life-cycle solution partner with the upstream ideas and know-how and the downstream accountability for implementing an effective solution. For example, we recently partnered with a major U.S. telecom provider to lead an evaluation of every major system within their new strategic platforms that enables triple play, Voice-over-IP, IPTV and high speed data offerings. Cognizant's analysis focused on determining functional and technical readiness for future phases of new IP service introductions, which we are now entrusted to implement.

The success of our consulting model is not limited only to our industry vertical areas. In many of our horizontal service offerings we are observing the same trend of clients willing to engage Cognizant much earlier in the life cycle. For example in our data warehousing business intelligence and performance management business, we are seeing demand for a range of consulting services including business case development, IT strategy, government and their performance management.

Our customers see us as a partner who recommends practical and implementable strategies and solutions. They also see us as a partner who is willing to engage across the lifecycle from upfront consulting to implementation and post-implementation to measure deliver against originally outlined results and objectives. We have built specific business benefit assessment tools to help our customers attract their ROI as related to their strategy.

Finally, as the growth of the industry places demands on the talent equal system in India, we continue to find innovative ways to enhance our ability to attract and retain talent. Our efforts to hire entry level engineers from campuses have produced strong results this recruiting season. The key message that resonates with newly graduated engineers is one of cost per year growth resulting from the rapid growth of Cognizant as a company.

We are reaching deep into the educational ecosystem in order to secure our position as an employer of choice. Through a formal program we bring together the principals, deans, and placement directors of the more than 150 campuses from where we recruit. We use this forum to discuss collaboration opportunities in areas such as curriculum development, employability enhancement, and faculty-industry linkage programs. This forum has helped us engage very closely with academic institutions and policy makers at the highest levels.

We continue to push forward with programs designed to enhance employability of recent graduates. In addition to our work with finishing schools such as 3-Edge, we work closely with NASCOM initiated programs. We are also working with the IIT's and NIT's to support their finishing school initiatives.

Further, as part of the consortium formed by the Confederation of Indian Industry CII, a premier trade body, Cognizant is working closely with the University of Madras to define the curriculum for soft skills that will be taken to science colleges under the aegis of this university. Such programs and many more institution-specific initiatives have helped us to secure slot one or slot two in the majority of the over 150 campuses that we target for recruiting, thereby considerably improving our average slot rating this year and allowing us to increase the average number of offers made per college in 2007.

Likewise, on business school campuses, Cognizant continues to enjoy a premier position for recruiting, competing with global strategy consulting organization, investment banks and FMCG enterprises. In many premier B-school campuses Cognizant is considered the first choice amongst students aspiring to join the IT industry. Cognizant has a solid reputation because of the career options that we provide to B-school graduates in business consulting, business analysis, opportunity assessment, relationship management and corporate development.

As an example, the Indian School of Business is one such premier business school in India with academic alliances with the Kellogg's School of Management at north, Western University, Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the London Business School.

At the Indian School Business this year, Cognizant had 35 accepted offers, the highest number of acceptances ever for any company in the history of the Indian School Business.

And finally, in terms of continuing education of our existing associates, we continue to push forward with innovative programs that further our goal of establishing market leading positions in the markets that we serve. For example, in the area of life sciences, we recently entered into an association with Manipal University to offer a two-year Master of Science Degree in Clinical Research and Regulatory Affairs, for associates in our life sciences practices.

A leading private university in Southern India, Manipal University, also runs one of the country's most successful hospital chains. This is the first of its kind industry academia lead program designed for professional interested in pursuing their careers in the life science industry, in the fields of clinical research, medical writing, clinical data management, drug development, buyer statistics and regulatory affair. Cognizant has been working actively with the university to design the course, bring together the best in industry knowledge, key studies and experience of Cognizant professionals. Cognizant will also help deliver some of the modules of this course.

With those comments, I would like to conclude by saying that overall we are very pleased with our performance for the second quarter, which was driven by growth across all dimensions of our business, vertical industry segments, service areas and geographies and we continue to confident in our growth strategy for 2007 and beyond.

Now, I will turn the call over to Gordon who'll walk you through our financials in greater detail. Gordon?

Gordon Coburn

Thank you, Francisco, and good morning to everyone. I would like to provide some additional information on the first quarter and then discuss our financial expectations for the third quarter, as well as full year 2007.

Revenue for the second quarter exceeded our prior guidance and expectations due to continued strength in Europe, strong year-over-year growth in our healthcare segment, as well as all three of the industry verticals within our other segment.

Quarterly revenue grew 12% sequentially, 53% year-over-year. As the quarter proceeded we continued to see healthy volume growth across the broad range of services and industries. Our core business remains vibrant and our pipeline is robust.

During the quarter our Financial Services segment, which includes our practices in insurance, banking and transaction processing, grew by over $80 million year-over-year and represented 47% of revenue for the quarter.

Healthcare grew over $45 million and represented 23% of revenues, retail, manufacturing and logistics grew by almost $25 million, representing approximately 15% of revenues for the quarter. The remaining 15% of our revenues came primarily from other service-oriented industries of telecom, media and technology, which grew by over $29 million compared to the second quarter of last year.

During the quarter, financial services grew 49% year-over-year, and over 13% sequentially. Healthcare grew 62% year-over-year, about 8% sequentially. Retail, manufacturing and logistics grew 48% year-over-year, and 11% sequentially.

Growth in our retail, manufacturing and logistics segment was driven by several new retail accounts that we have won and are now ramping up, including the previously announced transaction with Kimberly-Clark. And our other segment grew 60% year-over-year and 17% sequentially. Growth in the other segment benefited from strong growth in our information and media operations, as well as technology and telecommunications.

For the quarter, application management represented 52% of revenues, and application development was 48%. Both services continued to grow significantly in Q2. Application management grew 57% year-over-year and 11% sequentially. Application development grew 50% year-over-year and 14% sequentially, reflecting a healthy demand environment for our entire services offerings.

During the quarter, 84% of revenue came from clients in North America. Europe was approximately 15% in total revenue. The remaining 1% of revenue came from the Asian market. Our European business grew 17% sequentially and 79% year-over-year for the quarter, as we continue to invest in that region.

We added approximately 66 new customers during the quarter. We closed the quarter with an active customer base of over 430. During the quarter the number of accounts, which we considered to be strategic and have the potential to become significant revenue sources for us in the future, increased by five, bringing our total number of strategic clients to 97.

Turning to costs, on a GAAP-basis, cost of revenues exclusive of depreciation and amortization increased 55% in the quarter compared with the second quarter of 2006. Second quarter cost of revenues include approximately $4.8 million on equity-based compensation expense. The increase in cost of revenues was due to additional technical staff, both the onsite and offshore required to support our revenue growth as well as the impact of the strengthening rupee and wage increases that were affected in the Q2. We increased our technical staff by 1,900 during the quarter and ended the quarter with approximately 42,700 technical staff. This is a net increase of close to 15,000 technical staff from June 30, 2006.

Second quarter SG&A including depreciation and amortization expense was $133.5 million on a GAAP basis, up from $87.8 million in the second quarter of 2006. GAAP SG&A expense in Q2 2007 included approximately $4.7 million of equity-based compensation expense. As a percentage of revenue SG&A including depreciation and amortization was down slightly as we're able to leverage our scale efficiencies.

GAAP operating income for the quarter increased 49% to $90.7 million from $60.7 million in the second quarter of 2006. On a non-GAAP basis, which excludes the impact of $9.5 million of equity based compensation expense, operating income for the second quarter was $101 million up almost 49% from last year. Our GAAP operating margin was 17.6% in the quarter and our non-GAAP operating margin for the quarter was 19.4%, in line with our target of 19% to 20%.

During the second quarter operating income was negatively impacted by the significant appreciation in the Indian Rupee. The average rate for the Rupee was approximately 41 in the second quarter versus 44 in the first quarter of 2007 and 45 in the second quarter of 2006. Interest income for the second quarter increased to $6.5 million compared to $3.9 million in the second quarter of 2006. Interest income increased due to a higher global cash balance for the short-term investments as well as increase in short term interest rates. We had a $530,000 foreign exchange gain during the quarter.

Our GAAP tax rate for the second quarter was 15.7%. During the quarter we had a favorable settlement of certain tax uncertainties. In accordance with FIN48, the results of this settlement were required to be recognized as a discreet item during the quarter. This reduced the second quarter tax rate from our normalized tax rate of 16.4% to 15.7%. Assuming no further discreet items in the second half of this year, we expect our second half tax rate to be 16.4% resulting in a full year tax rate of approximately 16.3%.

Turning to the balance sheet, our balance sheet remains very healthy. We finished the quarter with over $710 million of cash, and short-term investments up over $240 million from June 30th of last year, and up over $37 million from March of this year. During the second quarter, operating activities generated over $52 million of cash, financing activities, primarily the exercise of stock options, and related tax benefits generated approximately $26 million of cash. These amounts were partially offset by over $42 million of capital expenditures. In addition, we generated approximately $670,000 of cash due to currency translation adjustments.

For 2007, we continue to expect to spend approximately $180 million in capital expenditures, a substantial majority of which is related to the construction and equipment for additional development facilities to support our growth, as we announced.

Today we also announced a $100 million expansion of our current construction program in India, bringing the total value of the program to over $300 million. This program now encompasses the construction of approximately 4.5 million square feet across five cities; all of the construction is planned for Special Economic Zones to allow us to participate in tax holidays well into the future.

In addition, we are opportunistically leasing facilities with SEZ status. So far this year, we have leased over 800,000 square feet of space in Special Economic Zones, all of which will become available for use by year end.

Our collection and trade receivables improved slightly from the second quarter of 2006 based on our $403.6 million balance on June 30. We finished the quarter with a DSO including unbilled receivables of 71 days compared to 72 days for the same period last year. During Q2, excluding unbilled receivables, our DSOs was approximately 61 days. The quality of our receivables portfolio remained strong. Our unbilled receivables balance was approximately $54.7 million at the end of the second quarter, up about $16 million or 43% from June 30 of last year, and up about $8 million from Q1 of this year. Approximately 54% of our June 30 unbilled balance was billed in the month of July.

During the second quarter overall, 24% of our revenue came from fixed-price contracts, down from 25.3% in the first quarter of this year, and down from 25.2% in the second quarter of 2006. When we look at the mix by solution type during the second quarter, 29% of our development revenue and 20% of our maintenance revenue came from fixed-price contracts during the quarter.

Turning to headcount, at the end of the second quarter our worldwide headcount, including both technical professionals and support staff, totaled approximately 45,550. This represents a net increase of approximately 2,100 people during the quarter and 15,900 people since June 30th of last year. Slightly less than 50% of our Q2 hires are recent college graduates who will enter our training program. The remainder where lateral hires of experienced IT professionals.

Turnover, including both voluntary and involuntary was approximately 17% annualized during the second quarter. As discussed previously, we've launched the global initiative to ensure that our employees receive appropriate rewards, recognition, and personal and professional growth opportunities across their entire lifecycle at Cognizant.

Q2 attrition was roughly in line with the second quarter attrition in both 2004 and 2005. It was about 2 percentage points higher than attrition in the second quarter of 2006. As you will recall, we experienced lower than normal attrition in the first half of 2006 and then a spike in the third quarter of last year.

As we discussed back in May, as part of our strategy to offset the impact of appreciation of the Indian Rupee, we are increasing the company's utilization level. Due to scale economies and historical heavy overinvestment in bench resources, we were able to successfully begin to increase our utilization rates during the second quarter. During the second quarter we executed according to our plans towards this goal.

Onsite utilization increased slightly to over 85% for the quarter. Offshore utilization, excluding recent college graduates who were in our trainee program at the end of the quarter, was approximately 68%, as many of our full 2006 trainees graduated from our trainee program. Including trainees, offshore utilization was approximately 56% for the quarter. We had well over 4,300 unbilled people in our training program at the end of the quarter.

I would now like to comment on our growth expectations for the third quarter of 2007, as well as the full year. The investments we are making are producing results. They are allowing us to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace, both in terms of winning and growing new clients and expanding our service offerings. This has resulted in stronger than expected results for Q2, and provides us with a strong foundation for continued growth in 2007.

For the third quarter of 2007, we are projecting revenue of at least $550 million. This represents more than 45% year-over-year growth. We continue to have significant revenue visibility due to our high-level of recurring revenue and long-term nature of our customer relationships. In fact, today we have customer commitments for well over 90% of our third quarter revenue guidance.

For the full year 2007, based on the strong demand environment for offshore services and our favorable experience in ramp up rates, we are pleased to increase our guidance to at least $2.110 billion, a $40 million increase from our prior guidance given in early May. This revised guidance represents growth of at least 48% and an increase of more than $685 million compared to 2006. As it has been typical in past years, we expect the vast majority of our growth in 2007 will come from the ramp up of clients we've won over the past few years.

Assuming no further material appreciation of the Rupee, our guidance assumes that we will continue to be near the midpoint of our targeted 19% to 20% non-GAAP, which is before the impact of equity compensation range for operating margin for the year and for the third quarter.

With this expected level of revenue growth and our expected operating margins, we are currently comfortable with our ability to deliver in Q3 GAAP EPS of $0.56 and non-GAAP EPS of $0.62, excluding equity compensation expense of $0.06. This guidance includes the anticipation of the Q3 share count of approximately 153 million shares, a tax rate of 16.4%, and an operating margin towards the middle of our historic guidance range of 19% to 20%, excluding the cost of equity compensation.

For the full year 2007, based on current business trends, we currently project GAAP EPS to be at least $2.20, and full year non-GAAP EPS to be at least $2.40, excluding equity compensation expense of approximately $0.20. This guidance includes the anticipation of a full-year tax rate of 16.3%, a full-year share count of approximately 152.7 million shares and an operating margin towards the middle of our guidance range.

Please note that our GAAP EPS guidance for the third quarter and full year assumes no P&L impact from the recently enacted fringe benefit tax on the exercised stock options in India. The accounting treatment for this new tax is yet to be finalized by the accounting industry.

In conclusion, we were very pleased with our industry-leading revenue growth in Q2 and are quite optimistic about our market position for the future. We believe that we understand the margin related issues currently faced by the industry and are taking the appropriate short-term and longer-term actions to manage these issues.

We would now like to open the call for questions. Operator?

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions). Your first question comes from Julio Quinteros from Goldman Sachs.

Julio Quinteros - Goldman Sachs

Hey guys, good morning. Real quickly, just to get a couple of things out of the way here. How much mortgage exposure do you guys have in your BFSI segment as a percentage of revenue?

Gordon Coburn

In terms of subprime mortgages, it's negligible. Overall mortgage -- that I have to check on. But very well exposure to subprime mortgage.

Julio Quinteros - Goldman Sachs

Okay, great. And then looking at the model, the way that it shaped up for the quarter, obviously we're expecting utilization to go up. How much further can you take utilization from current levels, in other words how much is less in terms of cushion from utilization? And then can you walk us through pricing for the quarter as well?

Gordon Coburn

Starting with utilization, as we said last call, our goal is to take utilization up around four points or so, because of the way they are averaging works for the quarter takes two quarters to get there. So, we still have a more increasing utilization plan and that's obviously baked into our headcount guidance and that's just simply a fact of the next two quarters to pull through the impact. In terms of -- what was the other question, pricing?

Julio Quinteros - Goldman Sachs

Yeah, pricing.

Gordon Coburn

Pricing is coming right where we had expected. For the full year we expected it to be about 2%, on an apples-to-apples basis compared to last year. Sequentially we had a very modest increase in pricing, year-over-year we were only about 2%.

Julio Quinteros - Goldman Sachs

Okay, great. And then just the four percentage points, I think there was a little bit of confusion last quarter. I just want to make sure I understand. When we think four percentage point increase, are you talking offshore blended including, excluding, just to make sure, we have the right number here?

Gordon Coburn

So that's global.

Julio Quinteros - Goldman Sachs

Global total including trainees.

Gordon Coburn

Yeah.

Julio Quinteros - Goldman Sachs

Got it, great. Thanks guys.

Operator

Your next question comes from Rod Bourgeois from Bernstein.

Rod Bourgeois - Sanford C. Bernstein

Hey guys, nice to see all the growth here continuing. I wanted to ask about specifically the CapEx outlook with all the plans to expand the facilities. Presumably a lot of the movement into the Special Economic Zone is geared towards optimizing the tax rate after the tax savings expire in March '09. Can you talk about what these investments and facilities in Special Economic Zones might do to your sort of capital expenditures compared to the run rate that we've seen in recent history?

Gordon Coburn

Sure, whether the SEZs existed or not, the company would still be doing constructions if the economics are better than renting. This expansion does not impact our 2007 CapEx budget. As said, we still look at that to be $180 million, haven't worked out 2008 yet. But if you look over the last couple of years as a percentage of revenue it still remains fairly constant. So, that's probably as good an assumption as any at this point.

Rod Bourgeois - Sanford C. Bernstein

Okay, great. There has been a lot of attention focused on the headcount kind of growth outlook in recent periods here. I wanted to ask a scenario -- you guided up again on revenues, if the revenue growth outlook continues to improve and you are able to take you revenue growth guidance up again later in the year, would you then be in a position to take your headcount growth guidance up to 7.9 or do you have enough headcount in place right now to hit a range that goes even higher than where your current revenue growth guidance resides?

Gordon Coburn

With 55,000 people we certainly do look at more revenues than we have got into. Even with our increasing utilization we will still be well below the industry. So they are sort of two separate things. Would we need to take headcount now -- can just obviously know. Would we want to? Maybe yes, maybe no, but when we look at end of the year, was about 55,000 well that gives us room to meet demand this year and positions us quite well for next year.

Rod Bourgeois - Sanford C. Bernstein

Okay, and then --

Gordon Coburn

And as far as, just finish the talk on -- quite obviously large because we have been running so low historically, you just have a lot of buffer in there.

Rod Bourgeois - Sanford C. Bernstein

Right and then with the expansion plan. I mean do these Special Economic Zones and the related investments, does that have implications for the type of headcount growth you are planning for the 2008 timeframe or is it too early to give a read on that? Just presumably with all this investment being planned, you've got some idea of the type of headcount you're hoping to achieve in 2008?

Gordon Coburn

A lot of this construction, some of it starts to come online at beginning 2008, but some of it doesn't come online until late 2008, early 2009. So it's sort of a constant process continuing to expand, but the fact that we've expanded the program clearly means that as we look into the future in 2008-2009 and beyond, we still see a lot of runaway in terms of growth opportunities.

Rod Bourgeois - Sanford C. Bernstein

Okay. And then just to complete all this thought. I'm assuming that your continued plans to take utilization up -- I'm assuming you're still arguing that the higher utilization will not create any trade-off with respect to your growth rates?

Gordon Coburn

At the level that we're targeting to take it up to, we're very comfortable that it does not impact our ability to deliver services and once again that comes back to -- we have been running quite low large scale efficiencies with bench resources, and even with where we are increasing utilization too, we're still -- we still have room, you'll still be below industry standards.

Rod Bourgeois - Sanford C. Bernstein

Alright, thanks guys very much.

Operator

Your next question comes from Ed Caso with Wachovia Securities.

Ed Caso - Wachovia Securities

Good morning, congratulations on another great set of numbers here. I think you haven't talked much about your BPO business. Can you give us a sense of percent of revenue growth rates, focus areas, what the demands are for the future?

Francisco D'Souza

Yeah, Ed, it's Frank. We continue to make good progress on the BPO business. We've -- I think a call or two ago I spoke about -- I gave examples of some clients who we're winning there. As I've said in the past we are focused on what we think of as vertical BPO, industry-specific BPO or what we're calling V-BPO.

And so we're making good progress. We're pleased there with the progress we're making in that business and also looking at the synergies between our IT business and our BPO business.

In terms of the specifics that you asked for, I think a couple of things. Right now revenue for our BPO business is relatively small. It's also important to remember that revenue per head in the BPO business is significantly lower than it is in the IT business. And so, the BPO business today is not a material, significant part of the overall revenue stream.

Ed Caso - Wachovia Securities

Great. Gordon, can you remind us, your goal on the short run for two quarters is to raise global utilization 4 points. How many more points of flexibility do you have beyond that?

Gordon Coburn

We certainly have flexibility beyond that. The question becomes at what point does it start to create a skills mismatch. Yeah, I think we still probably have a little bit of room, bit down to four points. We are kind of growing at an unprecedented rate, so it's more of an art than a science to know what point you hit that skills mismatch. Again, what we know is like we have four points, we are not at that point yet. If you keep going at some point you head it. But we're pretty comfortable with how the model is working and as we're taking utilization up so far this quarter, it's actually been a good thing for the business. We probably realize we probably have let it get a little bit lower than it needed to be.

Ed Caso - Wachovia Securities

Can you talk a little bit about H1Bs? How you get in the lottery, any issues there? How you are thinking about scenarios long-term?

Gordon Coburn

As you know, a lot more applications were filed than visas issued. We certainly understood the process and filed our visas appropriately and received the visas we need to run our business. We continue to monitor the situation. Washington, obviously [excluded] with the immigration legislation, EDAP and then slowing down. So, we will continue to keep an eye on it.

Ed Caso - Wachovia Securities

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from Julie Santoriello with Morgan Stanley.

Julie Santoriello - Morgan Stanley

Thanks, good morning. I wanted to ask a little bit about the tax rate going forward. Are they part of the construction plans or really all-round I am eluding to SEZs. So, what kind of tax rate do you think we can expect post March of 2009? Can you completely offset some of the exploration with SEZ activity or how much might you be able to offset?

Gordon Coburn

You are absolute right, Julie. Obviously, we are building some SEZs and we're leasing stuff in SEZs. As I mentioned we recently signed leases for almost 800,000 square feet of leased SEZ space, so it's a combination of leasing and building. Really the way the rules work are you cannot move any existing volume from the old passed programs to the new. So, whether our tax rate will jump by 2009 will depend on two factors, how fast does the business grow between now and the end of 2009, and how much of that growth can I put into Special Economic Zones. We'll have a better feel for that later on this year when we start to understand what 2008 looks like and we will start to give a range for the tax rate in 2009. But, I would certainly expect the material increase in the tax rate in 2009, because vast majority of my existing volume starts to become fully taxed.

Julie Santoriello - Morgan Stanley

So, it would be fair for us at this point to look at a tax rate that is somewhere between the 16% now and 32% or so kind of global rate?

Gordon Coburn

We haven't given any guidance, and the range is so wide, I am not sure it has been that helpful for people. Yeah, obviously it will be more than 16% now. When we were fully taxed they didn't recognize the benefit of tax holidays, we were at 37%. Obviously, we not could be at either of those extremes.

Julie Santoriello - Morgan Stanley

Okay. And a question on the consulting business, basically you mentioned some good tractions there. Can you give us an update on the number of people you have now in consulting? And just a little bit more on the strategy there, should we be looking towards specific consulting related revenues from Cognizant or is the consulting practice more geared towards just driving the rest of the services?

Francisco D'Souza

Yes. We've taken the very deliberate approach of putting our consulting business, if you will, into the core businesses. We think that that's an effective way to drive the business. It's an effective way to grow consulting practice. But also that really creates tight integration between the consulting business and the rest of the business, if you will. So, I don't try to sort of look at consulting revenues as split about separately. What I will say is that we're seeing good traction and a lot of interest from clients, as I said during the earlier part of this call, engaging us upfront, understanding, helping us, inviting us to help understand and frame the business problem before, than engaging us on the downstream work as well.

Julie Santoriello - Morgan Stanley

Does that have more positive margin implications?

Francisco D'Souza

I think it's neutral, I think from a margin perspective -- but I think it certainly has significant implications in terms of our relationships with clients, the depth of our relationships with clients. The kind of dialogue we're having and then of course, the ability to drive downstream revenues.

Julie Santoriello - Morgan Stanley

Okay, thanks. And just lastly, any discussion internally on hedging strategies or plans to put a more formal program in place?

Gordon Coburn

As you Julie -- today we don't hedge at all. Am I looking at it, it doesn't make any sense. Yeah, I am looking at it, no near term decisions. In my mind the only way it would make sense is if I could get hedge accounting since I have the hedges reached mark-to-market each quarter probably that doesn't create a lot benefit for shareholders. So, we are looking at it but, no near term plan, certainly [noting]. It does clear whether all the pieces work for the instrument that we will need.

Julie Santoriello - Morgan Stanley

Okay. Thank you.

Gordon Coburn

Thanks.

Operator

Your next question comes from Mark Marostica with Piper Jaffray.

Mark Scuntows - Piper Jaffray

Good morning, it's [Mark Scuntows] for Marostica. Just a question on the SG&A line. Could you just be a little bit more specific on the scale of interest that gained here than whether we can expect to see these year-over-year gains through the rest of the year?

Gordon Coburn

There is a broad range of stock. As we transition more to our own facilities that's going to have scale efficiencies -- the scale efficiencies for communications and some of the marketing related activities and back office activities. So, the scale efficiencies is a question of when do you lever those, and when don't you. One of the ways we run the businesses, we target our operating margin and we look at SG&A, that's something we can accelerate or decelerate depending where cost of goods sold come in.

Mark Scuntows - Piper Jaffray

Okay. And then just one other question as it relates to attrition. Could you just remind us of what the components where that 20% spike that you had last year and sort of how that compares to where we are, hope for where we will be in 3Q this year?

Gordon Coburn

[You know, bill] through is now where we will be in the third quarter, because August is a tentative swing month, but third quarter last year was unusual in terms of spiking to 20%. And then as we have been running actually well below normal for the first half of last year, spiked up in the third quarter and then started to come back down. Part of it may have been that in 2006 we tried to sort of set the market on wages by indicating or keeping wage increases modest, others didn't fall in that lead, so we ended up a little bit behind market last year on wages. That may have caused that third quarter spike, obviously we fixed that this year so there wasn't any one item that caused it.

Mark Scuntows - Piper Jaffray

Okay. So just looking at the last three quarters you guys upticked year-over-year. Is that trajectory sort of expected if you look out over the next couple of quarters or should that reverse itself?

Gordon Coburn

It's a little difficult to predict, what I'd like you to assume. Are we still running a little bit higher than I'd like? Absolutely, yes. Are we running -- but it's only a little bit higher. One that concerned me was third quarter last year when there was a significant spike, now we're running a point two points higher which has got noise in my mind.

Mark Scuntows - Piper Jaffray

Okay, great. Thanks.

Operator

Your next question comes from Ashwin Shirvaikar with Citigroup.

Ashwin Shirvaikar - Citigroup

Thank you. Thank you for the fabulous results as well hopefully makes it clear there is more to revenue growth than headcount growth. I wanted to talk about the growth of your European business. Are you assigned to strategic clients there, is there something different European clients look for than U.S. clients could delve into that?

Francisco D'Souza

Yeah, it's Frank. I think that the -- I would point to a couple of things that we are doing in Europe. That I wouldn't say different but requires us to focus in a different way in Europe, because of particularly language issues and differences across continental Europe. We are having to build out local teams in each of the countries in Europe in which we are operating. And so that's probably the first, we can't rely obviously on English as the language of business in these countries even tough many of our multi-national clients operate in English, you still need to have a local language capability in each of the countries. So, that requires us to invest -- that requires us to build local teams in each of these countries and really get the local team deeply integrated with the rest of Cognizant, in our global delivery models so on and so forth.

The other thing that we are seeing to some extent in Europe, which is somewhat different than in perhaps other parts of the world, is that we tend to see interest in applications, development and system integration work, perhaps earlier than in other parts of the world where you might see a lead with application maintenance in the U.S., it tends to be a little bit more focused on application development than Europe. And that sometimes has to do with the labor laws and other regulations in Europe, which limit or prevent the displacement of existing workers in Europe.

Ashwin Shirvaikar - Citigroup

Okay. And I guess last question. As you line up client requirements that are strongest today with your capabilities, do you feel a need to over-invest in any particular areas, either organically or through acquisition or do you think you are pretty well set and set for the next 12 to 18 months?

Francisco D'Souza

Yeah. Our acquisition program is ongoing. We are always looking out there to see where there are strategic fits. We've said that we continue to look for acquisition that will extend our capabilities in really three areas. We are looking for acquisitions that are complimentary in terms of the industries that we serve. Looking to deepen our industry expertise I talked about, consulting as an increasing area of interest and so we're looking for acquisitions in the industries that we serve that can add that capability.

The second axis that we're looking for in terms of acquisitions and continue to always keep our eyes open for our technology based acquisitions. Good example of that was the acquisition we did some years ago of Aces that got us into the CRM space. And the third is, the third screen we use is geographic screen. So, we're continuing to look at acquisitions in markets in Europe that would extend or deepen our presence in the markets that we want to serve in Europe.

Ashwin Shirvaikar - Citigroup

Okay. Thank you and congratulations once again.

Gordon Coburn

Thanks Ashwin. And operator, we have time for one more call.

Operator

Your final question comes from Joseph Vafi with Jefferies & Co.

Joseph Vafi - Jefferies & Co.

Hi guys, great results. Good morning. Just one real question, but first a housekeeping, did I miss what the salary hike was for the year that you had in the quarter?

Gordon Coburn

Yeah, the salary increases affected the beginning of the second quarter. We averaged about 16% in India and very low single-digits on onsite.

Joseph Vafi - Jefferies & Co.

Okay, very good. So, the real question is now that we've taken the salary hikes for the year, we have some utilization levers coming and assuming that Rupee stay stable here in Q3, is there anything I'm missing here? Should we not have the capacity to have higher margins in Q3 if those three things have occurred and/or are stable at this point?

Gordon Coburn

No, I'm not sure I've set that expectation. However, we have promotions in October and our promotion cycle has always been twice a year, so you have some cost impact from that. And we don't want to disrupt our long-term investments, so as I said our goal is to be around midpoint of our range.

Joseph Vafi - Jefferies & Co.

Okay. So, just given some normal business development expenses that we're going to see in the quarter, but otherwise it seems like salary hikes weren't too big and there is clearly leverage off those moving forward and…

Gordon Coburn

Yeah, the big things for the year are under our belt. And the big negative things in the year under our belt, those all head in Q2. But, we are very committed to and it's still early in the game we're offshoring and so we're committed to investing for the long-term. And given where the Rupee has moved, we think that the midpoint of our range is the right thing in terms of balance of short-term and the long-term.

Joseph Vafi - Jefferies & Co.

Great, thanks so much.

Gordon Coburn

Thanks, Jeff.

Francisco D'Souza

Well, thank you everyone again for joining us on our call today. In conclusion, we're very pleased with our strong financial performance in the second quarter and our success in maintaining our operating targets, while reinvesting in the growth of the business. Moving forward, we are confident that the steadfast execution of our strategy and our commitment to expanding our global platform will continue to drive our industry leading growth. We look forward to talking to you all again next quarter. Thank you.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.

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ich bin zwar nicht investiert, aber gute Nachrichten;

Cognizant Technology will eigene Aktien im Wert von 100 Mio. Dollar zurückkaufen


Teaneck (aktiencheck.de AG) - Die amerikanische Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. (ISIN US1924461023/ WKN 915272) hat am Montag ein Aktienrückkaufprogramm angekündigt.
Laut der Pressemitteilung des IT-Dienstleisters hat das Board of Directors den Rückkauf eigener Aktien im Gesamtwert von bis zu 100 Mio. Dollar beschlossen. Das Aktienrückkaufprogramm soll in den kommenden zwölf Monaten durchgeführt werden. Des Weiteren hat das Gremium einen Aktien-Split im Verhältnis 1 zu 2 angekündigt, wobei die Kapitalmaßnahme am 16. Oktober durchgeführt werden soll.

Die Aktie von Cognizant Technology notiert zuletzt bei 72,07 Dollar.
(17.09.2007/ac/n/a)


Quelle: Finanzen.net 17.09.2007 13:59:00

[spaceistheplace]

nur 0,6% plus heute ist echt mager bei CTSH

hätte ich jetzt nicht gedacht. ich habe mich schon für pontius, Larry und Simonswald gefreut.
2 Meldungen auf einmal, die eigentlich auf weiter prosperierende Geschäfte (Rückkauf) und auch das Vertrauen auf steigende Aktienkurse (split) und so gut wie keine Reaktion. habe eigentlich so was noch nicht gesehen bisher....Ihr?

Gruss space

[Larry.Livingston]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 31.633.405 von spaceistheplace am 17.09.07 16:37:28

Doch, doch, das gabs schon zuhauf. Das Umfeld ist aktuell einfach nicht so toll. Was zählt ist langfristig.

[spaceistheplace]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 31.634.688 von Larry.Livingston am 17.09.07 18:07:52

also gut, Larry, dann habe ich das Ganze nicht zu aufmerksam verfolgt.
Gruss space

[Pontiuspilatus]

einfach drinnbleiben das unternehmen konsolidiert die riesigen kursgewinne der letzten jahre aus. fundamental ist alles im grünen bereich.

Langfristig mit hoher wahrscheinlichkeit eine absolte gewinneraktie.

Sehr gut ist auch der aktiensplitt

[spaceistheplace]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 31.683.077 von Pontiuspilatus am 21.09.07 09:04:57

ich bins nicht mehr, bin bei 74 raus....
Gruss space

[Pontiuspilatus]

so heute wurde der 2:1 Split vollzogen

[spaceistheplace]

Cognizant to buy US firm for $135 mn
A BS Reporter in Chennai

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October 20, 2007 03:36 IST

IT services major Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation is strengthening its capabilities in the life sciences segment by acquiring New Jersey-based marketRx, provider of analytics and software services to global life sciences companies, for $135 million.

The company has signed the agreement to acquire marketRx in an all-cash deal. The transaction may be concluded in the fourth quarter of 2007. The acquisition will be funded through the company's current cash reserves.

"This acquisition expands our capabilities in the analytics segment and broadens our service offerings in the life sciences industry, while providing strong synergies with our existing business intelligence/datawarehousing and CRM services," said Francisco D'Souza, president and chief executive officer of Cognizant, marketRx is a leading offshore KPO/analytics business with revenues expected to cross $40 million.

It has 430 employees, operating on a global delivery model with 260 professionals in Gurgaon, 160 at four locations in the US, and 10 in London.

The company combines analytics, market research and software services to provide scaleable, web-based solutions in three functional areas for life sciences companies � sales management and operations, brand marketing, and product management and market research.

The acquisition will bring in a client base of 75 life sciences customers, including the 20 largest pharmaceutical companies and four of the top five biotech companies.

"The combination of our leading market position in the life sciences analytics segment and Cognizant's strengths as a top global services player will allow us to expand our relationships with our life sciences clients by providing them with a broader range of outsourced services, and conversely, will enable us to extend our capabilities to other vertical markets," Jaswinder (Jassi) Chadha, founder, president and chief executive officer, marketRx, said.

[spaceistheplace]

heute kommt ne CTSH unter die Räder, sie treffen eben die Schätzungen nur punktgenau, der Ausblick enttäuscht anscheinend, aber gleich 15% runter?
Krank was? Wenn das der Grund für den Abschlag sein soll, die max. 7 Mio. Umsatz im 4. Quartal weniger (siehe unten Fettdruck)?
Die Zahlen jedenfalls sind gut, keine Frage:

Cognizant: Umsatzausblick sorgt für Enttäuschung
Dienstag, 06.11.2007 15:14

TEANECK - Der amerikanisch-indische IT-Servicespezialist Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation (Nasdaq: CTSH, WKN: 915272) kann im vergangenen dritten Quartal 2007 seine Umsätze deutlich steigern und die Gewinnerwartungen der Analysten übertreffen. Der verhaltene Umsatzausblick für das laufende vierte Quartal sorgte jedoch für Enttäuschung am Markt.

So meldet Cognizant für das zurückliegende Septemberquartal einen Umsatzanstieg auf 558,8 Mio. US-Dollar, was einem Zuwachs von 48 Prozent gegenüber dem Vorjahr entspricht. Der Nettogewinn kletterte auf 96,2 Mio. US-Dollar oder 32 US-Cent je Aktie, nach einem Plus von 61,0 Mio. Dollar oder 20 US-Cent je Aktie im Jahr vorher. Analysten hatten im Vorfeld nur mit Einnahmen von 558,8 Mio. Dollar sowie mit einem Nettogewinn von 29 US-Cent je Aktie kalkuliert.

Vor allem das Geschäft in Europa präsentierte sich weiterhin stark. Dieses wuchs um 90 Prozent gegenüber dem Vorjahreszeitraum und steuerte im jüngsten Quartal bereits 17 Prozent zum Gesamtumsatz bei, heißt es bei Cognizant.
Für das laufende vierte Quartal 2007 stellt Cognizant einen Umsatz zwischen 590 und 595 Mio. Dollar sowie einen Nettogewinn von 31 US-Cent je Aktie in Aussicht. Analysten hatten diesbezüglich allerdings mit Einnahmen von über 597 Mio. Dollar kalkuliert. Auf Jahressicht rechnet Cognizant mit einem Umsatz von 2,125 bis 2,13 Mrd. Dollar sowie einen Nettogewinn von 1,14 Dollar je Aktie. (ami)

[Pontiuspilatus]

Krank was? Wenn das der Grund für den Abschlag sein soll, die max. 7 Mio. Umsatz im 4. Quartal weniger (siehe unten Fettdruck)?
Die Zahlen jedenfalls sind gut, keine Frage:

ja die börse ist momentan extrem nervös. im prinzip ist die reaktrion lächerlich aber vor nem kauf beruhigung abwarten.

ähnlich war es vor ein paar tagen bei crox.

nun ja ctsh hat nun ein kgv von ca 20 und ist damit günstiger als ne vw

und da soll noch mal jemand sagen börse ist rational...

momentan gibt es sehr viele sehr gute kaufgelegenheiten an der börse
vielleicht werden sie ja noch etwas besser

[Simonswald]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 32.315.562 von Pontiuspilatus am 06.11.07 21:15:30

und da soll noch mal jemand sagen börse ist rational...

Doch, all die BWL-Profs/VWL-Profs, die immer von der Annahme vollkommener Kapitalmärkte ausgehen (Capital Asset Price Model etc.pp.)
Dass die Märkte auch heute noch keineswegs vollkommen sind (wenngleich deutlich effizienter als vor 20-30 JahrenJ), sieht man doch schon an den regelmäßig wiederkehrenden Übertreibungen.

[spaceistheplace]

und da lassen sie CTSH fallen wie einen faulen Appel...

06.11.2007 19:13
Cognizant Technology falls on heavy volume after outlook disappoints Wall Street

BOSTON (Thomson Financial) - Shares of Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. (Nachrichten) fell to a 15-month low Tuesday on heavy volume after the information technology company's fourth-quarter outlook disappointed Wall Street.

The Teaneck, N.J. company said ahead of the open that net income for the quarter ending September was $96.2 million, or 32 cents a share, topping the mean estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Financial was for 29 cents a share.

Revenue rose 8% above year-earlier levels to $558.8 million, topping analyst forecasts of $556.4 million.

The company said it expects fourth-quarter earnings of 34 cents, excluding stock-based compensation expenses, on revenue of $590 million to $595 million. Analysts were looking for fourth-quarter earnings of 31 cents a share on revenue of $597.6 million.

Merrill Lynch Analyst Gregory Smith said the company deviated from its 'normal 'beat and raise' pattern, by lifting its outlook only by the upside seen in latest quarter.

Goldman Sachs Analyst Julio Quinteros, Jr. reiterated his buy rating, but removed the stock from the Americas Conviction Buy List, on the belief that the stock 'will likely not get the boost that we were anticipating into the end of the year' given that the company's outlook was only 'in line' with his estimate, and with expectations following third-quarter results.

Quinteros said he expects investor sentiment will be 'challenged' by concerns over the macroeconomic backdrop and the company's exposure to the troubled financial services industry.

Stifel Nicolaus said third-quarter revenue and the fourth-quarter outlook would be viewed as 'disappointing' given the 'lack of beat' and stronger quarter-over-quarter results from its peers.

The stock was down 19% at $31.99 and had hit a low of $31.15 in intraday trading, which was the lowest price seen since July 2006. Volume was 19.2 million shares, or more than 6 times the full-day average of 3.1 million shares.

Michael Lauenger

ml/tk1

[clearasil]

Nur mal ganz schnell. Bin leider sehr beschäftigt.
Der earnings call.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/53080-cognizant-technology-s…

Wollte eigentlich den Text reinstellen, ist mir leider nicht geglückt.
Schon erstaunlich, dieses Schlachtfest gestern, da werden eine Herde shorties glücklich geworden sein.
Aber so ist das nun einmal. Ich finde: Topfirma mit konservativem Management und sehr guten Zukunftsaussichten.
Alles, was sie in dem call sagen ist, dass sie mit dem Ausblick warten werden, bis sie Klarheit haben. Man wird sehen.

gruß clearasil

[spaceistheplace]

hier ein weiterer Bericht zu CTSH, da wird ja super schwarz gemalt...das angefügte Kurzportrait des gleichen Verfassers ist dagegen sehr interessant und relativieren die Befürchtungen fast schon wieder, da CTSH ja rel breit aufgestellt ist und keinesfalls nur für Banken arbeitet, der Finanz-Anteil ist mit 50% zwar am höchsten, aber trotzdem kann ich die Begründung nicht teilen, zumal da auch noch versicherungen dazu gehören. Im Gegenteil, es könnte doch gar sein, dass die banken, um Kosten zu sparen, noch mehr auslagern bzw. zumindest nicht kürzen? Zudem hat CTSH jede Menge neukunden hinzugewonnen.
Für 2008 werden weitere 30% Gewinnanstieg prognostiziert.

Unten auch noch die akt. Zahlen, Ausblick und Bewertung

Alles in allem bei Beruhigung der Lage ein kauf!

Gruss space

Cognizant schockt die IT-Branche
Mittwoch, 07.11.2007 13:05

(IT-Times) War die IT-Service- und Outsourcing-Branche bislang ein Selbstläufer, hat sich dies nach der Vorlage der Quartalszahlen des IT-Riesen Cognizant Technology Solutions (Nasdaq: CTSH, WKN: 915272) schlagartig geändert. Obwohl Cognizant die Gewinnerwartungen im jüngsten Quartal übertreffen konnte, brachen die Anteile um knapp 20 Prozent ein und zogen andere IT-Werte wie Infosys gleich mit in die Tiefe.

Hintergrund des jüngsten Kursrutsches sind Befürchtungen, dass sich der Outsourcing-Zyklus und der langjährige Boom in der IT-Branche langsam seinem Ende nähern und sich die Wachstumsraten in diesem Segment spürbar verlangsamen werden. Diesen Rückschluss ziehen Markteilnehmer aus den Umsatzprognosen und den Aussagen des Cognizant-Managements, wonach für das laufende vierte Quartal nur mit Erlösen von 590 bis 595 Mio. Dollar zu rechnen sei - Analysten hatten im Vorfeld mit Einnahmen von 597 Mio. Dollar gerechnet.

Die Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass das Ausmaß der Hypothekenkrise weit größer ist als zunächst angenommen, steigt mit jeder Hiobsbotschaft aus dem Bankensektor und damit auch das Risiko, dass Finanzinstitute und Banken bei ihrem Ausgabenmanagement vorerst einen Gang zurück schalten.

Ein solches Szenario würde Cognizant doppelt treffen, zumal das Unternehmen weiter investieren muss, um sich nicht nur personell die besten Talente zu sichern, sondern auch ein breites Produktangebot im Bereich IT-Beratung und BPO bieten muss, um den Vorsprung vor der Konkurrenz zu wahren.

Kurzportrait

Die in Teaneck/New Jersey ansässige Cognizant Technology Solutions Coporation (Cognizant) gilt als führender IT-Beratungs- und Outsourcing-Spezialist. Das Unternehmen bietet seine Dienste nicht nur Unternehmen in Europa und Nordamerika, sondern auch in Asien an.

Das Angebot erstreckt sich über strategische Beratung, der Entwicklung komplexer IT-Systeme, bis hin zu Softwareimplementierung, Data Warehousing und der Wartung und Betreuung von Anwendungen. Ergänzt wird das Serviceangebot durch Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Services und Infrastruktur-Management. Betreut werden die Kunden vor Ort durch Management-Teams, welche durch Entwicklungscenter, die vorwiegend in Indien ansässig sind, unterstützt werden. Insgesamt ist das Unternehmen in vier Marktsegmenten tätig: Finanzservices, Gesundheitswesen, sowie Fertigung, Logistik & Handel und andere Geschäfte. Im Pharma- und Biotechnikbereich verstärkte sich Cognizant Ende 2007 durch die Übernahme des IT-Spezialisten marketRX.

Der Finanzservice-Bereich steuerte zuletzt mit rund 50 Prozent den Großteil zu den Gesamteinnahmen des Unternehmens bei. Dabei betreut das Unternehmen nicht nur Banken, sondern auch Broker und Investmentfirmen in Bereichen wie Front- und Back Office, sowie technische Broker-Lösungen. Auch in der Versicherungswirtschaft ist das Unternehmen mit entsprechenden Lösungen präsent und hilft Versicherungsunternehmen bei Administrationsaufgaben sowie bei der Abwicklung von Versicherungsfällen.

Der Healthcare-Bereich ist ein weiteres wichtiges Standbein der Gesellschaft. Das Segment steuerte zuletzt rund 20 Prozent zu den Gesamterlösen der Gesellschaft bei, wobei sieben der zehn größten Wissenschaftsorganisationen zum Kundenkreis der Gesellschaft zählen.

Auch der Bereich Herstellung, Logistik & Handel steuerte zuletzt mit mehr als 15 Prozent einen nicht unerheblichen Anteil zum Gesamtumsatz bei. Im Rahmen dieses Servicebereichs bietet Cognizant elektronische Beschaffungssysteme, Transport-Management, Warehouse- und Yard-Management, sowie ERP-Lösungen an. Diese vier Kerngeschäftsbereiche werden durch Lösungen, wie Digital Asset Management (DAM) und Digital Rights Management (DRM) ergänzt.

Zahlen

Für das zurückliegende Septemberquartal meldet Cognizant einen Umsatzanstieg auf 558,8 Mio. US-Dollar, was einem Zuwachs von 48 Prozent gegenüber dem Vorjahr entspricht. Der Nettogewinn kletterte auf 96,2 Mio. US-Dollar oder 32 US-Cent je Aktie, nach einem Plus von 61,0 Mio. Dollar oder 20 US-Cent je Aktie im Jahr vorher. Analysten hatten im Vorfeld nur mit Einnahmen von 558,8 Mio. Dollar sowie mit einem Nettogewinn von 29 US-Cent je Aktie kalkuliert.

Vor allem das Geschäft in Europa präsentierte sich weiterhin stark. Dieses wuchs um 90 Prozent gegenüber dem Vorjahreszeitraum und steuerte im jüngsten Quartal bereits 17 Prozent zum Gesamtumsatz bei, heißt es bei Cognizant.

Die operative Gewinnmarge bewegte sich mit 19,7 Prozent am oberen Ende der Erwartungen. Gleichzeitig beschloss der Aufsichtsrat zum Quartalsende einen Aktiensplitt im Verhältnis von 2:1 durchzuführen, wobei das Unternehmen zudem in den nächsten 12 Monaten eigene Aktien im Wert von 100 Mio. Dollar zurückkaufen will. Insgesamt konnte Cognizant im jüngsten Quartal 55 neue Kunden gewinnen und das Quartal mit 445 aktiven Kunden abschließen.

Markt und Wettbewerb

Der Markt für Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) soll nach Prognosen des Marktforschungsinstituts Gartner im Jahr 2007 auf 24 Mrd. US-Dollar wachsen. Allein Indien dürfte dann mit 13,8 Mrd. Dollar das größte Stück vom BPO-Kuchen abbekommen, glauben die Gartner-Analysten.

Mit seinem IT-Beratungs- und Outsourcing-Angebot steht Cognizant im Wettbewerb mit allen weltweit führenden IT-Spezialisten. So gilt als Hauptkonkurrent sicherlich der weltweit führende IT-Servicedienstleister IBM Global Business Services, gefolgt von EDS. Beide amerikanische IT-Spezialisten haben zuletzt massive Investitionen in Indien angekündigt.

In Indien selbst sieht sich das Unternehmen dem Wettbewerb mit den dort ansässigen IT-Spezialisten Infosys Technologies, Tata Conusltancy Services, Wipro, Mastek und Satyam nicht nur im Kampf um Kunden, sondern auch um gut ausgebildete IT-Arbeitskräfte gegenüber.

Als weitere Wettbewerber des Unternehmens sind darüber hinaus noch Accenture, Computer Sciences Corp und BearingPoint zu nennen. Accenture und BearingPoint konkurrieren insbesondere im IT-Beratungsbereich direkt mit Cognizant.

Ausblick

Für das laufende vierte Quartal 2007 stellt Cognizant einen Umsatz zwischen 590 und 595 Mio. Dollar sowie einen Nettogewinn von 31 US-Cent je Aktie in Aussicht. Analysten kalkulieren diesbezüglich allerdings mit Einnahmen von über 597 Mio. Dollar sowie mit einem Nettogewinn von 31 US-Cent je Aktie.

Auf Jahressicht rechnet Cognizant mit einem Umsatz von 2,125 bis 2,13 Mrd. Dollar sowie einen Nettogewinn von 1,14 Dollar je Aktie. Analysten erwarten an dieser Stelle Einnahmen von 2,13 Mrd. Dollar sowie einen Nettogewinn von 1,12 Dollar je Aktie.

Im Bezug auf das nachfolgende Jahr 2008 erwarten Analysten einen weiteren Umsatzanstieg auf 2,91 Mrd. Dollar sowie einen Nettogewinn von 1,48 Dollar je Aktie.

Bewertung

Unmittelbar nach den jüngsten Zahlen wurden Cognizant-Aktien deutlich leichter bei 32 US-Dollar gehandelt, womit sich damit ein Börsenwert von rund 9,3 Mrd. Dollar für den amerikanischen IT-Servicespezialisten ergibt. Auf Basis aktueller Gewinnschätzungen für das nachfolgende Jahr 2008 ergibt sich ein Kurs-Gewinn-Verhältnis (KGV) von 22. Gleichzeitig wird Cognizant mit dem 4,4-fachen des zu erwartenden Umsatzes für das laufende Jahr bewertet.

[spaceistheplace]

schaut Euch mal die Analystenschätzungen bei der NASDAQ-Seite an...

http://www.nasdaq.com/earnings/peratio.asp?symbol=CTSH&symbo…

[spaceistheplace]

Ich bin heute bei 32,30 Dollar eingestiegen. Mal sehen, war vielleicht zu früh, aber egal. Wenn ich mir die Zahlen und dann die Bewertung anschaue, dann sollte die Investition allemal aufgehen. Gegen den schlechten Trend an der Wallstreet hat sich CTSH gut gehalten, war wohl Rebound von Gestern, die 19% waren echt ne Nummer zu hart.

Gruss und gute nacht space

[clearasil]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 32.333.431 von spaceistheplace am 07.11.07 22:27:43

freut mich, dass du eingestiegen bist. Sehr mutig, aber 19%, total crazy, Wahnsinnsumsätze gestern. Man könnte glauben, die wachsen nicht mehr. Ich denke, das Management ist vorsichtig, ist mir lieber wie lautes Geschrei.
Die Enttäuschung der Börse dürfte auch von der Tatsache herrühren, dass ctsh das erst Mal seit langem keine guidance für das nächste Jahr gegeben hat.

wait and see clearasil

[spaceistheplace]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 32.334.696 von clearasil am 08.11.07 03:46:32

clearasil, haste ne nachtschicht eingelegt?
Jedenfalls danke für das feedback.
ich denke, dass der 19% Abschlag insbesonders darauf zurückzuführen war, dass die Zahlen / Ausblick nicht klar über den Markterwartungen gelegen haben, so wie es in den letzten Quartalen immer der Fall gewesen war. Die Investoren wurden da immer ziemlich verwöhnt.
Parallel kann man sich ausmalen, wie so was sich auf ISRG auswirken wird nach den Kursavancen, da reichen dann -19% sicherlich nicht.

hat CTSH bisher immer im letzten Quartal eine guidance fürs nächste Jahr geliefert?

Ich glaube ich muss noch mal das Interview der earnings call genau durchlesen...

Jedenfalls hat sich CTSH gestern wacker geschlagen bei dem Einbruch an den Märkten.

Gruss space

[clearasil]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 32.334.996 von spaceistheplace am 08.11.07 07:51:06

Ja, Nachtschicht, sozusagen berufsbedingt

Wieso hat es nicht funktioniert, den ganzen Text einzustellen. Kannst du bitte mit dem angegebenen link probieren, ob das geht. Es nervt mich etwas Bin doch sonst so genial

Was mir an ctsh im Augenblick gar nicht gefällt, ist, dass der langfristige, mächtige Aufwärtstrend verletzt wurde. Damit ist auch für mich als Fundamentalanleger nicht zu spassen. Immerhin ein Trend aus den 90ern. Das Sentiment ist klar gegen die Akie, momentum ade.
Das läuft aber das ganze Jahr schon in die Richtung, dazu Bedenken wegen Wechselkurs, zu wenig neue Mitarbeiter, Marge, zuviele Kunden aus der Finanzbranche. Und die hohe Bewertung, die mittlerweile ziemlich abgebaut ist. Oder wie pontius sagt: VW teuer als ctsh, tjaja, Börsenwelt.
Ich denke, wenn ctsh auf dem Wachstumspfad bleibt, gut, wenn nicht: weiterrunter. Man ist nie nett zu gefallenen Engeln. Genau beobachten.

gruß clearasil

[spaceistheplace]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 32.337.428 von clearasil am 08.11.07 10:49:14

jou clearasil, werden den Text jetzt reinstellen (mit Maus markieren, kopieren, einfügen, mehr isses eigentlich nicht.
Gruss space


Cognizant Technology Solutions Q3 2007 Earnings Call Transcript
posted on: November 06, 2007 | about stocks: CTSH

Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTSH)

Q3 2007 Earnings Call

November 5, 2007 10:00 am ET

Executives

Scott Hoffman - Financial Dynamics

Francisco D’Souza - President, CEO

Gordon Coburn – CFO, COO

Analysts

Adam Frisch - UBS

Moshe Katri - Cowen

Anthony Miller - Arete

Bryan Keane - Credit Suisse

Joseph Foresi - Janney Montgomery Scott

Ashish Thadhani - Gilford

Ed Caso - Wachovia Capital Markets

George Price - Stifel Nicolaus

Julio Quinteros - Goldman Sachs

Presentation

Operator

I would like to welcome everyone to the Cognizant Technology Solutions third quarter 2007 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) I would now like to turn today’s call over to Scott Hoffman from Financial Dynamics. Please go ahead, sir.

Scott Hoffman

Thank you, operator and good morning everyone. By now you should have received a copy of the company’s third quarter 2007 earnings release. If you have not, please call our offices at 212.850.5600 and we’ll be sure to get a copy sent to you.

The speakers we have on the call today are Francisco D’Souza, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Gordon Coburn, Chief Financial and Operating Officer of Cognizant Technology Solutions.

Before we begin, I would like to remind you that some of the comments made on today’s call and some of the responses to your questions may contain forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to the risks and uncertainties as described in the company’s earnings release and other filings with the SEC.

I would now like to turn the call over to Francisco D’Souza. Please go ahead, Francisco.

Francisco D’Souza

Thank you, Scott and good morning, everyone. Thank you all for joining us today for Cognizant’s third quarter 2007 earnings call. This morning I’ll provide an overview of our third quarter results and discuss the key drivers of our financial and operating performance. I will also discuss our recent announcement regarding our intention to acquire marketRx. Finally I’ll provide you with some color around clients’ 2008 spending expectations based on client feedback from our recently concluded customer conference.

I am joined on our call today by our Chief Financial and Operating Officer, Gordon Coburn, who will take you through our financial and operating results in greater detail in a few moments.

We had a strong third quarter, which featured healthy continued growth across our vertical industries segments, service offerings and geographies. Our third quarter reflects the results of several key company-wide strategic initiatives, which we laid out at the start of the year.

First, we are making the necessary investments to build truly distinctive capabilities in each of the markets that we serve.

Second, we continue to globalize, both on the supply and on the demand sides of our business.

Third, we are committed to maintaining an environment at Cognizant where the best talent in the world can thrive.

Finally, we are focused on building the infrastructure processes and intellectual capital to allow us to continue to scale the business.

The strongest drivers of our growth in the quarter were fueled by investments we have made recently to capture opportunities for future growth. Our third quarter performance also speaks to our track record of operational excellence. Our strong bottom line results during the quarter once again demonstrated our ability to quickly pull operating levers to offset macroeconomic pressures on our cost structure and maintain our operating margin targets.

Looking at our third quarter results in detail, we once again exceeded expectations generating $558.8 million in revenue, which represent an 8% sequential increase from the second quarter and an increase of 48% from the third quarter of 2006. GAAP EPS was $0.32 for the quarter compared to $0.27 last quarter, and $0.20 for the year ago quarter. These results are adjusted for the 2:1 stock split that we completed in October.

Our GAAP operating margin was 18.1%, and our non-GAAP operating margin, which excludes stock-based compensation expense, was 19.7% at the upper end of our target range of 19% to 20%.

Towards the end of the third quarter, Cognizant’s Board of Directors declared a 2:1 stock split on our capital stock in the form of a stock dividend. In addition, the Cognizant board of directors authorized a share repurchase program of up to $100 million of the company’s common stock over the next 12 months. This stock split recapitalization and share repurchase program underscored the board’s confidence in the fundamental of our business and the company’s future prospects.

Now, I’d like to discuss the drivers of our revenue growth. One of the most important growth drivers continues to be the deep industry sector expertise that distinguishes us from the competition. We continue to benefit from our investments in cultivating this expertise across an expanding range of industries, including life sciences, retail manufacturing and logistics and financial services.

During the quarter, the number of accounts that we consider to be strategic -- which means they have the potential to generate between $5 million and $40 million or more in annual revenue for Cognizant over the long term -- increased by five, bringing our total number of strategic clients to 102. As we have said in the past, we believe that the majority of our strategic accounts still have considerable growth potential and we expect these relationships will expand further as the needs of our customers evolve and as we continue to expand our range of solution offerings.

Growth in our healthcare business segment was driven by the strong momentum of our life sciences practice, where we continue to expand wallet share amongst the world’s top global pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Revenue from life sciences customers increased 16% sequentially, and 61% year over year. The accelerated growth in our life sciences practice came as a result of clients broadening their relationships with Cognizant to cover our full spectrum of service offerings in IT infrastructure services, BPO and consulting.

In addition, we are also starting to see a trend of increased adoption of the global delivery model by customers in the medical devices area. Our core knowledge of healthcare, life sciences and biotech is very applicable to the medical devices segment and gives us an advantage in that market. Today, we count amongst our customers most of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies and many of the top 10 biotech and medical devices companies.

Our recently announced intention to acquire marketRx will, among other dimensions, strengthen our presence in the life sciences industry. I will speak about marketRx in more detail in a few moments.

Our retail manufacturing and logistics practice also continues to perform well with 12% sequential revenue growth during the quarter, 56% growth year over year. The retail sector in particular continues to show significant potential as retailers continue to invest in systems and applications to be more competitive in the marketplace. Large retailers are looking to Cognizant to leverage the cost advantage and the broad capabilities that we bring to the table, both in the packaged and custom application areas. To address the increased demand, we have strengthened our retail consulting capabilities and built key partnerships with retail software product vendors.

Finally, I wanted to highlight the healthy growth we continue to see in financial services despite market concerns related to the sub-prime mortgage market. Revenue from financial services client 7% sequentially and 43% year over year. Over the last several years we have established a financial services market leadership position and we continue to win business across our well-diversified client base because of the depth and breadth of domain expertise that we bring to the world’s top banking financial services and insurance companies. While our financial services clients continue to manage through the sub-prime related issues, the impact on their spending with Cognizant to date has been insignificant. We will continue to monitor the situation in BFS in light of the situation emanating from the sub-prime mortgage market.

Another prominent driver of our third quarter performance was the strong return on our investments to expand and globalize the company, which was another key theme for the company in 2007. European revenues increased 24% sequentially and 92% year over year, compared to the third quarter of 2006. Our European clients now contribute approximately 17% of total company revenue, compared to about 13% in the same quarter of 2006. The significant increase in percent of revenues from Europe is a significant accomplishment for the company, given our goal of globalization.

Over the past several quarters, we’ve been expanding our geographic footprint in Europe as European companies have continued to aggressively adopt offshore strategies. More recently we have focused our investments in Europe on building out service offering capabilities in areas such as BPO, ERP, testing, infrastructure management and CRM. These investments are showing results.

For example, in the UK we have seen significant growth in testing services, especially in the BFS segment. To give you an illustration, over the past three months we have built a testing team of approximately 120 consultants for a leading financial services institution in the United Kingdom. Similarly, we are seeing demand in Europe for our advanced solutions practice, BPO, IT Infrastructure Services, ERP and CRM service lines.

As a consequence, we are making necessary investments to take advantage of this increased demand by building management and delivery teams for each of the service lines in Europe both on the continent and also in the UK.

The strong growth of our horizontal services was not limited only to Europe during the quarter. We saw strong growth during the quarter across our portfolio of horizontal services. Infrastructure management, testing, ERP and CRM all grew well in excess of the company average. Data warehousing and business intelligence grew 77% year over year or 16% sequentially and represents another strong example of our endeavor to establish distinctive capabilities in each of our service lines.

Our standing as a distinctive data warehousing and business intelligence service provider was further validated when we were recently awarded the Best of the Best Award from Computerworld Magazine at their 2007 Best Practices in Business Intelligence conference. Cognizant was recognized in the innovation and promise in business intelligence category for the work we did in the area of business intelligence as a service for one of our key clients. This is the third consecutive year in which Computer World has recognized Cognizant for our expertise in data warehousing and business intelligence.

Consistent with our acquisition strategy, we also recently announced our intention to strengthen our global life sciences BPO and analytic offerings with the acquisition of marketRx for $135 million in cash, which we expect to close during the fourth quarter. MarketRx is one of the largest and fastest-growing independent offshore analytics businesses providing services to global companies in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical devices market segments.

MarketRx has a unique delivery model comprised of high end knowledge processing outsourcing services delivered through an innovative, software-based platform. MarketRx is a high growth business that we expect will enable Cognizant to simultaneously accomplish several of the strategic objectives which I laid out earlier.

First, it will extend our position in providing value-added out sourcing services to life sciences biotechnology and medical devices companies. MarketRx expands our domain capabilities and broadens our service offerings to address all areas of the life sciences value chain, from research and development and manufacturing to sales and marketing operations, marketRx will bring an impressive client base to Cognizant, representing a total of 75 life sciences customers including all of the largest 20 pharmaceutical companies and four out of the top five biotech companies.

Secondly, we believe there is significant potential to cross sell marketRx analytic services offerings to clients in our other industry verticals, building on the success of our vertical BPO strategy. Finally, the addition of marketRx’s expertise represents a growth opportunity for Cognizant’s core technology services, since we expect to see synergies with our existing business intelligence and data warehousing and CRM services.

Before I comment on our outlook for the business going into 2008, it’s important to note that we achieved strong performance in the third quarter while continuing to execute on the process we outlined in the first quarter to address the macroeconomic challenges facing our industry.

Specifically, we followed through on our plan to increase utilization in order to offset Rupee appreciation, wage hikes and taxes over the course of the year. We delivered approximately 30 basis points of sequential margin expansion and our earnings results exceeded expectations as we further extend our track record of effectively managing our business while investing to further differentiate Cognizant in the eyes of our customers.

To accommodate our expectations for future growth, we added a net of 3,300 employees during the quarter bringing our total employee base to approximately 49,000 worldwide at the end of September. We also recently crossed an important milestone when we hired our 50,000th Cognizant associate.

We are on track to end the year with our previously stated goal of approximately 55,000 employees around the world, which underscores our commitment to investing in our people and infrastructure ahead of demand. Employee attrition decreased slightly from the second quarter to 16.7%, which represents a significant 370 basis point decline from the year ago quarter.

We are comfortable with the progress that we made in reducing our attrition rates through an innovative combination of engagement initiatives with our associates as we outline on previous earnings calls. As I said earlier, we remain committed to maintaining a environment at Cognizant in the world where the best talent can thrive.

During the quarter, we also continued to make progress on our previously announced infrastructure expansion program across India. In addition, once completed our acquisition of marketRx will enable us to expand Cognizant’s global delivery platform into northern India where marketRx has based its delivery operations in the New Delhi region.

Moving forward, we are confident that our rigorous customer centric focus will continue to drive demand for our services over the long term. An example of our commitment to collaborating with our clients is our customer conference, Cognizant Community. Last week we concluded our eighth annual event in North America and the largest to-date. The conference is significant for two reasons: first, attendance at this year’s community exceeded 300 with Cognizant customers representing 149 companies from every vertical industry we served.

The event enables us to strengthen our relationships with our clients and engage in substantive discussions about the common issues, challenges and opportunities that they face in their businesses and the role that outsourcing plays in helping them achieve their business objectives and ultimately strengthen their companies.

Secondly and of equal importance, Cognizant Community enables us to gain qualitative and quantitative insights into our customers initial IT spending plans for the year ahead. As part of Community, we conducted a formal survey to assess our clients’ budget plans and spending priorities for 2008. More than 150 community attendees -- CIOs, CEOs, VPs of IT and other senior decision makers -- responded to the survey representing a broad cross-section of Cognizant clients in banking, financial services, insurance, health care, life sciences, retail, manufacturing and the telecommunications verticals.

The survey yielded several illuminating data points. First, despite the uncertainty in the market about the economic outlook for 2008, 92% of our clients do not expect their overall IT budgets to decline going into 2008.

Second, we asked respondent to provide us with a view of the likely impact to their offshoring budgets in the event of a decline in overall IT budgets; only 19% of the respondents said that an overall IT budget reduction would meaningfully impact their offshore spending plans in 2008.

Thirdly, outsourcing budget growth is expected to outpace overall IT budget growth in 2008, with 90% of respondents citing continued growth in offshore development spending.

Finally, amongst the financial services customers that completed the survey, about 90% do not expect their IT outsourcing budgets to decline in 2008. On the whole, the survey gives us further confidence in the growth prospects for Cognizant in 2008.

Now, I will turn the call over to Gordon to walk you through our financial and operating results in greater detail.

Gordon Coburn

Thank you, Francisco and good morning to everyone. I would like to provide some additional information on the third quarter and then discuss our financial expectations for the remainder of the year. Revenue for the third quarter exceeded our prior guidance and expectations due to continued strength in Europe, strong year-over-year growth in our retail manufacturing and logistics segment, as well as health care, and all three of our industry verticals within our other business segment.

Quarterly revenue grew 8% sequentially and 48% year over year. As the quarter proceeded, we continued to see healthy volume growth across a broad range of services and industries. Our core businesses remain vibrant and our pipeline is robust.

During the quarter, our financial services segment, which includes our practices in insurance, banking and transaction processing, grew by almost $79 million year over year and represented 47% of revenue for the quarter. Health care grew $43 million and represented 23% of revenues. Retail manufacturing logistics grew by over $31 million representing approximately 15% of revenues for the quarter.

The remaining 15% of our revenues came primarily from other service-oriented industries of telecom, media and technology, which grew by almost $29 million compared to the third quarter of last year.

During the quarter, financial services grew 43% year over year and 7% sequentially. Health care grew 49% year over year and 10% sequentially. Retail manufacturing and logistics grew 56% year over year, and 12% sequentially. Growth in our retail manufacturing logistics segment was driven by several newer retail clients, which we have won and are now ramping up.

Our other business segment grew 54% year over year and 5% sequentially. Growth in the other segment benefited from strong growth in our information and media operation as well as technology and communications.

For the quarter, we saw healthy demand for our entire service offering. Application management represented 51% of revenues and application development was 49%. Both services continued to grow significantly in Q3. Application management grew 45% year over year and 6% sequentially. Application development grew 52% year over year and 11% sequentially due to strong discretionary spending during the quarter.

During the quarter, 82% of revenues came from clients in North America. Europe was approximately 17% of total revenue. The remaining 1% of revenue came from the Asian market. As Francisco mentioned, our European business grew 24% sequentially and 92% year over year as we continue to invest in that region.

We added approximately 55 new customers during the third quarter. We closed the quarter with active customer base of 445. During the quarter, the number of strategic accounts which we consider to have the potential to ramp up to at least $5 million or more than $50 million in annual revenue increased by five, bringing the total number of strategic clients to 102.

Turning to costs, on a GAAP basis, cost of revenues exclusive of depreciation and amortization increased 52% for the quarter, as compared to the third quarter of 2006. Third quarter cost of revenues included approximately $4.3 million of equity-based compensation expense.

The increase in cost of revenues was due to additional technical staff both onsite and offshore required to support our revenue growth as well as the impact of the strengthening Rupee and wage increases that were affected in the second quarter of this year. We increased our technical staff by 3,100 during the quarter and end of the quarter we were approximately 45,800 technical staff. This is a net increase of close to 13,600 technical staff from September 30, 2006.

Third quarter SG&A including depreciation and amortization expenses was $140.4 million on a GAAP basis up from $100.3 million in the third quarter of 2006. GAAP SG&A expense in Q3 of 2007 included roughly $4.8 million of equity-based compensation expense. As a percentage of revenue SG&A including depreciation and amortization expenses was down as we continue to leverage our scale efficiencies.

GAAP operating income for the quarter increased 47% to $101.1 million from $68.8 million in the third quarter of 2006. On a non-GAAP basis, which includes the impact of $9.2 million of equity-based compensation expense, operating income for the third quarter was $110.3 million, up almost 45% from last year. Our GAAP operating margin was 18.1% for the quarter and our non-GAAP operating margin for the quarter was 19.7%, in line with our target range of 19% to 20%.

During the quarter, operating income continued to be impacted by appreciation of the Indian Rupee. The average rate for the Rupee was approximately 40.4 in the third quarter versus 41.1 in the second quarter of 2007.

Interest income for the third quarter increased to $7.9 million compared to $4.8 million in the third quarter of 2006. Interest income increased due to higher global cash and short-term investment balances, as well as an increase in short-term interest rates. We had a $2.6 million foreign exchange gain during the quarter.

Our GAAP tax rate for the third quarter was 13.9%. During the quarter, we had a favorable settlement of certain tax uncertainties. In accordance with FIN 48, results of this settlement were required to be recognized as a discreet item during the quarter. Assuming no further discreet items for the remainder of the year, we expect our fourth quarter tax rate to be [16.4%], and our full year tax rate to be approximately 15.6%.

Turning to the balance sheet, our balance sheet remained healthy. We finished the quarter with over $809 million of cash and short-term investments, up over $273 million from September 30, 2006 and $99 million from June of this year. During the quarter, operating activities generated over $129 million of cash. Finance activities -- primarily the exercise of stock options and related tax benefits -- generated approximately $18 million of cash. These amounts were partially offset by almost $40 million in capital expenditures with the final [inaudible] of approximately $12 million related to our 2005 acquisition of Fathom Solutions.

In addition, we’ve generated approximately $2 million of cash due to currency translation adjustments. For 2007, we continue to expect to spend up to $180 million in capital expenditures, the substantial majority of which is related to the construction program and equipping of additional development facilities to support our growth as we had previously announced.

Our collection of trade receivables improved slightly from the third quarter of 2006. Based on our $428.5 million balance in September 30th, we finished the quarter with a DSO including unbilled receivables of 71 days, compared to 72 days for the same period last year. During the third quarter, excluding unbilled receivables our DSO was approximately 61 days. The quality of our receivables portfolio remained very strong.

Our unbilled receivables balance was approximately $56.4 million at the end of the third quarter, up almost $14 million or 32% from September 30, 2006, and up less than $2 million for Q2 of this year. Approximately 56% of our September 30th unbilled balance was billed in October.

During the third quarter, over 24% of our revenue came from fixed priced contracts, consistent with both the second quarter of this year and the third quarter of 2006. When we look at the mix by solution type during the third quarter, 30% of our development revenue and 18% of our maintenance revenue came from fixed priced contracts during the quarter.

Turning to headcount, at the end of the third quarter our worldwide headcount including both technical, professionals and support staff totaled approximately 48,900. This represents a net increase of 3,300 people during the quarter, and 14,500 since September 30, 2006. Approximately 70% of our Q3 hires were recent college graduates who will enter our training program, and the remainder were lateral hires of experienced IT professionals. During the fourth quarter, we expect to add a significant number of new employees including many recent college graduates who will be entering our training program.

Turnover, included both voluntary and involuntary, was slightly below 17% annualized during the third quarter. Third quarter attrition was over 300 basis points lower than our attrition in the third quarter of 2006. As discussed previously, we have launched a global initiative to ensure that our employees receive appropriate rewards, recognition and personal and professional growth opportunities across their entire life cycle with Cognizant. We believe this reduced attrition is a result of those efforts.

As we discussed in the second quarter, as part of our strategy to offset the impact of the appreciation of the Indian Rupee, we are increasing the company’s utilization levels due to scale economies and historically heavy over investment in bench resources, we were able to successfully further increase our utilization rates during the third quarter. Onsite utilization increased slightly to around 87% for the quarter. Offshore utilization excluding recent college graduates who are in our training program during the quarter, was approximately 68%. Including trainees, offshore utilization was approximately 58% for the quarter. We had close to 5,000 unbilled people in our training program at the end of the quarter, which positions us well from a staffing perspective as we enter 2008.

I’d now like to comment on our growth expectations for the remainder of the year. The investments we are making are producing results; they’re allowing us to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace both in terms of winning and growing clients and expanding our service offerings.

For the fourth quarter of 2007, we’re projecting revenue of $590 million to $595 million. As Francisco mentioned earlier, we are seeing very positive comments from our clients regarding the planned 2008 spend on offshore outsourcing. However, we are not seeing a year end budget flush as we experienced in the prior few years. We continue to have significant revenue visibility due to our high level of recurring revenue and long-term nature of our customer relationships. In fact, today we have customer commitments for far in excess of 90% of our fourth quarter revenue guidance.

For the full year 2007, based on the strong demand environment for offshore services and the favorable experience on ramp-up rates, we are pleased to increase our guidance to between $2.125 billion and $2.13 billion, a $15 million plus increase from our prior guidance given in early August. This revised guidance represents a growth of approximately 49% and an increase of over $700 million in revenue compared to 2006.

As has been typical in past years, we expect a majority of our growth for remainder of 2007 will come from the ramp-up of clients we have won over the past few years.

Assuming no further material appreciation of the Rupee, our guidance assumes that we will continue to be in the upper half of our targeted 19% to 20% non-GAAP before the impact of equity-based compensation range for the fourth quarter. With this expected level of revenue growth, and our expected operating margins, we are currently comfortable with our ability to delivering the fourth quarter GAAP EPS of $0.31 and non-GAAP EPS of $0.34 excluding equity compensation expense of approximately $0.03.

This guidance includes the anticipation of a Q4 share count of approximately 307 million shares, a tax rate of 16.4% and an operating margin in the upper half of our historical guidance range of 19% to 20% excluding the cost of equity compensation.

For the full year 2007, based on current business trends, we currently project GAAP EPS to be $1.14 and full year non-GAAP EPS to be $1.24, excluding equity compensation expense of appropriately $0.10. This guidance includes anticipation of a full year tax rate of 15.6%, a share count of approximately 304.7 million shares and an operating margin in the upper half of our guidance range.

Please note that our GAAP EPS guidance for the fourth quarter and full year assume no P&L impact from the recently enacted fringe benefit tax on the exercise of stock options in India. The accounting treatment for this new tax has yet to be finalized by the accounting industry.

In conclusion, we are very pleased with our strong growth in Q3 and are quite optimistic about our market position for the future. We believe that we understand the margin related issues currently facing the industry and that we have taken appropriate short-term and long-term actions to manage these issues while continuing to invest in long-term growth.

Now we would like to open the call for questions. Operator?

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

Your first question comes from Adam Frisch - UBS.

Adam Frisch - UBS

In reading the release, both of you went out of your way to speak very positively and favorably about the ‘08 growth outlook, which I found comforting. I am wondering how we should connect the dots between the slowdown we’ve seen through ‘07 and especially what we are seeing, and I know the year-over-year comps are tough in the fourth quarter but 3Q came in a little bit light as your stock is reflecting this morning. How do we connect the dots here in terms of the slowdown that we are seeing in ‘07? Does that continue into ‘08 or were there certain actions in the second half of the year, which don’t necessarily make them the right points to extrapolate next year’s growth trends on?

Francisco D’Souza

I think you have to look at a couple of things. When you look at the third quarter, the growth across our segments was actually quite healthy, as Gordon mentioned, healthcare grew 10% sequentially. Retail manufacturing and logistics grew 12% sequentially. Europe was very strong at 24% sequentially. Financial services grew 7% sequentially.

Now its interesting, if you parse out financial services a little bit, between financial services and insurance, what happened in the third quarter in financial services or our BFSI segment if you will, is that the financial services piece actually grew considerably faster than 7% and insurance actually grew slower than the 7%. We actually saw strength in the core financial services sector as well.

So overall if you look at the pieces of the business, they are all growing quite well in the third quarter. As you look out to the fourth quarter as Gordon said, what’s really going on there is that unlike in prior years, we are just not seeing the budget flush that we saw in prior fourth quarters.

Gordon Coburn

I think Francisco hit the key thing. If you look historically some fourth quarters we saw very nice sequential growth. Other fourth quarters were a little bit weaker due to customers not pulling projects or launching projects early. Clearly this year we aren’t not seeing that budget flush, but we also think that actually sets us up fairly well on a sequential basis for next year.

In our mind, the most important thing is what we’re hearing from our clients at this point despite some of the economic headwinds, clients are saying they want to keep increasing outsourcing in 2008. The big question, if you go back six, eight, ten weeks ago, was what did all of this credit crunch mean for the 2008 budgets? What we are hearing so far now that we have some quantitative data from our clients is we were hearing that some of the economic issues may yet turn out to be a positive factor for us.

Adam Frisch - UBS

Hitting the trend line topic, I appreciate your color there, but I think the critical point here now is the trend lines that we are seeing, especially in the fourth quarter of growth at the top end being around 40% and maybe a little bit slower; is that the kind of growth we should expect going forward? Can we actually see a rebound or somewhat of an acceleration as we head out of fourth quarter?

Gordon Coburn

Obviously the year-over-year comparable for the quarter is tough in the fourth quarter. We are not ready to give guidance for 2008 as we have done always in the past. We want to finish the planning cycle with our clients so when we put out numbers we will have a great deal of confidence in them. So a little too early to know exactly what the numbers will be for 2008 but certainly qualitatively, we are hearing quite positive things from our clients.

Adam Frisch - UBS

[Management] has slowed sequentially but development actually accelerated. So that’s also I guess that’s a positive sign in terms what your clients are thinking. Not what you would normally expect you get on negative expectations out there on macro spending.

Gordon Coburn

That was a pleasant surprise. In Q3 the discretionary spending was strong despite some of the macroeconomic activity. What that says is clients still want to get work done and to get it done they are moving it offshore.

Adam Frisch - UBS

Were there any company or more likely customer-specific issues in the quarter here where maybe a ramp-up didn’t happen as fast or someone decreased spending where that impacted the overall rate?

Gordon Coburn

A little bit there, but nothing that stands out.

Adam Frisch - UBS

The factors driving down the SG&A expense as percent of revenues, are these kind of things sustainable and should we expect this to continue in the future? Was it part of a utilization increase or was it a one-time thing in the third quarter?

Gordon Coburn

No. I do not view that as one time. Clearly, there are scale efficiencies in SG&A. Our goal is to continue to stay in that, excluding option expense, in the 19% to 20% margin range. We still have leverage we can pull if needed but as we have demonstrated in the third quarter, the levers that we pulled kicked in nicely and we’re feeling pretty good about our ability to match costs; so that is not at the top of our priorities to focus on.

Operator

Your next question comes from Moshe Katri - Cowen.

Moshe Katri - Cowen

The budget flush comment, is that coming out from any specific vertical or verticals and maybe top ten clients? Then also focusing on the budget cycle that’s going on right now, we are hearing that the decisions on ‘08 spending budgets have been pushed out from the typical, I don’t know, you guys typically hear about this towards the end of November and early December and now we’re talking about January. Is this something that you are hearing as well and will that impact funding for projects in Q1 of next year? Thanks.

Gordon Coburn

Well, let me take the first part of the question. Francisco will talk about the budgets. The question on the budget flush or lack of budget flush in any one industry, the answer is no. It’s across the board. It’s clearly not something that’s specific to financial services. When I look across all of our segments, it’s fairly consistent.

Francisco D’Souza

With respect to the budget cycle, Moshe, as I said, we’ve just come back from the customer conference. I didn’t hear anything although we didn’t specifically ask the question during the formal part of the survey. Nothing that I heard qualitatively tells me that budget cycles are getting elongated beyond the normal process. The normal process at clients is that you start to get some clarity in November and December but in reality most clients don’t lock down their budgets until the earlier and middle part of the first quarter, so nothing that I heard at the customer conference suggested that going to go longer than that.

Moshe Katri - Cowen

Gordon, can you comment on pricing during the quarter onsite versus offshore?

Gordon Coburn

Really no surprises there. Onsite sequentially, we were up a little bit. Offshore was flat but that’s more as BPO is ramping up so if you just took IT, we would have been up a little bit. So we were tracking right where we are planning on average realized rate up about 2% for the year.

Operator

Your next question comes from Anthony Miller - Arete.

Anthony Miller - Arete

I’m just interested in those statistics you gave from your customer forum when you said, 92% do not expect an overall IT budget to decline, 19% say budget reduction would may increase would not reduce offshore spending. For the 8% who do expect their overall IT budget to decline going into ‘08, what would characterize them? Where they in a particular industry sector? Were there particular pressures that are unique and similarly for those that said overall that IT reduction budget reduction would reduce offshore again, can you characterize why?

Gordon Coburn

We looked at that. It’s hard to draw conclusions. The reasons are all over the place. You have a few people for example, that might have had an unusually high investment year in 2007 and just naturally budgets will go down in 2008. I can think of a client or two that has done that. Then you just have some clients who look at things and say, given if our overall IT spending were to decline, that would have a proportionate impact on our offshore spending. That tends to be the more mature clients who have moved a substantial amount of their work offshore.

For the clients who are less mature with off shoring, you typically tend to find that a budget cut will incent them to move work offshore a little bit more aggressively. But when there isn’t that opportunity to do that because they’ve moved a lot of their work already offshore, then an across the board budget cut will have the impact of potentially reducing the spending both offshore as well.

That sort of ties if you will to comments we made earlier about our strategic customers and the number of customers that we think are mature in that they’ve moved significant portions of the work that they can move offshore. That number in our case is relatively low and that reflects in these statistics as well.

Anthony Miller - Arete

Did you run a similar survey this time last year? And if so how did the results compare?

Gordon Coburn

I know. We did not do a formal survey last year.

Operator

Your next question comes from Bryan Keane - Credit Suisse.

Bryan Keane - Credit Suisse

I’m just trying to understand, you are not seeing a budget flush at the end of this year but you feel confident about 2008. Why wouldn’t you be nervous about 2008 as the budget flush isn’t coming this year?

Gordon Coburn

I think it’s really based on what our clients are telling us. They are saying that this year they don’t have the extra money in their 2007 budget but as they are planning and starting to lock down their budgets or get further into the budget process for 2008, that part of the way they are making their budgets work for next year is to further leverage offshoring.

In prior years sometimes you would see people start a development project this year instead of wait to January 1, or try to finish one up earlier because people just had more dollars left over. What we’re hearing this year, they have stuff ready to go, but they have to wait for their new budget dollars to become available.

Bryan Keane - Credit Suisse

If you look at the revenue by geography, obviously Europe grew exponentially but North America didn’t grow quite as fast. I have it at about 5.6% sequentially; that’s slower than we’ve seen in the past. Was there anything in particular in North America that slowed the revenue sequentially?

Gordon Coburn

Really nothing. There was no one item. Nothing specific.

Bryan Keane - Credit Suisse

Finally, obviously we’re all going to be waiting for 2008 and beyond. I don’t know, Francisco, is there any kind of long-term growth rate or revenue growth rate you think the company can maintain over the next three years that we can kind of target?

Francisco D’Souza

What we’ve said in the past and what we continue to be comfortable with is that given the investments we’re making in the business that we can continue to grow the business faster than the industry and faster than our key competitors and I’m comfortable with that.

Bryan Keane - Credit Suisse

Any idea how fast the industry is supposed to grow next year?

Gordon Coburn

There are a lot of statistics out there and the industry will grow probably slower than our competitors. So that’s one that fleshes out as we go along. When we think about our strategy of keeping our margins a little bit lower than our competitors, which we’ve done for years and reinvesting that back into relationship management, the customer experience, domain expertise. We feel the best measure for ourselves and we hope the way investors think about measuring our strategy as successful is are we growing faster that our key competitors? That’s something on a full year basis obviously we have been doing for a while and based on what we see, we believe that will continue.

Operator

Your next question comes from Joseph Foresi - Janney Montgomery Scott.

Joseph Foresi - Janney Montgomery Scott

I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the change in methodology that we’re seeing involving guidance. Typically we see a number and then obviously a freeze associated with it. Is that just sort of a quarterly change? Or has there been a change in the thought process in giving guidance?

Gordon Coburn

That is really two things. One, because we had our client event last week, we released the earnings a couple days later than normal and therefore we have our October results in already so we have a better sense of where we are and we had a couple analysts who were getting fairly aggressive. So we wanted to make sure that people didn’t have unrealistic expectations for Q4. So we wanted to set more of a boundary for this quarter.

Obviously when you start a year and you have 11 months ahead of you, I would expect we’ll probably go back to our old language as we get into next year.

Joseph Foresi - Janney Montgomery Scott

A second question here, it sounds like what you’re seeing is less of a budget flush but you’re confident of spending toward next year. Assuming that it’s not the picture that you’re seeing right now, is there a way that you guys plan on maybe compensating for a potential slowdown and if so what are the areas of growth that you would target in order to continue to keep the business moving forward?

Because of our strategy of heavily reinvesting in the business, we are already investing in multiple areas at once, both service line expansion, geographic expansion, domain expertise. So I think we’ll continue that strategy. Obviously if there’s a major recession, that’s going to impact everyone. The good news is based on what clients are saying now, it seems fairly clear to us that cutting offshore is not going to be at the top of their list.

Joseph Foresi - Janney Montgomery Scott

Lastly, just curious as to what the impacts you’re expecting from the recent acquisition next quarter on the top line.

Gordon Coburn

For the fourth quarter, we expect marketRx to close as we get further into the latter part of the quarter. So the impact on Q4 will be fairly small and we have a small amount of revenue built in. Obviously we get the full impact for Q1.

Operator

Your next question comes from Ashish Thadhani - Gilford.

Ashish Thadhani - Gilford

Do you have anything more specific for marketRx on an annualized basis in terms of revenue, recent growth and profitability?

Gordon Coburn

Yes. On a full year basis marketRx will be a $40 million plus business in 2007. Profit margins excluding all of the purchase accounting stuff for 2008, we would expect it to be roughly in line with company average. It’s a business that’s obviously growing and we bought it not for any cost synergies, they already are a very efficiently-run business. We think there are some meaningful revenue synergies that we would certainly hope to capture as we go into 2008.

Ashish Thadhani - Gilford

There has been some talk of salary moderation attributed to Cognizant management. Could you elaborate on your expectations for next year?

Gordon Coburn

Obviously, we don’t give our salary increases until April. How much we give will depend largely on what other tier one players give, because we certainly will make sure that we’re competitive with our tier one players, but we certainly will not be seeking to gain any advantage there. We’re hopeful that wage increases in 2008 will be less than 2007, but a little too early to know for sure as we get into the first quarter, we should start to probably get a better flavor on that.

Operator

Your next question comes from Ed Caso - Wachovia Capital Markets.

Ed Caso - Wachovia Capital Markets

Any initial thoughts on the tax rate for 2008?

Francisco D’Souza

Ed, did you say 2008 or 2009?

Ed Caso - Wachovia Capital Markets

2008.

Gordon Coburn

2008, I would not expect any material change from the 16.4%. So this year, full year will be 15.6%, because we had one timers, but on excluding the one timers, we are at 16.4% for this year. So, certainly my model for next year, I’m assuming, will be around 16.4% again. I am sure it will be a little less or a little more, but that would be our best guess.

Ed Caso - Wachovia Capital Markets

I didn’t hear it if you did, your top account percentage of revenue?

Gordon Coburn

The top five customers in the third quarter represented 24% of revenue, and the top ten customers represented 34% of revenue. Each of those were down 1 percentage point from the second quarter, which is a trend that obviously has been going on for a long time as the size of our customer base grows.

Ed Caso - Wachovia Capital Markets

One last one on the H1B, as I see this legislative proposal to maybe push up the fee to $5,000 per application from $1,500. I don’t know if you knew where that stood and how important are the H1Bs and are you changing the way the model works and maybe address some of the tightness in H1B market.

Gordon Coburn

Certainly, our business model has enabled us to do more and more US based hiring as we get bigger, so we don’t have the utilization risks. So, we continue to increase our US hiring. Certainly, it is important to leverage the visa programs to bring over where the specific skill sets that we can’t find here as well as some of the knowledge of the onsite offshore model. Obviously, we prefer the fees don’t go up, but given the size of our corporation I’m not sure if the fees goes up a little bit it won’t materially change anything.

Operator

Your next question comes from George Price - Stifel Nicolaus.

George Price - Stifel Nicolaus

Just going back to the comments on the financial services vertical and you noted Frank, that insurance was actually the slower growing component as opposed to the other financial services area that people might be more concerned about. Why did insurance grow slower? Did something happen at a particularly large client, or can you give us a little bit more color around that?

Francisco D’Souza

We obviously looked into that in detail. There’s nothing really specifically going there. We just look at that as the ups and downs in the business. Insurance, as you know, has been growing very well for us over a long period of time now. The insurance segment is one where we have a very good position in the marketplace. So, I wouldn’t attribute that at this point to anything beyond just the ups and downs of the business.

George Price - Stifel Nicolaus

When you’re talking about budgets, flattish budgets looking into next year overall, do you have an overall view on this year? Where I’m going with the question is, just based on what you maybe saw this year for your view of what overall budgets did this year, even if they are still going to be flattish and maybe up a little bit, the growth is probably going to be down say from this year and I’m just trying to understand the confidence in that, you lose that multiplier effect even given the offshore component maybe increasing within those budgets.

Gordon Coburn

Just to be clear on the survey for next year, we are 92% of the clients said budget is not declining, but that doesn’t mean they are all flat. So, we would expect that overall IT budgets are growing a little bit for next year. How much compared to this year? Our sense is that becomes more of a rounding error. I’m not sure there are any dramatically different trends that we’re ever seeing at this point.

George Price - Stifel Nicolaus

Gordon, did you say 304.7 million shares for the fourth quarter.

Gordon Coburn

Our guidance is based for the full year 304.7 million, for the fourth quarter 307 million.

Operator

Your final question comes from Julio Quinteros - Goldman Sachs.

Julio Quinteros - Goldman Sachs

The 2008 outlook, maybe approaching it a little bit differently from more of a bottoms up perspective. If we look at headcount growth for 2007, right now we’re looking for about 42% headcount growth to finish the year of 55,000. Thinking about that into 2008 from a utilization perspective, or pricing perspective, and the levers that normally drive this business, why would we not see kind of the normal trend that we’ve seen over the last two or three years where headcount growth is one of the most important leading indicators that we have for revenue growth into ‘08?

Gordon Coburn

Sure. That’s an important question. For a couple years, Julio, we’re trying to take utilization down. We actually grew headcount faster than revenue. Now, we’re taking utilization up a bit. As we’ve gotten scale efficiencies, we came to understand that we were sub-optimized a little bit running as low a utilization as we did. So we’ve come up several points this year. I would expect we’ll go up a little bit more next year even if the Rupee doesn’t move just because it’s the right thing to do operationally. So, I think that’s driven by some the natural scale efficiencies in utilization. We’ll be coming out of the year with a very healthy bench of freshers who are in the training program and obviously, we do as much lateral hiring as we need.

Julio Quinteros - Goldman Sachs

So if your headcount growth finishes in the 42% range, utilization is going up, pricing is probably flat to up next year as well. It would seem like anything below a 40% growth rate would be a little bit conservative, or am I thinking about that incorrectly?

Gordon Coburn

We haven’t given guidance for next year, and it all depends on how much lateral hiring we do. But as Francisco and I said, we are certainly hearing positive things from our customers.

Julio Quinteros - Goldman Sachs

Let me try for a different perspective. On the key competitors Satyam, TCS, Infosys on average are expected to grow about 30% next year. Some of these guys are double the size that you guys have. Does seems like a sustainable growth rate at least for the next 12 months for the key competitors of the industry?

Gordon Coburn

Let me be clear, we would certainly expect to grow faster than our key competitors. We don’t see that we’re about to fall off a cliff by any stretch of the imagination based on what we know today.

Julio Quinteros - Goldman Sachs

Finally on the margins, the gross margin sequentially it looked like it was down from where you were last quarter, typically June is the trough. Can you just give us the kind of the breakdown of what drove the gross margins from June into September, on a basis point perspective if possible?

Gordon Coburn

The big piece of that is because the efficiency action primarily utilization really kicked in and we’re getting the benefit from it. We are sharing that with our employees through higher bonuses. So, we took our bonus accruals up in the third quarter. We committed to our employees to do it, if they could generate the [inaudible].

Julio Quinteros - Goldman Sachs

The Rupee, we know what that did. Anything else? I think you mentioned D&A as well, was there anything with D&A, no, that’s actually out of that line. Okay.

Gordon Coburn

The Rupee wasn’t that. It was the Rupee a little bit, actually the Rupee and the bonuses, those are the two.

Operator

I’d like to turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.

Francisco D’Souza

Thank you very much, everyone again for joining us on the call today. In conclusion I just would like to say that we’re pleased with our strong financial performance during the third quarter. Moving forward, we continue to closely manage the business model to generate long-term value for our shareholders while investing in further differentiating Cognizant in the eyes our customers.

We’re confident that our focused investment strategy and our ability to capitalize on the most strategic opportunity for future growth will continue to translate into strong financial and operating results. We look forward to talking to you again next quarter. Thank you.

[spaceistheplace]

Cognizant’s Growth Will Come From Europe
posted on: November 08, 2007 | about stocks: CTSH / INFY

Cognizant’s (CTSH) 45,500 employees provide global IT and business process outsourcing services, including in financial services (up 49% YoY), healthcare (up 62% YoY), and retail/manufacturing/logistics (48% YoY). With a 62% YoY growth, the question is will Cognizant maintain its speed into Q4, especially with the current market jitters?

Q2 revenue posted at $516.5 million, up 53% YoY to Q2 in 2006, and up 12.2% quarterly ($460.3 million in Q1). Top 10 client revenue grew 11%, and total clients reached 430 (97 strategic). US revenue equals 84%, Europe is 15%, and 1% from Asia. Based on the above, Q3 guidance is $550 million (45% YoY). Cognizant will hit the $2 Billion annual revenue mark this year.

The Indian IT outsourcer reported third quarter revenue of $558.8 million, and with EPS of 32 cents GAAP, 34 cents non-GAAP. The Street had expected $556.4 million, 29 cents and 34 cents. But for the fourth quarter, the company sees revenue of $590 million to $595 million, which is below the consensus of $597.6 million. Cognizant sees EPS for the quarter of 31 cents GAAP, 34 cents non-GAAP, in line with expectations. The softer Q4 guidance has sent the stock tumbling down almost 20%, offering an excellent buying opportunity.

Company cash is approximately $750 million. And Cognizant has already authorized a $100 million buyback of shares. At the same time, the company is sinking another $100 million into its domestic infrastructure.

Operating margins are at 18% versus Infosys (INFY)’s 27%. But this is attributed to funneling more dollars into marketing and growth initiatives. Cognizant can later improve profits by bringing down spending to equal competitors’. Employee attrition equaled 17% and utilization was 85% onshore and 56% offshore due to a large number of trainees, increasing operating costs.

2006 investment in global expansion has paid off and sustains Cognizant so far. Demand was diversified with Europe growing the fastest. Representing a 15% share, Europe grew 84% in Q2 versus Q1 in 2006. Expansion also included new centers in South America and China.

Cognizant is trying to develop new service areas to hedge against sole reliance on finance and healthcare, announcing in October it would be acquiring MarketRX, Inc., for $135 million to obtain analytics and related software for life sciences markets and customers. Cognizant already had a leadership position in supporting pharmaceuticals, with life science revenues growing 88% in 2006. MarketRX adds 75 life science clients, including all of the 20 top pharmaceuticals and 4 of the 5 top biotech companies pushing Cognizant further ahead in the vertical.

Previous acquisitions included Fathom Solutions to strengthen telecommunications capabilities. The gambit paid off with a 73% revenue increase YoY versus 2006. The integration of Fathom gave Cognizant a full-service approach in telecommunications that starts with evaluation consulting and ends with providing outsourced BPO services.

The stock trades at about 40 times its earnings estimate with a $9.5 billion market cap. However, the company is exposed to the current credit worries given its financial services business concentration (47% of revenues). This panic dropped the share price by 19% at the time it had hit the market.

Proponents argue that companies will always seek outsourcing support, as evidenced by the spike in European business for Cognizant. Meanwhile, Cognizant needs to keep buying those Rosetta Stone licenses, to churn out multi-lingual magicians if major bets continue to be on Europe to sustain rapid growth. Latin America would be another strong opportunity to pursue.

The stock is a reasonable growth buy at $30-32/share. What brought Cognizant’s shares down again is a lackluster Q4 guidance which doesn’t seem tragic at all.

[clearasil]

sehr vernünftige Darstellung.
Für Ctsh dürfte noch genug Platz auf der Welt sein, um Geld zu verdienen.
Ich hoffe, du hast einen guten Panikpunkt erwischt, ich war leider zu früh. So what.

gruß c

[spaceistheplace]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 32.341.152 von clearasil am 08.11.07 14:41:40

So what
Hörst Du Miles Davis? So What eines der genialen Stücke von ihm....

Gruss space

[spaceistheplace]

ganz netter Bericht aus Seeking Alpha zu CTSH. Da kommen eh z.T. gute statements auf dieser Seite.

Gruss space

Jefferies Bullish on Cognizant In Nearly Any Scenario
posted on: November 19, 2007 | about stocks: CTSH

Jefferies is out with a very nice call on Cognizant Tech (NASDAQ:CTSH) saying that with it trading well below its growth rate (for the first time!), they see upside to CTSH relative to almost any scenario for 2008.

According to Jeffco, CTSH has grown faster than any leading player in offshore IT; they expect this trend to continue. At the same time, they recognize that given its size, combined with accelerating growth through much of last year, y/y comparables and the law of large numbers are in play here.

Also, given recent turmoil in the financial services sector (45% of CTSH revs), it is reasonable to assume that 2008 could experience some softness in demand, or at the very least that 2008 could get off to a slower start than we have witnessed in previous years. They have assumed a slowdown in overall growth next year from 50% to 34%, based on a combination of conservatism and current size of the business. This growth rate relative to current valuation is compelling, in Jeffco's view.

Additionally they believe that 2008 guidance when it is released should be a catalyst to the stock. Even if guidance comes in below consensus, the firm feels that current valuation would suggest a sigh of relief for the stock, providing an upside catalyst. Reiterate Buy and $50 target.

Notablecalls: CTSH got hit pretty badly couple of weeks ago after not offering investors the usual wide beat & raise quarter they have grown accustomed to over the past years. This was seen as the first sign of trouble about to hit the offshore IT services sector.

Must say it's hard to argue with this, with the whole sector leveraged to the US financial services space. Yet even if we don't see the 40%+ growth rates in the financial side over the next year or two (or possibly never), the stock still looks interesting here.

The wording of the call is likely strong enough to create some reasonably good buy interest over the next couple of days. I would not be surprised to see CTSH up 1-2 bucks in the short term.

[clearasil]

den wollte ich auch gerade reinstellen.

Endlich mal was positives und realistisches vom Markt für ctsh.

Ruhigbleiben!!

gruß c.

[Pontiuspilatus]

Ruhigbleiben!!

glaubs mir clearasil hier ist niemand im geringsten nervös

abwarten und tee drinken. ctsh hat nach unten bis ca 20 platz.
eine halbierung kommt bei dem besten unternehmen mal vor

[clearasil]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 32.555.720 von Pontiuspilatus am 25.11.07 12:02:14

ich will mach aber nicht halbieren.

bin ich voll dagegen.

[Pontiuspilatus]

ich will mach aber nicht halbieren

musst du ja nicht. das macht ctsh evtl. für dich

bin ich voll dagegen

ich auch aber die börse dürfte das recht wenig interssieren.

[Zelle35]

Hi, bin eher durch Zufall auf die Aktie aufmerksam geworden, vielleicht kann mir ja mal einer kurz ne Zusammenfassung zu geben. Ansonsten wälz ich mich durch:
Analysten sind ja durchweg positiv gestimmt, hier noch ne neue Einschätzung:

http://www.finanznachrichten.de/nachrichten-2007-11/artikel-…

Die 30 USD scheint ja vorerst zu halten

[spaceistheplace]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 32.676.939 von Zelle35 am 05.12.07 20:33:13

lies hier die ersten postings mal durch,. da steht schon einiges drin,

Gruss space

[spaceistheplace]

Cognizant To Buy Back $100 Million More In Shares12-6-07 4:39 PM EST | E-mail Article | Print Article

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. (CTSH) on Thursday said its board authorized the company to purchase an additional $100 million of stock.
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The Teaneck, N.J., information technology and business process outsourcing services company said the authorization expands the company's share repurchase program to $200 million.

As of Dec. 5, Cognizant has repurchased about 3.1 million shares for $95.4 million at an average price of $30.90 a share.

Separately, Cognizant said John Fox, 65 years old, was elected to its board, effective Thursday.

With Fox's election, Cognizant's board now consists of seven directors, five of whom are independent.

-Geoffrey Rogow; 201-938-5400; [e-mail]

[spaceistheplace]

das dürfte CTSH heute auf die Beine helfen....
Die Aktie hat sich in diesen tagen eh rel. gut gehalten


18.12.2007 11:04
Merck Selects Cognizant as Strategic Partner

TEANECK, New Jersey, December 18 /PRNewswire/ --

- New Global, 3-Year Relationship Spans Cognizant's Full Suite of Services in IT, Infrastructure Management and Business Process Outsourcing Services

Cognizant (News) (Nasdaq: CTSH), a leading provider of global IT and business process outsourcing services, announced today a multi-year, multi-million dollar engagement with Merck&Co. (News/Aktienkurs) (NYSE: MRK), a global research-driven pharmaceutical company.

Cognizant will extend its existing relationship with Merck, dating back to 2005, to become a key technology partner and provide a full suite of services encompassing applications outsourcing, IT infrastructure management and business process outsourcing services.

"Over the past two years, Merck has leveraged Cognizant's extensive pharmaceutical expertise to streamline operational efficiencies and to consolidate our IT portfolio," said Rich Branton, vice president Global Technology Solutions, Merck&Co. "We selected Cognizant as our ongoing strategic partner for the full suite of IT services as a result of our previous engagements and Cognizant's deep domain experience and leadership position in our space."

"With Cognizant's expertise in the Healthcare and Life Sciences industry, we are proud to be chosen by Merck as a trusted IT partner to deliver services globally for them," said Francisco D'Souza, president and CEO of Cognizant. "Our ability to integrate applications, infrastructure and business processes, coupled with our global delivery model, enables us to provide Merck with a strong platform for its global transformational initiatives."

About Cognizant

Cognizant (Nasdaq: CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting and business process outsourcing services. Cognizant's single-minded passion is to dedicate our global technology and innovation know-how, our industry expertise and worldwide resources to working together with clients to make their businesses stronger. With more than 35 global delivery centers and over 54,000 employees, we combine a unique onsite/offshore delivery model infused by a distinct culture of customer satisfaction. A member of the NASDAQ-100 Index and S&P 500 Index, Cognizant is a Forbes Global 2000 company and is ranked among the top information technology companies in BusinessWeek's Info Tech 100, Hot Growth and Top 50 Performers listings. Visit us online at www.cognizant.com.

This press release includes statements which may constitute forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, the accuracy of which are necessarily subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions as to future events that may not prove to be accurate. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied include general economic conditions and the factors discussed in our most recent Form 10-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Cognizant undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

Web site: http://www.cognizant.com

[spaceistheplace]

hier noch eion weiterer interessanter Artikel:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/56885-indian-outsourcing-qua…

[Larry.Livingston]

Das Outsourcing boomt bekomme ich (leider) hautnah mit. Wenn ich mir so meine Contacts ansehe habe ich fast nur noch mit Indern zu tun.

[Pontiuspilatus]

zwar schwach aber dennoch relative stärke gegen den markt. Absoluter langfristprofiteur noch lange anhaltender megatrend. zahlen usw sowieso über jeden zweifel erhaben.
bietet sich zum aufstocken an. mit 20er kgv in anbetracht des wachstums auch nicht mehr wirklich teuer

[Pontiuspilatus]

[Larry.Livingston]

Cognizant Technology Solutions

Unsere für dieses IT-Dienstleistungsunternehmen ausgesprochene unbedingte Kaufempfehlung gründet sich auf die Bewertung und unsere positiven Prognosen des Umsatzwachstums. Der Ausblick für 2008 ist zwar weniger klar als in früheren Jahren, wir sind jedoch nach wie vor überzeugt, dass das Unternehmen seine Wettbewerber in Sachen Umsatzentwicklung überflügeln wird. Aufgrund der Langfristigkeit seiner Verträge ist der Umsatzausblick von Cognizant Technology Solutions nach unserer Auffassung typischerweise transparent.

Für das Jahr 2008 haben wir unsere Wachstumsprognosen von 38 auf 30 Prozent gesenkt, da wir für das laufende Jahr skeptischer gegenüber dem Informationstechnologiesektor gestimmt sind (Volumen der IT-Ausgaben von Unternehmen, insbesondere im Finanzsektor).

Nach einer Umfrage des IT-Marktforschungsinstituts IDC wird zwischen 2006 und 2011 mit einem durchschnittlichen jährlichen Wachstum der weltweiten Ausgaben für IT-Dienstleistungen von 5,8 Prozent gerechnet. IDC prognostiziert mehrere wachstumsstarke Bereiche, darunter die Auslagerung zentraler Geschäftsprozesse (mit einem Zuwachs von 10,5 Prozent) sowie die Netzwerkberatung und -integration (mit 7,8 Prozent). Daneben erwartet IDC zwischen 2006 und 2011 ein Wachstum der Ausgaben für Beratungsdienstleistungen von durchschnittlich 5,6 Prozent pro Jahr.

Nach unserer Einschätzung gelang Cognizant der erfolgreiche Vorstoß in wachstumsstarke Bereiche wie Medien, neue Technologien und Telekommunikation bei gleichzeitiger Wahrung seiner Margen in einem schwierigen Umfeld. Für 2008 rechnen wir mit einem Gewinnanstieg auf 1,48 Dollar je Aktie gegenüber geschätzten 1,14 Dollar für 2007.

Zur Ermittlung unseres Zwölfmonats-Kursziels zogen wir ein branchendurchschnittliches dynamisches KGV heran, das dem 1,04fachen der von uns für das Geschäftsjahr 2008 geschätzten Gewinne entspricht, wobei wir von einem Dreijahreswachstum von 26 Prozent ausgehen. Bei diesem Niveau läge die Aktie mit einem KGV auf Basis der für 2008 prognostizierten Gewinne von 27 im Wettbewerbsvergleich weit vorn.

Risiken für unsere Kaufempfehlung und unser Kursziel sehen wir unter anderem in einem zunehmenden Wettbewerb beim Offshore-Outsourcing und dem daraus resultierenden Margendruck, in höheren Gehältern für indische Angestellte, in der anhaltenden Aufwertung der indischen Rupie sowie in Zuwanderungsbeschränkungen.

Aus:

http://www.faz.net/s/RubF3F7C1F630AE4F8D8326AC2A80BDBBDE/Doc…

[spaceistheplace]

Mein SL bei 32 hats gerissen vor ein paar tagen. Ich gehe bei solch spek. Investments jetzt auf Nummer Sicher. Verlust rd. 10%, fertig aus.
Bedenkt, dass CTSH 50% seiner Umsätze durch Aufträge aus der Finanzbranche macht...

Gruss space

[Pontiuspilatus]

Bedenkt, dass CTSH 50% seiner Umsätze durch Aufträge aus der Finanzbranche macht..

umso besser. da die nun besondersw sparen muss wird sich das outsourcing in dem bereich eher beschleunigen

[Pontiuspilatus]

Stock Screen: Sitting Pretty
Standard & Poor's latest list reveals 14 top-ranked outfits, including Microsoft, Aflac, and eBay

by Beth Piskora From Standard & Poor's Equity Research
Investing

* The Economy: Five Signposts to Recovery
* Questions for Citigroup's Former Chief
* Stocks Trade Mixed
* Tech Earnings Have Investors on Edge
* MoneyGram Rescue Plan At Risk

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In this week's screen, we searched for stocks with a 5-STARS (strong buy) ranking and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0%, erasing risks associated with the volatile interest rate environment and allowing them to focus exclusively on their core business.

After we ran the screen, 14 names emerged. Three are featured here.
American Capital Strategies

We expect this asset manager's rapid portfolio growth to help operating income increase more than 40% in 2007, followed by a 36% gain in 2008.

We expect the company to continue its transition to an alternative asset manager by introducing new funds utilizing capital of its own and from outside investors. We anticipate this will have a positive effect on both American Capital's (ACAS) asset management and fee income and its dividend income.

We have a positive fundamental outlook for the asset management and custody banks. Year-over-year comparisons will likely be more difficult in 2008, given the strong earnings growth the group experienced in 2007, but we anticipate continued inflows to equity and fixed-income funds, as well as asset appreciation. We think an ongoing shift toward higher-margin equity and global products will boost profits.

We have a favorable view of American Capital's share of the middle market, relationships with private equity sponsors, and its impressive track record of returning capital to shareholders. We like the company's plan to grow its external asset management business, given predictable management fee income and net profit participation, and we believe the size of its investment portfolio and origination platform will allow it to create and structure favorable external asset management transactions.

Risks to our recommendation and target price include potential credit deterioration, increased competition for new investments, and the illiquid nature of American Capital's investments. Our 12-month target price of $51 is equal to 1.3 times our 2008 projected net asset value. A recent dividend policy change allows the company to use retained long-term capital gains for distribution, lending additional security to its dividend payout, in our view. We believe the firm's forecasted dividend of $4.19 for 2008 makes the stock attractive from a total return standpoint.
Cognizant Technology Solutions

Our strong buy recommendation is based on valuation and our favorable projections for revenue growth. Although we think the outlook in 2008 is less clear than usual, we still think Cognizant Technology (CTSH) will outpace peers in terms of revenue performance. Due to the long-term nature of its contracts, we think Cognizant's revenue outlook is typically transparent.

For 2008, we lowered our growth expectation to 30%, from 38%, as we are concerned about the 2008 information technology (IT) spending budgets of companies, particularly in the financial sector.

According to a survey by IDC (IDC), a provider of IT data, spending on IT services worldwide is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 5.8% between 2006 and 2011. IDC expects there to be pockets of strength, including growth of 10.5% in key business outsourcing and 7.8% in network consulting and integration. Additionally, IDC looks for consulting-services spending to increase 5.6% annually between 2006 and 2011.

We believe Cognizant has done a good job of moving into high-growth areas, such as media, new technology, and telecommunications, and maintaining its margins despite challenges. We expect earnings to climb to $1.48 a share in 2008 from an estimated $1.14 in 2007.

To arrive at our 12-month target price, we used a peer-average price-earnings to growth ratio of 1.04 times our 2008 earnings estimate, assuming an expected three-year growth rate of 26%. At that level, the stock's p-e would be a peer-premium 27 times our 2008 earnings estimate.
Page

[spaceistheplace]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 33.077.267 von Pontiuspilatus am 17.01.08 08:28:25

umso besser. da die nun besondersw sparen muss wird sich das outsourcing in dem bereich eher beschleunigen

ich sehe das eher anders herum, kein geld, keine Investitionen. Diese werden erst wieder anspringen, wenn die Finanzbranche ein Ende des Tunnels sieht, das dürfte aber aktuell noch nicht der fall sein.

Gruss space

[Larry.Livingston]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 33.077.267 von Pontiuspilatus am 17.01.08 08:28:25

Bedenkt, dass CTSH 50% seiner Umsätze durch Aufträge aus der Finanzbranche macht..
Ich kann 100% bestätigen das der Trend zu Indern in der Branche ungebrochen ist. Ich habe eigentlich nur noch mit Indern zu tun. Da deren Englisch stellenweise extrem mies ist beschleicht mich schon so langsam das Gefühl früher oder später doch noch Hindi lernen zu müssen. Grrr.
Spitzenreiter sind hier JP Morgan, UBS, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, ABN Amro und MacQuarie. Als große Ausnahme sind hier die Franzosen zu nennen, die haben gar nichts ausgelagert. Noch nicht. ...

[spaceistheplace]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 33.077.477 von Larry.Livingston am 17.01.08 08:51:34

ein Rückgang des Outsourcings wäre ja für CTSH auch ein Katastrophe, es werden eben geringere Zuwächse in 2008 sein als in der Vergangenheit, das wird eingepreist.

Gruss space

[Pontiuspilatus]

ich sehe das eher anders herum, kein geld, keine Investitionen. Diese werden erst wieder anspringen, wenn die Finanzbranche ein Ende des Tunnels sieht, das dürfte aber aktuell noch nicht der fall sein.

das sind doch keine investitionen sondern eine vermin derung der kostenbasis.

100% wird die verstärkte sparneigung der finanzindustrie den trend eher beschleunigen.

im übrigen haben die banken geld in rauhen mengen. 18 milliarden wurden bei der C in diesem quartal abgeschrieben. der verlust betrug aber "nur" 10 milliarden der rest ist der operative gewinn

abschreibungen mögen bilanzrelationen verschlechtern deswegen kapitalaufnahmen usw. solange sich eine bank dadurch aber nicht das genick bricht ist das langfristig unproblematisch.

sobald die abschreibungen durch sind (und früher oder später ist das der fall) wird bspw. die C gewinne zwischen 25 und 30 milliarden p.a präsentieren. kannst dir ja mal die bewertung ausrechnen

momentan sind die kurse durch ausergewöhliche nicht ewig andauernde umstände extrem gedrückt. Wenn man davon ausgeht das die welt nicht untergeht muss man dereit banken kaufen.

unabhängig davon wird der trend zum outsourcing in jedem fall anhalten.

ctsh ist schuldenfrei hat super kennzshlen und notiert bei kgv 17 bei doppelt so hohem wachstum. wenn sich bodenbildung andeutet nachkaufen. zum verkaufen ists zu spät ...

[spaceistheplace]

saubere Zahlen von CTSH! Nachbörslich 13% hoch.

Gruss space

Cognizant Expects to Beat 2008 Forecasts
Thursday February 7, 4:54 pm ET
Cognizant Expects to Meet 1Q, Beat 2008 Profit Forecasts; Revenue Seen As Topping Street View

TEANECK, N.J. (AP) -- Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. said Thursday it expects to meet Wall Street's first-quarter profit forecast and beat analysts' full-year outlook.

The technology and business process outsourcing provider said it expects to earn 32 cents per share on revenue of at least $640 million in the first quarter. Excluding adjustments, the company predicted earnings of 36 cents per share

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Analysts also had been predicting the company would earn 32 cents per share, but forecast revenue of only $594 million, on average, according to a survey by Thomson Financial.

For the full year, Cognizant said it expects to earn $1.50 per share, or $1.67 before adjustments, and at least $2.95 in revenue.

Analysts predicted 2008 earnings of $1.47 per share on revenue of $2.87 billion, according to Thomson.

"Based on the demand environment and the strength of our growth platform, we believe that Cognizant will continue to outpace our overall market in 2008 and deliver value to our shareholders," President and Chief Executive Francisco D'Souza said in a statement.

Shares of Cognizant, which also reported a 39 percent jump in fourth-quarter profit, jumped $2.87, or 10.5 percent, to $30.15 in after-hours trading. The stock fell 2 cents during the regular session.

[spaceistheplace]

Hier noch mal auf Deutsch. Also der Ausblick ist phantastisch, eigentlich das gegenteil vom Ausblick bei den letzten zahlen, wo die Aktie um 20% zusammengebröselt ist. Jetzt werden 1,67 Dolar erwartet für 2008, die Banalysten schreiben was von 1,47 laut marketwatch. Ich denke mal, die 13% nachbörslicher Aufschlag werden heute sicherlich bestätigt.

Gruss space

Cognizant: Gewinn steigt um 39 Prozent
Freitag, 08.02.2008 09:10

TEANECK - Der amerikanische IT-Outsourcing-Spezialist Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp (Nasdaq: CTSH, WKN: 915272) kann im vergangenen vierten Quartal 2007 mit einem kräftigen Gewinnzuwachs glänzen. Gleichzeitig erwartet das Unternehmen einen positiven Geschäftsverlauf in 2008 und geht davon aus, die Markterwartungen auch in 2008 übertreffen zu können.

So berichtet Cognizant von einem Umsatzanstieg auf 600 Mio. US-Dollar, nach Einnahmen von 424,4 Mio. Dollar im Jahr vorher. Der Nettogewinn kletterte um 39 Prozent auf 96,3 Mio. US-Dollar oder 32 US-Cent je Aktie, nach einem Plus von 69,5 Mio. Dollar oder 23 US-Cent je Aktie im Vorjahr. Damit konnte Cognizant die Markterwartungen spürbar übertreffen. Analysten hatten im Vorfeld nur mit Einnahmen von 594 Mio. Dollar sowie mit einem Nettogewinn von 31 US-Cent je Aktie kalkuliert.

Besonders stark entwickelte sich im jüngsten Quartal das Geschäft in Europa. Hier kletterten die Umsätze um 89 Prozent, erklärt Cognizant-Chef Francisco D`Souza.

Click here to find out more!

Für das somit abgeschlossene Gesamtjahr 2007 meldet Cognizant einen Umsatzanstieg auf 2,14 Mrd. Dollar, nach Einnahmen von 1,42 Mrd. Dollar im Jahr vorher. Der Nettogewinn kletterte auf Jahressicht auf 350,1 Mio. Dollar oder 1,15 Dollar je Aktie, nach einem Plus von 232,8 Mio. Dollar oder 77 US-Cent je Aktie im Jahr vorher.

Auch für das laufende erste Quartal bzw. für das laufende Gesamtjahr 2008 gibt sich Cognizant weiter zuversichtlich. Für das laufende erste Quartal erwartet Cognizant einen Umsatz von 640 Mio. Dollar sowie einen Nettogewinn von 36 US-Cent je Aktie. Für das laufende Gesamtjahr 2008 rechnet Cognizant mit Einnahmen von mindestens 2,95 Mrd. Dollar sowie mit einem Gewinn von 1,50 Dollar je Aktie. Ausgenommen außergewöhnlicher Sonderbelastungen soll sich der Nettogewinn sogar auf 1,67 Dollar je Aktie summieren, heißt es bei Cognizant. (ami)

[Pontiuspilatus]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 33.308.280 von spaceistheplace am 08.02.08 13:07:19

ich sag doch schon die ganze zeit das gemäß logischen kausalzusamenhangs schwächeres wirtschaftswachstum in usa, eu für csts ein beschleunigtes wachstum bedeutet.

Man sieht das sehr schön an den jüngsten zahlen.

die aktie geb ich so schnell nicht her. bewertungsaufschlag ist inzwischen abgebaut und starkes wachstum geht weiter.

[clearasil]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 33.311.014 von Pontiuspilatus am 08.02.08 16:24:47

Diese Reaktion war auch echt überfällig. Scheiß Sippenhaftung.

[clearasil]

interessanter artikel

http://seekingalpha.com/article/64035-cognizant-strong-resul…

[geccos]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 33.331.466 von clearasil am 11.02.08 16:16:26

hab hier auch noch etwas neues zu cognizant, sind auf jedenfall nicht mehr teuer

http://www.it-times.de/news/nachricht/datum/2008/03/11/astra…

[spaceistheplace]

Hallo zusammen,

I'm back on board bei WO. Ich kann es eben nicht lassen....Die Favoriten von mir haben sich auch nicht geändert seit meiner 5-monatigen Abstinenz an der Börse. Ich wüsste auch nicht, was sich grundsätzlich an diesen Unternehmen groß geändert haben sollte, Krise hin oder her....

Ich habe wieder ein bisschen flüssige Mittel dazu bekommen, leider in rel. bescheidenem Rahmen gegenüber meinem Ausstieg vor rd. 5 Monaten, aber egal. Jedenfalls habe ich nix groß falsch mit dem Ausstieg.

Ich habe vor in nächster Zeit wieder die eine oder andere Aktie zu kaufen, aktuell aber eher noch nicht. Die aktuelle Lage sieht für mich gefühlsmässig eher so aus, dass es noch weiter runter gehen wird. Ich werde die Lage sich erst mal beruhigen lassen bzw. ne Bodenbildung abwarten, auch auf die Gefahr hin, dass ich etwas höher einsteigen muss. Bis zum Jahresende ist ja noch ein wenig Zeit, jedoch hält mich das nicht davon ab, vielleicht noch länger zu warten.

In der jetzigen Situation halte ich es jedenfalls für angebracht, nur in große Blue Chips anzulegen mit solider Dividende und rel. gut laufendem aktuellen Geschäft.

Ich poste hier, damit der Thread nicht einschläft und werde mich gegebenfalls einbringen, wenn ich es für notwendig erachte. Die "Versorgung" mit news hier werde ich aber so nicht mehr wie gewohnt durchführen, allein schon wegen Zeitmangels.
Vornehmlich werde ich aber im Gewinnerthread " Gewinnerbranchen der Jahre 2006 bis 2040" posten.

Gruss space

[spaceistheplace]

Hallo,

ist von Euch noch jemand investiert in CTSH?
Sie haben sich jedenfalls gutr gehalten in diesem Jahr, bewertungsmässig absolut nicht mehr teuer, sollten sie mit rd. 20% weiter wachsen...
Bin aber nicht mehr auf dem Laufenden...

Gruss space

[spaceistheplace]

21.10.2008 12:02
T-Systems and Cognizant to Develop Business-Critical CRM and Enterprise Business Intelligence Systems for Deutsche Telekom

BONN, Germany and TEANECK, N.J., Oct. 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Deutsche Telekom's enterprise customer division, T-Systems, and global IT services provider, Cognizant (News), today announced that they will develop business-critical customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise business intelligence systems for Deutsche Telekom. (News/Aktienkurs) The two companies will leverage their CRM and data warehousing and business intelligence strengths to plan, design and implement an integrated customer database for Deutsche Telekom and a new portal for sales partners. Deutsche Telekom plans to roll out these modern systems in a phased manner--initially in Germany, and subsequently, worldwide.

Dr. Steffen Roehn, CIO of T-Mobile International and Director of Information Technology at T-Mobile Deutschland, said: "Deutsche Telekom wants to be the leading telecom services provider in the industry. To ensure this, the key is to continuously modernize our IT infrastructure which we are doing by leveraging T-Systems' deep industry expertise and Cognizant's global delivery management capabilities."

Dr. Ferri Abolhassan, Head of Systems Integration at T-Systems, said: "The CRM systems that will be built over the next three years are strategically important for the entire Deutsche Telekom group. These next generation CRM and business intelligence systems will bring about noticeable improvements in the service levels to end customers. Both Cognizant and T-Systems are delighted to have been chosen as partners for this strategic program, which clearly highlights the growing momentum of this unique system integration alliance."

The integrated customer database will make customer information available more quickly, thereby helping the call center employees of Telekom Shop to provide seamless customer service throughout Germany. The Deutsche Telekom Group's sales partner portal--which will replace the systems currently used at T-Home and T-Mobile--will provide the Group's sales partners with a consolidated and unified system that will modernize the ordering process for retailers, call centers and alternative sales units. It will also enable them to provide their customers with more customized products and services resulting in enhanced user experience.

"These systems will help drive the strategic and operational decisions at Deutsche Telekom, thereby enabling the Company to optimize its business processes, enhance its customer and supplier relationships and experience, drive costs down and increase the value added services," said Santosh Thomas, Vice President and Head of Continental European Operations at Cognizant. "Our complementary capabilities of deep industry expertise, scale of operations, and market-leading global delivery platform provide Deutsche Telekom a unique value proposition of local knowledge coupled global reach and expertise."

About T-Systems

T-Systems is Deutsche Telekom's business customer brand. Approximately 160,000 companies and public institutions use the provider's network-centric information and communications technology (ICT) services--ranging from data center operations and global services based on the Internet Protocol, to the development and management of applications. With locations in over 20 countries, T-Systems is a preferred supplier for European corporations' global business activities. The company, based in Frankfurt/Main, Germany, serves all industries and is a leading provider for the automotive and telecommunications industries as well as the public sector. With approximately 56,500 employees, T-Systems posted revenue of EUR 12 billion in 2007.

About Cognizant

Cognizant is a leading provider of information technology, consulting and business process outsourcing services. Cognizant's single-minded passion is to dedicate our global technology and innovation know-how, our industry expertise and worldwide resources to working together with clients to make their businesses stronger. With more than 40 global delivery centers and over 59,000 employees as of June 30, 2008, we combine a unique onsite/offshore delivery model infused by a distinct culture of customer satisfaction. A member of the NASDAQ-100 Index and S&P 500 Index, Cognizant is a Forbes Global 2000 company and a member of the Fortune 1000 and is ranked among the top information technology companies in BusinessWeek's Hot Growth and Top 50 Performers listings. Visit us online at http://www.cognizant.com/.

Cognizant Forward-Looking Statement

This press release includes statements which may constitute forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, the accuracy of which are necessarily subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions as to future events that may not prove to be accurate. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied include general economic conditions and the factors discussed in Cognizant's most recent Form 10-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Cognizant undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

[spaceistheplace]

Cognizant Reports Third Quarter 2008 Results

http://www.finanznachrichten.de/nachrichten-2008-11/12256179…

[spaceistheplace]

Cognizant posts increase in third-quarter profit
By Michelle Donley
Last update: 7:16 a.m. EST Nov. 5, 2008
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. said Wednesday that its third-quarter profit rose to $112.8 million, or 38 cents a share, from $96.2 million, or 32 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. Adjusted to exclude items, earnings were 40 cents a share. On average, analysts polled by FactSet Research were expecting a profit of 37 cents a share. Revenue for the quarter totaled $735 million compared to $559 million. The Teaneck, N.J., business process outsourcing services company said that it expects 2008 profit of at least $1.45 a share, and $1.61 a share on an adjusted basis, on revenue of at least $2.81 billion. End of Story

[spaceistheplace]

Habe gerade gekauft.

[spaceistheplace]

Cognizant: Inexpensive, Even in a Pessimistic Scenario
by: Ashish R. Thadhani November 07, 2008 | about stocks: CTSH
Ashish R. Thadhani
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Excerpts from Gilford Securities analyst Ashish R. Thadhani's recent note to clients on Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTSH):

• • •

Investment Conclusion. Based on reassessment of IT spending plans amid the ongoing global financial crisis and economic downturn – cushioned by recent rupee depreciation – we are revising our estimates as follows: 2008 GAAP diluted EPS to $1.45 on revenue of $2.811 billion (32% YoY growth) from $1.44 also on revenue of $2.811 billion); 2009 GAAP diluted EPS to $1.60 on revenue of $3.103 billion (10% YoY growth) from $1.80 on revenue of $3.621 billion; and 2010 GAAP diluted EPS to $1.75 on revenue of $3.723 billion (20% YoY growth) from $2.10 on revenue of $4.617 billion. Our model conservatively assumes subdued or no QoQ revenue growth in the next three quarters.

To reflect prevailing sentiment, we are also resetting our target price from $44 to $30. In 12-months, this would correspond to 15-20x forward EPS – a premium to the current depressed valuation.

These aggressive cuts enable us to accentuate 1) an upward bias to our estimates; and 2) inexpensive valuation of 13x forward EPS. We are reaffirming our Buy rating on the basis of industry-leading revenue and EPS growth in calendar 2007-09E, backed by substantial margin flexibility. The long-term outlook remains encouraging given recent competitive wins and a healthy pipeline. Cognizant is well positioned to participate in M&A integration, risk management, regulatory compliance and cost reduction initiatives in the Financial Services segment.

3Q08 Results. GAAP diluted EPS of $0.38 vs. $0.32 a year ago on revenue of $734.7 million beat our $0.37 estimate on revenue of $723.1 million. Results included a non-operating foreign exchange loss ($14.8 million or -4.2 cent EPS impact) – offset by recent rupee depreciation (+2.1 cents) and a lower-than-projected stock-based payout (+1.9 cents). Operating income advanced 41% YoY. Highlights included 31% YoY and 7.2% QoQ revenue growth. In recent weeks, Cognizant has announced new/expanded client agreements with Deutsche Telekom, AstraZeneca and Health Net ($100 million TCV).

Takeaways. Revenue outpaced peers but was adversely impacted by weak European currencies and a lower contribution from a top-5 Healthcare client. For the second straight quarter, Cognizant posted better-than-overall growth in the Financial Services segment (+31% YoY and +8% QoQ). Areas of strength included the Healthcare vertical (+34% YoY and +6% QoQ growth) and European region (up 54% YoY and 4% QoQ to 20% of total revenue). Meanwhile, revenue in the U.S. region rose 26% YoY and 8% QoQ. Operating profitability benefited from 5.1% QoQ rupee depreciation and higher utilization – mitigated by an annual salary increase for offshore employees (effective July). Management noted:

- The 4Q revenue outlook incorporates fewer working days and slow project starts in anticipation of late budget approvals in 2009, i.e., potentially in March vs. January usually.

- Direct exposure to impacted Financial Services clients – IndyMac, Lehman, WaMu, Wachovia, Bear Stearns and HBOS – is limited to 5% of total revenue with work ongoing and not likely to end abruptly.

- Shifting demand toward Application Management, BPO and Infrastructure Management services.

- The latter two recorded double-digit QoQ growth but still account for only 5-10% of total revenue.

- Good price discipline by all major players.

- Client engagement at a more strategic level, i.e., in the role of a trusted partner vs. mere vendor. Investments in relationship management that hold particular relevance in the current environment, e.g., Cognizant boasts 700 client partners, 70+ executives focused on strategic opportunities, an advanced solutions practice and 1,700 business consultants.

Revenue from Application Management services advanced 36% YoY and 8% QoQ to 53% of the total. Revenue from discretionary Application Development & Integration projects rose 26% YoY and 6% QoQ to 47% of the total. Operating income of $142.6 million (19.4% margin) surpassed our $126.5 million estimate (17.5% margin). Available levers for countering wage and currency pressures comprise offshore utilization and scale/SG&A efficiencies, i.e., rental, communications, marketing and back-office savings.

Hourly price realizations appear to have been stable QoQ at approximately $72-73 for onsite work (25% of billable workforce) and $24-25 for offshore (75%). Excluding 4,400 non-billable trainees, offshore utilization stood at 72% vs. 68% a year ago and should rise throughout 2008. Worldwide headcount rose just 0.3% QoQ and 22% YoY to 59,500 in September. Attrition deteriorated to 17.6% from 17.0% a year ago and is attributed to the spike that usually follows annual salary hikes. Cognizant has elected not to disclose hiring plans in order to retain flexibility on such decisions. In the short term, we do not expect significant headcount growth – reflecting a more appropriately sized offshore bench that should neither compromise revenue upside, nor client requirements.

By industry, Financial Services ranked largest (46% of total revenue), followed by Healthcare (24%), Retail/Manufacturing/Logistics (16%) and Technology/Other (14%). Top-10 clients accounted for 29.7% of revenue, down from 31.0% in the June quarter. Cognizant added 63 new clients compared with 63 in the immediately prior period. It exited the quarter with an active roster of 550, up from 520 in June. Out of 124 strategic clients – those offering annual revenue potential of $5-50+ million – most still remain only 20-30% penetrated.

Cognizant posted CFFO of $140 million or $0.47 per share in the quarter. Proceeds from exercise of options amounted to $10 million. Major outflows comprised stock repurchases ($28 million) and capital expenditures ($61 million), budgeted to climb from $182 million in 2007 to somewhat less than the $250 million originally planned for 2008. Cognizant exited the quarter with net cash of $734.2 million, up from $686.3 million on June 30. Accounts and unbilled receivables improved to 73 DSOs from 77 in June.

CTSH shares are suitable for aggressive investors. In our opinion, principal risks include: U.S. slowdown; rising offshore salaries; appreciation of the Indian currency, which would translate into higher expenses; correction in the Indian and/or U.S. markets; and political opposition.