For a 30 per cent annual growth, the company will have to generate revenues of around Rs 325 crore in the second half -- which means 28 per cent over the second half of the previous year.

Considering that the second half has historically been better for NIIT, it is unlikely that the company will fail to achieve this. In fact, it would not be surprising if the topline growth surpasses the target by a substantial margin.

The first half is generally a lean period as far as the education and training business is concerned. However, as the company has pointed out, performance was bolstered by the execution of several contracts in e-commerce, ERP implementation and software solutions projects.

The global business mix has tilted in favour of softwaredevelopment which now accounts for almost 54 per cent of total revenues.

Revenues from software development are generally not subject to the kind of cyclical fluctuations as those from educations & training.

The rising contribution of software revenues should, therefore, also help to reduce the cyclicality associated with NIIT's earnings.

The management has also been concentrating on corporate training programmes to help do away with seasonal fluctuations in earnings.

In the current half, while the software & multimedia operations are likely to continue growing, it is the education & training division that can be expected to really drive overall earnings.

With the higher earnings will come improved margins. Operating margins, which had dipped in the first quarter, have already staged a quick recovery and for the half year ended March, there has been a marginal improvement to 18.63 per cent.

The real improvement has, however, been in cash margins which have risen from 14.79 per cent to 17.25 percent. This has resulted from the 56 per cent fall in interest outgo to Rs 3.96 crore.

Despite higher provisions for depreciation and tax, net profit has grown by 71.75 per cent to Rs 28.51 crore and net margins have improved from 8.07 per cent to 10.52 per cent.

Overall, one might say, NIIT is likely to remain a steady performer at least for the next two quarters.