L&T Technology Services (LTTS) anticipates a decline in net hiring numbers in the coming years, driven by increasing automation and productivity improvements, Amit Chadha, CEO & MD told FE.
“If we look at it year-on-year, our headcount has been flat, but we have grown 9% in rupee terms. Going forward next year, you can expect growth to be there, but the number of people we hire will be lower on a net basis because we are being able to leverage automation,” Chadha said.
Despite this, Chadha assured that the company would continue hiring as required to support its growth trajectory. For the financial year 2026, LTTS plans to add about 2,000 freshers, the same as FY25.
“CY25 will be better than CY24. So, FY26 should be better than FY25. Our pipeline is healthy and bigger than where it was the same time last year. Deal closures are happening,” Chadha said.
He was speaking after the company declared its December quarter earnings. In the October-December quarter, the company’s headcount fell 233 sequentially to 23,465. And the attrition rose marginally by 10 bps to 14.4%.
LTTS reported a rise in both revenue and profit aided by strong performance in its technology and sustainability verticals.
Consolidated revenue increased by 3.1% quarter-over-quarter to Rs 2,653 crore. Meanwhile, the net profit rose nearly 10% sequentially to Rs 322.4 crore.
Further, the operating margin rose 80 bps quarter-on-quarter to 15.9%. This was achieved despite a 100-basis-point impact from employee increments, Chadha said.
The highlight of the quarter was the significant number of large deals closed, making it the company’s “highest ever large deal bookings”. “This is the highest amount of net new TCV deals we have closed so far in large deals,” he added.
The company said the highest ever deal booking TCV was aided by eight large deals across segments – one $50 million, two $35 million, two $25 million, and three $10 million deals.
“The large deal pipeline has seen robust addition on the back of engagements with customers on both new age product and platform development and business transformation,” he said.
Moreover, the company recorded sequential revenue increases in its tech and sustainability sectors by 9.8% and 3.1%, respectively. However, revenue from its largest sector, mobility, fell by 7.1% for the quarter ending December.
Chadha highlighted that the challenges in mobility were primarily due to furloughs and issues in the automotive sector. However, he said that the segment would rebound in the coming quarters, driven by growth in areas such as aerospace, rail, and other related orders.
In terms of geographical performance, Europe and India reported growth in constant currency terms, while North America saw a marginal decline.
On the technology front, LTTS is heavily investing in artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI. The company has filed 174 patents and is working on domain-specific AI models, reference architectures, and smaller language models.