The Chief Financial Officer of Software major Infosys Technologies, Mr. V. Balakrishnan said that the company has achieved 18.41% growth in consolidated net profits. The Net Profit for the quarter stood at Rs 11,000 million for the second quarter ended Sep. 30, 2007. The numbers were higher by 18.4% compared to the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

The earnings per share increased to Rs 19.26 from Rs 16.75 in the previous year’s quarter. The company declared an interim dividend of 120% or Rs 6 per share on face value Rs 5 each.

The company added 48 new clients and 4,530 employees during the quarter and told that now the employee strength has been extended up to 80,501.

For the next quarter the company expects total income to be in the range of Rs 4,238 to 4,258 million, growing at 16%, with an EPS of Rs 20.11 having growth of 14%.

Mr. R. Ravi, Research Analyst at Karvy Stock Broking said that the margin expansion has been good in this quarter and direction is practical in view of rupee-dollar appreciation.

On the other side, Mr. Surjit Bhalla, MD of O(x)US research and investments said that this is not the only sector which is showing weakness against rupee appreciation. Mr. Bhalla added that expectations are always higher from technology major like Infosys.