Vijayakumar explained that HCL Tech added as many as 2,700-plus employees in Q4 and that, “The headcount addition should not come as a surprise, because we had a good growth of 5.4 per cent (for FY24) in the current environment….”

And as far as FY25 is concerned, he added a proviso saying that much will depend on how the year pans out. However, having said that, he added that so far, the company has planned “…at least 10,000 freshers to be hired during this year.”

Regarding the company’s growth path, Vijayakumar said that HCL Tech is keen on acquisitions in semiconductor, automotive, and of platforms that drive strong annuity revenues or geographies such as Japan, he told PTI in an interview.

On artificial intelligence, Vijayakumar said generative AI opportunities are what it is eyeing, and he expects as many as 50,000 people will be fully trained this year itself. Adding to the feelgood factor, Vijayakumar said, were areas like cyber security, data, cloud migration and building private AI stacks, all catalysed by GenAI are showing a good traction.

And what are the areas that need to be looked after closely? He said, “Financial services will have some headwinds now, because we’ve had a stellar growth for two years in financial services, significantly ahead of industry. So financial services will have these dynamics, but all other verticals will grow.”

On the very important US market, Vijayakumar said that it accounts for 64 per cent of the company’s revenue and the company is very positive about the outlook. “We’ve done very well. We’ve done 6.8 per cent growth in the US market and it continues to be a very strong geography,” he added