(By Balaseshan) iGATE Corp. (NASDAQ: IGTE) reported a jump in quarterly earnings on lower expenses. Despite revenue missing consensus, adjusted earnings exceeded Street's expectations.
Earnings for the fourth quarter were $24.61 million or $0.31 per share, up from $8.17 million or $0.11 per share last year. Adjusted earnings per share (EPS) rose to $0.47 from $0.27.
Revenue increased 1.4% to $271.58 million.
Analysts, on average, polled by Thomson Reuters had expected a profit of $0.39 per share on revenue of $272.14 million for the fourth quarter.
In the third quarter, iGATE posted adjusted EPS of $0.46 on revenue of $28.3 million.
Gross margin for the fourth quarter increased to 40.6% from 40.3%. The company ended the fourth quarter with 27,554 employees.
Selling, general and administrative expense rose 2% to $43.43 million, while depreciation and amortization expense fell 29.8% to $9.62 million. Tax expense decreased to $6.59 million from $16.90 million.
"I am happy that we achieved high earnings growth in 2012. I am also pleased with the increased acceptance of our iTOPS model among our customers and prospects with a large chunk of our customer pipeline and recent wins coming from our outcomes-based proposition," said Phaneesh Murthy, Chief Executive Officer of iGATE.
Shares of the IT services company traded 5.25 percent higher at $17.03 on Thursday. The stock has been trading between $14.67 and $19.97 for the past 52 weeks.