Cognizant surpasses $500 million from SMAC

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Cognizant Technology Solutions exceeded its revenue target of $500 million from Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) for 2013. With over 25 percent of users' online spending time on social networking sites, company are interacting through these media and using it for brand building.

According to the Cognizant, if the company meets its guidance, it will hit $10.3 billion in the current calendar year, which is also its fiscal year. Revenue for the current quarter ending March 31, will be at least $2.42 billion.

"The Q4 results were in line with consensus (we expected to be above) and 2014 guidance was lower than the Street, albeit, likely viewed as conservative. Growth was primarily driven by financial services and healthcare," Baird Equity Research said in a note.

However, Rivals, including Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro, are also focussing a lot on SMAC and Big Data. UB Pravin Rao, President and Member of the Board, Infosys, said the company won over 20 engagements in cloud and big data. Clients are excited about the possibilities of ‘contestability' and open standards, which help eliminate vendor lock-in and maximise performance.

Jennifer S. Hamel, research analyst with Technology Business Research, said that for Cognizant, client demand for SMAC solutions has shifted over the past two years from smaller pilot projects to deeper integration into enterprises' IT environments.