Mumbai, Jan. 15: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) beat street expectations to post a 45 per cent jump in consolidated net profit at Rs 1,116 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2006. It has become the first domestic IT firm to clock $1 billion in revenues during a single quarter.

TCS said while total revenue at Rs 4,873 crore was up 40.72 per cent compared with the same period last year, the growth was 8.42 per cent on a sequential basis. Analysts were expecting TCS to post a net profit of over Rs 1,050 crore.

The company performed well despite challenging conditions, including a depreciating rupee. There were, however, other positive factors. Even as the client addition during the period was good, TCS said it won several multi-million deals during the period.

S. Ramadorai, CEO and MD of TCS, said, “We’ve had another quarter of exceptional performance. TCS has become the first Indian IT company to clock $1 billion in revenues in a single quarter, and has crossed the $3-billion-mark in the first three quarters alone. This shows that TCS’s full-services model is delivering sustained profitable growth quarter-on-quarter in the midst of a dynamic operating environment.”

N. Chandrasekaran, global head of sales and operations, said during the quarter, TCS delivered on the order pipeline and it closed five deals of over $50 million. “Our full services model is in high gear and our large accounts are engaging us for new services in significant deals,” he added.

There was a gross addition of 7,835 (net 5,562) employees during the quarter. The company said in India, there were 2,478 campus hires and 4,015 lateral hires. Moreover, TCS continued to maintain the lowest attrition rate in the industry at 10.8 per cent. At the end of the third quarter, the total employee strength of the company was 83,500.

TCS has won a core banking deal with a Chinese bank apart from a multi-year application development and support contract for $90 million with Australia’s leading airline.