US-based IT major Cognizant, which has a substantial number of employees in India, on Wednesday reported a better-than-expected growth with its revenue rising 7.3 per cent year-over-year to $5,415 million for the quarter ended September 2025.
Illustration: Dado Ruvic/Reuters
In the last quarter, the company had guided its third-quarter revenue to be between $5.27-5.35 billion.
Cognizant – which follows a January-December financial year– had earned a revenue of $5,044 million in Q3 2024.
The Nasdaq-listed IT services firm raised the lower end of its full-year revenue growth forecast, pegging it at $21.05-21.10 billion, as against $20.7-21.1 billion earlier.
Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar S said this marks the company’s fifth consecutive quarter of year-over-year organic revenue growth, and its strongest sequential organic growth since 2022.
“We maintained our large deal momentum, signing six large deals in the quarter, bringing our year-to-date total to 16, with 40 per cent growth in large deal TCV (Total Contract Value) year-to-date compared to the same period last year.
“We believe our three vector AI builder strategy is gaining traction and we expect our early investments in AI-led platforms and IP on the edge will help power growth in the years ahead,” he said.
Cognizant’s third-quarter bookings included six deals of TCV $100 million or higher.
The company added 6,000 employees during the July-September period, bringing its total headcount to 349,800 at the end of the quarter.
Jatin Dalal, chief financial officer, said the company observed broad-based growth across segments and geographies, including noteworthy performance in North America.
“We have increased our full-year revenue guidance to 6-6.3 per cent year-over-year constant currency growth, above our prior range and deployed $1 billion through share repurchases through Q3, underscoring our confidence in our growth strategy,” he said.
The company repurchased 6.3 million shares for $450 million during the third quarter under its share repurchase program.
As of September 30, 2025, there was $2.2 billion remaining under the share repurchase authorisation.
In October 2025, the company declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.31 per share for shareholders of record on November 18, 2025.
This dividend will be payable on November 26, 2025.
