I welcome the members to the 42nd annual general meeting. Hope all of you are safe and in good health. This meeting is being held through video conference in accordance with the circular issued by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and SEBI. We have the requisite quorum present through video conference to conduct the proceedings of the meeting. participation of members through video conference is being reckoned for the purpose of quorum as per the circular issued by MCA and Section 103 of the Companies Act, 2013. The quorum being present, I call this meeting to order. Before we start the main proceedings of the meeting, I request my colleagues on the video conference introduce themselves. Salil?
Good afternoon. I'm Salil Parekh. I'm the Managing Director and CEO of Infosys, joining in from Bengaluru.
Sundaram?
Good afternoon. This is Sundaram, speaking from Bombay. I'm the Lead Independent Director and also the Chairperson of the NRC and Risk Management Committee. Thank you.
Bobby?
Good afternoon, I'm Bobby Parikh, Independent Director and Chairperson of the Audit Committee. I'm joining in from Mumbai.
Michael?
Good evening, good morning, good afternoon. This is Michael Gibbs. I'm joining as an Independent Director from Houston, Texas.
Chitra?
Hello, good evening. I'm Chitra Nayak, Independent Director and Chairperson of the ESG Committee, joining in from Bangalore.
Govind?
Hi, this is Govind Iyer. Good evening. I am an Independent Director and Chairperson of the CSR Committee, joining in from Bombay.
Hélène?
Hi, good evening. I'm Hélène Auriol Potier, Independent Director, joining in from France.
Nilanjan?
Hi, good evening. I'm Nilanjan Roy, CFO, joining in from Bangalore.
Manikantha?
Hi, good evening. I am Manikantha, joining from Bangalore, Company Secretary.
Apart from them, we also have key executives and senior management joining from their respective locations. Statutory auditors and secretarial auditors have also joined this meeting. I now request Manikantha, our Company Secretary, to provide general instructions to the members regarding participation in this meeting.
Hi, good evening, everyone. Members may note that this Annual General Meeting is being held through video conferencing in accordance with the Companies Act, 2013 and circulars issued by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and SEBI. The facility for joining this meeting through video conference or other audio visual means is made available for the members on a first come, first served basis. The company has also provided a webcast facility to view the live proceedings of this meeting on the company's website. The register of directors and key managerial personnel, the register of contracts and arrangements, and other documents mentioned in the AGM notice have been made available electronically for the inspection during the AGM. Members seeking to inspect any of these documents can send their requests to investors@infosys.com.
As the AGM is being held through video conferencing, the facility for appointment of proxies was not applicable, hence, the proxy register for inspection is not available. The company has received requests from a few members to register them as speakers at this meeting. Accordingly, the floor will be open for these members to ask questions or express their views. We will facilitate this session once the chairman opens the floor for questions and answers. Members can also post their views or questions on the Ask a Question tab on their video conference screens before 4:30 P.M. IST. It may be noted that the company reserves the right to limit the number of members asking questions, depending upon availability of the time at this AGM.
The company has provided the facility to cast votes electronically on all resolutions set forth in the notice. Members who have not cast their votes yet electronically and who are participating in this meeting will have an opportunity to cast their votes during the meeting through the e-voting system provided by NSDL. Members can click on the Vote tab on the video conference screen to make use of this facility. Members are requested to refer to the instructions provided in the notice or appearing on the video conference page for a seamless participation through video conference and also for voting. In case members face any difficulty, they may reach out on the helpline numbers. Members may note that this AGM is being recorded. Please do not disclose any sensitive personal information or personally identifiable information belonging to you or any other persons that has no bearing on this meeting. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mani. The company has taken all feasible efforts under the current circumstances to enable members to participate through video conference and vote at the AGM. I thank all the members, colleagues on the board, auditors, and the management team for joining this meeting over video conference. Dear shareholders, welcome to the 42nd Annual General Meeting of Infosys. We gather again virtually to discuss the progress made in the year gone past, it is a pleasure to host you. On behalf of the Infosys Board of Directors, I thank you for making the time to join us today and for your continued support over the years. Fiscal 2023 has been a year of strong overall growth, 15.4% in constant currency, delivering $18.2 billion in revenues.
Operating margin for the year remained healthy at 21%, and we generated $2.5 billion in free cash flows. Our digital business continued to expand and makes up 62.2% of our total revenue. We grew in double digits across most industry segments and across major geographic markets, 26% in Europe and 12% in the U.S. We had 95 large deals valued at $9.8 billion for the year, of which 40% was net new. This promises a solid foundation to grow and build resilience in the months to come. For fiscal 2023, the board has recommended a final dividend of INR 17.50 per share.
Together with the interim dividend of INR 16.50 per share already paid, the total dividend per share for FY 2023 amounts to INR 34, which is a 9.7% increase over FY 2022. With this, the company has announced a total dividend of approximately INR 14,200 crores for FY 2023. The company has completed the open market share buyback on February 13th, with average price of approximately INR 1,539 per share, compared to the maximum buyback price of INR 1,850 per share. Including the recent completed buyback and final dividend for FY 2023, the company has returned approximately 86% of free cash flow to shareholders over four years, starting FY 2020.
The shareholders at the 41st AGM, held on June 25, 2022, reappointed Salil Parekh as CEO and MD, effective July 1, 2022, till March 31, 2027. Salil is effectively steering Infosys towards growth and continued relevance through the changing economic macro environment. He has successfully institutionalized the One Infosys approach to position our company to work with clients, both for their long-ranging digital transformation and for cost efficiency and resilience programs that are of vital importance to them to thrive in the near term. The shareholders also approved the appointment of Govind Iyer as an independent director, effective January 12, 2023, for a term of five years till January 11, 2028.
The board, based on the recommendations of the Nomination and Remuneration Committee, appointed D. Sundaram as Lead Independent Director of the company, effective March 23rd, 2023, recommends the appointment of Hélène Auriol Potier as an independent director of the company, effective May 26, 2023, for a period of three years, subject to the approval of the shareholders. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Lead Independent Director, retired as a member of the Board of Directors on completion of tenure, effective March 22nd, 2023. We profusely thank Kiran for having been an integral member of the Infosys family, providing valuable guidance and leadership to the board over the years. I am personally very grateful to her, as she has been a tremendous ally and an amazing colleague on the board ever since I rejoined Infosys in August 2017. Uri Levine also retired as an independent director, effective April 19th, 2023, upon completion of his term.
The board places on record its sincere appreciation for Uri's contribution to Infosys. The receding pandemic brought an end to one set of challenges. Its aftermath has created new ones. The cocktail of inflation, interest rates, geopolitics, war, demand volatility, supply chain dislocations, the shift from efficiency to resilience and security, all morphing quickly and without warning, is upon us. This means doing all we can to be more efficient in the present, as well as nurturing a readiness for growth in the future. This is no mean task. The volatility of our times creates several probable future states. Businesses must be equally prepared to succeed in any one of those.
That is why it is critical to be flexible and avoid making choices today that may shut key avenues in the future, and to reduce concentration risks that can make the business less adaptable to new realities that can emerge in the times to come. At Infosys, we understand what it takes to navigate this era of optionality. Through times rough and smooth, we have brought great focus to becoming better, becoming more efficient and resilient in the present, while also securing our relevance in a progressive future. This has stood us in good stead. We understand what it takes to prepare for many eventualities, and we know our clients, our employees, and you, our shareholders, count on us to be agile, adapt quickly, and nimbly learn to thrive in any new reality.
Not only are we committed to doing that, but we are also relentless in our efforts to set up our clients up for success. A big part of that is helping them build their digital adaptability so they can flex from strategy to execution in response to the fast-paced changes and intense uncertainty. With the One Infosys approach to orchestrating our collective capabilities, we started our transformation to become a digital-first live enterprise, bringing the same advantage of digital agility and resilience to our clients as well. Our disproportionate investments in cloud through Infosys Cobalt Cloud Solutions are helping our clients bring its advantages into every facet of their own business, from re-energizing operations to driving innovations for growth.
Infosys acquired BASE life science AS, a consulting and technology firm in the life science space industry in Europe, to scale its digital transformation capabilities with cloud-based industry solutions. Even more significantly, the company's cloud capabilities have created the foundation for our clients to build their AI-first business. The immense potential of AI, more recently, advances in generative AI, we know from our own experience of rapidly evolving into an AI-first enterprise, are not without their share of complexities. Several practical, ethical, and intellectual property-related issues when it comes to AI remain unresolved. We also know that the path to scaling AI in the enterprise is far from simple, yet the AI-first strategy we embraced is already working for us. We have redesigned our organization to judiciously balance people, technology, and process, while also ensuring work by segmenting it into cognitive tasks.
Today, we are able to bring to our global clientele the same ability to accelerate business value and amplify human potential using AI technologies with Infosys capacities. While technology is core to everything we do, at its core, Infosys is a people company. Nurturing talent for the future is key to our continued success. We spare no efforts to provide our employees with ample opportunities to learn and grow while ensuring them of a safe workplace that is fair, rewarding, and free of discrimination and bias. The well-being and intrinsic motivation of our very talented, diverse, and multicultural workforce will propel us forward. We recruited over 50,000 college graduates in the year, bringing our total headcount to over 340,000 employees, of which 39% are women. Upskilling and reskilling them all for careers of the future is a top priority for us.
Over the year, our training ecosystem enabled over 5.5 million learning days for our employees. Our people track and manage their own digital skills, aided by a comprehensive score, their Digital Quotient. Through accelerated learning, when they complete certified courses and gain substantial experience in the skill or set of technology, they qualify for skill tags. As employees gather more skill tags, multiple career pathways into exciting technology spaces open for them within the Infosys ecosystem. These programs and intelligent platforms, like Accelerated Marketplace, automatically match employees to the roles of their aspirations. Matching our passion to deliver for clients and nurture our people is a commitment to the larger community. This is encapsulated in our shared purpose: to amplify human potential and create the next opportunity for people, businesses, and communities. It inspires us to be a sustainable business in every sense of the word.
It drives us to nurture ambitious ESG aspirations and to come together as One Infosys to realize it. From building a diverse workforce with strong, inclusive leaders, to embracing positive climate change, to helping our clients do the same, and earning the trust of all our stakeholders through ethical corporate governance, we do our best to move us all forward. As a result of these efforts and aligned to our ESG vision for 2030, we also continue to be responsive to the needs of society in new and innovative ways. As an example, digital skills taught through Infosys Springboard, Infosys's flagship digital learning platform, is opening up a wealth of new opportunities for Brent Council's business community in the U.K., ensuring Brent businesses have the skills to thrive in the digital age.
In a partnership with Harvard Business Publishing, students and young learners in India are now able to access resources, including select Harvard Business Review articles, videos, and podcasts, as well as 10 Harvard ManageMentor course on Infosys Springboard. In the U.S., Infosys Springboard includes three learning tracks for the entire learner spectrum, from K-12 to postsecondary and professional digital skills development. Today, we are empowering 8.5 million people the world over through our digital skilling initiatives. With mindful and planned efforts, Infosys continues to be carbon neutral for the fourth successive year. With the work of Infosys Foundation, we support a variety of social causes, including creating positive impact in healthcare, education, sustainability, and women empowerment.
Internally, within Infosys, our systems, practices, controls, and procedures are well governed, not just to help us make effective decisions, but to comply with the law in letter and spirit, so we can effectively meet the needs and expectations of external stakeholders. This has always been the Infosys way. The digital transformation of every industry and every aspect of life over the last several years, has laid the foundations for the opportunities that are to emerge. Our clients trust us to enable them not only to make the right digital investments, but to mine these to deliver greater value for them through the future. After all, Infosys today is ranked in the top three IT services brands and among the top 150 most valued brands globally.
The challenge to keep moving ahead in these particularly dynamic times, no doubt, is immense, but the opportunity and our capability and confidence to harness it is tremendous, too. We are well prepared for the future that may be unpredictable, but it is also up to us to build. On behalf of the board, I want to assure you that Infosys is geared in every way with its rich track record, dedicated workforce, strong capabilities, premium brand, and a clear strategy to provide exceptional service and value to all our stakeholders. I want to thank all our employees, clients, cofounders, and governments of the countries and states that we operate in for their unstinting support over the years. Infosys has gone from strength to strength because of your backing. To each of our shareholders, a big thank you. Your commitment to Infosys, the people we serve, and the businesses we drive, inspires us to bring our best to work for you every day. A sincere thanks to all of you.
Good afternoon, good evening, all of the shareholders. Welcome to the Annual General Meeting. Over the next few minutes, I will share with you an update from a business perspective, how the year was. We have had in this year a strong performance in a changing, evolving, dynamic environment, and we have some leading capabilities in generative AI that I will also reference in the discussion. First, in terms of the year, we had a good growth, over 15%. Our digital business grew very nicely at 25%. Our clients, which are over $100 million in revenue annually, were at 40. Good metrics and good dimensions to see the growth of the business. The operating margin was strong at 21%, and we had free cash flow of two and a half billion U.S. dollars.
We also had a good set of large deals, a very strong 95 deals, each over $50 million in size, and the total of that at $9.8 billion, with 40% net new, which helped us in building the foundation for the years to come. On the large client relationships, we've seen steadily growing numbers, 40 in the previous financial year, 38 before that, and 32 before that. As we look at our industries, we had good growth across most of our industries. In fact, all of them were growing. A very strong performance in manufacturing and energy utilities. We had also good performance in retail and the communication sector. Our employee base continues to expand at over 340,000 at the end of the year, in March 2023.
Of that, we also had a continued strong recruitment of college hires across the world, but more in India, at over 50,000 college hires. I look at the financial performance, and we want to share this in rupees, each of our metrics. If you look at total revenues, this is in rupees, a growth of 20%. Net profit, very solid. Operating profit, very solid. We saw the operating cash flow and the free cash flow reducing from previous years, but at a very solid level, given the dynamic nature of the industry and the macroeconomic environment last year.
In terms of our balance sheet, we continue to remain strong, debt-free, and liquid, and that balance sheet is really the foundation of how we can position ourselves as a company into the future. When we look at our total shareholder return across five years, we've had a strong performance, both between the share price increase and the dividend yield. In addition, we have returned over the last four years, over INR 69,000 crores to shareholders between the buyback and the regular dividend, in each of the last four years. This is very well aligned with the policy that we had put in place. This represents just approximately 86% of our free cash flow, in that past four financial years.
Our total shareholder return, as we compare with, our other peers, stands very well as we look across the period, of December 17 to March 23. One of the things we've been focused on over the past several years is building out deep capabilities, especially in the digital space. We had put together a strategy representing, the Pentagon with different elements of digital. Today, we are really delighted that we have a leading or leader capability in 56 of these categories when we look at different external agencies which rank various companies on their digital ratings.
One of the most significant moves we've had in the past year and a half, two years, was the push on the cloud, and that has been really the launch of Cobalt, which combines all of our cloud capabilities, whether it's infra as a service, software as a service, platform as a service, and in fact, software partnerships which come from many of these cloud providers. We have built tremendous capabilities on our own, with our partners, and today we are in the leading position of driving cloud-driven business innovation, which supports the transformation of our clients when they go onto the cloud journey. More recently, we have launched Topaz. Topaz is really encompassing all of our AI and especially generative AI capabilities.
In generative AI, we have created a leading capabilities using large language models, which are open source by nature, large language models, which come from different companies. We have today 50 active client projects where we are using generative AI. This is becoming an increasing part of the new world, which is going to be defined on an AI-first basis. Here, we've also built a very strong system of a very strong group of ecosystem partners, which we work with on AI and also on generative AI. It's not just generative AI, it's on AI operations, on vision areas, several AI startups, and the hyperscalers and how they are leveraging the AI capabilities.
We believe this is really the foundation, the Topaz and generative AI, of a large transformation which will go into the future as the world changes and leverages AI and generative AI. One of the most critical reasons why we've had a strong performance this past year and over the past few years, is the concept we put in place of One Infosys. Here, all of our employees work directly for the benefit of our clients across all boundaries, departments, function. We are both focused on new transformation work and making sure that all of the work is getting delivered to our clients, leveraging all of that capability as One single Infosys, keeping the client's interest first in our mind. With that, I will conclude. First, the financial year 2023 was a strong year for the business.
We have positioned the company to work with our clients for digital transformation, but also more and more as they look at cost efficiency and the automation programs. We've developed a strong set of capabilities in generative AI and overall in an AI-first approach via Topaz. We have already extremely strong capabilities on cloud, which is based on Cobalt, which our clients are leveraging. One Infosys is really the foundation of all of this work that we do within the company for the benefit of our clients. I want to, in conclusion, thank you, all of our shareholders, for your continued trust and support in the company. With this sort of a foundation and your trust with us, we see a future which is successful future for Infosys, working with more clients and enabling more of our employees for a future in an AI-first, technology-driven world. Thank you, and back to you now.
Thank you, Salil. I now request Manikantha, the Company Secretary, to provide a summary of the auditor's report.
The statutory auditors, Deloitte Haskins & Sells LLP, and the secretary auditor, Makarand M. Joshi & Co., have expressed unqualified opinion in the respective audit reports for the financial year 2020-2023. There were no qualifications, observations, or adverse comments on the financial statements and matters which have any material bearing on the functioning of the company. The statutory auditor's report on the standalone and consolidated financial statements, respectively, are available on page numbers 207 and 291 of the integrated annual report. The secretary auditor's report is enclosed as Annexure 5 to the Board's report on page number 85 of this year's integrated annual report. Thank you.
Thank you, Mani. As the notice is already circulated to all the members, I take the notice convening the meeting as read. Before we proceed, I'm pleased to bring to your notice that as required under the Companies Act, 2013, the company has provided you the facility to cast your vote electronically on all resolutions set forth in the notice. Members who have not cast their vote electronically but are participating in this meeting will have an opportunity to cast their votes through the e-voting system provided by NSDL. Members may please note that there will be no voting by show of hands. We now take up the resolutions as set forth in the notice. We will open the floor for any questions by members after all the resolutions are tabled. Accordingly, I'll now only read out the resolutions.
Item number one of the notice: adoption of the financial statements. The financial statements of the company, including the consolidated financial statements for the financial year ending March 31st, 2023, including the reports of the board of directors and the auditors, have already been provided to the members. Item number two of the notice: declaration of dividend. The board has recommended final dividend of INR 17.5 per equity share. You would recall that an interim dividend of INR 16.5 per equity share has already been paid for the financial year ending March 31st, 2023. This dividend income, including the interim, will be INR 34 per equity share. Item number three of the notice: appointment of Salil Parekh as a director liable to retire by rotation. Item number four of the notice: appointment of Hélène Auriol Potier as an independent director of the company.
Item number 5 of the notice: reappointment of Bobby Parikh as an independent director. The text of the resolutions, along with explanatory statement, is provided in the notice circulated to the members. If any member desires to ask any question pertaining to any item on the notice, he/she may do so now. Members are requested to keep their questions brief and specific. To avoid repetition, the answers to all the questions will be provided towards the end. Members may also note that the company reserves a limited number of members asking questions depending on the availability of time. While members are queuing up to ask questions, may I request the team to play short videos on Infosys Topaz and Infosys Foundation: Grow and Help Others Grow With You.
Every day, in so many beautiful ways, nature teaches us a simple lesson: grow and help others grow with you. In 1996, a seed of an idea took root, an idea that we could come together to create a better future. We nurtured this idea and watched it grow, with it grew our dreams for the future. When it comes to building a future, education holds immense promise. For years, we've helped thousands take their first steps forward through education. We've worked with Akshaya Patra to operate mechanized kitchens that cook midday meals for underprivileged school children in India, prompting them to continue to school. In addition to our grants and scholarships to support education, we've also turned to sports. We've joined hands with the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy to coach young athletes, molding them for five years till we can put them on the path to success.
We're also big supporters of art and culture, because for millions across India, art is livelihood and life. Through our many efforts, like support for Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in India and abroad, we sponsor cultural programs, promote traditional performing arts, and the well-being of artists. Well-being is essential for life. That's why we support healthcare programs with great enthusiasm. Take, for instance, our partnership with Jan Chetna Manch, Bokaro. Together, we've conducted over 5,500 health examinations and consultations for women, bringing much needed healthcare services to women in Jharkhand. Speaking of care, helping those who cannot help themselves is also important to us, making destitute care a key focus area. It's what made us join hands with the National Cancer Institute of AIIMS in New Delhi to build an 800-bed residential facility to support low-income families.
More such effort is needed in the heart of India, where rural development continues to be the need of the hour. We've partnered with NASSCOM over the past few years to bring digital literacy to the youth in Kolar, Bangarpet, Pune, Mysuru, Chikballapur, and many smaller towns in India. This is helping thousands of youngsters find new pathways to jobs and careers of the future. Much of what we do would have been impossible to imagine without our volunteers, our NGO partners, trustees, advisors, and friends. As COVID-19 ravages India, we have been doing our best to support healthcare facilities in the country with medical supplies and protective gear. We've helped expand capacities for several hospitals and built two well-equipped quarantine facilities. We continue working with caregivers while doing our bit to make sure that the most vulnerable among those impacted are cared for.
Our teams, with survival kits, food, and other essentials, were at the frontline, working hard when the floods struck Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa, and Assam. Yet, with so many people in need still beyond our reach, we extended our support by donating to the PM CARES Fund. Through these and other trying times, it is nature that teaches us, inspires us. It reminds us that trees standing in the scorching sun provide shade for others. They bear fruits, not for themselves, but for others.
Dear shareholders, thank you for joining our forty-second AGM today and for taking time to participate in the proceedings. Before we go live with the Q&A, here are some points to note for your convenience. When your name is called and you are projected on the screen, please mention your name, folio number, and the location from where you are joining, and proceed to ask your question. Each shareholder will have two minutes for their questions. To avoid repetition, the board will respond to all the questions at the end. Once you have asked your question, you can switch to watch the proceedings. The board will be taking questions from shareholders in two or three sets, depending on the number of questions on the video. With that, I will request the first shareholder, Celestine. Celestine, kindly go ahead and ask your question, please.
Hello, am I audible?
Yes, madam, you are audible. Kindly go ahead with your question.
Yeah. Okay, fine. I want to just greet for a minute non-independent promoter, Mr. Nandan Nilekani, MD & CEO Salil Parekh, other board members, my fellow shareholders attending this e-meeting. I am Mrs. C.E. Mascarenhas. I am speaking from Mumbai. I thank the Company Secretary, A.G.S. Manikantha, and his team for sending me an e-annual report and also registering as a speaker at my request. Thank you so much, giving me this beautiful platform where I can interact. I come to the annual report, very exhaustive but self-explanatory, adding to all the corporate working. The working is very good. There's no. It is par excellence. Speaks market capitalizations speaks dividend of INR 34. With the buyback in the open market, it amounts to a return of 8% of the free cash flow.
What a wonderful company! I congratulate for all the awards, all are documented in the annual report. Congratulations, which to say 10 times, for obtaining ESG Corporate Award 22, and we award Platinum Award. I am reading so many balance sheets. I'm not able to win this sort of award. I don't know the Infosys. I'm so feeling very, very happy. We are recognized by top performer in 2023 by Sustainalytics, and also our company has topped the charts of CRISIL ESG leadership rankings and was featured in the CRISIL Sustainability Yearbook 2022 for the second consecutive year. Keep it up. Very good. I would like to know whether we are in some international ESG list platform listed there, if you could throw some lights. Currently, what is our motto like?
Changing game with intelligence." How much is invested, how much like total, I want total % in AI, our level in metaverse, machine learning, any acquisition of any companies which are seasoned in this field, throw some light? I don't want to ask many questions because ESG has covered and then all that CSR, so all is told, and there is full report on that. So I want to know how many employees are in the design operations, how many are in the sector, and what is the attrition level? Also, what total attrition level on the whole? If it is high, how do we try to keep our staff so that they don't do hop here and there?
Next is Infy. Infy has grown from strength to strength, I feel still the best is yet to come. It's not over. It has grown, it is best going to come. I don't want to ask further questions, to sit and take rewards in way of capitalization, in the way of dividends and in buybacks. With this, I support fully. I wish my company all the best, especially I wish all the Infosys best good health, because health is wealth. Once again, I say thanks to the entire team for giving this patient e- hearing. I'm out.
Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. I may now request the next shareholder, Mr. Shailesh. Shailesh, sir, kindly go ahead and ask your question.
Yes, sir. Respected Chairman, distinguished directors, the management team members and the members of the Infosys. Sir, let me first congratulate the entire company for getting one more year of excellent results, financially and in all other activities. Sir, the presentation by the Chairman was excellent, and it was further supplemented by the Managing Director. Sir, I have become wiser as far as our company's working is concerned, and more satisfied than what I was. Now, I wish to also appreciate the services of the secretarial department, which has enabled me to participate in this meeting. Sir, with this, I would like to ask two or three questions. Sir, my first question is that there are frequent changes in technology, particularly in recent times, and this trend is likely to continue.
Sir, what I would like to understand is how fast our employees get adjusted to this changing situation in such a fast way. Are we encountering any problem in this particular situation? Sir, my second question is regarding the world economic growth, which is likely to remain low in the current year also. Sir, our business has a direct relation with the GDP, world GDP. Sir, my question is that I am sure some of our businesses must have also been affected, not canceled, but delayed. Sir, what I would like to know is that which of the verticals of our business has remained unaffected or least affected, and which vertical has been affected to the maximum? Sir, my last question is regarding the security, cyber security. Our business is so very sensitive, and data preservation, etc., is extremely important.
We also hear many cases that this safety and security is breached. Sir, what I would like to know is what steps we are taking in this particular field. Sir, lastly, before I end, I would like to appreciate the excellent work being done by Infosys Foundation under the leadership of Mrs. Sudha Murty. I would also like to add that all our promoters, in their individual capacity also, they are working to the society in a very big way. Well, the nation is proud of all of you, and I hope you will continue to make the progress as you have been doing in the last so many years. With all this, my pranam and best wishes to all of you.
Thank you, sir. May I now request the next shareholder, Shrenik Mehta? Sir, kindly go ahead and ask your question.
Mehta from port city of Jamnagar. Age-wise, I am 70 plus, I'm a minority shareholder. Academically, I am M.Com, LLB advocate, I'm a long-term investor in share market also, as well as I'm a sub-broker on NSE. That is my short introduction. My DPID is IN30097410028000. Our beloved Chairman, Nandan Nilekani Sahib, Salil Parekh, sir, other board of directors, Mr. Manikantha, our Company Secretary, and his secretarial team. First of all, I would like to convey my thanks to all of you for giving me an opportunity to speak at the 42nd AGM. My questions are, sir: It is said by our very good learned broker, Motilal Oswal Financial Services, share market ..., if I translate into English, Sahib Nandan Nilekani doesn't know Gujarati. Price is like, for share market, price is like a God. I am coming to the Infosys.
From all-time high, today, our Nifty, again, Nifty has touched back, and IT index is -8%, whereas our Infosys price are -22% as on today. That much underperformance, Nandan Nilekani, Salil Parekh, sir, and Manikantha, our company's price has done. As a sir, I have put much more weightage in my total portfolio of my total holding. It is quite concerning to me. Now, let me come to second point. Sir, during last three, four AGMs, me and other shareholders are requesting the board of directors to do buyback through tender route. Again, also, after so many requests, you have not accepted our request, and last buyback was through open market operation, so we don't get direct benefit like... Now, Manikantha, question to you.
If I'm not mistaken, from April 1, 2024, recently, SEBI has passed an order that from April 1, 2024, all buyback will be through tender route. Kindly confirm whether my understanding is correct or not, because personally, me and my Jamnagar Chamber of Commerce have represented to SEBI that buyback should be compulsorily by tender route, not by open market operation. Kindly confirm me your answer. I think dividend policy, I think 85% you are returning back, I don't ask much question about it. Now, Mr. Salil Parekh and Nandan Nilekani, what about organic growth and inorganic growth for future? About Salil Parekh, sir, has much talked about artificial intelligence, as I'm a student of commerce and law, I don't understand much.
As a shareholder, I would like to know, will artificial intelligence support our working or it will disturb our working? Please throw some light in simple language, who can understand a student of commerce and law. Manikantha, now, question is to you. Every time I have to cast my vote through this, my Demat account, when I go, that NSDL site shows my email and my mobile number is not registered. I lodge complaint with my depository participant, Marwari Share. They say, "We have already registered your number." I lodge complaint with NSDL. They say, "We have also registered your mobile number and email ID perfectly." "To bola problem kahan hai, sir?
Why I e-voting no does not show?" Sir, uska kehne ka matlab ye hai, NSDL ka, which I got reply from NSDL, ke jo aapka transfer agent hai, transfer register hai, KFin Technologies, woh puri tarah se hamara data uthate nahi hai. Iski wajah se aapka email and mobile number does not show while you want to do e-voting. Phir unhone kuch special password mujhe diya. I was able to cast my vote and register myself. Last point, sir, you are doing so much of social, corporate social responsibility work. I'm from Jamnagar district. It is my humble suggestion that do some corporate social responsibility in my district of Jamnagar in with consultation of Member of Parliament, Mrs. Poonamben Maadam. Thank you for giving me an opportunity. As a shareholder, I'm quite happy, my price, share price of Infosys are not going, you are not doing buyback Tender Route. These are two my grievances, please. Thank you all.
Thank you, Mr. Mehta. Now may I request Mr. Kaushik? Kaushik, kindly go ahead and ask your question.
Yes, I am audible?
Yes, sir, you are audible.
Yeah. Good evening, everyone. I am honored to have the opportunity to speak with you all today. I want to start by thanking the Board of Directors for giving me this chance to address you all once again. As many of you would remember me, my name is Kaushik Sarkar, I am a chartered accountant from Mumbai. I have been facing a physical challenge due to dystonia, which has affected half of my body paralyzed, impacting my right hand, my right leg and speech. I have not let this challenge hinder my passion for accounting. I do need your support to continue to be self-reliant. I have been reaching out to you for last few years, it seems that my request has gone unheard.
I understand that you may be have busy with some other things, important things, but I would like to know the reason why my request has not been given the attention it deserves. I want to make it clear that I am not looking for any freebies, free money. I am simply asking for help to ensure that I continue to work to my best of my abilities. As a practicing chartered accountant, I value independence and self-reliance, and I hope that you can appreciate my desire to maintain the independence. Thank you for considering my request. I strongly believe that with your support, I can make significant contribution to our organization and positively impact society. I eagerly await your response and sincerely appreciate the time and attention you have given me today. If you are interested and willing, I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to meet you in person. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Mr. Kaushik. Now, may I request Mr. Santosh? Mr. Santosh, can you kindly go ahead and ask your question?
माननीय, माननीय आदर जी, उपस्थित निर्देशक और सदस्य गण, अधिकारी गण और मेरे शेयरहोल्डर भाइयों बहनों, जो आज हम वीडियो कॉल कॉन्फ्रेंस के through उपस्थित हैं। मैं Santosh Kumar Sir प्रलता से आज सभी को नमस्कार करता हूं और विशेषकर हमारे Manikantha ji को भी नमस्कार करता हूं, जिनके अच्छे लिंक प्रदान करने बाद मैं अटेंड कर रहा हूं कि टीम भी काफी है, उनको भी धन्यवाद देता हूं सर। सबसे पहले धन्यवाद देता हूं सर, इस साल आपने 34 बार जो डिविडेंड दिया है, वो हाईएस्ट डिवidend है, इसके लिए धन्यवाद देता हूं। दूसरा सर, मैं आपको इसके लिए भी धन्यवाद देता हूं कि आपके यहां 39.4% वुमेन एंप्लॉई आउट ऑफ 346,234 में। सर इसके साथ दुख इस बात का है कि फीमेल एंप्लॉई तो 40% है, लेकिन फीमेल डायरेक्टर सिर्फ 12% है। मैं चाहूंगा फ्यूचर में 1 डायरेक्टर लाकर इसको कम से कम आगे बढ़ाने का कोशिश करेंगे। जैसे आपने कहा कि वुमेन एम्पॉवरमेंट के लिए आप काम कर रहे हैं, डायरेक्टर के अंदर सर वुमेन एम्पॉwerment नहीं दिख रहा है, उसको ध्यान रखेंगे सर। सर, लास्ट ईयर आपके एक्टिव क्लाइंट 1,872 है सर टोटल। इसमें अभी न्यू क्लाइंट कितने ऐड किए और जो भी है, अगर आपके पास रिपोर्ट है, तो बताने की कोशिश करिएगा सर। सर, हाउ मेनी एंप्लॉई वर्क फ्रॉम होम?
परसेंटेज क्या है, जो उनके नंबर क्या है, जो अभी वर्क फ्रॉम होम कर रहे हैं सर? सर, इसके साथ में सर यह है कि आपके यहां जो बायबैक जो आपने किया, उसका बेनिफिट हमें नहीं मिला। आपने हाईएस्ट प्राइस में INR 1,539 में बायबैक किया सर, लेकिन हमें मिलता मिला नहीं। अगर मिलता तो आज हमें काफी हेल्प होगी। फ्यूचर में यह चाहूंगा सर, आप बायबैक जब भी करें, तो इस रूट से करें, टेंडर के रूट से, जिसे जैसे BP वाले कर रहे हैं। उससे क्या कि आप जो एक्चुअल बेनिफिट शेयरहोल्डर को देना चाहते हैं, उनको मिलेगा। आज तो भाई क्या जो इमीडिएट जो परचेज और सेल करते हैं, उनको मिल जाता है और उससे बचे जो लॉन्ग टर्म इन्वेस्टमेंट आप कह जो अपना शेयर बेचना नहीं चाहते बाजार में, वह इसके लिए लूजर होते हैं, इसके बारे में जरूर विचार करिएगा। स्पेशली मिस्टर Nilekani जी, आप जरूर विचार करिएगा कि आपके लॉयल शेयरहोल्डर हैं, वो तो बाजार में माल बेचते नहीं हैं। एक्चुअली उनको टेंडर के través में मिलता है, तब बेनिफिट होता है तो भी बेनिफिट नहीं होता है। मैं ज्यादा समय नहीं लूंगा सर। मैं यह कहूंगा कि इस साल कितने न्यू एंप्लॉई आपने ऐड किए हैं, उनके नंबर्स क्या हैं और इसमें फीमेल % क्या है?
ज्यादा समय नहीं लेता, एक बार फिर हमारे जितने भी डायरेक्टर हैं, जितने भी अधिकारीगण हैं, जितने भी शेयरहोल्डर भाई-बंधु आज वीडियो कॉन्फ्रेंस के through उपस्थित हैं, उनके और उनके परिवार को शुभकामनाएं देता हूं। वहां से प्रार्थना करता हूं जो 2023-23 का फाइनेंशियल ईयर है, वो सभी के लिए हेल्दी वेल थी, प्रॉस्पेक्ट के साथ गति हो। एक बार मैं फिर Company Secretary और उनकी टीम को भी धन्यवाद देता हूं, जिनकी कैरी मैनेज के कारण, प्री-टेस्टिंग के कारण, ड्राई रन के कारण आज मीटिंग अटेंड कर सकते हैं। नमस्कार जी!
Thank you, Sir. Thank you, Mr. Santosh. You mind, now my request Mr. Dharav. Mr. Dharav, can you kindly go ahead and ask your question?
Good evening, and greetings of the day to the respected Chairman and all the board members of the company. My name is Dr. Dharav Jamadar. I am from Surat, Gujarat. My DP ID is IN 303028. First of all, I would like to congratulate each and every stakeholder of my company on performing tremendously well, outperforming the peers and posting a robust numbers both on QoQ and Y-O-Y basis. Sir, like every year, it is an honor and a memorable moment to get an opportunity to have an insightful conversation with you on different aspects. I would also like to acknowledge and appreciate the efforts of corporate secretariat department.
Some of my questions, which I would request you to address, are: First, apart from the cloud capabilities and differentiated digital services, which segment might be the third pillar to the stellar growth in the coming years? Second, what is my company's strategy of maintaining higher ROE despite suffering from the issue of lower margins? Third, how is my company going to improve its free cash flow conversion in this particular fiscal year? Fourth, apart from leveraging more on generative AI capability, what are the steps that my company is taking to improve the productivity within the company? Fifth, considering the company's BFSI segment has only 2% exposure in U.S.'s regional banks, which segment of yours do you think shall be highly, and which segment will be least impacted by the case, or case being that U.S. goes in recession?
Sixth, what, according to you, shall be the role of IT services five years down the line, factoring in all the recent developments of AI and many such things related to it? Seventh, what steps has my company taken for the well-being of its employees in this last fiscal year? I wish all the best to my company for this current fiscal year. Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Mr. Dharav. My request, Ms. Shruti, kindly go ahead and ask your question.
Good afternoon, respected Chairman, sir, and members of the board. I am Shruti Saraogi, a proud shareholder of Infosys, folio number 300693, joining in from Kolkata, and a member of the Kolkata chapter of Millennium Mams'. I have two questions, sir. An important part of our operations is human resources. As we know, there is a shortage and attrition rates are high in the industry. Do you think it would be a good HR policy to provide accommodation? Theoretically, if we put up a campus in Mysore with the new Mysore-Bangalore Highway, the distance is only one hour. This could be on the lines of the GIFT City in Gujarat, where all facilities are available. This would help reduce attrition rates. Please share your views on that. Secondly, about AI replacing humans in many work areas and being a threat. On which side of the opinion spectrum are you, and why? Thank you so much, sir.
Thank you, Ms. Shruti. Now may I request Mr. Om Prakash. Mr. Om Prakash, kindly go ahead and ask your question.
Am I audible, sir?
Yes, sir, you are audible.
Thank you.
Please go ahead with your question.
Thank you, sir. Good evening, SirJi, and good evening to everybody attending this AGM. Myself, Om Prakash Kejriwal, your equity shareholder.
Good evening.
Hello?
Yes, sir, we can hear you. Kindly go ahead with your question.
Yeah, right. Thanks to our secretariat team for helping me in registration as a speaker shareholder. Sirji, this is my first AGM only due to virtual, though I am your very old shareholder. It is just an opportunity for me to speaks and join this AGM virtually sitting in Kolkata. New technology ka kamaal hai, Sirji. If possible, please follow this type of virtual AGM in next year also. Sirji, wow, what a performance! Mind-blowing performance. Iske liye aap, aapko, aapke sabhi Board of Directors ko and sabhi employees ko bahot dhanyavad. On equity of INR 2,074 crore, our total income is INR 127,873 crore. Matlab INR 127,873 crore on annual basis, and our net profit is INR 23,268 crore.
It means EPS is INR 55.48, 10% more than previous year. Dividend is INR 34, means 62% distribution of net profit. Very good distribution, Sirji. Thank you once again. You are an Indian MNC. Beauty of our company, our total income is increasing every year. Our net profit is increasing every year. Our EPS is increasing every year. Our dividend is increasing every year, and our equity is decreasing every year. This is the beauty of our company. Ek shareholder ko aur kya chahiye, Sirji? Bahot, bahot dhanyavad iske liye. Sirji, today my dream come true. Today, I am interacting with a scientist, a innovator, a good human, and a donor, Mr. Nandan Nilekani, sir. Sometimes back, I came to know from media that you donated a good amount of money to IIT Bombay. Achcha laga sir, sunke, dekhke.
It will be helpful in developing a new crop of students. You've developed Aadhaar card, which is helping today our country too much. Thank you, Sirji. Mr. Salil Parekh, you are also a great person. You are helping our country in several ways. You developed new software for our income tax department, which is working well today. Sirji, ek do question hai. Driverless car, how much it has been developed? Second, artificial intelligence, which is also called AI. Unemployment increases after two, three years. How it will affect human life? Means, what is its side effects? Third, any modification in guidance. Previously, you have given downward guidance. You have secured new contracts two, three days back. Iske baad aapka guidance mein koi change hoga kya? Iske liye thoda sa bataiyega. Thank you. Thank you, Sirji. At last, Sirji, please maintain your smile and be cheerful. We are always with you as a long-term investor. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Om Prakash. May I now request Sreerama Vinod Adilakshmi. Ma'am, kindly go ahead and ask your question.
Good evening, Chairman, sir, and members of the board. I'm a member of Millennium Mams' Bangalore Chapter and a proud shareholder of Infosys. I would like to ask you two questions. My first question is: Recession is looming large in America. It is affecting revenues, given that the North American business grew only 6%. Sir, in this condition, what is your view about Infosys in the next three years? My second question is: How is Infosys investing in employee upskilling and reskilling to adapt to emerging technologies and meet changing client demands? Thank you.
Thank you, ma'am. May I now request Mr. Hiranand Kotwani. Sir, kindly go ahead and ask your question. Sir, we can't hear you. If you can unmute and ask your question.
Am I audible, gentleman?
Yes, sir, we can hear you now. Kindly go ahead.
Thank you. Thank you. It's a great pleasure to join you, Infosys. Respected, highly respected, humble Mr. Chair, our Chairman, and other dignitary attending this meeting. Many question has been asked, nothing more to add. Just one question to Mr. Chairman, because his address was too good and Salil has already given us a picture. The question remains not to ask, but certainly I have one question on the mind regarding the fluctuation in dollar. Mr. Chairman, if what is the contingency plan if the dollar crash? How you will see in the future growth of industry, particularly IT, globally, how the growth and future of our organization will be? Thank you and good luck ahead.
Thank you, Mr. Hiranand. May I now request Mr. Alex? Mr. Alex, kindly go ahead and ask your question.
Hello, am I audible?
Yes, sir, you are audible.
Good afternoon, everyone. Good evening, everyone. Thanks for this opportunity. I am Alex Punnen, joining from Bangalore. I'm a minority shareholder actually. I'm also a software developer for over 20 years. My question is related, something related to generative AI. I had to ask this actually, I couldn't sleep. Basically, I have been using this, and I know the power of this, actually. It increases the productivity by around 30%-90%, depending on how we, how it is used. The thing is that, our Chair, our dear Chairman, Nandan Nilekani, Sir, and Salil Parekh, Sir, have told about Infosys Topaz, and externally how clients are using it and are needing that. My question is internal looking.
If you don't adapt to this is going to be a threat actually to our company, actually. Maybe this is already getting reflected in the market, I'm not really sure. What is the plan, short-term and long-term, of Infosys in leveraging this technology for increasing productivity and quality? There are a lot of implications to this. What is our company doing related to this? It's a hard question, but I had to ask this because, yeah, this is on top of my mind, actually. Thanks once again for this opportunity.
Thank you, Mr. Alex. I will request Mr. Atanu Saha. Atanu, kindly go ahead and ask.
Yes. Am I audible?
Yes, sir, you are audible.
Yes. Namaskar.
Namaskar, sir.
Good evening. Also good early morning to our world, because Infosys, it work never sleep. Sir, I, Atanu Saha, a shareholder of Infosys. My respective chairman and board, independent directors, and my company secretary, and his total team, and all personalities, and all my shareholders present in this virtual meeting. Sir, I thank you that I get this opportunity to speak.
Sir, today is 28th June, 2023. Our company organizing its 42nd annual general meeting. Sir, our previous shareholders, they arise number of questions, not necessarily repeat. By just 2 or 3 questions, this is how many MSME participate in this year? How Infosys manage its metaverse boundary? Explain cost of sales in this financial year. How we do return and returning to green initiative and sustainable world development, sir. How our company combat with climate change situations, sir. I, Atanu Saha, with a good year ahead, with good result and good health to everybody. I am hand over to our moderator. It's Infosys which navigate our next ...
Thank you, Mr. Atanu Saha. I will request Mr. Sadananda Shastri. Sir, kindly go ahead and ask your question. Sir, kindly unmute and ask your question. Hello? Hello.
Hello.
Yes, sir, we can hear you now. Kindly go ahead and ask your question. Sir, I think again it has been muted. If you can unmute once again, please. Yes, sir. Please go ahead.
Audible, well?
Yes, sir, we can hear you. Kindly go ahead.
Good evening. I am Sadananda Shastri from Bangalore. My number is 11702201. First of all, I thank the board for having given a nice performance. However, a profit growth of growth is mere INR 1,962 crores, which is lesser than earlier years. I'm sorry to say, shareholders are losing dividend benefits in the form of TDS that even though they are not liable for it. It may be due to lack of the guidance from the company's team concerned. Lot of confusions are being cropped up in submitting Form 15H. What particulars that the coordinators team is required, we do not know. Neither they will disclose it, nor they rectify it. With this, I have lost many thousands during earlier years. Proper guidance from the team is needed, sir.
Sir, I will go by page-wise from the report. Purely from the report, I will not deviate anything. I may still emit this one, time. Page, report, page number 19. In revenue geography, India has secured the least place, 2.6%. How do you uplift this? Is there any negligence in the Indian market? Page number 22. In the column term ending date of Chairman, you have used the abbreviation NA. How do you justify the word NA when all other directors are having ending date? Is the word NA is appropriate? Page number 45: It is pitiable to note revenue growth is negative of 0.4. How the company will bring it up to positive in the current year?
Page number 46: You have said 1,357 employees disclosed their disability. What is its meaning? Does it not affect the image of the company? Page number 58, Board's report. An excellent amount of income of INR 268 crore is taken out from profit towards comprehensive item to make round the other figure to INR 23,000. What is this item, sir? Page number 163: In transfer of reserves, it is said that you have not transferred any amount to reserves. Does it not speaks about the stability of the company? Page number 66: Resignation of directors. Many stalwarts, like Mr. Kiran Mazumdar, Mr. Shiv Kumar, Mr. Mohit, etc., are leaving the company. How do you safeguard the image of the company?
Page number 70. Out of 98 CDAs, some like unit, Unit 15, Shanghai, 33, Baselice, 38, Malaysia, 53, Turkey, Balikesir, 88, Germany, are incurring loss. How do you struggle hard to bring these to a positive line? Panaya is shining now. Thank you very much for that. Page number 81. In the remuneration of managerial personnels, INR 287 crore, more power, is more powerful, and a heavy hit of it. Why can't the personnels adopt ethics and follow the other company's CEOs' sacrifices in the interest of company first, as well as company's employees? Page number 83. Congrats for the company's 2nd place in top 10 in remuneration. In what way this rank benefits to the company? Do we see 1st rank in the next year? Page number 299, 219, balance sheet. Why there is a large variation in investments in standalone and consolidated?
That is, INR 23,686 crores versus INR 12,569 crores. Lastly, page number 301. In other expenses, INR 113 crores increase in credit loss. Can the company adopt strategies to reduce it to nil, whether this would be a hit for the current year profit? Thank you very much, sir. See you next year in Bangalore only, in the physical meeting. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Sadananda Shastri. May I request Mr. Manoj to kindly go ahead and ask the question.
Hello? Hello.
Hello.
Can you hear me?
Yes, sir.
Can you hear me?
Yes, sir.
Yeah, good evening.
Good evening.
Good evening, respected Chairman, board of directors, fellow shareholders. My name is Manoj Kumar Gupta. I've joined this meeting from my residence, Kolkata. First of all, I thanks to you and your team for the excellent result of the company for the year 2022, 2023. I have great respect to you, Mr. Nilekani. I could not recognize you after seeing you today through VC. That in last five years, everything is changed. Your hair has come white, because when I meet you five, six years back in Delhi, I mean, you look like as a young man. Today, your age is saying that you become between 60 to 70. Anyway, I wish to God for your healthy and prosperous, safe, long life.
Thanks to our MD, Mr. Salil Parekh, whose nice presentation that the shareholders will inspire, and the market will boost tomorrow because on his presentation. He has given a nice presentation. I thanks to Mr. Manikantha and his team for their excellent job to help the small investors to join this meeting through VC. Such type of people should be in the corporate sector that can help the people to. Please convey our best wishes to our founder, that his son-in-law has become the U.K. PM of U.K. I know that one thing, those who have ruled us, on us for 200 years, now we have got a chance to rule on them after 200 years. Please convey our best wishes to him, that his son-in-law has got success ultimately to get chair of PM.
Thanks for your dividend, sir. What's your policy for CSR? Have you any plan to expend some amount in this part of the country to do something for the community and the society under the CSR? Sir, there was a media report some days back, after the close down of the work from home, several young generation peoples has gave, tendering their resignation in the TCS and Infosys. What is the status? How many peoples has tendered their resignation after shut down the window of home, work from home? Sir, have you any got any other work from the government, like the income tax work? Have you any plan to bid to get further job of the Government of India and the state government? I know a plan to say of the cybercrime.
Sir, have you any plan further to launch any buyback and plan for new campus in Northeast? Northeast is growing up after become the ND government, so think about that, to launch some new campus in Northeast to give a young generation chance to take a campus. Any plan to split the shares, to increase the liquidity and in the market? Sir, have you any plan to tie up with the IRCTC for railway work through Infosys? Thank you, sir. Once again, I thanks to your Company Secretary and his team for their support to the small investors to have join this meeting through VC. Namaskar.
Thank you, Mr. Manoj. May I now request Mr. Ashish to kindly go ahead and ask the question?
You can hear my voice, sir?
Yes, Mr. Ashish, we can hear you. Kindly go ahead.
Respected Chairman and Board of Director, first I thank Company Secretary to connect this AGM today. I heard the news about the employees are working at home three days, and three days in office and two days at home. How it is supervised working at home? Also you have gone for buyback, I would suggest that open market you are going, why you are not going tender or putting offer? Because the small shareholder can take participation. I cannot understand, sir, that point. Please clear it. Also, I have given number. I not want to take your time. If you can reply my queries by email, I am a thankful to you. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Mr. Ashish. Now I will request Mr. Kirti Shah.
Chairman, sir. Chairman, sir, my name is Kirti Shah. Good afternoon.
Good afternoon.
Chairman, sir, you have shown steady performance every year. Chairman, sir, you have shown steady performance. Last quarter, you have turnover of INR 32 thousand. This quarter, March quarter is INR 30,000 crore, profitability INR 6,000 crore. Same. What you plan for the future? This revenue will be increased, net profit will be increased. What is your future plan? Why steady growth only? Chairman, sir, I already sent so many emails, you are not replying full detail. Why? Chairman, sir, you have to follow corporate governance, sir. You are not following the corporate governance, sir. Kindly, I expect you are now following the corporate governance. I have remind you once again, kindly follow the corporate governance, reply the full detail. Email reply. Wish you all the best. Thank you very much.
Thank you, sir. May I now request Mr. Reddeppa. Mr. Reddeppa, kindly go ahead and ask your question.
Yeah. Thank you, Manikantha. My voice audible, sir?
Yes, we can hear you.
Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Mr. Nandan Nilekani, sir, dynamic leader, Aadhaar Chairman, my company backbone. Thank you. Namaste, sir. Salil Parekhji, Nilanjan Royji, Manikanthaji, and all the other directors, independent directors, auditors, scrutinizer of this AGM, and my fellow shareholders of this video conference. Good evening. Namaste. My name is Reddeppa Gundluru. I'm from Hyderabad. I'm a financial advisor with the Motilal Oswal. As a shareholder, I'm very happy about the company performance financial 2022. As usual, sir, thank you so much. Chairman, sir, you have done very good in the speech about my company performance the last financial year. I would like to share my experiences in physical AGM, sir. Nandan sir, Salil sir, you're both of backbone of my company.
I have very good memories, very good photographs in physical AGM last 2018, 2019, sir. Nandan sir is a very good person, sir. I had requested for a photograph. He's immediately accepted and with the security people allow him and taking the photograph. It is a wonderful moment in my life, sir. Thank you so much. That's the reason I'm waiting for this AGM last one year, sir. Thank you so much, sir. Sir, I would like to thank this corporate governance. Earlier, Kochhar is speaking about the corporate governance, sir. Now, I'm not agreeing that, sir. The corporate governance is very wonderful of my company as ethically, accountability or transparency of icons. Everything is there, sir, Mr. Chairman, sir.
Please keep it up and special thanks, special kudos to my Company Secretary, Manikantha, and all the employees of my company. Wonderful company. Sir, Nandan, sir, I wanted to highlight the way of doing the society and Indian, the IIT technology, the wonderful, sir. Nowadays, IIT students are very much needed in our country to develop, sir. Especially, congratulate for this wonderful generous donation to the IIT for the supporting infrastructure and improvements and research and deep technology startup ecosystem, sir. It shows, sir, you are the technology person. My company is technology, you are developing another society for IIT students, sir. Really, I'm touched, sir. A wonderful decision by my company board. Thank you so much and congratulations, sir.
Despite of adverse of macros, enterprise continue to reevaluate their cost structure and strengthen their business to resilient, sir. Additionally, they are adopting technology investment to foster agility, sir. Sir, no need to tell about my company finances. Wonderful, sir. Strong and consistent performance, sir. Thanks for dividend also. Congratulations for the wonderful team, CEO team, technical movement warehouse, sir. All people are wonderful, sir. Sir, we have received very wonderful awards. Congrats for many more awards and achievements, sir. Also, sir, CSR as well, very wonderful, sir. No need to say, sir, is doing with our Foundation, and also have gone through all the separate annual report for the our Foundation also. Thank you so much, sir. Mr. Chairman, I have two questions, sir.
The first question is, sir. What is the future vision of the couple of years, sir? In last week quarter, Infosys has been high profile exits at delivery level. Since high level exits are at delivery level, could you potentially hurt the project timelines in the short term, sir? Third question, sir. Financial 2024 revenue guidance was 4%-7% Y-o-Y. CCA optically looks soft versus peers. Due to weak, does companies see, the company is revising any guidance for the coming quarter, sir? Another question, sir. Any updates on mega deals which are $500 million, sir? Please comment, sir. Also, sir, Infosys is the forefront adoption for AI technologies. What is current percentage, top of line, and what is the growth expected in financial 2024 and 2025, sir? Sir, another question is, sir, margin-
Can you please repeat your question?
I have few couple of questions, sir. I am going to conclude, sir. Thank you. Infosys margins may remain subdued over the next three years, financial 2024, 2026. What are the levers available to get back financial 2016 or 2022 levels? Another question: Strong growth in digital revenue, but at the same time, a decline in core non-digital revenue. How company plans to maintain growth at digital and non-digital revenues? Another question, sir. Management sounded cautious about the outlook demand scenario from North America during Q4 financial 2023. How is the outlook after Q1 FY 2024? Final question, sir. In Q4 financial 2023, weakness in retail, high-tech financial services and telecom segments due to unexpected ramp down in this deal closure. Sir, what is the outlook after Q1 financial 2024, sir?
These are my observations, sir, and I have already supported all the resolutions. Thank company secretary department, Manikantha and other employees and teams, are wonderful support for the smooth functioning, sir. Thanks once again, Mr. Chairman, sir. I'm happy to see you health and healthy and fine, and all the board of directors, I wish all the best. Hopefully, on the coming financial under your leadership, my company will achieve many more higher awards, recognitions, and many more milestones, sir. Under the leadership of my one and only leader, Nandan Nilekani, strong pillar of my company, with support of all the board of director. Thank you, Salil sir. Salil sir, also very, I mean, last five years, very wonderful. You are hardworking, sir. Thank you so much for giving this opportunity. I wish good health to all, board of directors. Thank you, Manikantha Ji.
Thank you. May I now request Mr. Manoj? Mr. Manoj, kindly go ahead and ask your question. Good afternoon, sir. Yes, we can hear you. Kindly go ahead, sir.
Question, whatever I want to ask. First question is, what is our future outlook on growth? Number one, how well we are geared up to tackle with upcoming recession in U.S. and European market, and adverse impact of foreign currencies? Second one is, what are our plans to achieve sustainable financial growth? Next point is return on earning targets for upcoming three to five years. That is what I just want to understand. Another one is how that question has already been answered, I think, how we are geared up for the technical disruption, so that with Salil sir's good presentation, I got the answer well in advance.
Last question is, on going through the balance sheet, and P&L, I was just wondering how this 84%... What is the reason for increase in travel expenses by 84%? What is the reason for 60% increase in cost of software, why and why? That is, that is what I found, that these two factors are major factor, which has drawn down our profitability by 2%. Although there is an increase in revenue from operation of 20%, but our profit activity has dropped by 2%. I feel these are the two major causes, 84% increase in traveling expense and 60% increase in cost of software, why and why? I just want to have understanding what is the reason for that. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. May I now request Mr. Srikanth? Sir, kindly go ahead and ask your question.
Respected, Chairman, MD, board of directors, employees of Infosys and fellow shareholders, Namaskar. I was in for a very pleasant surprise when I met my auditor, few days ago, while I was filing my IT returns. The IT portal has been done so well, so effective by our own company, that hitherto, we had to give all the details to our auditor, like what are the earnings, what are the expenses, everything. Now, to my surprise, everything is captured there. Even a small amount of INR 25 dividend from a company is captured there. This is fantastic! My congratulations and applause to the team, who have done the hard work here.
In fact, I remember last year there was a lot of hitches and trouble, but everything you are able to overcome, and this is quite wonderful. I think all the auditors would be very happy with us. I have only two questions. Coming to my questions: Sir, Infosys is known for giving the special dividends on reaching each and every milestone. I remember when Infosys reached 25 years operation, they declared a fantastic special dividend. Likewise, for 30 years. Now that you have completed 40 years, I'm yet to hear something of that. Please do that. Coming to the questions, this question was asked by a few shareholders regarding this buyback. When Infosys announced the buyback of INR 18.50 per share, and when it went to the market for the buyback, 1,800 or so, why was this done? Instead of going for a buyback, you could have awarded the shareholders with a special dividend. These are my two questions. Thank you, sir. Namaste.
Namaste, sir. Thank you. May I now request Mr. Bharat Raj? Mr. Bharat Raj, kindly go ahead and ask your question.
Very good morning, good evening, Mr. Chairman. Entire Board of Directors, I'm Bharat Raj calling from Hyderabad. First of all, thanks, Mr. Manikantha, for arranging wonderful business. First of all, congrats to all the Board, sir, for completing a $15 billion company, sir. I'm very proud, sir, under the leadership of Mr. Salil, doing wonderful, sir. You successfully completed five years, sir. I hope you recognize that the fiscal AGM, sir, you successfully completed three years marriage, like a marriage contract. You completed five years, sir. I wish you that you should get retired in my company, sir. On advancedly, I'm telling you that you should retire in my company, and under your leadership, Mr. Nilanjan Roy, it was wonderful performance, and he's taking care of the dividend payouts and everything.
I know how pain it is for him to arrange all these funds, but he's very maturely and very intelligently handling the finances, sir. Thank you, Mr. Nilanjan Roy. Sir, I thank my chairman, Mr. Nilekani, for giving INR 350 crores to the IIT, sir. Wonderful, sir. This is the beginning in Indian country, sir. I hope so many entrepreneurs will come and contribute something to the society, sir. Sir, regarding this dividend payout, sir, thank you very much, sir. When ex-CEO, Mr. Vishal Sikka, he given two bonus. Mr. Parekh, I'm expecting something from you, sir. Sir, when can I expect bonus from you, sir? Please look after to the bonus, sir. Stop buybacking, sir. Take care of at least one bonus, sir, because successfully, you completed five years. At least this year, you declare one bonus, sir.
One more thing I bring to your notice, sir. You are the great leader, sir. There is something I have seen in the balance sheet in page number 83. There are sexual harassment, 78, sir. Last year, it was 25. It jumped into 78, sir. I don't know what is happening under your leadership, sir. Please look into the issue, sir. Next time, it should not be happening. Discrimination also, it is 111, sir. Sir, I'm very sorry, sir, because you are a very good leader. If anything happens, somebody will point at you, sir. My intention, my leader, my Dhoni, the captain of our team, should not be in this position, sir. You are best leader, and you are captain of my team, sir.
We always support you, sir. I support everything for you, sir, all the resolutions and company here. Mr. Chairman, I requested a Mysore visit. You successfully arranged a Mysore visit, sir. Now, I'm requesting Mangalore visit, sir. Who are attending this AGM, only who are attending the AGM, please arrange a Mangalore visit, sir, because in 2019 fiscal AGM, you told definitely we look into the issue. Now, the everything COVID has is over. Who are the participant in this AGM, please arrange a Mangalore and inform to our Manikantha, sir. We hope next year we'll visit physically, sir, because our Prime Minister is going all over the world, sir. Why my companies are not giving an opportunity to attend, arrange a physical AGM, sir?
Next year, I hope we'll have a physical AGM, sir. Get together, great gala, sir, and we'll happy to see you, me, too, personally, sir. Once again, all the best for coming here, sir. My best wishes. Entire Manikanthan team, God bless you. Thank you for giving this opportunity. Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Mr. Bharat. I now request Mr. Dilip. Mr. Dilip, kindly go ahead and ask your question.
Hello?
Yes, sir.
Hello.
We can hear you, sir. Kindly go ahead and ask your question.
Hello? Hi, sir.
Mr. Dilip, speaking. We can hear you.
Namaskar, sir. Jai Hind, Nandan Nilekani sir. आपके Salil Parekh sir और आपके secretary staff को बहुत-बहुत धन्यवाद, जिन्होंने इतना efforts करके और इस meeting को arrange किया, 3-4 बार call करके हमसे trial लिया। कितने बढ़िया result है। वैसे तो सब कुछ हमारे follow shareholders ने सबको, सब चीज बोल दी, ज्यादा बोलने को कुछ नहीं है। मैं जयपुर से Pink City से बोल रहा हूं, और, एक ही request थी आपसे कि साहब ये जो open market से आपने जो shareholder buyback किए, उसकी जगह sir ये tender shareholders से क्यों नहीं किए जाते? Open market से जिस shareholder ने... Shareholder तो already loss में है. आप open market से 1,500 INR के भाव में 1,800 INR का share खरीद रहे हैं. Sir, ये तो एक बहुत, मतलब, एक shareholders के साथ में गलत ही है, देखा जाए तो. Sir, जो decision आप लोगों ने लिया है, तो सोच के लिया होगा, लेकिन थोड़ा सा minority shareholders का भी ध्यान रखना चाहिए. Baki sabko bahut dhanyavad mere ko this opportunity ke liye. Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Mr. Dilip. May I now request the next shareholder, Abhirup Nandi?
Good evening, everyone. I'm Abhirup Nandi, shareholder from Kolkata. Namaskar, respected board members and key managerial person. I've connected from the city of Joy Kolkata. I'm very thankful regarding the financial performance. It is very strong. Regarding the whether it is growth or it is the cash flow, all have been very strong, very happy with the financial performance. I just want to know what our company is doing regarding the adoption and integration with the upcoming process of e-Rupee, and how it is adapting with the digital form of currency that RBI has launched. What is our plan regarding our expansion of cloud business, whether any expansion plan is there or not. Rest, I'm very happy with the corporate governance of the company and also with the financial performance. That's all from my side. I am Abhirup Nandi, signing off. Namaskar.
Thank you, Mr. Abhirup. I will request Mr. Satish Shah. Mr. Satish Shah, if you can kindly go ahead and ask your question.
Hello? Hello?
Yes, sir, we can hear you.
Hello.
Mr. Satish?
Hello.
Mr. Satish, are you there?
Hello?
Hello.
Hello.
I think we have a difficulty to hear Mr. Satish. Now, may I request Mr. Suman Agarwal? Suman Agarwal, can you kindly go ahead and ask your question? Suman Agarwal? Suman Agarwal.
Yeah. Can you hear me now?
Yes, I can hear you. Kindly go ahead, madam.
A very good evening, Chairman, sir, and all the board members present. I am Suman Agarwal, member of Millennium Mams', joining from Kolkata, and a proud shareholder of our company. I would like to understand how the company is going to grow in the next five years. Will it be through inorganic growth, new verticals, or the existing verticals? Please share your views. Thank you.
Thank you, madam. May I now request Mr. Satish? Satish, if you have joined back, kindly go ahead and ask your question. Mr. Satish?
Hello? Hello?
Yes, sir, we can hear you. Mr. Satish?
Hello. Hello.
Sir, we are able to hear you.
Hello.
Can you kindly go ahead and ask your question?
Hello.
Yes, Mr. Satish, we are able to hear you.
Hello. Hello.
Hello.
Hello. Hello.
Mr. Satish? Mr. Satish, if you're there, kindly go ahead and ask your question. I think Mr. Satish has some issue from his end. With that, we'll come to the end of this question system from all the shareholders. Now I will hand over back to Mr. Nandan .
Thank you for all the questions. While we provide the answers to the questions shortly, I'll request the team to display the questions received on the web chat and play videos which showcase the work done by Infosys during the past year.
Tom, my husband and I, founded Street Child 15 years ago. I was working as an international human rights lawyer in courts across Bosnia, Strasbourg, trying to bring justice to people who'd suffered terrible things. Street Child works for a world where every child can be safe in school and learning. We believe that if you can read and write and add up and take away, then you really have a chance in the world. We have a mission to serve as many children as possible. In order to do that, we need to be able to reach new audiences. We need supportive philanthropists. We need to work with governments. We need partnerships with corporations.
Liberty Global is a owner and operator of best-in-class fixed-mobile conversion champions. We participate in pretty much every aspect of Street Child's fundraising, operations, project support. What we really wanted to do is help Street Child move forward and really present a digital presence that is more in line with the mission. In the case of this particular program, Infosys became super important technology partner.
Infosys work across a variety of areas in technology to help Liberty Global to be a leading connectivity and entertainment provider. There was a common purpose between both companies to create a deep social impact. We both felt that we could take advantage of Infosys' focus on technology and help Street Child to improve their reach in providing children access to education.
Infosys began to help us about 18 months ago by redesigning our website, and we needed a website that was going to keep up with our rapid growth. We started just work with 100 children in Sierra Leone, which was the poorest country in the world at the time, was just coming out of a horrible war. We now work in over 20 countries across South Asia, Africa, Ukraine, and most recently, we're helping in the Turkey-Syria earthquake.
We helped with Street Child in building the digital presence, in creating user journeys for the donors, as well as to also track how the donations are being used across a variety of projects.
I grew up in Mexico. I had the benefit of education very early on in my life. I would love to see every child to get the opportunities that I got.
There is a moral obligation on us to reach as many children as we can to enable them to have an education. Tech is going to be a huge part of that.
Have you ever imagined what it would be if your family did not have proper drinking water or where you lost crops because farmlands dried up due to the absence of water? A scary thought, right? That's what the villagers of Jhalawar and Banswara districts faced for days and months. The absence of water in these drought-prone areas made their life a continuous struggle. Realizing the gravity of the situation, the N. M. Sadguru Water and Development Foundation stepped in. They devised ways for bringing sustainable improvement in the lives of the people through water resource development and other allied activities. The plan was to build check dams and adopt lift irrigation schemes.
The project involved execution of two components. One is check dam across rivers like Shipra and Chambal, the other big rivers flowing in this area, and the stored water to be taken to the highest point so that it can be distributed among farmers. Lift irrigation was found to be the suitable technology, which we have planned to take over under this program.
What worried them was: How were they going to fund and carry out such a task? It was then when Infosys Foundation came forward to their aid. With this support, N.M. Sadguru Foundation gradually transformed the lives of the people living in the districts.
Our association with Infosys Foundation in the terms of project started in 2017. How? Our founder, Trustee Harnathsih Jagawat, and Sudha Murty, ma'am, which they were meeting before that and they were discussing about the water resource development work done by our organization. She got impressed with the water resources development works of this organization, and then she started supporting us.
The support offered by Infosys Foundation was in terms of, first is, fund support. Second is, the project involves training of the people for whom, we have executed this project. The training was supported by the Infosys Foundation. The execution of project requires implementation cost, which has been offered by Infosys Foundation.
The results of this partnership were far-reaching and impactful. The support from Infosys Foundation also extended to improving the health, nutrition, education, and housing for the people in the villages.
Actually, the support offered by Infosys Foundation was really beneficial for the people. People are able to now, I mean, live their quality life in terms of better agriculture, enhanced family income. In one year, in one financial years, Infosys Foundation has supported around more than 20 projects, which has benefited more than 1,000 households in a, in say, 10 or 12 villages.
Today, life for the people in Jhalawar and Banswara is much better, with reduced migration and improved socioeconomic conditions and natural environment.
Water is very, very essential use for agriculture. There are some few organizations where they work on water management. One of them was N. M. Sadguru Water and Development Foundation. N. M. Sadguru Water and Development Foundation does excellent work in water management, preserving the water from the source, distribution, et cetera. I really congratulate N. M. Sadguru Water and Development Foundation. They use the simple principle. Using the gradient principle, keep the water there. With gradient, it comes down without any electrical or mechanical energy. This principle is hydraulic, and they construct the water tank on the top of the hillock or the higher altitude, so that by gravitational force or hydraulic theory, it comes down, and it is easy to maintain. This kind of water, they will use it for agricultural purpose, because a good water source can really help to produce more agricultural product.
As rural India works towards improving the quality of its life, Infosys Foundation will continue to lend its unending support to ensure that their hard work leads to positive results.
Around the world, every enterprise is moving to the cloud. How do you accelerate your cloud transformation and harness its power for business resilience? With Infosys Cobalt, the possibilities are endless.
Hold on, I've got a question. What exactly is Cobalt?
That's a great question. Infosys Cobalt is a set of services, solutions, and platforms that acts as a force multiplier for cloud-powered transformation, helping businesses redesign the enterprise from the core.
Okay, is Cobalt a platform or a solution?
Well, Infosys Cobalt is not one thing or the other. It's a bit of both, and then some. Cobalt is everything you need to speed up your cloud journey, discover new cloud-based business models, and move your business from cloud chaos to clarity with innovation, speed to market, and security. Scale up innovation by leveraging our cloud community and a rich catalog of over 35,000 cloud assets. Accelerate your speed to market with over 300 industry-specific blueprints available off-the-shelf and easily customizable. Secure your globally dispersed enterprise with Infosys Cobalt. Every cloud solution comes baked with regulatory, financial, and security compliance.
That sounds great in theory. How about some real-world examples?
Glad you asked. For instance, we're helping large FMCG firms transform the way they look at data on the cloud. Infosys brought the special sauce to help a consumer goods conglomerate create a global condiment data hub. We partnered with a global retail chain to reimagine the retail experience with the power of the cloud. Infosys Cobalt helped to unlock and monetize all the data that was trapped in legacy systems. Cloud is driving the future of financial services as well. Infosys Cobalt has empowered a leading global bank with transformational tools that turned it into a better-performing bank. When a global powerhouse in wind energy wanted to scale globally with a merger, we helped to seamlessly unify their post-merger IT infrastructure. Infosys Cobalt took tennis to the cloud by changing the game at the French Open with artificial intelligence, 3D, and cloud-first solutions.
Wow! That sounds like game, set, and match.
Yes, we can discover new cloud-based business models, integrate AI, deliver and scale new customer and employee experiences, and a whole lot more. Well, we could go on and on, but we'd rather do the listening. Talk to us. How can we help your enterprise leverage the power of the cloud? Let's team up and navigate from cloud chaos to clarity.
Now begin the answers to the questions. In this round, we are answering the questions that were raised in the web chat. After one round of web chat questions, we'll come back with a round of questions from the video and audio questions that were just asked. We'll start with my questions. I have three questions. First question is: Infosys donated to OpenAI a few years back when they were nonprofit. Now they have incorporated for for-profit subsidiary. Is Infosys having a stake in that? If yes, how much does Infosys have? How is OpenAI supporting Infosys as one of the early investors or donors? This question is from Ganesh Gopi. Answer is: Yes, Infosys was among the earliest supporters of the nonprofit, OpenAI, and we had made a donation several years back.
We have no stake in the for-profit company. We are delighted by the success that OpenAI has achieved. We wish them a very good future with all the outstanding AI work that they're doing. Second question: What are the disruptions you foresee for industry in the near future? From Srinivasa Rao Killaru. This really is a very exciting time, with a lot of changes happening in the world of technology. For the last decade, we had first the whole migration to a digital way of doing things, using smartphones and so on. Following that, we had the big wave of cloud and cloud migration, where Infosys plays with products like Cobalt. Recently, of course, there's the whole interest in AI and generative AI. Infosys is well-placed there with Topaz.
All these changes are happening all at the same time, and we expect that in the next few years, all our global customers will have to fundamentally a lot of changes in their technology and architecture to leverage this. They'll have to do things to become more efficient and more cost-effective. At the same time, they'll have to leverage all this, create transformation, to create better business and better consumer experience. Also, at the beginning of many other mega trends, first is the whole green transition, which includes decarbonization, which means that the whole energy system for the world will migrate over the next several decades from a hydrocarbon-based future to a renewable future. It means that the way we produce energy will go from having monolithic producers to millions of small producers, which has a huge impact on the grid.
It means that instead of petrol pumps, we'll have gas stations, we'll have charging stations. There's a huge decarbonization or climate change, which is going to affect all our businesses. Of course, thanks to the geopolitics, people are now looking at how to make their supply chains more resilient and allowing people to have multiple options where they can produce and how it is shipped. Of course, thanks, I mean, also because of the whole armor, security issues, we have issues of how to deal with cybersecurity. We have issues of how countries are going to become more able to defend themselves and so on. Of course, there's the whole telecom thing happening through the rollout of the 5G network. There are many, many disruptions or changes happening in the future.
I want to assure all of you that we at Infosys are fully seized of this. We are keeping a close eye on this, and we will make sure that we understand these trends and changes and what they mean for our clients, to make sure that we can bring them the best ideas and support so that they can navigate the future successfully. The third question is from Alka Karnani, who is a member of this Millennium Mams' Kolkata chapter. Seems to be a very strong group. She says: "Sir, the world is divided as operations of AI is concerned. Which side do you belong?" Deep fakes, which will affect our elections and our politics. There are many short-term issues with AI.
Of course, there are some people who believe that long-term AI could almost have an extinction risk on our humanity. Here at Infosys believe that AI has many possible powerful use cases, and therefore we will use AI using our advanced infrastructure and our AI-first thinking to bring about transformation of our clients. We will do that using responsible AI to make sure that the AI follows the regulatory rules, privacy rules, the accuracy rules that we need. We, we believe that AI can be a force for good to the appropriate guardrails. Those are my question and answers. I now hand over to Salil to take his questions.
Thanks, Nandan. Now, for the questions that we have received from the web chat, I have a few that I will go through. The first from Mr. Vipul Kumar Shah. Will generative AI result in loss of jobs for coders, or will it increase productivity? What will be the impact on the profit of the company? Generative AI has a huge potential for impact with our clients. We see a lot of different projects that are already coming into the work that we're doing. We are working with both, generative AI platforms, large language models, which are open source, and we are working with generative AI, with different companies have put forward. We see productivity improvements depending on different areas, that could range from 10%-30%.
We also see a huge level of new type of work. For example, generative AI, leveraging within companies, large areas of information, which are then sourced through for better usage, that data being used more precisely for their purposes. We see that in vision, we see that in software development in various areas. Our view is, most times when new technologies are coming, that they have an impact which changes how clients look at new technologies, and that expands the type of work that those new technologies are providing within clients. There's also the need to, of course, look at technologies over the past generations and making sure that they are integrated in. Overall, we see an exciting future that is unleashed by generative AI. Next question, Mr. Krishna Nehru Chakraborty.
What will be Infosys view on future complete remote office or metaverse or similar platform? Here, we have really built a flexible approach to how our employees are working. Over the last several months and quarters, we've seen a steady increase in employees that are starting to come back into the office. We also see there are office locations in newer areas that we've set up, for example, in Vizag, for example, in Navi Mumbai, where we are seeing more and more employees starting to come into these offices. We believe over time there will be more need for social connect and social capital. There are several clients who are requesting that the teams be working on campus for their projects, and that is happening.
This is going on all around the world and within India, for our employees. The next question from Mr. Muneet Rama Raghavendra. Where do we see Infosys in the next five years across different sectors, and the impact of AI into those sectors? Earlier, what I shared on generative AI and Topaz. Topaz really has become the platform, the foundation on which all of our AI and generative AI work, is being done. We have tremendous level of large templates, use cases, and real client examples beyond generative AI, on AI, as well. Each of these are impacting different industries in different ways. We see, for example, financial services industries are leveraging AI, in a fast way to rework what their internal approach to data and information is looking like. We see a different approach coming in telecom.
We see a different approach coming in utilities. Overall, we see the industries are all getting impacted in a way that will leverage more and more of AI, which is supporting data analytics, machine learning, and overall generative AI into the future. Our next question from Mr. Sajit Chellappan. What is the long-term strategy for work from home policy for India-based employees? Again, building on the previous point, our focus so far has been to make sure that we have a flexible approach for our employees, and we've seen a tremendous positive reception from the employees all around India on this. We are making sure that the employees have the ability to work from home or work hybrid.
In some cases, where clients are requiring it, we have employees and teams that are working within the campus. On a long-term basis, we see a mix of where people will work, where there will be a need for increased social capital to connect with people, to work with teams, to do new work jointly, for mentoring, for coaching of individuals. We see the flexibility that will enable more and more employees to be part of the work system. We are seeing that as really the way the future is evolving. We are also keeping a close track of how our employees are relating to it and how our clients are relating to it, to build this strategy as we go ahead. Next question from Mr. Vasudeva Rao.
Question is: Why are we not going for big acquisitions? Covid provided a good opportunity to acquire. Any plans in the future to go for big acquisitions? Here, our view is we have a very good balance sheet and a good position overall with respect to how we can look at acquisitions. Our approach has been to look at things which will fit in strategically within a digital or cloud or AI framework, and then look at what will be the way to integrate it. Then we look at the culture of the company, and then we look at what is the method of running it day-to-day once the company has been acquired. Based on those, and of course, the price value, we make the decision.
We are today looking, across different sizes of acquisitions, and as, a potential company falls into the right buckets for those, we will continue to do acquisitions. We've also been mindful, as we've seen over the last two years, where, some of the acquisitions that were initially of high value, their value has come down, so we are now looking more carefully at the future of acquisitions. Our next question from Mr. K. Mohideen Gani: What are the growth opportunities in Middle East and South America, and what are the current revenue % in these markets? We have a presence in Middle East and South America. Those are low revenue %.
We've taken a focus in the past few years, where it's been much more on North America, European, and other parts of Asia Pacific, specifically Australia and New Zealand, to develop those markets. We've also built strategic joint ventures in Japan, and in Singapore, to expand our markets. We are now looking at the future, where there's a huge set of opportunities in the Middle East, and we want to scale that market up as well. We will see more and more focus into the Middle East as we go ahead. Our next question is from Mr. Mulraj Ranji Maru: When will our investments in Metaverse start yielding revenue? How large do we expect revenue stream in % terms?
As you may be aware, we have created what we call the Metaverse Foundry, which is widely accepted within our client base. Today, we are seeing more and more use cases and interest in that. However, it is at an early stage today of development, and we see over time, more and more interest in this. Our next question is from Mr. Ramesh Babu Satrasala. The question is: Because of the slowdown in the economy for software and export, how is the impact on profit and fresh hires in the coming quarters? Here, the overall demand environment, as was discussed earlier, is changed with the global economy slowing down and the GDP rate slowing down. We see now more attention of clients moving from digital and cloud transformation to cost efficiency and automation.
We are fortunate that even in the consolidation area, we have a lot of opportunities that are coming in. We just announced, you may have seen a few weeks ago, a memorandum of understanding with BP, the original British Petroleum, where there's a huge benefit to Infosys from consolidation and a tremendous opportunity in the future. We've also announced jointly with our client just a couple of days ago, a very large transformation and efficiency program in the Denmark market with Danske Bank. These are the sorts of opportunities we see coming about, and therefore we see our focus into those areas will continue to give us benefits. Those are the questions I had. I now pass it on to Nilanjan.
Thanks, Salil. The first question I have is: Why are our margins dropping when most of our competition is doing fairly well? Is large deals eating the margins? What is the strategy to maintain good margins while having good growth? This is a question from Jagirda Hanumesh Vasudeva Rao. In FY 2023, as you're aware, we had margin impacts from salary increases. We had some costs coming back, like travel. Our utilizations dipped. Also large deals, which were struck in prior years, we had the initial impact of that. As you know, that our aspiration continues to be to give, you know, robust and strong growth and robust and strong margins. We are working on the margin side, continuing to look at levers like automation, looking at pyramid optimization, on-site, offshore mix.
From the growth side, as you're all aware, we have delivered industry-leading growth over the last few years, and we continue to aspire towards that. The next question is: How many MSME vendors were engaged during the financial year, and what is the transaction value of business with such MSME vendors? Is there any delay in payment to such vendors in FY 2022-2023? If so, what is the value? This is a question from N. Nachiappan. As on March 31, 2023, the outstanding value of dues to MSMEs was INR 97 crores, and the value of payment made after due date, along with interest thereon, during the year was INR 33 crores. The third question is: How prepared is the company to hedge the risk of dollar depreciation?
As you all know, that we have a very strong natural hedge in many markets which we operate in. The revenue and the costs are matched, so we have salaries in the local currency as well as the revenue. Whatever market risk is remaining, we hedge that to a very robust treasury policy, which is governed by the Audit Committee. You've seen the impact of that over the last few years, which we have reduced the volatility of the Forex line tremendously due to this policy. With that, I pass on to Manikantha.
Thank you, Nilanjan. I had a few questions from the web chat. There were two shareholders who were asking of how to view the statutory registers. The questions from are from Supriya and Pankaj Gupta. Shareholders may note that all the information of the company is actually available on the website of our company. Therefore, I request all the shareholders to look into the website of the company and also the stock exchange website for information dissemination. There are registers which are also filed with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, shareholders can actually take the information from those publicly available information. In spite of that, if there are any specific question or information which is required, you can refer, or you can send an query to investors@infosys.com, we will answer that suitably.
There was a next question from Sujata Kiran. The question is: What is assurance from the company's side against any allegation which may bring down the share price of the company, such as insider trading and all that? The answer is, our robust policy framework always ensure compliance with applicable rules and regulations. We have also updated our compliance frameworks in response to the requirements of regulator and remain proactively engaged with them. Our robust whistleblower policy and program also ensures that any allegation is investigated in an objective manner. This framework serves to the interest of all the stakeholders. Those are the questions which was directed at me. With that, I'll hand over to Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mani. Now we'll come to the second round of questions. These are the questions that were asked in the video conference, and we will answer them the same order. I had two questions. First question is: A ratio of female directors is only 12% against 40% at employee level. Can we increase this, please? This is shareholder Santosh. Santosh, this AGM, we have the resolution of Elaine's appointment placed before shareholder for approval. After that approval, if it is obtained, the ratio of female directors will go to 25%. Second question: What is your view on AI replacing humans in the workforce?
We believe that AI has the potential to make a big improvement in the productivity of people, and we have found that the more qualified, the more experienced a person is, they can derive more benefit from AI, like automatic code generation and all that. Definitely, productivity will go up, but we believe that it will be used to amplify the productivity of existing people. Therefore, we feel that we'll be able to benefit from this, like, much more than. At the same time, I agree we have to become more efficient and share the efficiencies with our clients. We will take this, and Infosys is on the path to applying AI in a very rapid way, with our AI first strategy, which we are rolling out across the company at the moment. Thank you. Now, I'll hand over to Salil.
Thanks, Nandan. I have a few questions from the questions asked in the video and by some audio. First question from Mr. Sadananda Shastri for me. What is the revenue by geography, India? India has the least place. How do we uplift this? Here we are doing some extremely strategic work to make India fully digital as is being driven across the entire government. We are working on the GST program, on the income tax program, and we will continue to work on such strategic programs as they become as the government is doing more of them, and we have really very strong expertise in those areas. This will continue to increase. We are also looking at the private sector, where more and more of this digital work is starting to happen across the country.
Next question, also from Sadanand Shastri. The question was about many senior employees are leaving the company. How will the company take care of the image? Here, we are extremely solid in terms of the strong bench of leaders that Infosys has. We feel that that group of leaders that Infosys has produced over the years, through its own leadership development and through the work that they do with clients, in delivery, in markets, really prepares them to do more and more work. We have made sure that those leaders step up and take that on. We feel good about the fact that we have such a deep leadership bench, and we will continue to work on that as we go ahead.
Our next question from Abhirup: What are the company's plans on expanding the cloud business? Cloud is really absolutely core to what we are driving. We discussed earlier the Cobalt platform, the capability set, whether it's on infra as a service, software as a service, platform as a service. We really have the leading market capability in cloud. We see good traction for cloud activity overall with clients. We see that cloud becomes the underpinning for transformation as companies are looking to move into the digital age, into the AI age. That becomes the base foundation that will be needed. With our strong partnerships with several of the large cloud companies, we believe we are well positioned to play in that, and this will continue to grow.
Our next question from Suman Agarwal. Question is: How is the company going to grow in the next 5 years, organic versus inorganic? Here, over the past several years, we've made about 8 or so acquisitions. Those acquisitions are well integrated. We feel that approach will continue into the future. We will look for acquisitions which fit the strategic direction, the cultural fit, and the value, the ability to integrate. Based on that, we will continue the acquisition approach, and the organic approach will continue. We will continue to work with our clients to expand as they look for the cost and efficiency and automation programs in this environment, and also look to expand on transformation programs as they continue to make changes in their business. Both dimensions will carry on into the next few years.
Our next question from Shailesh: Which are the verticals in the business which have been least affected and also significantly affected by the current macroeconomic conditions? Here, what we had shared in the past, we have seen industries such as financial services, in mortgage and asset management and investment banking, the telecom sector, high tech, some areas of retail. Those are the ones that are most impacted within this environment that we have seen, what we reported in the end of Q4 and before that. We will see as we go ahead, how these evolve into the future quarters. Our next question from Celestine: How is the company managing employee attrition? What we've seen over the last four quarters, Q4 and before, attrition has steadily been coming down each quarter on a quarterly basis.
We see a lot of the initiatives that we've put in place, also the overall economic environment, both of them relating to the attrition coming down. Our employee engagement scores are continuing to go up, we believe that with that, we will have a good control on attrition in the coming quarters. We will make sure that that becomes translated as we look at the recruitment cycle, bringing in more employees from outside. Our next question from Santosh: Can you please provide detail on how many new clients were added in the last financial year? Here, in a specific point, in the last financial year, we have added 458 new clients.
Next question from Dhara: Apart from the cloud capability and digital, does the company have other pillars on which it sees future growth? Very clearly, the digital approach, which comprises cloud, digital, then also data and analytics, cybersecurity, IoT, Internet of Things, those are really good growth drivers. We are now seeing much more focus on generative AI than we have discussed quite a bit in all the questions and answers, and overall becoming more AI driven, AI first, and clients are looking at that. Then in this environment, which is a different macro environment, there's more and more attention to cost efficiency, automation, consolidation.
We are fortunate that we have both types of growth drivers, where people are looking at transformation, they can look at digital, cloud, AI, and where they're looking at efficiency, they can look at cost, automation, consolidation, and there are both engines are available with Infosys. Our next question, also from Dhara: Considering the FSI segment has small share in U.S. regional banks, what do you expect impact on Infosys? We have a diverse portfolio in financial services. A large global banks, regional banks, mid-sector banks, in cards, in payments, investment banks, asset banks. Really a very broad and diversified client base in the FS business. Now, within U.S., less than 2% of our revenue has this exposure into the regional banking.
There, we are therefore comfortable that that exposure is not gonna, because it's less than 2%, not gonna impact us in an overall scale of the business. Our next question also from Dhara: What steps has company taken for well-being of employees? Here, Infosys over the years has been extremely focused on well-being of employees. We have internally programs, for example, on health assessment and lifestyle enrichment. We have wellness programs for physical well-being and social well-being, and we also have well-being rates, where across locations, we track it and support employees in driving that. We are seeing a good traction overall on employee well-being within the company today. Next question from Reddeppa: A strong growth in digital with decline in core, how does management have a plan to have growth both in digital core?
What we saw last financial year, in some quarters, we actually saw good growth in core and digital. Now in this environment, as we see more and more focus on cost, efficiency, automation, consolidation, we see more and more attention to core services. Keeping in mind the overall macro condition, we will balance and make sure our focus on digital transformation and on core services remains strong. Our next question from Shrenik Mehta: Please provide company strategy on both organic and inorganic. Here, similar to the point we discussed earlier, we have an approach to both organic and inorganic. In acquisitions, we have a focus on what will fit strategically and culturally in terms of value and integration.
On organic growth, we have a lot of focus on the areas we've discussed on cloud, on digital, on AI first, and on cost and efficiency in this environment. Next question from Srirama Vinoda: How is the company investing in employees for reskilling and upskilling? There, we've always had over the last several years, a strong focus on skilling. We have a Mysore campus, where we have in-person training for all of our new employees. Over the last few years, we put in place the Lex capability, which allows online training through mobiles for all our employees. We measure reskilling by each of our different departments to make sure that employees have the opportunity of reskilling, and then the projects that come, that become available to employees to drive through that reskilling.
We are tracking internally something called a Digital Quotient, that allows us to measure what is the change in the type of skills every employee has, and that allows them to then become more and more relevant for the new types of work our clients are doing. Our next question from Alex: What is the plan of the company in internally using AI for increasing productivity and quality? There, what we discussed on generative AI is applicable both with our clients, but also within the company, where we are leveraging large language models, both on the open source and a dedicated generative AI platforms to improve our productivity in software development. We've already seen places where that improvement is visible within our teams.
We're also taking our own software development modules and approaches, especially in our product business, and putting them through the large language model to enhance productivity. We will start to see the impact of this as we go through the next few quarters and years to make the benefit available internally to our productivity. Those are the questions I had. With that, I'll pass it on to Nilanjan.
Thank you, Salil. The first question I have: We have requested multiple times for the company to do buybacks using tender offer mode. SEBI has come up with new regulations that the buybacks need to be done through tender offer. Please confirm if further buybacks will be like that. The shareholder name is Shamit Mehta. As you all know, we have a five-year capital allocation policy, which we've laid out for the financial year 2024 period, and within that, there are three components. There's a dividend component, there's a special dividend, and a buyback component. These allow predictability and consistency of returns. As we said, we've already returned 86% back.
The board looks at multiple elements, looking at EPS accretion, looking at share price, yield on a cash return, and then determines the most appropriate way to return this capital back. Regards the latest SEBI mandates on buybacks, we will continue to see that and how they'll be implemented over the next year or two years. The next question is from Sadananda Shastri on page 301, other expenses, INR 133 crore increase in ECL. How do we reduce it? As you know, the company makes provisions for expected credit losses based on historical performance, on the macroeconomic conditions in terms of the geographies we operate in and the sectors we operate in, and therefore, makes the provisions appropriately. This is as per the relevant accounting standards.
Does the company have plans of doing CSR activities in the eastern part of the country? This is from shareholder, Manoj Kumar. As you know, our CSR policy encompasses work around women empowerment, around health, education, and of course, sustainability, targeting the underprivileged. We also look at criteria around scaling up of these projects and making sure that they have an impact and follow our overall themes. We have also started doing many projects in the east of the country, and if they meet these criteria, we'll continue to expand there. The next question is regarding work from office, 2 days from office, 2 days from home. What is the policy of the company in this regard? I think we have a very flexible policy and a hybrid policy in terms of working from office and working from home to give people the flexibility.
We encourage, of course, people to come to work a few days, and we believe that increases our social capital. I think a big portion of this, of course, depends upon our client requirements, and their clients, of course, insist their employees come into work. This helps us maintaining a fair balance of giving client connectivity and yet time working teams working together. Infosys margins may remain subdued in the next two, three years. What are the levers available to improve this with APA? As you know, we've given our guidance for financial year 2024, and of course, we don't give a guidance beyond that. Like I explained earlier in one question, we have multiple levers for us to aspire to get higher margins and robust margins. We've talked about the pyramid, we've talked about on-site, offshore mix.
Automation remains a big element, pricing, and these are the levers like SubCon, et cetera, will help us to continuously look at improving margins. Next question is whether the company is listed on any global ESG forum or platform? This is from shareholder Celestine. Yes, as we had already mentioned, we have, of course, got recognized in, you know, rankings in India as well, but we are also recognized globally. We are part of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. We've got a AA rating from MSCI, ESG ratings, the global rating. We are on the A-list of CDP in 2022. We are on the EcoVadis ratings as well. We are recognized as a leader in both our sector and even across sectors in many of these ratings globally.
Cybersecurity and data privacy are big concerns these days. What steps are we taking in this direction? This is a question from Shailesh. On cybersecurity, at Infosys, it's managed through multilayered controls with defense in-depth approach, starting from cybersecurity strategy, policies, processes. We've got multiple certifications from ISO 27001, and also we've been attested by SSAE, which is an independent audit firm. On data privacy, also, Infosys has seen significant growth of the DPO from 2010, and we've established an independent data privacy office, and we are consistently and working with our clients to improve both our security and zero trust profile and also on data privacy as well. Next question is, can the company provide the initiative it has taken on sustainability and climate change?
As you can see from our ESG book, which is on our website, we have an encompassing goal across all the three pillars of ESG. On environment, we are looking holistically at climate change, at waste, and for water, and we have aggressive goals for all of them. On the sustainability side, you know our Springboard program, which is giving free education across both India and across the world. We have digital skilling as another initiative which we are taking up. Women in workforce, 39.4%, one of the highest in the sector across the world, across many of our peers as well. On the G side, we're working on improving governance. We've got the ESSI Award for the most ethical company 3 years in a row.
We're continuing to work on our supply chain ESG and auditing many of our supply chain partners to make sure that their ESG elements are also built into what we are consuming. These are the initiatives we have taken, and we are laying out our goals every year and reporting against that in our ESG data book. Next question is, how are we geared up to handle recession in the U.S. and Western countries? This is from Manoj. Yes, as you've heard, both from Salil, there has been across the macro environment slowdown, and this is reflected in our growth guidance for FY 2024. We have a very healthy pipeline.
Our pivot towards cost takeout for our clients in this environment become very critical, and therefore, some of the deals we have been seeing winning are based on these. This helps our clients to reduce costs through automation, through improved offshoring, digitization, and therefore makes us, as IT services company, a very important part of their overall business environment. Our end-to-end offerings, including digital transformation, help our clients to take out costs as well as help them in their longer-term transformation exercise. Next question is: What are the reason for increase in travel expenses and software expenses? Travel, of course, came back last year as the COVID controls really have eased during the last year, and therefore, if you can see pre-COVID as well, our travels are now going up at that level.
Software expenses are going up and because they are integrated to our overall delivery, whether it is cloud, whether it's overall infrastructure, these are becoming integral to the delivery model which we have. Infosys is known on giving special dividends. When can we expect special dividend on completing 40 years? This was from a shareholder, Shrikant. Like I just mentioned, we have the capital allocation policy, which talks about special dividends, buybacks, and regular dividends. Of course, over the last four years, in line with our policy, we have returned 86% back. The board continuously looks at different elements into the decision of giving buybacks. Of course, at this stage, we don't have any special announcement on special dividend. The last question is, when can we expect a bonus from the company? At this stage, we have no such announcement to make.
Thank you, Nilanjan. There were a few questions which came from our video and audio questions. The first question is from Mr. Shamit. The question is: Every time I cast my vote, I find my mobile and my data is not registered with NSDL. KFin Technologies is not picking up the data fully from NSDL. What can you do to help? The shareholders may note that the RTA system is fully automated, and it actually reflects the details which is uploaded on the depositories. There is no manual intervention there. Therefore, the information which is available at the depositories is the one which has been processed by an RTA. In case if you cannot retrieve your details the way you have done it, you can request for resetting the login ID and password, you will receive the same.
The next question was from Mr. Bharat Raj. request to arrange for the Mangalore D.C. visit, and there was also suggestion for holding the physical AGM. We were privileged to hold the shareholders in our Mysore campus a few years back. As we return to the normalcy, we will look into the request and arrange appropriately in the future. With request to the physical meeting, I think as you know, virtual meetings give shareholders access from across the globe. In fact, a few shareholders have suggested that the meeting should be conducted virtual. In this AGM, we have around 23 shareholders who are joining from different countries and from different time zones, which actually helps them to connect from everywhere. The next question was from Mr.
Sadananda Shastri, about the details mentioned in the tenure of an director, which is mentioned as not applicable. The answer is, Nandan is appointed as a non-executive and non-independent director. He is liable to retire by rotation as required under the Companies Act, 2013. Accordingly, he's offering himself for shareholders approval periodically. There was another question from buyback, requesting the details of the regulations. I think, these details were already provided by Mr. Nilanjan. Those are the questions which were directed at me. With that, I'll hand over back to Mr. Nandan.
Thank you, Mani. Members may note that e-voting on the NSDL platform will continue to be available for the next 30 minutes. I request members who have not cast their vote yet, do so within the next 30 minutes. The board of directors appointed Hemanth Holla, practicing company secretary, as the scrutinizer to supervise the e-voting process. I hereby authorize Manikantha, the company secretary, to declare the results of the voting and place the results on the website of the company at the earliest. Resolutions as set forth in the notice shall be deemed to be passed today, subject to the receipt of the requisite number of voters. We had 373 members participating in today's 42nd Annual General Meeting. Thank you for attending the meeting. I hereby declare the proceedings of Infosys Limited's 42nd Annual General Meeting closed. Thank you. Have a great day.