TCS Q3 Results: Lower-Than-Expected Profit, Bumper Dividend And More — Five Key Highlights
NDTV Profit covers the five key highlights that investors can take away from India's largest IT exporter's quarterly earnings announcements.
Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS) made a notable splash in the markets, declaring its third quarter results for the financial year 2025 on Monday, as well as a bumper dividend, both of which subverted market expectations.
NDTV Profit covers the five key highlights that investors can take away from India's largest IT exporter's quarterly earnings announcements.
Profit Misses Estimates
TCS reported lower than anticipated profit with a consolidated net profit of Rs 10,657 crore in the quarter ended December 2025, which indicated a 11.7% decline compared to Rs 12,075 crore in the last quarter.
The bottom-line also failed to match or surpass Bloomberg analysts' estimates of Rs 12,868 crore.
The IT company reported a 2% higher quarterly revenue of Rs 67,087 crore, meeting estimates.
Bumper Dividend Announced
Investors in the IT stock, will be availing a a bumper dividend of Rs 57 per share for the third quarter of the ongoing fiscal, with a an interim dividend of Rs 11 per share and a special dividend of Rs 46 per share.
The record date for determining eligible shareholders for the payout is Jan. 17 and the amount will be paid to them on Feb. 3 as per the company's exchange filing.
The announcement surpassed the expectations of analysts tracked by Bloomberg who had estimated a dividend of Rs 34.19 per share.
One-Time Labour Cost Impact
The company's one-time provisioning of labour codes in the third quarter had a cost impact of Rs 2,128 crore.
On Nov. 21, 2025, the Government of India notified the four Labour Codes - the Code on Wages, 2019, the Industrial Relations Code, 2020, the Code on Social Security, 2020, and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 - consolidating 29 existing labour laws.
Attrition Rates Rises: Firm Loses Over 11,000 Employees
TCS's total headcount reduced by 11,151 to 5,82,163 in third quarter of fiscal 2026. from 5,93,314 in the second quarter.
The IT company's attrition rate marginally rose to 13.5% in the third quarter, compared to 13.3% in the previous quarter.
The firm's employee count dipped by 30,906 from the first quarter of fiscal 2026, post the restructuring announcement.
Order Book
TCS' order book stood at $9.3 billion in the December quarter as per a notification. The firm's annualised AI services revenue stood at $1.8 billion; up 17.3% quarter-on-quarter in Constant Currency.
