How to Read a Quarterly Result

The filing has eight lines that matter. The headline uses the last two.

Every listed company files its results with NSE and BSE within 45 days of a quarter ending. Here is TCS's, set against the previous quarter and the same quarter a year ago. The changes are computed from the filing, not copied from a press release.

	Q2 FY27	Q1 FY27	vs previous quarter	Q2 FY26	vs a year ago	Expected	vs expected
Revenue	73,188	72,275	+1.3%	65,799	+11.2%	73,225	−0.1%
Operating profit (EBIT)	17,553	17,317	+1.4%	16,565	+6.0%	17,738	−1.0%
Operating margin	24.0%	24.0%	+2 bps	25.2%	−119 bps	24.2%	−22 bps
Other income	1,337	1,568	−14.7%	867	+54.2%	–	–
Exceptional items	0	−668	–	−1,135	–	–	–
Profit before exceptional items and tax	18,638	18,612	+0.1%	17,203	+8.3%	–	–
Profit to shareholders	13,884	13,349	+4.0%	12,075	+15.0%	–	–
Earnings per share (₹)	38.37	36.90	+4.0%	33.37	+15.0%	–	–

Source: Tata Consultancy Services Limited’s filing to NSE, 8 October 2026. Operating profit is revenue less every expense except interest, so it leaves out other income and exceptional items. n.m.: not meaningful, because the earlier figure was zero or negative, or the latest one is a loss. Expected: CNBC-TV18 poll of analysts, 8 October 2026.

Read from the top:

• Revenue is what customers were billed: ₹73,188 crore, up 11.2% on a year ago.
• Operating profit is revenue less every cost of running the business except interest: salaries, subcontractors, software, offices, depreciation. It is the line a company's managers control. Up 6.0%.
• Operating margin is operating profit as a share of revenue. TCS kept ₹23.98 of every ₹100 it billed, against ₹25.17 a year earlier. That 119 basis-point fall is why profit grew slower than revenue.
• Other income is mostly interest on the cash TCS holds. Up 54%, to ₹1,337 crore.
• Exceptional items are one-offs the company itself chooses to show separately: a restructuring, a legal settlement, a gain on selling a business. TCS had none this quarter, ₹668 crore of charges in the previous one and ₹1,135 crore a year ago.
• Profit before exceptional items and tax removes the one-offs, which makes it the cleanest like-for-like profit line in the filing. Up 8.3%.
• Profit to shareholders is what's left after tax and after the share of subsidiaries owned by someone else. TCS's total profit was ₹13,934 crore. ₹50 crore of it belongs to minority owners of TCS subsidiaries, which is why some reports say ₹13,934 crore and others ₹13,884 crore. Both are right; only the second is yours.
• Earnings per share is profit to shareholders divided by the shares in issue: ₹38.37.

Of the ₹2,570 crore of extra pre-tax profit, the business earned ₹988 crore

TCS's profit before tax rose from ₹16,068 crore to ₹18,638 crore. You can take that increase apart using only lines from the table:

• The business: higher operating profit₹988.00 CrOperating profit rose from ₹16,565 crore to ₹17,553 crore. This is the only part that came from selling more services at a profit.
• A charge from last year that didn't come back₹1,135 CrIn July–September 2025 TCS took a ₹1,135 crore restructuring charge. Not repeating it adds the same amount to this year's growth.
• Other income: mostly interest on TCS's cash₹470.00 CrUp from ₹867 crore to ₹1,337 crore. Useful money, but not the business TCS is valued for.
• Higher interest cost−₹23.00 CrFinance costs rose from ₹229 crore to ₹252 crore.

Consolidated figures from TCS's filings to NSE for the quarters ended 30 September 2026 and 30 September 2025. The four rows add up to the change in profit before tax.

Read it that way and the 15% splits into three different things. About 38% of the increase came from running the business more profitably. About 44% came from last year's charge not happening again. About 18% came from interest on cash. Only the first part tells you anything about whether TCS sold more of what it sells.

That doesn't make the headline false. A charge that doesn't repeat is real money kept. But a business growing profit 6% a year and one growing it 15% are worth very different prices, and that difference is the one you're paying for.

Compare with a year ago, not with last quarter

TCS's profit was up 4% on the previous quarter. Its profit before exceptional items was up 0.1%. The gap is April–June's ₹668 crore legal settlement: the quarter-on-quarter rise is that charge falling away, not growth.

Quarter-on-quarter changes also mix in the season. Air conditioner makers sell most in April–June; jewellers and car companies in October–December; banks book a large share of their loans in January–March. Comparing July–September with April–June compares two different parts of the year. Comparing it with July–September last year compares like with like.

So read the year-on-year column first, then use the previous quarter to see whether the trend is turning. And check the exceptional items line in all three columns before you trust any change at all.

Rupee revenue grew 11.2%. In the currencies TCS is paid in, 2.8%.

Most of TCS's customers pay in dollars, euros and pounds. Its revenue in dollars was $7,642 million, up 2.4% on a year ago. In rupees it was up 11.2%, because each dollar converted into more rupees than it did a year earlier.

TCS also reports constant-currency growth: what revenue would have done at last year's exchange rates. That was 2.8% for the year and 0.5% for the quarter. Constant-currency growth isn't in the exchange filing; it is in the company's press release.

This matters for any company that earns abroad: IT services, pharmaceuticals, speciality chemicals, auto parts. A weaker rupee lifts their rupee revenue without a single extra customer. It can reverse just as easily.

"Beat estimates" depends on which line you read

Before results, newspapers and TV channels poll analysts for their forecasts. India has no free official consensus figure: each poll asks different analysts, and their averages differ. Here is TCS against the CNBC-TV18 poll published on results day:

	Q2 FY27	Q1 FY27	vs previous quarter	Q2 FY26	vs a year ago	Expected	vs expected
Revenue	73,188	72,275	+1.3%	65,799	+11.2%	73,225	−0.1%
Operating profit (EBIT)	17,553	17,317	+1.4%	16,565	+6.0%	17,738	−1.0%
Operating margin	24.0%	24.0%	+2 bps	25.2%	−119 bps	24.2%	−22 bps

Source: Tata Consultancy Services Limited’s filing to NSE, 8 October 2026. Operating profit is revenue less every expense except interest, so it leaves out other income and exceptional items. n.m.: not meaningful, because the earlier figure was zero or negative, or the latest one is a loss. Expected: CNBC-TV18 poll of analysts, 8 October 2026.

Revenue was in line. Operating profit missed by 1%, and the margin by 0.2 percentage points. Several headlines still said TCS's profit beat estimates. Profit includes the interest on TCS's cash and the absent one-off, so it can beat while the business misses.

TCS's share rose 5.5% the next day, to ₹2,187.60. Nothing in the table tells you why. Reports pointed to $9.6 billion of new contracts and to TCS's annualised revenue from AI work passing $3.1 billion, both from the press release. A share moves on the gap between what was expected and what arrived, and on what management says about the quarters ahead. You can read the first. Nobody can reliably read the second, including the people paid to.

Reading 15% as 6% changes what the share costs you

At ₹2,187.60, TCS's share price was 15.3 times its last four quarters of earnings per share, ₹142.64. What that price buys depends on how fast you think earnings will grow:

Same share, same price. Read one way, you're paying 7.6 times profit five years out. Read the other way, 11.5 times: half as much again. Neither is a forecast. It is what the two readings of the same filing imply, and why it's worth knowing which one you're using. The PE ratio guide works through what a fair multiple is.

The last four quarters include ₹4,059 crore of one-off charges, so TCS's underlying earnings per share is a little higher than ₹142.64. This is one more reason to read the exceptional items line.

When revenue jumps by more than half in a year, search the filing's notes for "subsidiary", "acquisition", "amalgamation" and "w.e.f." before reading another line. The same applies in reverse: a company that sold a business will show a fall in revenue that isn't a decline.

Read a result in this order

1. Open the consolidated statementIt includes the subsidiaries. Standalone is the parent alone, and for most groups it leaves out a large part of the business.
2. Read the exceptional items line before anything elseCheck this quarter, last quarter and a year ago. A one-off in any of the three distorts the change you're about to read.
3. Compare operating profit with a year agoRevenue less every expense except interest. Then the margin: did each ₹100 of revenue keep more or less?
4. Check how much of the profit is other incomeAbove about a quarter of profit before tax, the company's cash is doing a large share of the work.
5. Use profit to shareholders, not total profitThe difference belongs to minority owners of subsidiaries. It's ₹50 crore at TCS. At a 51%-owned acquisition it can be nearly half.
6. If revenue jumped more than 50%, read the notesSearch for 'subsidiary', 'acquisition' and 'w.e.f.'. A company that bought another grows on paper overnight.
7. Only then read the headline and the estimatesBy now you know which line the headline used, and whether it's the one that matters.

Questions people actually ask