Telus International’s Q2 results indicate double-digit growth despite macro headwinds

The Vancouver-based tech company serves some 600 clients worldwide.

Jeff Puritt

Credit: TELUS International. Jeff Puritt

The Vancouver-based tech company serves some 600 clients worldwide

“We had a great second quarter,” says president and CEO of Telus International, Jeff Puritt. Despite foreign exchange pressures, inflation and rising interest rates, the Vancouver-based tech company revealed double-digit revenue and EBITDA growth in its Q2 2022 report.

The CEO credits demand for Telus International’s digital services (including its content moderation and AI data solutions) in driving a significant portion of the 17 percent year-over-year growth in revenue, which went from US$533 million in 2021 to US$624 million in 2022.  

“We continue to see very, very healthy growth in both of those segments,” Puritt adds. “Our premium content moderation continues to grow rapidly—double-digits—as does our data annotation work. In fact, on the data annotations front we’re up over 40 percent year to date.”  

Net income and diluted earnings per share (EPS) reportedly grew from US$16 million and US$0.06 EPS to US$56 million and US$0.21 EPS since the same quarter last year. And the same time period saw adjusted EBITDA go up 15 percent from US$131 million to US$150 million. The adjusted EBITDA margin of 24 percent compared to 24.6 percent in 2021 is due to “higher costs associated with our front-line team members, as well as changes in our revenue mix across industry verticals and geographic regions,” Puritt stated in a release. 

Dallas-based research firm Everest Group crowned Telus International No. 7 in its ranking of the Top 50 largest third-party providers in the world, based on business process services (BPS) revenue and year-over-year growth. Some major wins that drove progress in this quarter (and are expected to continue driving progress moving forward) include a digital marketplace for sports, entertainment and event tickets, a fintech platform for global money transfers and digital content expansion services for a large public broadcaster.

Our sales wins with existing clients in Q2 were focused on expanding our scope of services to include data annotation and complex digital solutions,” Puritt said in the release. “For example, we are expanding our relationship with the world’s largest e-commerce company, a global leader in digital media and digital marketing solutions, a global staffing and recruiting company, and one of Western Canada’s largest bulk transportation carriers.” 

Navigating macroeconomic challenges has been, and continues to be, an uphill battle for Telus International. “The euro is having a significant adverse impact on revenues,” Puritt notes of fluctuations in the value of the euro against the US dollar. “There’s almost a 10 percent decline in the revenue translation of euro-denominated revenues, and about a third of our business is indeed euro-denominated in terms of our revenue.” 

But such challenges are endemic to the technology services industry, and Telus International serves some 600 clients worldwide. Its secret sauce in mitigating inflationary pressures is to make its own meals, so to speak.

“We try to eat our own gourmet cooking, drink our own champagne,” Puritt maintains. “The very same leveraging, process excellence and efficiency, technology and automation transformation that we provide to our clients, we try and do that for ourselves.”