Based in the US and compensated through HCL America Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary, Vijayakumar’s pay surged mainly due to long-term incentives and stock options.
The annual report detailed his FY26 pay structure, which included a base salary of $2.48 million, a performance-linked bonus of $2 million, and benefits and perks totaling $0.31 million.
A significant portion of his earnings was derived from a long-term incentive (LTI) cash component of $3.94 million and the perquisite value of Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) exercised during the year, totaling $9.40 million.
According to the report, excluding the LTI payment and the value of RSUs, the increase in the CEO’s remuneration would have been 22.86%.
Vijayakumar’s salary positions him at the forefront among his counterparts in the Indian IT industry. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) CEO and MD K Krithivasan received a total compensation of ₹28 crore for 2025-26, an increase of 6.3% from the prior year.
Infosys CEO Salil Parekh earned a total remuneration of ₹82.60 crore in FY 2025-26, marking a 2% rise from the year before, while Wipro’s Srinivas Pallia garnered a total of $5.29 million (approximately ₹49.64 crore).
Furthermore, the annual report indicated that Vijayakumar’s remuneration was 291.9 times higher than the median compensation of HCLTech’s global workforce.
The median remuneration for HCLTech employees increased by 5.4% during the fiscal year.
As of March 31, HCLTech employed 170,811 permanent staff members, alongside 56,370 employees in its subsidiaries.
For FY26, HCLTech reported a net profit of ₹16,642 crore, a 4.30% decrease from ₹17,390 crore in FY25, while revenue for FY26 grew by 11.18% to ₹130,144 crore.
