India's Infosys raises revenue forecast as demand rises

BENGALURU: India's Infosys Ltd on Wednesday raised its annual revenue growth forecast and reported a higher quarterly profit, helped by large deal wins as demand for its digital services rose during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Larger rival Tata Consultancy Services reported higher third-quarter profit last week and forecast strong growth for the year ahead.

Infosys, the country's second biggest software services firm by market value, said it expects annual revenue in the financial year to end-March 2021 to grow between 4.5% and 5% in constant currency terms, higher than 2% to 3% forecast earlier.

The December-quarter is typically weak for India's IT sector, but it strengthened in 2020 as global clients invested more in digital services to support the shift to remote work due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In the quarter, Infosys bagged several deals including a cloud partnership with German automaker Daimler AG and a strategic partnership with British aero-engine maker Rolls-Royce. Total contract value of large deals in the quarter was $7.13 billion.

Consolidated net profit climbed to 51.97 billion rupees ($709.90 million) from 44.57 billion rupees a year earlier.

Revenue from operations rose 12.3% to 259.27 billion rupees.

Analysts on average had expected a profit of 50.50 billion rupees, according to Refinitiv data.

Infosys' smaller rival Wipro on Wednesday reported a consolidated net profit of 29.68 billion rupees, compared with a profit of 24.56 billion rupees a year earlier.