Infosys Q1 profit rises 33 per cent, meets forecast

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Infosys Ltd, India's second-largest software services exporter, matched expectations with a 33 per cent rise in its fiscal first-quarter profit, bolstered by a surge in demand for outsourcing services and a fall in the rupee.

India's $100 billion-a-year IT and back-office outsourcing sector earns about three-quarters of its revenues from customers in the United States and Europe, and faces intense competition from global rivals including IBM and Accenture.

Net profit for Infosys, whose customers include Bank of America, BT Group and GlaxoSmithKline Plc, rose to Rs 22.89 billion in the quarter ended June from Rs 17.2 billion a year earlier.

Analysts had forecast a net profit of Rs 23 billion for the Bengaluru-based company, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Infosys and its domestic rivals Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro are part of the country's export-driven outsourcing sector that has benefited from increase in demand for outsourcing to cut costs and boost efficiency.

But prevailing global economic uncertainty, cutthroat competition for a bigger share of the outsourcing business and sharp currency fluctuations have slowed the showpiece sector's pace of growth.