BANGALORE, July 11 (AFP): Indian software giant Infosys beat expectations with a 35-per cent jump in first-quarter profit today but cut its year forecast as a surging rupee hit the value of dollar-billed exports.
Net income in the quarter ended June rose to 10.79 billion rupees (266.95 million dollars) from 8.0 billion rupees a year earlier as Bangalore-based Infosys Technologies added new clients and benefited from a tax writeback.
The profit, higher than the 9.65 billion rupees Infosys had been expected to report based on the consensus estimate of analysts, came on a 25-per cent rise in sales to 37.73 billion rupees.
But the company, India's second-biggest software company, lowered its per-share earnings forecast for the year to March 31, 2008, to a range of 78.20-to-79 rupees, from the 80.29-to-81.58 rupees it had projected in April.
It also cut its sales forecast to a range of 162-billion-to-164 billion rupees from 170.3 billion-to-173 billion rupees.
The rupee has climbed 10 per cent against the dollar since the start of the year and 14 per cent in the past 12 months, hurting a software industry that gets two-thirds of its revenue from the US market.
Infosys raised its rupee exchange-rate forecast to 40.58 per dollar, from the 43.10 rupees it assumed in April, as strong dollar inflows into an economy expanding by nine per cent a year and the central bank's hands-off policy strengthens the local currency.
The Reserve Bank of India is letting the rupee appreciate to ease the cost of imports in an attempt to fight inflation.
Infosys' first-quarter profit was less than the 11.44 billion rupees net income it had reported during the three months ended March 31.
The company gained from the 35 new clients it added in the quarter and a tax writeback of 510 million rupees to beat market expectations.
India's Infosys beats profit expectations but cuts forecast
FE Team | Published: July 12, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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