India's TCS says profit jumps 44%, beats estimates

India's biggest software exporter TCS said Friday its quarterly net profit jumped 44 percent, beating estimates, as outsourcing orders rose despite economic troubles in the firm's major markets.

Consolidated net profit for the three months ended September rose to 35.12 billion rupees ($662 million) from 24.39 billion rupees a year earlier.

Revenue grew more than 34 percent to 156.2 billion rupees, it said, based on international accounting standards.

Analysts expected Tata Consultancy Services, part of the tea-to-steel Tata conglomerate, to post a profit of 34 billion rupees for the second quarter.

"It was another spectacular quarter with well-rounded growth. Pricing was stable and we saw a pick-up in discretionary spending," TCS chief executive N. Chandrasekaran said. "Projects are on track and deals are getting closed."

TCS counts blue chip firms like General Electric, Citibank, British Airways and Sony among its main clients. The firm said it added 41 clients in the quarter and bagged 11 large deals.

Chandrasekaran said he expects TCS to beat the industry export revenue growth forecast of 11-14 percent this fiscal year set by the lobby group National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom).

"We've said we'll be ahead of Nasscom. We are on course," the TCS chief said.

TCS's performance contrasts sharply with rival Infosys, which last week showed a lower-than-projected revenue even as its profit rose 24 percent year-on-year.

TCS and Infosys lead India's flagship IT outsourcing industry which carries out a wide range of jobs for Western firms such as answering calls from bank customers, processing insurance claims and software development.

India, with its large English-speaking workforce, accounts for at least 50 percent of the global outsourcing market.

(c) 2012 AFP