NEW DELHI: Indian software and outsourcing company Infosys Ltd. on Monday reported a 9.8% rise in its net profit in the fiscal second quarter, but lowered its revenue forecast for the financial year.
Shares of India’s second-largest software exporter fell 2.6% to 1,137 rupees following the announcement. The company said its consolidated net profit in the three months ended Sept. 30 stood at 33.98 billion rupees ($525 million), compared with 30.96 billion rupees a year earlier.
That was marginally higher than the 32.91 billion rupees forecast in a consensus of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters. Revenue grew 17% to 156.35 billion rupees.
The Bangalore-based company said it expects its revenue in the current financial year to grow 6.4%-8.4% in dollar terms, lower than its previous revenue-growth estimate of 7.2%-9.2%.
The company’s management said at a news conference that it lowered the projection due to currency fluctuations. Infosys and other Indian outsourcers earn most of their revenue in dollars.
“It’s primarily cross currency impact,” said Amar Mourya, an analyst at brokerage IndiaNivesh Securities, of the lowered forecast.
Mr. Mourya said he is bullish on Infosys’s ability to adapt to challenges facing Indian outsourcing firms in the face of new technologies like cloud computing.
“Now there is a fundamental shift happening in the whole IT model,” he said. But Infosys appears to be moving quickly to offer new kinds of services, he noted.
Infosys also said its current chief financial officer, Rajiv Bansal, will resign at the end of Monday and named M.D. Ranganath as its new CFO.
“I’ve been at Infosys at 16 years,” said Mr. Bansal at the news conference. “Becoming CFO at the age of 40 is a dream come true,” he said, adding that he felt the need to do “something more exciting and challenging.”
