A hesitant smile

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: forex front will pose challenges going forward,” brokerage house Prabhudas Lilladher said in its report. Incidentally, Wipro has increased its forward cover from $2.45 billion on a gross basis at the end of December quarter to $3.5 billion, including long-term contracts, at the end of March quarter even as Infosys brought down the forward cover. “Our objective is to make sure that we are well protected. Given the kind of volatility, we thought the better way to deal with it is not to play with the forex,” Senapaty said.

That brings us to India’s largest software export house Tata Consultancy Services which tried to put up a brave front, but came out with a foggy outlook indicating weakness for a while. Though its chief executive officer and managing director S Ramadorai said they were satisfied with the annual performance, it was not a view shared by the investor and analyst community. “Our full year results reflect a validation of our strategy and robust business model that has helped us deliver strong growth rates again on an ever increasing base in a difficult and challenging environment. We will deliver sustained, profitable growth in the next financial year,” Ramadorai said.

However, TCS has the largest exposure to the banking, financial services and insurance (popularly called BFSI) segment among the IT majors with 43.6% of revenues and it was in this segment that it witnessed turbulence from two of the top 10 clients who have deferred some projects. “The company indicated that volume growth would remain sublime during first half of FY09, with one of the clients having deferred ramp up until second quarter, while another Tier 1 starting engagements on a case by case basis. Besides, we wish to highlight that the company’s tone has changed over the past three months on the pricing front, with the company talking of stable pricing from stable pricing with an upward bias earlier,” Emkay Share said in its report.