After three straight quarters of lacklustre earnings, India?s second largest IT exporter Infosys on Wednesday recorded a 9.7% jump in net profit year-on-year, riding on better margins on account of a weak rupee and healthy outsourcing contracts. The company attributed the turnaround to operational realignment within the company and its ability to grow important verticals like BFSI and manufacturing during trying times.

Infosys? net profit for the September quarter climbed to R1,906 crore from R1,737 crore during the year-ago period. Revenues jumped 16.6% to R8,099 crore. Sequentially, profits rose 10.7%. The firm?s top and bottom line numbers were in line with Street expectations; the market cheered, driving up the Infosys scrip 6.83% to touch R2,680.50 on the BSE.

Infosys, however, sounded a note of caution stating that the macroeconomic environment continued to be ?uncertain?. SD Shibulal, the company?s CEO & MD, said this was a matter of concern for the Indian IT industry.

While there are no project cancellations or budget cuts in the current environment, there is more scrutiny of investments, Infosys revealed.

CFO V Balakrishnan said the economic uncertainty continued with US slowing down and the sovereign debt crisis worsening in Europe. ?Global markets will take a long time to get back to growth. Also, there is currency volatility. We have never seen such volatility in the past. This is a cause for concern. Clients are not taking long-term decisions and this could impact us. However, if there is no double-dip, the industry can still do well,? he said. The CFO added that pricing is stable but getting rate increases will be difficult due to the uncertainty in the environment.

While the firm marked down its full-year dollar revenue guidance by 1%, it significantly revised its full-year EPS outlook upwards, cheering investors. The quarter also saw a huge mark-up in full-year EPS guidance because of the sharp rupee depreciation against the dollar ? Infosys now expects EPS for FY 12 to be Rs 143.02-145.26, an annual growth of 19.7-21.6%. Last quarter, the firm had guided for Rs 128.20-130.08. The firm?s margins swelled to 28% from 26% sequentially, because of the weak rupee.

?We have added 45 new clients, 19 of them in new investment areas such as healthcare, life sciences, energy and utilities,? CEO SD Shibulal said. ?Infosys 3.0 is in place. The realignment is complete. Our strategic initiatives and organisation structure will enable us to build long-term partnerships with our clients and help them drive their business objectives,? he added.

In the BFSI segment which is facing macroeconomic headwinds, the firm has grown an existing client into a $300-million account. Sequentially, financial services grew 4.4% while manufacturing inched up 3.5%. North America grew 6.2% and the troubled Europe expanded less than a percentage point.

Although Infosys revised its full-year dollar revenue growth downwards by 1% ? a reflection of the uncertainty in the business environment ? this did not disappoint the Street. Analysts opined that Infosys appeared to be shedding its under-performance relative to other top-tier players such as TCS and Cognizant. For FY 12, the firm now expects to generate a top line between $7.08-$7.20 billion.

Dipen Shah, head of fundamental research at Kotak Securities said: ?Infosys reported results which were in line with our expectations. The volume growth of 4.5% was similar to what we had assumed. The volume growth guidance has been maintained in the backdrop of a challenging macro scene,? he said.