TCS Q1 profit up 38 pct, beats f'casts

TCS-TATACONSULTANCY-RESULTS:TCS Q1 profit up 38 pct, beats f'casts

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd , India's top software services exporter, reported a 38 percent rise in its fiscal first-quarter profit, beating market expectations, helped by a weaker rupee and increase in demand for outsourcing.

TCS posted net profit of 32.8 billion rupees for the quarter ended in June, compared with 23.8 billion rupees a year earlier. Revenue rose 37.7 percent from a year earlier to 148.69 billion rupees.

Analysts had forecast a net profit of 30.5 billion rupees, according to the latest Thomson Reuters data for the company, whose customers include Citigroup Inc and BP Plc .

Earlier on Thursday, No. 2 exporter Infosys Ltd made a deeper-than-expected cut to its sales forecast, sending its shares down 10 percent and slamming hopes for a second-half recovery.

TCS and Infosys are mainstays of India's $100 billion-a-year information technology and back-office services sector that earns about three-quarters of its revenue from exports to the United States and Europe.

Ahead of TCS' results, shares in the company, a unit of India's diversified Tata Group conglomerate, ended 1.8 percent lower compared to a 1.3 percent drop in the Mumbai market.