Infosys raises annual sales forecast; shares jump

BENGALURU (Reuters) - Infosys Ltd, India's second-largest software services exporter, raised its annual revenue growth forecast on Thursday due to stronger demand for high-margin automation and other services, sending its shares up as much as 5 percent.

Under Chief Executive Vishal Sikka, brought in about one-and-a-half years ago to chart a new strategy, Infosys has been focusing on winning more lucrative digital technology and automation outsourcing contracts.

This has helped Bengaluru-based Infosys, a bellwether for India's roughly $150 billion IT services industry, to regain ground lost to rivals, including leader Tata Consultancy Services Ltd and Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp .

Infosys, which counts Apple , Volkswagen and Wal-mart Stores among its clients, raised its sales growth view for the year through March 31, 2016 to a band of 12.8 percent to 13.2 percent from the 10-12 percent it guided in October.

Shares in Infosys were trading up 4.7 percent by 0510 GMT, after having risen as much as 5.3 percent earlier, while the broader Mumbai market index <.NSEI> was down 1.1 percent.

The company also reported a bigger-than-expected 6.6 percent increase in quarterly net profit as it added 75 new clients during the quarter and renewed some existing "large-scale" contracts, Infosys said in a statement.

Consolidated net profit rose to 34.65 billion rupees ($516.5 million) in its fiscal third quarter to Dec. 31, from 32.5 billion rupees a year earlier, the company said.

Analysts on average had expected a net profit of 33.53 billion rupees, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters.

Revenue in the quarter rose 15.3 percent to 159.02 billion rupees.

($1 = 67.0900 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Lehar Maan and Derek Francis; Writing by Devidutta Tripathy and Sumeet Chatterjee; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)