FILE PHOTO: An employee arrives for work at HCL Technologies headquarters in Noida, on the outskirts of New Delhi, India, August 28, 2023. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi/File Photo
(Reuters) -Shares of HCLTech jumped 8% on Wednesday after India's third-largest IT firm delivered a strong revenue growth forecast, standing out in a sector weighed down by cautious outlooks from bigger rivals.
India's $283 billion IT sector is staring at a potential slowdown as U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff policy threatens to hurt growth in the United States, the biggest market for the tech companies.
Companies like Infosys and Wipro have forecast a weak year ahead, saying retail and manufacturing clients will be more exposed to tariff-related impact.
HCLTech, in contrast, forecast revenue growth of 2% to 5% for fiscal 2026, while analysts, on average, were expecting a rise of 0-2% as per LSEG data.
Estimates were revised down from projections of a growth of 3%-5% after larger peer Infosys flagged growth concerns last week.
"While putting the fears of a washout FY26 to rest, it implies HCLTech would outperform both TCS and Infosys at the upper of its guidance range," analysts at Motilal Oswal said.
Rival Wipro, which only gives quarterly forecast, projected its revenue to fall between 1.5% and 3.5% in the first quarter. Market leader TCS does not give a forecast.
The company expects to see "large opportunities" as clients use generative AI and other technologies to reduce costs in the tariff-driven environment, CEO C Vijayakumar said in a post-earnings conference call.
"Overall commentary suggests it will continue to deliver leading growth" among the top IT firms, analysts at Dolat Capital said.
HCLTech stock was on track for its best day since September 2020, leading gains on the Nifty IT index and the benchmark Nifty 50, which rose 4.4% and 0.2%, respectively.
Shares of TCS, Infosys and Wipro were up between 3%-4%.
($1 = 85.2510 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Ashish Chandra, Kashish Tandon and Sai Ishwarbharath B in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee)
