Bangalore: Infosys Friday revised its annual revenue forecast upwards to USD 7.45 billion in 2012-13 even as the software major remained "cautiously optimistic", which saw its shares zooming nearly 17 percent -- its biggest rise since listing in 1993.
The company raised sales forecast for FY 2013 to "at least USD 7.45 billion", up from earlier estimate of USD 7.34 billion, on the back of additional revenue of USD 104 million from Lodestone, a Switzerland-based consultancy firm it bought last year.
This would translate into a growth of 6.5 percent in revenues over last year against earlier forecast of 5 percent.
Bolstered by the revised forecast, shares of country's second largest software exporter jumped nearly 17 percent to Rs 2,712.60 on the BSE. Buoyancy in Infosys shares also saw shares of TCS and Wipro rising 3-6 percent.
"We remain cautiously optimistic. We have maintained our guidance for the year at five percent organic growth, which implies a growth of 2.7 percent next quarter," Infosys CEO and Managing Director S D Shibulal told reporters here.
Infosys had forecast a dollar revenue growth of 8-10 percent at the start of the fiscal, but later slashed it to 5 percent, citing uncertain economic environment.
"Guidance for FY13 was raised slightly, after suffering from multiple disappointments over the past three quarters," Barclays IT analyst Bhuvnesh Singh said.
In rupee terms, Infosys expects revenues in to touch at least Rs 40,746 crore in 2012-13.
"The environment is still challenging. The US is still going through challenges. The financial industry, which is a very large segment for us, is still undergoing challenges. Europe is unstable because of economic challenges," he said.
The USD 100 billion Indian IT-BPO industry earns about 80 percent of its revenue from the US and Europe.
Infosys posted a better-than-expected net profit of Rs 2,369 crore for the October-December quarter.
The company, whose clients include Bank of America, added a total of 53 clients in the reported quarter, which included eight big-ticket outsourcing deals amounting to USD 731 million in total contract value.
On banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) vertical, a major revenue earner for the Bangalore-based company, Shibulal said large investments could be few and far between.
"The confidence of BFSI to take the long-term decisions has definitely impacted. At the same time, there is spend in the regulatory space because the regulatory challenges whether it is KYC, those kinds of areas there is spend. That has been continued. Very large investment decisions are hampered by the uncertain environment," he added.
PTI
