日经综述：AI既推升印度IT高毛利合同，也压缩传统业务；Infosys已下调FY2027收入增速指引

BENGALURU -- For India's top information technology companies, the recent round of earnings are cause for both hope and continued caution amid the proliferation of artificial intelligence, analysts say. Deployment of the technology across legacy software systems is driving growth in high-margin contracts, but at the same time AI-led productivity gains are squeezing revenues in traditional segments.
Infosys, India's second-largest IT company, cut its year-on-year revenue growth forecast on Friday to the range of 1% to 2% from 1.5% to 3% for fiscal 2027, which runs through March. Geopolitical pressures, Trump's unpredictable tariff regime and AI-driven productivity gains put pressure on revenue for the company, brokerage PL Capital said in a note.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the country's largest IT company, meanwhile reported revenue growth of 0.5% for the three-month period ended September compared with the previous quarter, its weakest in three years.
For decades, India's IT industry revenue was driven by the billable hours put in by a workforce of hundreds of thousands. But AI means that the same work can now be done faster and by fewer people. With clients expecting the IT companies to cut prices and geopolitical uncertainties affecting demand, the industry is seeing its fourth year of slowdown.
"Client spending remains cautious, reflecting geopolitical tensions, inflationary pressures and shifting technology priorities," Infosys CEO Salil Parekh said in a post-earnings call. "Against this backdrop, the key outcomes for the quarter were revenue growth ... below our expectations."
Amid this disruption, revenue from AI services is emerging as the bright spot. TCS's annualized AI revenue grew more than 19% to $3.1 billion. Revenue from AI services now makes up 10% of the total figure, the company said in early October. In its post-earnings call, TCS highlighted how margins on AI revenues are well above company average.
Meanwhile, Infosys' AI revenue rose 29% quarter-on-quarter, compared with growth of 8% in the previous quarter.
"The industry is in a transition phase," said Gaurav Parab, research analyst with NelsonHall's IT services team, adding that in a few years it would become harder to distinguish between what is AI revenue and what isn't.
Most big-cap Indian IT companies already hold top-tier partnership status with OpenAI and Anthropic, providing them with a path to deploy, integrate and scale generative AI for global enterprises.
"The real constraint is how quickly firms convert clients to production," brokerage ICICI Direct said in a recent note, adding that "the depth of production deployments and the AI revenue [IT companies] disclose" would soon gain prominence.
Much like the two bellwethers of the Indian IT industry, HCLTech reported a 28.4% rise in advanced AI revenues quarter-on-quarter, even as its overall revenue growth of 2.3% missed estimates.
The company's margin expanded 1.31 percentage points quarter-on-quarter to 18.2%, in part due to more lucrative AI contracts.
India's IT stocks have charted a stunning recovery in October, rising 13% through Friday. The moves have coincided with a correction in the broader global AI trade, leading analysts to attribute the recovery to an improvement in sentiment toward the sector amid a better-than-feared round of earnings. Nonetheless, the sector is still down more than 16% year-to-date.
In its post-earnings call, TCS struck a cautious tone when probed by analysts on whether AI-led revenue deflation was now being offset by the AI opportunity.
"There are a number of things that are happening in these [clients'] industries. I don't want to conclude by saying that the deflation part is complete," said CEO K. Krithivasan. "But I think there are a number of opportunities in these industries we are working on, which gives us confidence that the growth can continue."
IT companies are facing pressure on margins not just due to AI-led revenue falls but also by the upfront investments needed to better deploy AI for clients, NelsonHall's Parab said.
In a recent note, brokerage Ambit Capital noted that the encroachment of AI into tasks traditionally done by IT businesses could drive growth disappointments well into fiscal 2029.
"This encroachment is not a one-off phenomenon, but will be a continuing trend," Ambit Capital said. "We expect newer demand from [generative] AI to offset this deflation, but it may not be sufficient."