In this file photo, new Tata Group chairman, Cyrus Mistry, speaks at his first and the 9th Annual General Meeting of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), in Mumbai, on June 28, 2013. Shares in TCS, India's biggest IT outsourcing firm, rose to a record high on Friday after reporting better-than-expected quarterly earnings. (AFP/File)
MUMBAI (AFP) – Shares in Tata Consultancy Services, India's biggest IT outsourcing firm, rose to a record high on Friday after reporting better-than-expected quarterly earnings.
TCS jumped as much as 3.84 percent to 1,724.0 rupees on the Bombay Stock Exchange after announcing Thursday that net profit had risen 16.8 percent to 38.31 billion rupees ($641 million) in the April-June quarter.
The firm, part of the steel-to-tea Tata conglomerate, counts blue-chip companies such as British Airways, BP, Citigroup and Microsoft among its main clients.
"TCS's results were hugely positive, the highlight being a 6.1 percent volume growth, a seven-quarter high," said Ankita Somani, an analyst with Mumbai's Angel Broking.
TCS and its rival Infosys -- which lead India's flagship IT outsourcing industry -- have both reported strong earnings this month, despite lingering uncertainty over global business conditions.
Infosys last week reported a nearly four percent rise in quarterly net profit and kept its market forecast intact.
India's software outsourcing industry carries out a wide range of jobs for Western firms such as answering calls from bank customers, processing insurance claims and developing software.
India, with its large English-speaking workforce, accounts for at least 50 percent of the global outsourcing market.
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