Infosys shares gain 4% on better-than-expected Q2 profit, hike in revenue guidance

This comes after Tata Consultancy Services' earnings disappointed the Street, leading to a fear that the other IT companies may also report weak numbers for the quarter ended September.

After market hours on Wednesday, Infosys reported a net profit of Rs 5,421 crore for Q2. The Bengaluru-based company's net profit rose 4.4 percent sequentially.

The company's revenue for Q2 came in at Rs 29,602 crore, up 6.1 percent on-quarter. Revenue in constant currency terms grew 6.3 percent on a quarter-on-quarter basis.

Analysts in a CNBC-TV18 poll had estimated the company's net profit at Rs 5,254 crore over revenue of Rs 29,570 crore for July-September.

“Growth was broad-based across geographies and segments with the largest geography, North America growing at 23.1 percent and the largest segment, Financial Services growing at 20.5 percent, YoY in constant currency,” Infosys said in its earnings release.

UBS said the increase in FY22 revenue guidance is in-line with the brokerage's expectation. The operating margin guidance remained unchanged at 22-24 percent.

Credit Suisse and Macquarie have raised their EPS estimates for Infosys. The former has increased EPS for FY22-24 by 2.1-2.4 percent, while the latter has upped its estimate by 1 percent for FY22 as it believes the company is a 'marquee buy' idea.

Kotak Institutional Equities believes the company's earnings reflected an all-round growth, leading to it raising revenue estimates for FY22-24 by 1-1.5 percent, while Goldman Sachs highlighted that Infosys continues to be the fastest-growing large cap IT firm in its coverage.

CLSA has also raised its EPS estimates for FY22 and FY23 by 1 percent each.

Morgan Stanley said the performance of its shares will be linked to the relative discount to Tata Consultancy Services.

The foreign brokerage pointed out that softer deal wins and rising attrition and margin challenges will be key negatives for the stock in the second half.

Meanwhile, strong quarterly numbers by Wipro and Mindtree also contributed to the bullish sentiment for the whole IT sector. Nifty IT was up 1.4 percent.

Mindtree shares were up nearly 6 percent and Wipro's stock surged 4.5 percent.