INFY

By Bharath Rajeswaran and Sai Ishwarbharath B

Jan 8 (Reuters) - India's information technology firms are expected to report another muted quarter, as tepid demand in the U.S. and holiday-period client shutdowns continue to weigh on tech spending, nine brokerages said ahead of earnings.

Brokerages expect the top six IT firms by revenue to post about 4% year-on-year revenue growth and a 5% rise in profit for the December quarter on average, reflecting prolonged demand softness, compared with 6.5% revenue growth in the September quarter.

Indian software exporters last reported double-digit revenue growth in the March quarter of 2023, when digital transformation, cloud adoption and remote-work demand surged in the post-pandemic period.

The broader $283 billion Indian IT industry continues to face macro headwinds, including uncertainty over U.S. tariffs, challenges from proposed $100,000 visa fees, and subdued client spending on concerns about growth in the world's largest economy.

India's IT companies earn a significant share of their revenue from the United States, making the world's largest economy crucial for the sector.

Sector bellwether Accenture's ACN.N recent earnings beat Wall Street expectations on AI-led demand, though its unchanged growth outlook underscores the cautious near-term environment.

Although India has no pure-play AI firms, IT companies are beginning to shape AI strategies through acquisitions and partnerships. Brokerages expect AI momentum to build over the next six months and demand to pick up into 2026.

"Clients remain cautious about committing incremental spending to large programs amid macro and tariff uncertainty and a new tech cycle," said Abhishek Pathak, research analyst at Motilal Oswal Financial Services.

U.S. tariff uncertainty, visa worries and weak spending drove record foreign outflows of $8.5 billion from IT stocks in 2025, nearly half of total foreign exits from Indian equities.

The Nifty IT index .NIFTYIT fell 12.6% in 2025, making it the worst-performing sector as Indian markets lagged Asian and emerging-market peers.

Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS, the country's largest IT firm, will kick off the earnings season on January 12. Its revenue is expected to rise about 4.2% year-on-year, slower than the 5.6% growth reported last year.

Infosys INFY.NS and HCLTech HCLT.NS are forecast to report year-on-year revenue growth of about 8.1% and 4.6%, respectively, compared with 7.6% and 5.1% in the year-ago period.

Most brokerages do not expect HCLTech to upgrade its fiscal 2026 annual revenue forecast of 2%–3%, or Infosys to raise its forecast of 3%–5%.

Earnings across domestic equities are expected to improve in the December quarter on tax cuts, policy easing, stable growth and benign inflation, even as the period remains structurally weak for IT firms.

Fewer working days due to global client holidays weigh on billing and revenue, while brokerages flag margin pressure from furloughs and wage hikes at firms such as TCS and Wipro WIPR.NS.

However, resilience in the BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) segment, deal ramp-ups, early signs of artificial intelligence strategy formation and rupee depreciation could offer support by mid-2026, six brokerages said.

(Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran and Sai Ishwarbharath B in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

(([email protected]; +91 9769003463;))

Jan 7 (Reuters) - Infosys Ltd INFY.NS:

• INFOSYS AND AWS COLLABORATE TO ACCELERATE ENTERPRISE ADOPTION OF GENERATIVE AI

Source text: ID:nPn63t6z2a

Further company coverage: INFY.NS

(([email protected];;))

Dec 30 (Reuters) - Infosys Ltd INFY.NS:

• GETS TAX PENALTY FOR 74.9 MILLION RUPEES

Source text: ID:nBSEbX8c4G

Further company coverage: INFY.NS

(([email protected];;))

Dec 19 (Reuters) - Infosys Ltd INFY.NS:

• INFOSYS: HAS OBSERVED VOLATILITY IN PRICE OF ITS AMERICAN DEPOSITARY RECEIPT ON NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE ON DECEMBER 19

• INFOSYS - STATES NO MATERIAL EVENTS REQUIRE DISCLOSURE UNDER SEBI REGULATIONS

Source text: ID:nBSE3JsMNb

Further company coverage: INFY.NS

(([email protected];))

Dec 11 (Reuters) -

• MICROSOFT: ANNOUNCED PARTNERSHIPS WITH COGNIZANT, INFOSYS, TCS AND WIPRO TO ACCELERATE ADOPTION OF AGENTIC AI

Source text - https://bit.ly/4oJHhXJ

Further company coverage: CTSH.O

(([email protected];))

Corrects advisory to remove repeated words, adds author's name to headline. The views expressed here are those of the author, the founder and CEO of Emmer Capital Partners Ltd.

By Manishi Raychaudhuri

HONG KONG, Nov 27 (Reuters) - As investors grow increasingly wary of the U.S.-led artificial intelligence frenzy, some “AI losers” in Asia may start to see their fortunes change.

The markets’ fascination with AI has boosted the “Magnificent Seven” – Amazon AMZN.O, Alphabet GOOGL.O, Apple AAPL.O, Meta META.O, Microsoft MSFT.O, Nvidia NVDA.O and Tesla TSLA.O – as well as Asian AI leaders, including chip and memory manufacturers in Taiwan and Korea and large language model (LLM) developers listed in Hong Kong.

In contrast, Indian and Southeast Asian equities have underperformed enormously. That's not only because direct AI beneficiaries are hard to find in these regions, but also because some key sectors there face serious threats from rapid AI adoption or from simple investor apathy.

AI LOSERS

Asia’s service sector is highly at risk of AI disruption.

Routine and repetitive jobs like call centres, telemarketing, accounting, administrative support are particularly vulnerable as state-of-the-art AI technology gets more proficient.

It’s therefore unsurprising that several Indian information technology (IT) service companies, including Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS, Infosys INFY.NS and Wipro Technologies, have underperformed sharply in the past year.

The Philippines is another prime example of an economy with a vulnerable service sector. About half of the country’s service exports include business process outsourcing (BPO), call centres and IT services - all areas that could be disrupted by AI.

Foreign equity investors appear to be getting antsy. They have withdrawn $840 million from the country this year, according to the Philippine Stock Exchange, pushing down the Philippine peso against the U.S. dollar and sending its main equity index tumbling by more than 10%.

AI adoption could obviously have a massive negative impact on the labour markets in these service-exporting giants and, by extension, their domestic consumption and overall economic activity.

Looking at current U.S. employment, Goldman Sachs estimates 2.5% could be at risk from AI, primarily jobs in services, including many industries – like customer services, computer support and business operations – where multinational companies have been outsourcing work to Asia in recent years.

INVESTOR APATHY

Another knock-on effect of the AI boom has been the disregard of many fundamentally strong sectors in Asia.

For example, share prices in India’s producer manufacturing sector – also known as industrials – have fallen by around 7% in the year through November 25, even though consensus estimates for 2025 and 2026 earnings growth are at 15% and 25%, respectively.

Importantly, investors were attracted to thematic stories surrounding many of these now seemingly forgotten sectors until recently. Indian electronic manufacturing, for instance, has been supported by companies’ efforts to shift away from China as well as India’s rising focus on indigenous defence manufacturing.

But such themes fell by the wayside as the AI narrative dislodged almost everything else.

WHEN THE FRENZY FADES

The AI frenzy has cooled lately as investors have looked warily at the steep valuations of the "Mag 7" and questioned whether hyperscalers’ enormous capex outlays can yield commensurate returns.

If this trepidation builds, investors may seek to lighten their large AI plays and deploy capital elsewhere. Some well-known hedge funds, like Michael Burry’s Scion Asset Management, have reportedly done so already.

In such a scenario, could some of today’s Asian equity laggards become tomorrow’s blockbusters?

Industries that have fallen victim to the “market apathy” narrative certainly could recover, if investors go bargain hunting.

However, sufferers from AI disruption may not, unless they reinvent themselves. That, of course, has massive implications for service-exporter economies throughout Asia.

It is also possible that investors still keen on AI but anxious about pricey U.S. tech stocks could look to rotate into some of Asia’s lower-priced AI winners. For example, Korean giants such as Samsung 005930.KS and SK Hynix 000660.KS are still trading at single-digit price-to-earnings multiples.

Chinese internet platforms, such as Alibaba 9988.HK and Tencent 0700.HK, may prove resilient too. They are deploying LLMs to expand and improve their already cash-generative businesses, but unlike many of their U.S. peers, they have been conservative with their AI spending.

When the dust settles on the AI boom, there will certainly be some reshuffling of winners and losers. But given how transformative the technology could be, some of Asia’s vulnerable service industries may never catch up.

(The views expressed here are those of Manishi Raychaudhuri, the founder and CEO of Emmer Capital Partners Ltd and the former head of Asia-Pacific Equity Research at BNP Paribas Securities.)

Enjoying this column? Check out Reuters Open Interest (ROI), your essential new source for global financial commentary. ROI delivers thought-provoking, data-driven analysis of everything from swap rates to soybeans. Markets are moving faster than ever. ROI can help you keep up. Follow ROI on LinkedIn, and X.

(Writing by Manishi Raychaudhuri; Editing by Anna Szymanski and Marguerita Choy)

(([email protected]))

** The Nifty IT index .NIFTYIT falls 1.5%, dragged by losses in Wipro WIPR.NS and Infosys INFY.NS,

** Wipro down 4.6%, Infosys sheds 1.9%

** Analysts flag mixed results, even as the two IT firms posted better-than-expected quarterly revenue

** Wipro's Q2 operating margins fell q/q; its acquisition of Harman's DTS unit and deal ramp-up of recently won large deals will further pressure margins in near term - Jefferies

** Infosys narrowed its rev growth forecast for FY26 to 2%-3% from 1%-3%, which Jefferies analysts say implies a -1.5% to 0% compound quarterly growth rate as upper end of range remains same

** Adds, the growth rate appears weak

** UBS analysts say INFY EBIT margins stood at 21%, lower than their 21.4% estimate

** LTIMindtree LTIM.NS rose 0.4% and was the only stock in the 10-member index to trade in the green after it beat quarterly earnings view

** IT index is down ~19% so far in 2025 vs 8% rise in benchmark Nifty 50 index .NSEI

(Reporting by Manvi Pant in Bengaluru)

(([email protected]; +918447554364;))

Repeats story published during Asian hours; no changes to text

By Munsif Vengattil and Aditya Kalra

BENGALURU, Oct 15 (Reuters) - At a startup office in this Indian city, developers are fine-tuning artificial-intelligence chatbots that talk and message like humans.

The company, LimeChat, has an audacious goal: to make customer-service jobs almost obsolete. It says its generative AI agents enable clients to slash by 80% the number of workers needed to handle 10,000 monthly queries.

"Once you hire a LimeChat agent, you never have to hire again," Nikhil Gupta, its 28-year-old co-founder, told Reuters.

Cheap labor and English proficiency helped make India the world's back office — sometimes at the expense of workers elsewhere. Now, AI-powered systems are subsuming jobs done by headset-wearing graduates in technical support, customer care and data management, sparking a scramble to adapt, a Reuters examination found.

That's driving business for AI startups that help companies slash staffing costs and scale operations — even though many consumers still prefer to deal with a person.

This account of the disruptive changes transforming India's $283 billion IT sector is based on interviews with 30 people, including industry executives, recruiters, workers and current and former government officials. Reuters also visited two AI startups and tested voice and text chatbots that handle increasingly sophisticated customer interactions in human-like ways.

Rather than pump the brakes as the technology threatens jobs built on routine tasks, the country is accelerating, wagering that a let-it-rip approach will create enough new opportunities to absorb those displaced, Reuters found. The outcome of India's gamble carries weight far beyond its borders — a test case for whether embracing AI-driven disruption can elevate a developing economy or render it a cautionary tale.

The global conversational AI market is growing 24% a year and should reach $41 billion by 2030, consultancy Grand View Research estimates.

India — which relies on IT for 7.5% of its GDP — is leaning in. In a February speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said "work does not disappear due to technology. Its nature changes and new types of jobs are created."

Not everyone shares Modi's confidence in India's preparedness. Santosh Mehrotra, a former Indian official and visiting professor at the University of Bath's Centre for Development Studies, criticized the government for a lack of urgency in assessing AI's effects on India's young workforce. "There's no gameplan," he said.

Business process management employs 1.65 million workers in call centers, payroll, and data handling in India. Hiring has plummeted due to increased automation and digitalization, despite rising demand for AI coordinators and process analysts, said Neeti Sharma, CEO of staffing firm TeamLease Digital.

Net headcount in the segment, which represents one-fifth of IT output, grew by fewer than 17,000 workers in each of the past two years, down from 130,000 in 2022-2023 and 177,000 in 2021-2022, TeamLease Digital figures show.

Reuters spoke to three current and five former customer-service workers, who described increasing job insecurity and integration of AI, including tools that suggest responses and bots that handle nearly all routine queries autonomously.

Megha S., 32, was earning $10,000 a year at a Bengaluru-based software solutions provider. She said she was laid off last month, just before India's festive season, as the company moved to implement AI tools to review the quality of sales calls.

"I was told I am the first one who has been replaced by AI," said Megha, who spoke on the condition that her full name and former employer not be identified. "I've not told my parents."

Sumita Dawra, a former labor ministry secretary who oversaw an Indian government taskforce on AI's impact on the workforce before retiring in March, said while the technology offered productivity gains that would lead to new jobs, India could consider stronger social security measures, such as unemployment benefits, to help those displaced during the transition.

However, a senior Indian official told Reuters the government believed AI would ultimately have little impact on overall employment. India's IT and labor ministries, and Modi's office, didn't respond to requests for comment.

AUTOMATION GOLD RUSH

Besides AI, factors clouding the outlook for India's IT sector include U.S. tariffs; a proposal by a U.S. lawmaker for a 25% tax on firms using foreign outsourcing services; and President Trump's $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas, which are widely used by tech firms to sponsor Indian workers.

Investment bank Jefferies predicted in September that India's call centers would face a revenue hit of 50% — and around 35% for other back-office functions — from AI adoption over the next five years.

That would spell near-term job losses in India, which accounts for 52% of the global outsourcing market.

"The biggest impact is going to be on young students coming out of college," said Pramod Bhasin, who in the 1990s established India's first call center with 18 employees for GE Capital, where workstations were partitioned by saris strung from the ceiling.

In the longer run, India could transition from "back office" to the world's "AI factory" by capitalizing on demand for AI engineers and automation deployment, said Bhasin, who went on to found IT services firm Genpact.

One beneficiary of that demand is LimeChat, which Reuters visited in August. Gupta, the co-founder, said his developers and engineers have helped automate 5,000 jobs across India. The company's bots handle 70% of customer complaints for its clients, and it plans to achieve 90-95% within a year, he said.

"If you're giving us 100,000 rupees per month, you are automating the job of at least 15 agents," said Gupta. At that price — about $1,130 — the service costs roughly the same as three customer-care staff, he said.

LimeChat's sales soared to $1.5 million in 2024 from $79,000 two years earlier, regulatory disclosures show. Last year, the firm began integrating Microsoft's Azure language models and algorithms in a partnership to launch a new e-commerce chatbot.

Among Gupta's clients is Indian ayurvedic products firm Kapiva, which has deployed a LimeChat bot for customer interactions over WhatsApp.

Keying in a prompt — "What kind of diet should I have to reduce weight?" — yielded an AI meal-plan creator. A follow-up query in English and Hindi about how a slimming juice differs from another item was also answered, with the chatbot eventually sharing links to Kapiva products with a smiling emoji. Kapiva didn't respond to Reuters questions.

LimeChat's rivals include Reliance RELI.NS, the conglomerate chaired by Mukesh Ambani, which acquired Indian startup Haptik in 2019.

Haptik says it offers "AI agents that deliver human-like customer experiences" that cost $120 and can cut support costs by 30%. Revenue skyrocketed to almost $18 million last year from less than $1 million in 2020, disclosures show.

Haptik promoted a webinar in September by posing the question: "What if you had a full-time employee who never sleeps and costs just 10,000 rupees?"

"We are seeing a huge shift," Haptik product manager Suji Ravi said in the webinar, which Reuters reporters attended. "Brands are not investing in human agents and they want to deploy AI agents."

For LimeChat client Mamaearth, an Indian personal-care brand, the main attraction of AI chatbots is scalability, said Vipul Maheshwari, head of product and analytics at parent firm Honasa Consumer HONA.NS.

"Providing good customer support is make or break for us," he said. "But can we infinitely scale my customer support team? Absolutely not."

The chatbot used by Mamaearth could go beyond simple assistance like order tracking, and help users with queries such as recommending the right products during pregnancy or, in some cases, handle an agitated customer, Maheshwari said.

COFFEE WITH NEHA

The promise and perils of AI are evident at The Media Ant. The Bengaluru-based advertising agency cut 40% of its workforce to about 100 over the past year and vacated space in another building to save on rent, said founder Samir Chaudhary.

The firm eliminated 15 salespeople, replacing them with AI bots that identify leads and send emails to prospective customers, Chaudhary said. A six-member call center was replaced with a voice agent called Neha that speaks in near-flawless, Indian-accented English.

When a Reuters reporter asked Neha about advertising on YouTube, she sought details about the budget and target markets, noted the requirements, and ended the conversation cheerfully: "I will email you the details ... have a great day."

"Ask her out for a coffee and she will laugh it off," Chaudhary said.

Yet the race to embrace AI isn't always smooth for companies.

Take Sweden's Klarna. Chatbots helped the fintech firm cut thousands of jobs last year, but its CEO told Reuters in September the company is now "trying to course correct" and use the technology to improve products rather than reduce costs.

Chatbots have limitations. While most generic e-commerce-related queries posed by a Reuters reporter were handled well by LimeChat bots, some stumped them.

When LimeChat client Knya's bot was asked for proof of its claim that a million medical professionals trust its products, such as its stethoscopes, it replied: "I am sorry, I don't have enough information to answer your question." Knya didn't respond to a request for comment.

Customer surveys show chatbots are still disliked by many.

An August 2024 EY survey of 1,000 Indian consumers found 62% made purchases influenced by AI recommendations, compared with 30% globally. Yet, "the desire for a human connection remains strong," EY noted, with 78% preferring online platforms that provide human support.

LimeChat's Gupta, though, said well-trained AI agents could resolve queries faster than humans. He said many standard bots pass conversations to a human agent when they encounter angry customers: "You need a very small number of people to just handle negative experiences."

FROM JAVA TO AI

In the 1990s and 2000s, India's tech boom fueled rural-to-urban migration. Cities like Bengaluru became outsourcing hubs as domestic firms, including Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS, Infosys INFY.NS and Wipro WIPR.NS, grew into global juggernauts.

That expansion trickled through to Ameerpet, a Hyderabad neighborhood where university graduates fill classrooms to learn IT skills and earn certifications for tech jobs.

Ameerpet's training centers traditionally offered courses in Microsoft Office and programming languages like Java. Visiting in April, Reuters found these centers are increasingly focused on AI training.

Outside one, Quality Thought, a banner featured a robot overlooking a globe with the letters "AI."

The center was offering a nine-month course in AI data science and prompt engineering for about $1,360, more than double the price of a traditional web-development program.

"Recruiters are asking for students with basic AI skills," staffer Priyanka Kandulapati said. "We are going to streamline our courses even further to suit the demand."

In a discussion with startup founders last month about the pace of change, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, who co-founded Sun Microsystems, offered a stark view of the future for India.

"All IT services will be replaced in the next five years," he said. "It's going to be pretty chaotic."

(Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in Bengaluru and Aditya Kalra in New Delhi. Additional reporting by Haripriya Suresh and Rishika Sadam in Hyderabad, Jatindra Dash in Bhubaneswar, Saurabh Sharma in Lucknow, Sai Ishwarbharath B in Bengaluru, and Praveen Paramasivam in Chennai. Editing by David Crawshaw.)

(([email protected]; [email protected]))

BENGALURU, Oct 14 (Reuters) - India's Infosys INFY.NS said on Tuesday it has won a 1.2 billion pound ($1.59 billion) deal from the UK's National Health Services Business Services Authority.

The tenure of the deal will be over a period of 15 years and to develop a workforce management solution, the country's second-largest software services company said.

Infosys is set to report its results for the June-September quarter on Thursday.

($1 = 0.7541 pounds)

(Reporting by Haripriya Suresh; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)

(([email protected];))

Oct 10 (Reuters) - Infosys INFY.NS:

• LAUNCHES CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE SUITE FOR SALESFORCE

Source text: ID:nNSEc06VKW

Further company coverage: INFY.NS

(([email protected];))

Oct 9 (Reuters) - Infosys Ltd INFY.NS:

• CLARIFIES ON REPORTS REGARDING SHOW CAUSE NOTICE ISSUED BY DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF GST INTELLIGENCE

• NO TAX DEMAND AS ON DATE AGAINST CO ABOUT THIS MATTER

• CLARIFIES DGGI DID NOT PROVIDE ADDITIONAL TIME REQUESTED

Source text: ID:nNSE27p5tW

Further company coverage: INFY.NS

(([email protected];))

By Bharath Rajeswaran and Haripriya Suresh

BENGALURU, Oct 7 (Reuters) - India's IT firms are set for another lackluster quarter as weak global demand, steep U.S. tariffs and trade jitters weigh on earnings, six brokerages said ahead of results.

Four forecast year-on-year revenue growth of about 6% and a 5.5% profit rise for the September quarter, despite seasonal strength from project cycles.

"September ... will be another muted quarter for IT," said Abhishek Pathak of Motilal Oswal Financial Services.

"As clients reel under macro and tariff uncertainty, there is hesitation to commit additional dollars to any large initiatives."

The projections point to continued single-digit growth, extending an eight-quarter trend as weak U.S. client spending weighs on the sector.

Indian IT firms last saw double-digit revenue growth in the March quarter of 2023, driven by digital transformation, cloud adoption and remote-work demand after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS, India's biggest IT firm, will open the earnings season on October 9 with revenue expected to rise about 2% year on year, compared to up about 8% in the same period last year.

Infosys INFY.NS and HCLTech HCLT.NS are forecast to post revenue growth of about 8% and 9.5% respectively.

Citi Research expects fiscal 2026 to be the third straight sluggish year for IT, while Ambit Capital warned that weak macros and policy uncertainty could cap 2027 rebound.

U.S.-based Accenture ACN.N last month flagged no "meaningful change" in market conditions, while forecasting full-year 2026 revenue below the LSEG-compiled estimate of 5.3%.

Banking and financial services segment is expected to hold up, while manufacturing and retail face tariff and budget pressures, Systematix Institutional Equities said.

A planned $100,000 H-1B visa fee and a proposed 25% U.S. tax on outsourcing have added to industry concerns, with analysts seeing limited near-term impact but potential shifts in delivery models.

Foreign investors have offloaded 678.36 billion rupees ($7.64 billion) of IT stocks in 2025, the biggest sectoral outflow, dragging the Nifty IT index .NIFTYIT down 20% year-to-date against a 6% gain in the Nifty 50 .NSEI.

Still, Axis Securities said the correction in large- and mid-cap IT stocks has improved valuations, offering a better risk-reward even if a sharp rebound takes time.

($1 = 88.7370 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran and Haripriya Suresh in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee)

(([email protected]; +91 9769003463;))

India File is published every Tuesday. Think your friend or colleague should know about us? Forward this newsletter to them. They can also subscribe here.

Sept 23 - By Ira Dugal, Editor Financial News, with global Reuters staff

U.S. President Donald Trump's move to drastically hike H-1B visa fees will raise Indian technology firms' costs of hiring workers and providing services in the U.S., forcing them to rethink their operating models. It already set them back by nearly $10 billion in lost market value of their shares on Monday, the first day of trading, after the news, but the impact of the decision could go much beyond that. That's our focus this week.

And the Indian central bank is likely to opt for continuity in its inflation targeting framework. Scroll down for more on that.

THIS WEEK IN ASIA-PACIFIC

The candidates vying to be Japan's next leader

Hardest-hit Vietnam risks losing $25 billion from US tariffs, UN estimates

China cracks down on online content inciting hostility, pessimism

UK, Australia and Canada recognise Palestinian state, Israel condemns decision

Trump says 'bad things' will happen if Afghanistan does not return Bagram air base

A NEW 'MAGA' FRONT

Donald Trump has opened a new front in his fight for MAGA, or 'Make America Great Again', by driving up the fees on H-1B visas, used by foreign tech workers, most notably Indians. Train American workers instead, Trump said, making the announcement.

The decision put the tech industry squarely in the middle of the global trade and immigration tensions, leaving Indian firms rethinking their plans and policymakers calculating the wider hit from Trump's latest salvo.

The initial announcement - which suggested an annual fee of $100,000 on anyone with an H-1B visa entering the U.S. from September 21 compared with just a few thousand dollars previously - sparked panic, with companies asking workers who hold such visas and are overseas to rush back. Travellers cancelled plans and scrambled to find flights to the U.S.

India's foreign ministry said the move could disrupt families, adding that the U.S. and India have both benefited from mobility of skilled workers.

The final version, however, was watered down, imposing a one-time fee on new visas only. Nevertheless, global tech executives have pushed back, warning of rising costs for large companies and startups.

While Amazon AMZN.O uses the largest number of H-1B visas, leading Indian IT services firms are all among the top-10 sponsors of the visas. And Indians are the biggest beneficiaries of these temporary work permits.

Analysts expect the immediate financial impact on margins and profitability to be manageable but warn of rising uncertainties for the sector. Brokerage ICICI Securities pegged the average hit on earnings per share at about 6% while Jefferies estimated it at 4%-13% for different firms based on the nature of business and use of these visas. They did not specify the time period for the profit hit.

Read here to understand the impact on India's IT services model.

In response, the Nifty IT index .NIFTYIT fell 3% on Monday, wiping out nearly $10 billion in market value. The index of IT stocks has been the worst performer among sectoral indices in the Indian market so far this year, down 18% compared to a 6% gain for the benchmark Nifty 50 .NSEI.

RIPPLE EFFECTS WILL BECOME EVIDENT LATER

The wider implications of a clampdown on Indian tech workers in the U.S. will only play out over time.

With fewer such professionals welcome in the U.S., wage growth in the domestic industry could be hurt at a time when a squeeze on profitability and increased use of AI have already brought on job cuts.

The sector, which employs 5.67 million people, is a significant driver of demand in the Indian economy.

Citi analysts believe remittance flows from the U.S. could also be impacted over time but added that quantifying the impact is difficult.

Displaced workers could find a home in other countries such as Britain and South Korea, which are looking at easier visa policies to attract talent.

Some analysts believe the visa fee hike may eventually benefit India by increasing offshoring via global capability centres (GCC), used by foreign firms for a range of services from accounting to research, which have powered up the country's services exports in recent years.

The H-1B shock and increasing uncertainty "could accelerate GCC trajectory and lift GCC exports as a share of India’s total services exports over time," said Madhavi Arora, chief economist at Mumbai-headquartered Emkay Global Financial Services.

But this growth also could be short-circuited.

A bill known as the HIRE Act and introduced by U.S. Republican Senator Bernie Moreno has made the industry nervous. Any version of the bill, which proposes taxing companies that hire foreign workers over Americans, could limit the offshoring opportunity.

"If the repercussion of this (H-1B fee increase) is substantial offshoring, it might invite a reaction in terms of service tariffs or offshoring taxes," brokerage house Ambit Capital said in a note.

How will Trump's latest move impact India's tech sector and the broader economy? Write to me at [email protected].

MARKET MATTERS

India's central bank is likely to recommend maintaining the inflation target of 4% for another five years, Reuters reported.

The inflation targeting framework is up for review by March 2026.

The continuation of the target means predictability in the trajectory of interest rates but also leaves room for at least one more cut this year as headline inflation remains within the central bank's target while core inflation has been stickier.

The Reserve Bank of India had sought views on whether the target should be changed from headline inflation to core inflation and if the target band should be different from the current 2%-6%.

With most stakeholders backing the current framework, the central bank is likely to suggest its continuation to the government.

THIS WEEK'S MUST-READ

European Union nations are keeping a close watch on any wildlife export requests from India and, in particular, Vantara, a private zoo run by the philanthropic arm of a conglomerate controlled by Asia's richest family, the Ambanis.

Indian investigators cleared the sanctuary of any wrongdoing this week but its operations continue to draw global scrutiny.

Read here to know why the Spix's macaw, a vivid-blue parrot, found itself in the middle of controversy around Vantara.

(Reporting by Ira Dugal; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

(([email protected]; +91-9833024892;))

Adds more graphics

By Kashish Tandon and Abinaya V

Sept 22 (Reuters) - Indian information technology majors saw their shares .NIFTYIT slump on Monday after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa applications, threatening to inflate costs and slow revenue growth in their biggest market.

The sector, which earns about 57% of its revenue from the U.S., has long gained from U.S. work visa programmes and the outsourcing of software and business services - a contentious issue for American job-seekers competing with cheaper Indian labour.

The tech sub-index dropped nearly 3% and was the biggest loser on the day. It also dragged the benchmark Nifty 50 .NSEI 0.2% lower.

India was by far the largest beneficiary of H-1B visas last year, accounting for 71% of approved beneficiaries.

"Due to the near-term pressure on margins amid an already tough market, we believe this is sentimentally negative for the sector," ICICI Direct, an online trading platform for ICICI Securities, said in a client note on Monday.

ICICI Securities estimated that Trump's order could knock about 1 percentage point off profit margins and about 6% off earnings for IT firms, assuming they continue to hire Indians under the program.

A '$100,000' CURVEBALL

Trump's reshaping of the H-1B program represents his administration's most high-profile effort to rework temporary employment visas.

Jefferies analysts, who called the move a "$100,000 curveball for the Indian IT" sector said the industry has about four to five years to resolve the issue, given the higher fees only applies to new applications.

Other analysts and industry experts said they expected Indian IT firms to reduce reliance on H-1B visas and increase local hiring in the U.S. as well as hiring workers in nearby countries such as Mexico and Canada.

Indian IT industry body Nasscom said H-1B visas issued to the leading Indian and India-centric firms have fallen to slightly more than 10,000 in 2024 from nearly 15,000 in 2015. They expected Trump's order to have a marginal impact on the industry as Indian firms have significantly reduced their reliance on H-1B visas.

Mphasis MBFL.NS led losses on the tech sub-index on Monday with a 4.4% slump. IT majors TCS TCS.NS and Infosys INFY.NS were down about 3% each, while Wipro WIPR.NS fell 2%.

Trump's order "is among the last things that the sector sentiment needed, amid persistent pressure weighing on growth from geopolitical and macro uncertainties and structural concerns caused by GenAI," said analysts at TD Cowen.

The fresh challenge for the Indian IT sector comes as it awaits clarity on a proposed 25% tax on outsourcing payments and struggles with weak revenue growth in its mainstay U.S. market as clients defer non-essential tech spending amid inflationary pressures and tariff uncertainty.

IT stocks are the worst performers so far this year, falling 18% versus a 7.1% gain in the benchmark Nifty 50 index.

(Reporting by Kashish Tandon and Abinaya Vijayaraghavan in Bengaluru; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Miyoung Kim)

(([email protected]; 8800437922;))

By Haripriya Suresh and Sai Ishwarbharath B

BENGALURU, Sept 21 (Reuters) - India's $283 billion information technology sector will have to overhaul its decades-old strategy of rotating skilled talent into U.S. projects following U.S. President Donald Trump's move to impose a $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas from Sunday, according to tech veterans, analysts, lawyers and economists.

The sector, which earns about 57% of its total revenue from the U.S. market, has long gained from U.S. work visa programs and the outsourcing of software and business services -- a contentious issue for many Americans who have lost jobs to cheaper workers in India.

India was by far the largest beneficiary of H-1B visas last year, accounting for 71% of approved beneficiaries, while China was a distant second at 11.7%, according to U.S. government data.

Trump's move to reshape the H-1B program will force IT firms with clients such as Apple AAPL.O, JPMorgan Chase JPM.N, Walmart WMT.N, Microsoft MSFT.O, Meta META.O and Alphabet's GOOGL.O Google to pause onshore rotations, accelerate offshore delivery, and ramp up hiring of U.S. citizens and green card holders, experts said.

AMERICAN DREAM SLIPPING AWAY

"The 'American Dream' for aspiring workers will be tough," Ganesh Natarajan, former CEO of IT outsourcer Zensar Technologies, said, adding that he expected firms to restrict cross-border travel and get more work done out of countries such as India, Mexico and the Philippines.

IT firms Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS, Infosys INFY.NS, HCLTech HCLT.NS, Wipro WIPR.NS and Tech Mahindra TEML.NS did not respond to Reuters requests seeking comment.

Industry body Nasscom said the move would "potentially have ripple effects on America's innovation ecosystem" and disrupt business continuity for onshore projects.

"Services exports have finally been dragged into the ongoing global trade and tech war," Emkay Global Chief Economist Madhavi Arora said, adding that it could disrupt the IT sector's onsite-offshore model, pressuring margins, and supply chain.

Most industry watchers expect Trump's move to constrain client-facing roles, hurting IT deal conversion and extending the time taken to scale up tech projects.

"Clients will demand repricing or delay start dates until there is clarity on legal challenges. Some projects will be re-scoped to reduce onshore staffing. Others will shift delivery offshore or near-shore from day one," HFS Research CEO Phil Fersht said.

FUTURE H1-B VISAS FOR CRITICAL ROLES ONLY

Immigration lawyers, who received frantic calls over the weekend due to the chaos and confusion created by Trump's proclamation, in which he accused the IT sector of manipulating the H-1B system, said the new visa fee was steep.

"We expect that companies will become far more selective in deciding which candidates to sponsor, reserving H-1B filings for only the most business-critical roles," Vic Goel, managing partner at U.S. law firm Goel & Anderson said. "This would significantly reduce access to the H-1B program for many skilled foreign nationals and could reshape employer demand."

Before the White House clarified that the order applied only to new applicants and not holders of existing visas or those seeking renewals, companies including Tata Consultancy Services, Eli Lilly LLY.N, Microsoft, JPMorgan, and Amazon AMZN.O advised employees on H-1B visas to stay put or return to the U.S. before Sunday, according to internal messages seen by Reuters, forcing many workers from India and China to abandon travel plans and rush back.

Many immigration lawyers expect Trump's move to be challenged legally soon.

"We are anticipating that several lawsuits will be immediately forthcoming this week," Alcorn Immigration Law CEO Sophie Alcorn said.

The fresh challenge for the Indian IT sector comes as it awaits clarity on a proposed 25% tax on outsourcing payments and struggles with weak revenue growth in its mainstay U.S. market as clients defer non-essential tech spending amid inflationary pressures and tariff uncertainty.

MOVE TO PROPEL GCC GROWTH

Across the board, industry watchers expect Trump's move to accelerate the growth of U.S. firms' global capability centres (GCCs), which have evolved from low-cost offshore back offices to high-value innovation hubs that support operations, finance, research and development.

"Time zone proximity will accelerate GCCs and resourcing in Canada, Mexico, and Latin America, where talent is stable and cost advantages remain," ISG President and Chief AI officer Steven Hall said. "GCCs in India will also continue to rise with broader capabilities and skills as enterprises shift strategic roles to India."

India, currently home to more than half of the world's GCCs, is projected to host more than 2,200 companies by 2030, with a market size nearing $100 billion and generating up to 2.8 million jobs, according to a Nasscom-Zinnov report released last year.

Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research founder and chairman Ray Wang expects Trump's move to lead to more GCCs in India, more local hiring in the U.S., more pressure to deliver automation and AI at the same time, less outsourcing, fewer H-1B visas and less job mobility.

"We are seeing a new world order on services economics," Wang said.

(Reporting by Haripriya Suresh, Sai Ishwarbharath B, Rishika Sadam, Abhirami G and Urvi Manoj Dugar, Editing by Dhanya Skariachan and Hugh Lawson)

(([email protected];))

Recasts paragraph 1, adds Amazon in paragraphs 6, 9

By Aditya Soni, Kristina Cooke and Jeff Mason

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON, Sept 19 (Reuters) - The Trump administration said on Friday it would ask companies to pay $100,000 per year for H-1B worker visas, prompting some big tech companies to warn visa holders to stay in the U.S. or quickly return.

The change could deal a big blow to the technology sector that relies heavily on skilled workers from India and China.

Since taking office in January, Trump has kicked off a wide-ranging immigration crackdown, including moves to limit some forms of legal immigration. The step to reshape the H-1B visa program represents his administration's most high-profile effort yet to rework temporary employment visas.

"If you're going to train somebody, you're going to train one of the recent graduates from one of the great universities across our land," said Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Train Americans. Stop bringing in people to take our jobs."

Trump's threat to crack down on H-1B visas has become a major flashpoint with the tech industry, which contributed millions of dollars to his presidential campaign.

Microsoft MSFT.O, JPMorgan JPM.N and Amazon AMZN.O responded to the announcement by advising employees holding H-1B visas to remain in the United States, according to internal emails reviewed by Reuters.

They advised employees on the H-1B visas who were outside the U.S. to return before midnight on Saturday (0400 GMT on Sunday), when the new fee structures are set to take effect.

"H-1B visa holders who are currently in the U.S. should remain in the U.S. and avoid international travel until the government issues clear travel guidance," read an email sent to JPMorgan employees by Ogletree Deakins, a company that handles visa applications for the U.S. investment bank.

Microsoft, JPMorgan, law firm Ogletree Deakins, which represents the bank on the issue, and Amazon AMZN.O did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

Critics of the H-1B program, including many U.S. technology workers, argue that it allows firms to suppress wages and sideline Americans who could do the jobs. Supporters, including Tesla TSLA.O CEO and former Trump ally Elon Musk, say it brings in highly skilled workers essential to filling talent gaps and keeping firms competitive. Musk, himself a naturalized U.S. citizen born in South Africa, has held an H-1B visa.

Some employers have exploited the program to hold down wages, disadvantaging U.S. workers, according to the executive order Trump signed on Friday.

The number of foreign science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workers in the U.S. more than doubled between 2000 and 2019 to nearly 2.5 million, even as overall STEM employment only increased 44.5% during that time, it said.

MOVE COULD DETER GLOBAL TALENT

Adding new fees "creates disincentive to attract the world's smartest talent to the U.S.," said Deedy Das, partner at venture capital firm Menlo Ventures, on X. "If the U.S. ceases to attract the best talent, it drastically reduces its ability to innovate and grow the economy."

The move could add millions of dollars in costs for companies, which could hit smaller tech firms and start-ups particularly hard.

Reuters was not immediately able to establish how the fee would be administered. Lutnick said the visa would cost $100,000 a year for each of the three years of its duration but that the details were "still being considered."

Under the current system, entering the lottery for the visa requires a small fee and, if approved, subsequent fees could amount to several thousand dollars.

Some analysts suggested the fee may force companies to move some high-value work overseas, hampering America's position in the high-stakes artificial intelligence race with China.

"In the short term, Washington may collect a windfall; in the long term, the U.S. risks taxing away its innovation edge, trading dynamism for short-sighted protectionism," said eMarketer analyst Jeremy Goldman.

INDIA ACCOUNTS FOR MOST H-1B VISAS

India was the largest beneficiary of H-1B visas last year, accounting for 71% of approved beneficiaries, while China was a distant second at 11.7%, according to government data.

In the first half of 2025, Amazon.com AMZN.O and its cloud-computing unit, AWS, had received approval for more than 12,000 H-1B visas, while Microsoft MSFT.O and Meta Platforms META.O had over 5,000 H-1B visa approvals each.

Lutnick said on Friday that "all the big companies are on board" with $100,000 a year for H-1B visas.

"We've spoken to them," he said.

Many large U.S. tech, banking and consulting companies declined to comment or did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Indian embassy in Washington and the Chinese Consulate General in New York also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Shares of Cognizant Technology Solutions CTSH.O, an IT services company that relies extensively on H-1B visa holders, closed down nearly 5%. U.S.-listed shares of Indian tech firms Infosys INFY.K and Wipro WIT.N closed between 2% and 5% lower.

IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director of the American Immigration Council, questioned the legality of the new fees. "Congress has only authorized the government to set fees to recover the cost of adjudicating an application," he said on Bluesky.

The H-1B program offers 65,000 visas annually to employers bringing in temporary foreign workers in specialized fields, with another 20,000 visas for workers with advanced degrees.

Nearly all the visa fees have to be paid by the employers. The H-1B visas are approved for a period of three to six years.

Trump also signed an executive order on Friday to create a "gold card" for individuals who can afford to pay $1 million for U.S. permanent residency.

(Reporting by Aditya Soni and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco, Jeff Mason in Washington and Siddharth Cavale and Nupur Anand in New York; Additional reporting by Reuters bureaus, Gnaneshwar Rajan and Preetika Parashuraman in Bengaluru and Greg Bensinger in San Francisco; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien and Tom Hogue)

(([email protected];))

The authors are Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are their own. Refiles to add correct topic code.

By Una Galani and Shritama Bose

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI, Sept 18 (Reuters Breakingviews) - In recent years, India has enjoyed a virtuous cycle. The fast growth and unusual stability of its $4 trillion economy has boosted the country’s confidence and standing in the world. But Donald Trump’s trade war and desire to bring jobs back to the United States could quickly undermine what Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called “India’s moment”.

The U.S. president’s decision to raise tariffs on imports of Indian goods to 50% puts the country at a competitive disadvantage to Asian peers and hurts its manufacturing ambitions. However, given that all overseas shipments generate just 11% of Indian GDP, the economy can absorb the blow. A greater threat is that deteriorating relations with the U.S. impact the country’s IT services industry which has played a leading role in India’s transformation over the past two decades.

Providing services to global companies including JPMorgan JPM.N, Goldman Sachs GS.N and Exxon Mobil XOM.N has created massive wealth, spurred the rise of major cities like Hyderabad and Bengaluru, and created the wall of money that has propelled the stock market, property prices, and the consumption of well-heeled Indians.

The two countries have resumed trade negotiations but New Delhi has limited bargaining chips. India is too poor for Modi to open its market to U.S. agricultural imports or to promise hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in the world’s biggest economy, as Japan has done. Meanwhile, India’s loose grip on supply chains means it cannot follow China’s lead by withholding exports of rare earths or other items.

Policymakers, industrialists and financiers in New Delhi and Mumbai are sympathetic to Modi’s position. They are also hopeful that Washington will quickly soften its stance to avoid pushing the South Asian country into the orbit of the People’s Republic. The alternative is too grim to contemplate.

A FINE BALANCE

Start with tariffs. If the 50% U.S. levy remains in place, it could wipe up to 0.6% off India’s GDP growth in the current financial year to the end of March, says V. Anantha Nageswaran, the nation’s chief economic adviser. Deduct this figure from the lower end of official forecasts and growth would shrink to 5.7%.

That’s unwelcome, but manageable. The tariff applies to only 13% of the $437 billion goods India shipped overseas last year, because pharmaceutical products and electronic items like Apple AAPL.O iPhones are exempt. Even so, Trump’s levy would lead to significant job losses because it makes goods from employment-intensive sectors like auto parts, gems, jewellery, and textiles unviable for export to the U.S.

A lower growth rate would leave India short of the minimum 6% annual pace New Delhi was targeting for the next decade, and well short of its potential of 8% or more. However, India could retain its status as the world’s fastest-growing large economy, ahead of China.

An attack on India’s services industry would be more severe. A sharp reduction of IT exports could lead to rocketing inflation and trigger a currency crisis because of the crucial balancing effect services exports have on India’s finances.

Services are an obvious if complicated target. Firms led by Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS, Infosys INFY.NS and Wipro WIPR.NS generate up to 60% of their revenue from North America. Meanwhile, one in five Fortune 2000 companies have global centres in India.

Many multinational firms rely on Indians to handle their finance processes and deal with customer complaints. Though these hubs have evolved to include product engineering and innovation centres, including for artificial intelligence, the industry’s appeal remains rooted in its relatively low employment costs.

India’s services exports have grown at double the rate of the rest of the world between 2005 and 2023. Of the $341 billion India earned providing overseas services in the year ending March 2024, at least 30% or $103 billion came from the United States. That’s twice the value of goods exports targeted by Trump.

This model is now under attack from U.S. politicians eager to bring jobs back home. One symptom of the backlash is The Halting International Relocation of Employment Act, also known as the Hire Act, introduced this month by Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno. It proposes a 25% tax on outsourcing payments, defined as any money paid by a U.S. company or taxpayer to a foreign person whose work benefits U.S. consumers.

It’s unclear whether Trump supports the bill, and similar legislation has previously failed to win backing in Congress. But so long as Washington pursues an “America First” agenda, such threats will continue.

Reversing decades of outsourcing of services jobs would not be easy. A sudden move would leave global companies unable to file their accounts and support clients. Even a gradual shift could be fraught. The sheer number of English-speaking and numerically skilled workers in India cannot be found elsewhere.

Nevertheless, any sustained threat could be devastating, especially if AI also squeezes back-office headcounts. The crux of India’s recent economic stability is that it sells more services overseas than it buys from OpenAI, Perplexity, Alphabet’s GOOGL.O Google, and others. This helps contain the “twin deficits” in the country’s current account - a measure of its imports and exports – and in the government’s fiscal account.

Keeping a lid on these shortfalls prevents the rupee from depreciating too fast, curbs energy import costs, tames domestic inflation and reduces the need for politicians to spend borrowed money to support the large swathes of poor among the country’s 1.4 billion inhabitants. It has also helped to shrink the risk premium global investors assign to India.

When the twin deficits expand, India suffers. It experienced a sharp rupee depreciation and significant capital outflows during the 2013 “taper tantrum” when the U.S. Federal Reserve slowed down its bond purchases.

Modi has ways to offset the damage. His administration is doubling down on efforts to strike free trade agreements, including with the European Union. It is also waving through reforms to spur consumption and cut red tape. However, these steps are insufficient to replace lost American exports or truly unshackle Indian businesses.

Trump’s tariff war has shown the U.S. president is willing to inflict economic pain on his own country to try and achieve his aims. The risk for India is that what was a virtuous cycle for its economy turns into a vicious one.

Follow Una Galani on LinkedIn and X.

Follow Shritama Bose on LinkedIn and X.

(Editing by Peter Thal Larsen; Production by Aditya Srivastav)

((For previous columns by the authors, Reuters customers can click on GALANI/ [email protected];; [email protected] ))

** Shares of Infosys INFY.NS rise 1.74% to 1,536 rupees

** India's No. 2 IT service provider approves its fifth and largest share buyback worth 180 billion rupees (~$2 billion)

** INFY to buy back 100 million shares at 1,800 rupees/share via tender offer

** Investec ("Buy", PT: 1,655 rupees) says INFY's 85% free cash flow payout policy implies lower dividends this year due to the buyback but it is expected to be ~2.4% earnings accretive in FY26

** Morgan Stanley ("Buy", PT: 1,700 rupees) says based on historical experience, it could take 3-4 months to fully execute the buyback, and it is a vote of confidence on stability in FY26 guidance ahead of results

** CLSA ("Outperform", PT: 1,861 rupees) says buyback should provide some support to the stock price during a seasonally weak second half, and sees any macro improvements leading to upward revisions to the top end of revenue growth guidance

** INFY down 18.3% YTD

($1 = 88.3070 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Urvi Dugar)

(([email protected]))

Sept 11 (Reuters) - Infosys Ltd INFY.NS:

• INFOSYS LTD - CO AND HANESBRANDS COLLABORATE FOR AI-DRIVEN EFFICIENCY

• INFOSYS LTD - TEN-YEAR ALLIANCE LEVERAGES INFOSYS AI-FIRST PLATFORMS

Source text: ID:nBSE2rQQGq

Further company coverage: INFY.NS

(([email protected];;))

Sept 2 (Reuters) - Infosys Ltd INFY.NS:

• INFOSYS COLLABORATES WITH GLION ARENA KOBE

Source text: ID:nBSE7RNsP8

Further company coverage: INFY.NS

(([email protected];;))

Aug 28 (Reuters) - Infosys Ltd INFY.NS:

• MASTERCARD AND INFOSYS COLLABORATE

Source text: ID:nnAZN4FL7MS

Further company coverage: INFY.NS

(([email protected];;))

Aug 20 (Reuters) - Infosys Ltd INFY.NS:

• INFOSYS - UNITING FINANCIAL SERVICES, AUSTRALIA SUBSCRIBES TO DIGITAL BANKING SAAS SUITE

Source text: ID:nBSE2GVyND

Further company coverage: INFY.NS

(([email protected];))

** Infosys INFY.NS rises 1.6% to 1,449 rupees

** Co says it will buy 75% stake in Versent Group, a wholly-owned unit of Australia's Telstra Group TLS.AX, for $153 mln

** Versent provides cloud services to Australian cos in finance, energy and other sectors

** Morgan Stanley says deal price doesn't appear to be expensive, shouldn't lead to dilution in Infosys's EPS

** Adds Versent has blue-chip client base; had collaborated with Infosys earlier

** Nomura says collaboration will help strengthen Infosys's presence in Australia

** YTD, INFY down ~23%

(Reporting by Ananta Agarwal in Bengaluru)

(([email protected]))

Updates with moves of U.S.-listed Infosys shares in paragraph 4

Aug 13 (Reuters) - Indian IT services company Infosys INFY.NS said on Wednesday that it would take a 75% stake in Versent Group, a wholly owned unit of Australia's Telstra Group TLS.AX, for A$233.3 million ($153 million).

Versent Group provides cloud services to Australian organisations in sectors such as finance, energy, utilities, government and education, Infosys said in a statement.

The deal, which Infosys says will boost its local presence, is expected to close by the second half of fiscal 2026, subject to approvals from Foreign Investment Review Board of Australia and Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

U.S.-listed shares of Infosys rose after the news and were last up 1.6% at $16.33.

($1 = 1.5279 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru, additional reporting by Medha Singh, Editing by Anil D'Silva)

(([email protected]; X: @MukherjeeHritam;))

By Aditya Kalra

NEW DELHI, Aug 11 (Reuters) - From McDonald's and Coca-Cola to Amazon and Apple, U.S.-based multinationals are facing calls for a boycott in India as business executives and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's supporters stoke anti-American sentiment to protest against U.S. tariffs.

India, the world's most populous nation, is a key market for American brands that have rapidly expanded to target a growing base of affluent consumers, many of whom remain infatuated with international labels seen as symbols of moving up in life.

India, for example, is the biggest market by users for Meta's WhatsApp and Domino's has more restaurants than any other brand in the country. Beverages like Pepsi and Coca-Cola often dominate store shelves, and people still queue up when a new Apple store opens or a Starbucks cafe doles out discounts.

Although there was no immediate indication of sales being hit, there's a growing chorus both on social media and offline to buy local and ditch American products after Donald Trump imposed a 50% tariff on goods from India, rattling exporters and damaging ties between New Delhi and Washington.

McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Amazon and Apple did not immediately respond to Reuters queries.

Manish Chowdhary, co-founder of India's Wow Skin Science, took to LinkedIn with a video message urging support for farmers and startups to make "Made in India" a "global obsession," and to learn from South Korea whose food and beauty products are famous worldwide.

"We have lined up for products from thousands of miles away. We have proudly spent on brands that we don't own, while our own makers fight for attention in their own country," he said.

Rahm Shastry, CEO of India's DriveU, which provides a car driver on call service, wrote on LinkedIn: "India should have its own home-grown Twitter/Google/YouTube/WhatsApp/FB -- like China has."

To be fair, Indian retail companies give foreign brands like Starbucks stiff competition in the domestic market, but going global has been a challenge.

Indian IT services firms, however, have become deeply entrenched in the global economy, with the likes of TCS TCS.NS and Infosys INFY.NS providing software solutions to clients world over.

On Sunday, Modi made a "special appeal" for becoming self-reliant, telling a gathering in Bengaluru that Indian technology companies made products for the world but "now is the time for us to give more priority to India's needs."

He did not name any company.

DON'T DRAG MY MCPUFF INTO IT

Even as anti-American protests simmer, Tesla TSLA.O launched its second showroom in India in New Delhi, with Monday's opening attended by Indian commerce ministry officials and U.S. embassy officials.

The Swadeshi Jagran Manch group, which is linked to Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, took out small public rallies across India on Sunday, urging people to boycott American brands.

"People are now looking at Indian products. It will take some time to fructify," Ashwani Mahajan, the group's co-convenor, told Reuters. "This is a call for nationalism, patriotism."

He also shared with Reuters a table his group is circulating on WhatsApp, listing Indian brands of bath soaps, toothpaste and cold drinks that people could choose over foreign ones.

On social media, one of the group's campaigns is a graphic titled "Boycott foreign food chains", with logos of McDonald's MCD.N and many other restaurant brands.

In Uttar Pradesh, Rajat Gupta, 37, who was dining at a McDonald’s in Lucknow on Monday, said he wasn’t concerned about the tariff protests and simply enjoyed the 49-rupee ($0.55) coffee he considered good value for money.

"Tariffs are a matter of diplomacy and my McPuff, coffee should not be dragged into it," he said.

(Reporting by Aditya Kalra; Additional reporting by Saurabh Sharma, Praveen Paramasivam and Aditi Shah)

((Email: [email protected]; X: @adityakalra;))

Adds reporters' bylines

By Sai Ishwarbharath B and Haripriya Suresh

BENGALURU, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Indian outsourcing giant Tata Consultancy Services' TCS.NS decision to cut over 12,000 jobs signals the start of a broader AI-fueled trend that could end up eliminating around half a million jobs over the next two to three years from the $283 billion sector, experts said.

While TCS pegged the move to shed 2% of its workforce to skill mismatches rather than AI-related productivity gains, experts viewed the largest-ever layoffs by India's top private employer as the beginning of things to come in the labour-intensive sector. Roughly 12,200 TCS middle and senior management jobs will be lost.

The industry, which has played a crucial role in creating a middle class in India, is increasingly seeing AI being used for everything from basic coding to manual testing and customer support.

The sector employed 5.67 million people as of March 2025 and accounted for over 7% of India's GDP. It has a huge multiplier effect due to the direct and indirect jobs it creates and the cars-to-homes consumption it drives in the world's fifth-largest economy.

It has historically absorbed a majority of India's engineers but that will change as rising AI use ekes out more efficiencies and demands newer skills that many current employees lack, according to half a dozen industry veterans, analysts, and staffing firms.

"We are in the midst of a massive transition that will transform white-collar work as we know it," said Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research founder and chairman Ray Wang, echoing other experts who warned that more layoffs are likely on the cards.

The most vulnerable employees include pure people managers with minimal tech knowledge, those in charge of testing or identifying bugs and ensuring user-friendliness before delivering software to clients, and infrastructure management staff who provide basic tech support and ensure networks and servers are working well, experts said.

"About 400,000 to 500,000 professionals are at risk of being laid off over the next two to three years as their skills don't match client demands," tech market intelligence firm UnearthInsight's founder Gaurav Vasu said, adding that about 70% of those layoffs would impact workers with 4-12 years' experience.

"This (fear stemming from TCS layoffs) may hurt consumer demand for tourism, luxury shopping and even delay long-term investments such as real estate," Vasu said.

TCS and its peers Infosys INFY.NS, HCLTech HCLT.NS, Tech Mahindra TEML.NS, Wipro WIPR.NS, LTIMindtree LTIM.NS, and Cognizant CTSH.O collectively employ over 430,000 workers with 13 to 25 years of experience, according to staffing firm Xpheno.

"At the moment, they may appear like the big fat middle layer," Xpheno's co-founder Kamal Karanth said. None of the IT firms responded to Reuters queries seeking comment.

"With cost optimization being the key driver for new deal wins, clients are asking for productivity benefits - a trend which is also growing due to the rise in AI adoption. This requires IT firms to do more work with the same number of employees or the same work with fewer employees," Jefferies analyst Akshat Agarwal said in a research note.

ADAPT OR PERISH

TCS, which had more than 613,000 workers before the layoffs, said in its late July announcement it was gearing up to be "future-ready" by investing in new technologies, entering new markets, deploying AI at scale for its clients and itself, and realigning its workforce model. It did not answer Reuters queries on how many layoffs were tied to AI adoption and why it could not redeploy the affected employees.

"This is very devastating news," said a 45-year-old, Kolkata-based TCS employee affected by the latest layoffs. "It is very difficult for people my age to get new jobs."

Some others who are still at TCS fretted over its mediocre performance bonuses for senior employees in recent quarters, a new "bench policy" that limits the time somebody could be without a project regardless of personal circumstances or past performance, on-boarding delays, and the emotional turmoil caused by the layoffs.

"All these developments have tanked the morale of mid-career folks like me," a Pune-based TCS employee said.

The Indian outsourcing sector has been a key employment engine since the 1990s, offering upward mobility to millions of engineers. But revenue growth has weakened recently as its clients, stung by inflation and U.S. tariff uncertainty, defer discretionary spending and demand better cost management.

"The tech industry is at an inflection point, as AI and automation move to the very core of how businesses operate," industry body Nasscom said.

During past tech revolutions, disruption was felt at the organisational level.

"With AI, for the first time, the onus is on the individual to reinvent or re-skill themselves," former Tech Mahindra CEO CP Gurnani said.

(Reporting by Sai Ishwarbharath B and Haripriya Suresh; Editing by Dhanya Skariachan and Kim Coghill)

(([email protected]))

Updates with afternoon levels

By Ragini Mathur, Johann M Cherian and Sukriti Gupta

Aug 6 (Reuters) - Chile's peso declined the most among Latin American currencies on Wednesday, after the local central bank unveiled plans to boost international reserves, while investors were also scrutinizing U.S. tariffs on India and Brazil.

In a move that surprised investors, U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled an additional tariff on Indian goods , set to take effect 21 days after August 7. The new tariff will push duties on some Indian exports as high as 50% – among the steepest imposed on any U.S. trading partner.

Trump cited New Delhi's continued purchases of Russian oil as the reason for the sharply increased tariff rate.

Indian markets closed before the news, but a U.S.-listed iShares India ETF INDA.N slipped 0.3% to a three-month low. Depository receipts of Dr Reddy's Laboratories RDY.N REDY.NS lost 2.5% and those of Wipro WIT.N WIPR.NS and Infosys INFY.N INFY.NS dipped 1.5% and 0.9%, respectively.

On the currency front, the 1-month rupee forward INR1MNDFOR= was last flat against the dollar.

"While markets have already started pricing in the risk of a sharp tariff hike, a near-term knee-jerk reaction is inevitable — unless there's swift clarity or a breakthrough in negotiations," said Mayuresh Joshi, head of India equity research at William O'Neil.

"India's crude oil imports have remained diversified ... Russia is just one slice of our broader crude basket."

In Latin America, Brazil's real BRL= firmed 0.8% against a weaker dollar and touched a near one-month high and stocks .BVSP gained 1.1% to hit a two-week high as 50% U.S. tariffs on the country's exports took effect.

The U.S. enjoys a trade surplus with Brazil and top export items from the South American country were exempted from the duties last week. The BRICS group of countries has come under greater scrutiny in recent weeks as Trump accused them of pursuing "anti-American policies".

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told Reuters in an interview that he saw no room for direct talks with U.S. President Donald Trump, which he believes would turn into a "humiliation" for him.

Meanwhile, Chile's currency fell 0.7% after the country's central bank announced a three-year plan to boost international reserves by $18.5 billion, aiming to strengthen its holdings and reduce dependence on foreign credit lines.

Citigroup moved to "underweight" on the Chilean peso in its EM Bond Portfolio following the reserves program announcement.

Mexico's peso MXN= firmed 0.7% ahead of an interest rate decision by the domestic central bank on Thursday.

Elsewhere, Trump said his special envoy Steve Witkoff had made "great progress" in his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, two days before a deadline set to impose new sanctions if no moves were made to end the conflict with Ukraine.

Crude prices slid to an eight-week low on the sanction uncertainty. The rouble RUB= had closed lower earlier on Wednesday, while international bonds in Ukraine rose broadly.

Key Latin American stock indexes and currencies:

(Reporting by Sukriti Gupta, Purvi Agarwal, Ragini Mathur and Johann M Cherian in Bengaluru; Editing by Richard Chang and Mohammed Safi Shamsi)

(([email protected]))