Telecom troubles: Mega deals mask underlying sector weakness

Q1FY25 reveals telecom sector challenges: despite Infosys and HCLT's gains from big deals, TCS, Wipro, and Tech M see revenue drops, signalling ongoing issues

- VERNIKA AWAL

The Q1FY25 earnings season is now behind us, offering insights into future trends. While the IT services industry has started faring better than the previous fiscal year, the telecommunications sector, a key contributor to IT outsourcers, has experienced a mixed-bag season. This reflects the current state of the telecom industry worldwide, where the impact of the global macroeconomic slowdown has yet to be alleviated.

However, first thing first: here is a breakdown of how India's top five IT services firms are positioned.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS): India's largest IT services firm by revenue and market cap, TCS reported a 3.9% year-on-year (YoY) growth in its quarterly dollar revenue to USD 7.51 billion for QIFY25. As reported under the communications and media verticals, the telecom sector brought in USD 465.6 million for TCS this quarter, representing 6.2% of its revenue. In the same quarter last year, TCS earned USD 506.1 million from its telecom-sector business, marking an 8% decline in revenue from the vertical.

Infosys: The company fared much better in comparison, earning USD 569.9 million from its telecom business in QIFY25, compared to USD 540.2 million in Q1FY24. This marks a 5.5% growth in revenue from the sector.

HCL Technologies: The telecom sector revenue for India's third-largest IT services firm rose to USD 409.9 million in QIFY25, up from USD 243.2 million in the same period last year. This represents a 68.5% surge in telecom sector revenue, highlighting this growth as an outlier.

Wipro: Telecom is one of the least contributing sectors for Wipro. Its revenues from the sector continued to drop, dipping below the USD 100 million mark to USD 99.9 million in Q1FY25. In the same period last year, Wipro had reported revenues of USD 127.9 million from telecomsector clients, marking a 21.9% decline for the firm.