Cloudy world casts shadow over IT Inc.'s year ahead

The Big Five of India's IT services may grow slower in the year ahead as Donald Trump's tariff war threatens to hurt their large clients in the US, multiple analysts said.

- Jas Bardia

Inflationary policies, retaliatory tariffs and a slower pace of rate cuts are expected to darken the mood further. India's IT outsourcers earn most of their revenue from the US, and any disruption in the Americas can hit their revenues.

Kotak Institutional Equities and Motilal Oswal Financial Services expect Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, Infosys Ltd, HCL Technologies Ltd, Wipro Ltd, and Tech Mahindra Ltd to report a 5% constant currency revenue growth at best in FY26, whereas JM Financial expects them to report a growth of 5.8% at best, lower than its previous estimates of 7.8% at best. Earlier, IT industry lobby Nasscom had projected a growth of at least 6% in FY26, against 5.1% growth it estimated for FY25.

The revision by analysts comes just days before these companies report their FY25 earnings. TCS kicks off the earnings season for IT on 10 April, followed by Infosys and HCLTech on 17 and 22 April, respectively. The Big Five get between $3 billion and $16 billion of their full-year revenue from the Americas, or almost half of their overall revenues.