Cognizant Overtakes Infosys, Becomes Second Largest Indian IT Company

Cognizant Technologies Solutions Monday raced ahead of India's IT bellwether Infosys as the second largest IT company.

New Jersey-based Cognizant beat Infosys in terms of the quarterly revenues in the first quarter of the financial year 2012-13.

Cognizant reported revenues of $1.79 billion for the quarter ending June 30 as compared to the $1.75 billion reported by Infosys. The company overtook Wipro a year ago in revenue as India's third largest IT player.

The company beat the analysts' expectation on earnings per share and revenue for the April-June quarter. The company earned a net profit of $251.9 million, up by 21 percent from the $208 million in the same period a year ago.

EPS on a US GAAP basis was 82 cents, higher than its own forecast of 80 cents. The company raised its EPS guidance by 2 cents $3.38 and affirmed its revenue forecast of $7.34 billion for 2012, which is in complete contrast with Infosys which shocked the markets by giving a muted forecast for the year and declined to give expectations for the second quarter citing volatile market conditions.

Analysts expect that Cognizant will remain in the second position based on the bullish forecast on its revenues and the mute revenue forecast by Infosys for 2012. Cognizant's revenue from financial services clients grew 6 percent sequentially while Infosys saw a sequential decline.

Cognizant's high revenue growth is attributed partly to a revival in technology spending in the financial sector and partly to the company's strategy of reinvesting in the business, a First Post report said.

"Cognizant, reiterating its guidance of at least 20 percent growth in this environment, shows that it's in a different league compared to the likes of Infosys and Wipro," Morningstar analyst Swami Shanmugasundaram told Reuters.