MUMBAI (Reuters) - Infosys
Infosys, reporting earnings for the second quarter, did not say why it cut the forecast to an expected increase in annual dollar revenues of 6.4 to 8.4 percent. Earlier, the company had forecast 7.2 to 9.2 percent growth.
On a constant currency basis, guidance was unchanged.
"We continue to see pricing challenges in large deals," Chief Operating Officer UB Pravin Rao said on a call with reporters.
"Pricing pressure is a reality in industry now."
In September, rival Accenture Plc
IT services companies such as Infosys, whose clients include Apple Inc
Infosys also announced the departure of its chief financial officer, Rajiv Bansal. It did not give a reason for Bansal's leaving, but said he is being replaced by M.D. Ranganath, who is currently head of strategic operations, in charge of risk management, strategy and mergers and acquisitions.
Infosys shares briefly rose to a record high before reversing course and losing as much as 5 percent. At 0450 GMT, they were down 2.4 percent at 1,139.3 rupees.
Aneesh Srivastava, ?chief investment officer at IDBI Federal Life Insurance Co, said disappointment with the U.S. dollar revenue guidance and volume growth was weighing on the stock. "Dollar strength during last quarter has actually impacted revenue guidance," he said.
The company posted a second-quarter net profit of 33.98 billion rupees ($525 million) in the three months to Sept. 30, compared with 30.96 billion rupees a year ago.
Analysts, on average, had expected a net profit of 32.89 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters data.
($1 = 64.7150 rupees)
(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy, Nivedita Bhattacharjee and Abhishek Vishnoi; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
