The Hindu Business Line : IT industry growth may halve to 15% this fiscal: Infosys

New Delhi, Dec. 4 The country’s second largest IT services company Infosys Technologies said on Thursday that the growth rate of overall Indian IT and ITES sector may slow down to about 15 per cent this fiscal, compared with about 30 per cent notched during the previous year.

“Last year, the growth rate was close to 30 per cent…This year the growth may be half of that, may be about 15 per cent. These are indications we are getting from industry bodies. For the growth numbers for next fiscal we will have to wait and see,” the Infosys CEO, Mr S. Gopalakrishnan, said on the sidelines of CII services conclave here.

Nasscom had initially projected that India’s software and services revenue would grow between 21 and 24 per cent during 2008-09.

Mr Gopalakrishnan exuded confidence that Infosys would meet the 25,000 hiring target set for fiscal ended March 2009. “Most of that is already over…But generally there is a hiring freeze at this point…We have frozen recruitment other than for specific skills,” he said. Infosys added 17,299 (gross) employees during the first six months of the current fiscal.

When contacted, Mr T.V. Mohandas Pai, Director - HR, Infosys, pointed out that the company’s gross hiring targets for the year included both lateral and freshers. “We have taken enough lateral hires in the first two quarters and as far as the fresher hiring is concerned, we have already made commitments in advance in various campuses. These are outstanding offers that have to be executed. Therefore, there is no fresh hiring,” he added.

Mr Pai said that Infosys had made 20,000 campus offers for the next year. “All these offers were made some time ago before the entire (slowdown) thing happened,” he said while adding that the company had made 18,000 offers same time in the previous year.

Mr Gopalakrishnan further said that the IT budgets are likely to be lower next year. “Overall IT budgets will be lower but the allocations for offshore may be higher,” he said, but did not comment on the specifics as “the budgets typically get finalised around January-February”.

He clarified that there is no change in the revenue guidance for the third quarter and the fiscal. The company had, in October, lowered its dollar revenue guidance for FY09 by six percentage points. It now expects revenue to be between $4.72 billion and $4.81 billion.