Bangalore/Mumbai, Jan 11
After three lacklustre quarters, India's No.2 software services provider Infosys Ltd has shown signs of growth by increasing its revenue outlook for this fiscal in both rupee and dollar terms.

The Bangalore-based firm raised its revenue forecast after posting stronger-than-expected quarterly profit, triggering a near 17% surge in its shares, set for their biggest gain in more than a decade.

Many investors had dumped shares in the company after a string of disappointing quarters eroded Infosys' reputation as the sector bellwether, putting pressure on CEO S.D. Shibulal to win more deals and make the firm more profitable. "We continue to gain confidence from a strong pipeline of large deals," Shibulal said Friday. "We remain cautiously optimistic about the January-March quarter."

Infosys unexpectedly raised its sales forecast for the year ending March 31 to at least $7.45 billion, including $104 million in additional revenue following its acquisition of Switzerland-based consultancy Lodestone Holdings. That would be a rise of 6.6 per cent from a year earlier, compared with a previous forecast for a 5% increase.

New deals, including 13 in Europe, helped boost Infosys' revenue. Spending on IT services by capital markets clients such as investment banks and brokerages has also improved, Ashok Vemury, head of Americas and manufacturing, told reporters in Bangalore after the earnings announcement.

Clients that have signed big contracts with Infosys, including Harley-Davidson Inc, also accelerated spending during the quarter, he said.

However, some analysts said it was still too early to predict a recovery for the company. "We are positively surprised by Infosys' performance, and need to study the durability of Infosys' comeback," JPMorgan said in a research note.

PROFIT BEATS ESTIMATES: Infosys, whose customers include Bank of America Corp and BT Group Plc, said profit for the three months ended December 31 was Rs 23.69 billion versus Rs 23.7 billion a year earlier. That compares with the average estimate of Rs 21 billion in a poll of 16 analysts, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

In October-December, Infosys said revenue rose 12% to Rs 104.24 billion from Rs 93 billion a year earlier. That compares with analyst estimates of 96.8 billion rupees. The firm added 53 clients during the quarter, the strongest pace of additions in at least five years.

New Delhi, January 11
India's trade deficit narrowed to $17.7 billion in December from $19.3 billion in November, even after exports fell for the eighth straight month, a trade ministry official said on Friday.

Exports totalled $24.88 billion in December, down 1.9 percent on year. Imports, however, were up 6.3 percent at $42.5 billion. For the first three quarters of the fiscal year ending in March, exports totalled $214.1 billion, down 5.5 percent from a year ago.

The weakness of the export sector, which makes up one-fifth of the Indian economy, has swollen a current account deficit that hit an all time high of 5.4 percent of gross domestic product in the July-September quarter and has added to pressure on the rupee.

The cumulative value of imports for the April-December was $361.2 billion as against $363.8 billion registering a negative growth of 0.71%.

During the first nine months of this financial year, the trade deficit stands at $147.2 billion. During April-December 2011-12, the deficit was $137.3 billion.

Oil imports in December increased by 23.5% year-on-year to $14.4 billion. For the nine month period between April-December 2012-13, were valued at US $124.5 billion which was 12.18% higher than the oil imports of $111 billion in the corresponding period last financial year.

Nonoil imports, however, declined by 0.87% to US $28.11 billion. Non-il imports during April-December 2012-13 were valued at $236.7 billion which was 6.37% lower than the level of such imports valued at $252.8 billion in April-December, 2011-12.

Meanwhile, India’s bilateral trade with China has slumped by 12 per cent to US $66 billion in 2012, driven by a record slump in exports, which has expanded the trade deficit to $29 billion—despite the decline in overall trade. India’s exports in 2012, comprised largely of ores, cotton, chemicals and raw materials, reached $18.8 billion, while imports from China reached $47.7 billion.

New Delhi, January 11
Showing signs that the industrial activity continues to be weak, industrial production in November declined to a four month low of 0.1 per cent. This is the fifth month in this fiscal year when industrial production has contracted compared to a year ago.

The contraction was on account of weakness in manufacturing, mining which contracted by 5.5% and capital goods sectors. The consensus estimate is that the RBI in its monetary policy review on January 29 is likely to cut interest rates.

Analysts say the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) will remain weak in the coming few months. Devendra Pant, chief economist at India Ratings, said going forward IIP performance will remain lackluster and chances of achieving last year’s industrial growth performance (2.9%) are very low. In order to achieve last year’s industrial growth performance, on average, industrial growth in next four months (Dec 2012-March 2013) has to grow at least at 6.3%, which is difficult to achieve, he said. He added both domestic and global factors are responsible for this contraction.

The high base effect in October due to the festive season also had an impact on the numbers. Tirthankar Patnaik, chief economist (institutional research) at Religare Capital Markets, said unlike previous months estimates were in the narrow band given market expectations on a weak post-festive season, weak external trade and a relatively higher base than in October.

CII director general Chandrajit Banerjee said the figures for November that the figures for the previous month were not indicative of an industrial turnaround. “The poor run of capital and intermediate goods indicate that there is no pick up in investment demand. Mining activities are also in the negative and there is no indication of revival of consumption demand”, he added.

FICCI president Naina Lal Kidwai said while the data is indicative of a high degree of volatility in the index as the IIP has again posted a negative growth after high growth in October, the negative growth in mining, capital goods and intermediate goods indicates continuation of industrial slowdown for some more time. — Agencies

New Delhi, January 11
Consumers will now have a chance at freedom from the captivity of truant distributors as the government launched an LPG (liquid petroleum gas) connection portability scheme on the lines of cellular phone portability.

The scheme was kicked off in Chandigarh as a pilot project and will be expanded to 25 more districts in 2013-14, Petroleum Minister Veerappa Moily said Friday. The scheme will be extended all over the country in a phased manner, he added.

This will provide the customer greater choice to select his/her distributor and will bring competition amongst distributors. The request for portability can be made electronically on the web portal and will be completed without manual intervention.

To begin with, LPG consumers can change dealers within the same oil marketing company and later on the scheme would be expanded to switch across companies also. Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum are the oil companies that provide LPG connections.

“A pool of two to three dealers would be cleared for every locality in the district. Consumers will have the option of choosing from this cluster,” Moily said. He also launched a new IT/web enabled initiative, “Lakshya”, to enable consumers book and track refills online as well on mobile phone.

This includes rating of distributors based on delivery performance. Customer rating of distributors has already been launched earlier.

Now each distributor is being automatically rated from 5 stars to no star on a graded scale using transaction data. The distributor who supplies 85% of cylinders booked in less than two days is rated 5 stars and the distributor who supplies 85% cylinders beyond 10 days is rated no star, and others are rated in between according to their delivery pattern.

Customers can now view the delivery pattern of their distributor and compare it with other distributors in their area and also use this data to switch to a better dealer.

Also, oil marketing firms have provided the facility for booking of new connections through their respective portals for some time now.

Customers with their email IDs can register for a new domestic LPG connection through the Web by entering requisite details in the KYC (“Know Your Customer”) format.

On the proposed hike in fuel prices, Moily said the government would soon take a decision on raising diesel and cooking fuel prices along with increasing the number of subsidized LPG cylinders for households. 

New Delhi, January 11
The contentious issue of charging the telecom operators of the country a one-time spectrum fee for the airwaves which they hold beyond 6.2 MHz and 4.4 MHz, may see the mobile phone service providers challenge the decision in the courts.

Officials of almost all the private telecom operators, which are being charged the one-time spectrum fee, have said their lawyers were examining the notices sent by the department of telecom on Wednesday and they would be responding to them soon.

The officials confirmed they were readying their legal challenges, which could another uncertainty to the industry already facing other challenges.

Already facing major cut in profit margins due to increased competition and increasing expenses including payment for the 3G spectrum won by them in the auction in 2010, the telecom operators are of the view that this one-time spectrum charge was against the cellular licence norms.

The telecom operators have been opposing it and had earlier also written to DoT to review its decision.