Tata Consultancy Q2 net up 20.5 percent, above forecast

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, India's top software services company, reported on Tuesday its quarterly net profit rose a better-than-expected 20.5 percent on rising outsourcing of IT services by overseas clients.

TCS, part of India's second-largest industrial house, Tata, said its July-September net profit rose to 6.94 billion rupees (US$155 million) compared with 5.76 billion reported a year earlier. Revenue rose 23 percent to 29.83 billion rupees.

A Reuters poll of 10 brokerages had forecast the firm to post a net profit of 6.78 billion rupees on sales of 29.13 billion.

Sector bellwether Infosys Technologies Ltd which reported second-quarter results earlier in the day, posted a 36 percent increase in net profit and raised its estimate for full year earnings growth.

TCS, General Electric's largest offshore IT services provider, earns about 40 percent of its revenue from banking and financial services, 20 percent from manufacturers and 16 percent from telecoms clients.

TCS has been getting multi-year, multi-million-dollar deals, in a sign the Indian industry is maturing. It announced a US$100 million order from a financial services client in July and another worth US$245 million from ABN Amro in September.

TCS shares rose 9.5 percent in the quarter ended September, outperforming Mumbai's BSE information technology index, which rose 7.9 percent. Ahead of the results, TCS' shares rose 1.3 percent in a firm market.