India Inc.'s IT scene is being re-designed by evolving technologies, something which giants like Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., HCL Technologies Ltd., and Wipro Ltd.
All three companies have delivered a mixed bag of financial performances in the Q1 earnings season, with TCS ramping up hirings, HCLTech clocking highest-ever deal wins, and Wipro reflecting on its weaker margins.
Deal Wins
Both HCLTech and Wipro posted a rise in their sequential Total Contract Value (TCV), comprising of large deal wins, while the Tata-group IT giant lagged behind.
HCLTech, however, took the crown here as TCV came in at $2.41 billion. CEO C Vijayakumar described the quarter as the company's strongest ever from a bookings perspective.
Wipro's TCV at the end of the June quarter rose 13% to $1.63 billion sequentially after signing 13 large deals, and TCS' order book declined to $9.5 billion from $12 billion in the previous quarter, though it included a marquee AI-led transformation deal with SKF.
ALSO READ: HCLTech Vs LTM Vs TCS: Deal Wins To Hiring Trends — What Q1 Numbers Of Key IT Players Reveal
Constant Currency Growth ($ Revenue)
HCLTech maintained its revenue growth guidance between 1-4% in constant currency terms for FY27. Revenue in CC terms fell 0.5% sequentially to $3,650 million.
TCS reported constant currency revenue growth of 0.4% quarter-on-quarter for the April-June quarter, in line with market estimates.
Wipro's IT revenue in dollar terms slipped 1.4% to $2,615 million sequentially, and it has further forecasted a degrowth of up to 1.5%
Hiring Trends Stay Mixed
TCS and Wipro amped up their hirings, while HLCTech's headcount fell. TCS' commentary and hiring practices shifted drastically in the quarter gone-by, with an addition of 9,000 new employees to 5,93,798 from 5,84,519 in the March quarter of last fiscal.
Additionally, the company onboarded 14,000 campus graduates in the quarter under review. HCLTech's headcount on the other hand reduced to 2.24 lakh from 2.27 lakh in the previous quarter.
Wipro's headcount in the first quarter of FY27 increased by 888 employees to 2.43 lakh from 2.42 lakh in the previous quarter.
ALSO READ: TCS Vs HCLTech: Salary Hikes, Hiring And The AI Bet That Sets Them Apart
Voluntary Employee Exits
Voluntary employee exits or attrition rates remained largely stable, with only a marginal rise for HCLTech and Wipro, and a slight fall for TCS.
For TCS, the attrition rate in the quarter-under-review dropped to 13.6% compared to 13.7% in the preceding fourth quarter of FY26.
On the other hand, HCLtech reported a marginal rise in Q1 attrition rate to 12.7% compared to 12.5% in the March quarter and Wipro reported that its attrition rate rose 13.9% from 13.8% on a sequential basis
AI Frenzy
All three companies continue to invest heavily into artificial intelligence. AI continued to emerge as a major growth driver for TCS. The company said its AI business has now reached an annualised revenue run rate of $2.6 billion.
"As customers accelerate investments in AI, modernization, cybersecurity, sovereign cloud and platform simplification, our strong deal conversion, improving client mining and expanding ecosystem partnerships position TCS well to translate opportunity into sustained growth," CEO K Krithivasan said.
The HCLTech management also highlighted a rapidly expanding AI opportunity, estimating the India AI market at nearly $20 billion. HCLTech said it plans to strengthen its domestic presence with AI-native solutions while selectively expanding its AI business globally.
Vijayakumar acknowledged that AI-led productivity gains could reduce revenue by 2-3%, but said stronger business growth is expected to offset this impact.
He also defended the company's decision to invest in data centres, calling it a strategic extension of its asset-light model as compute capacity becomes a key bottleneck in the AI value chain.
Wipro's management admitted to AI investments' part in the company's margins being hit, while simultaneously highlighting that most of the budgets are being re-allocated towards AI.
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