Infosys to cut U.S. dependence

By siliconindia   |   Wednesday, 30 July 2008, 01:06 IST
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Bangalore: The U.S. slowdown may continue to cast a cloud of uncertainty over the world economy. And the companies may keep suffering out of it. But Infosys Technologies is planning to dodge the recessional brunt by cutting down its dependence on the U.S. to about 40 percent from more than 60 percent now, the company CEO S. Gopalakrishnan said. Infosys, which drew 63 percent of its revenue from the U.S. in the June quarter, plans to boost contribution from Europe from 27 percent to 40 percent, while other markets would account for the remaining 20 percent, said Gopalakrishnan. "It's also driven by realization that emerging markets are contributing more to the global GDP growth, that's where the growth is faster," he added, declining to set a time-frame for this. Earlier this month, the company beat forecasts with a 21 percent rise in quarterly profit but warned of challenging times ahead as its major Western clients battle weakening economies. Infosys is also focusing on markets such as Japan, India, Australia, China, the Middle East, Canada and Latin America due to growing technology spending in these markets. Despite mounting turmoil in the global financial industry, Infosys is not seeing downward pressure on prices that it charges its clients, but Gopalakrishnan said it doesn't expect an increase in billing rates either. Infosys, which develops applications, designs supply chains and offers back-office services, counts ABN AMRO, Goldman Sachs and Philips Electronics among its more than 560 clients.