Shares of Infosys today fell sharply by nearly 20 per cent, wiping off Rs 30,943 crore from its market value, as investor sentiment turned bearish on lower-than-expected revenue growth for the current fiscal.

After making a weak opening from the previous close, shares of the company further tanked 19.8 per cent to Rs 2,340 on the BSE.

Similar was the trend at the NSE, where the stock crashed by 19.86 per cent to Rs 2,337.35.

Led by the sharp decline in the share price, the market value of the company tumbled by Rs 30,943 crore to Rs 1,36,610 crore.

“Weak revenue guidance and below-expectation numbers dragged down the company’s shares. Street had estimated that Infosys would set a target for revenue growth of as much as 12 per cent,” said Ashika Stock Brokers, Head Research, Paras Bothra.

IT major Infosys today reported a 3.3 per cent increase in consolidated net profit to Rs 2,394 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2013.

The company had posted a net profit of Rs 2,316 crore for the January-March quarter of the previous fiscal (2011—12).

The company said it expects revenue to grow by 6-10 per cent in the current fiscal, which is lower than Nasscom’s estimate.

In February this year, software industry body Nasscom said information technology and IT-enabled services sectors are expected to grow 12-14 per in 2013-14 fiscal.

The revenues for the reported quarter were up 18.09 per cent to Rs 10,454 crore from Rs 8,852 crore in the year-ago period, Infosys said in a filing to the BSE.

Weakness was also seen in other IT stocks where TCS was trading lower by 2.81 per cent, Wipro (5.26 per cent) and HCL Tech (2.63 per cent).

Tracking weakness in these blue-chip scrips, the BSE IT index plunged 9.43 per cent to 6,153.38 and was the biggest loser among the 13 sectoral indices.

Fall in Infosys’ stock which has the second highest weight on the Sensex was instrumental in sending the benchmark index down by 224.41 points to 18,317.79 in the first half of trade.

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