The battle of the heavyweights was over even before it started.

For probably the first time, the top IT companies TCS and Infosys declared their results on the same day. Normally Infosys kicks off the results season and TCS announces its results a few days later.

The Bangalore-headquartered Infosys, which declared its results in the morning, saw the market react adversely to the numbers. Infosys’ Rs 5 shares were down a little over eight per cent on the BSE to close at Rs 2,265.25. The BSE Sensex fell nearly 257 points, or 1.47 per cent, to close at 17,232.55.

The market had anticipated that Infosys would announce a buy-back of its shares, if not at least a big bang acquisition. Its expectations were belied.

Infosys’ performance pulled down the other leading IT stocks on the BSE. TCS, which declared its results after close of market hours, saw its Re 1 shares ending down 1.8 per cent at Rs 1,236.10 and Wipro’s Rs 2 shares – the company will declare its first quarter results on July 24 – fell by nearly four per cent to Rs 359.30.

In the Sensex’s 257-point fall, Infosys accounted for 116 points, or 45 per cent.

The market was disappointed with Infosys scaling down its projections for 2012-13. The company said revenues would grow by around five per cent, compared to its earlier guidance of around 8-10 per cent. The software industry association, Nasscom, had projected a 11-14 per cent growth for the industry for the year. TCS, on the other hand, as always, declined from providing any guidance. Infosys said it would not give guidance at the end of every quarter. “Our guidance is a statement of facts and there is a lot of uncertainty in global markets and hence we will not issue guidance next quarter,” said Mr S.D. Shibulal, CEO. Overall, he added, the company considered pricing to be stable.

Infosys’ first quarter consolidated revenues were up 29 per cent at Rs 9,616 crore while net profit increased 33 per cent to Rs 2,289 crore.

TCS posted a 38 per cent increase in revenues to Rs 14,869 crore and a 37 per cent growth in net profit at Rs 3,318 crore.

Infosys added 9,236 employees, TCS added 13,831 staff. Infosys’ utilisation was down to 69.6 per cent while TCS said it maintained high utilisation rates at 81.3 per cent.

Mr N. Chandrasekaran, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, TCS, said the company had delivered another spectacular quarter in a dynamic environment.

“We have grown across markets, across industries and across services. We are able to win engagements in many of the future technologies that we are investing in,” he said.

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