Good morning. It has been a busy stretch for corporate India, with the quarterly earnings season now in full swing, and global oil markets remain on edge as the Middle East conflict grinds on with no end in sight. Here is what actually moved the needle.
In today's newsletter: Infosys's guidance cut rattles IT investors even as profit climbs, Cipla's North America slowdown drags down an otherwise resilient quarter, and the US House votes again to rein in Trump's widening war with Iran.
Sensex 76,391.39 DOWN 0.47% |
Nifty 50 23,869.60 DOWN 0.53% |
USD/INR 96.52 UP |
Brent Crude $96/bbl UP |
Indices fell for a fourth straight session as Brent hit a six-week high on Hormuz jitters, and the rupee stayed under pressure near record lows.
Infosys profit rises 12%, but a guidance cut spooks the Street
India's second-largest IT services firm kicked off a closely watched earnings season with numbers that were good, just not good enough. Infosys's net profit rose 12.2 per cent year-on-year to ₹7,769 crore, with revenue up 14 per cent to ₹48,211 crore, but both figures missed what analysts polled by Bloomberg were expecting.
More telling was the guidance. Infosys trimmed its FY27 revenue growth outlook to 1.5-3 per cent, down from the 1.5-3.5 per cent it had projected three months ago, a signal that discretionary tech spending by Western clients is still not fully back.
One number stood out in the other direction: AI-linked work now makes up 8.2 per cent of revenue, up from 5.5 per cent when the company first disclosed the figure in February, and growing in double digits quarter on quarter.
Infosys is the first of the big IT majors to report this quarter, and its caution on guidance sets the tone for how the Street will read Wipro, HCLTech and the rest of the sector's results over the coming days.
The guidance cut is about macro caution, not AI eating into services demand. AI revenue nearly doubling its share of the topline in a single quarter suggests Infosys is capturing new work even as legacy contracts stay soft.
Cipla's US business slows sharply, but India keeps the quarter afloat
Cipla's net profit fell 39.2 per cent year-on-year to ₹789 crore in the June quarter, as total expenses grew nearly 15 per cent, faster than revenue. North America revenue, once the pharma major's growth engine, dropped 21 per cent to ₹1,532 crore.
The domestic business told a different story. India revenue grew 12 per cent to a record ₹3,452 crore, with double-digit growth in respiratory, anti-diabetes and cardiac chronic therapies. The company also named Dinesh Jain as its new chief financial officer.
US House votes again to limit Trump's widening war with Iran
The House approved a resolution 214 to 208 on Thursday to remove US forces from hostilities with Iran, the second such rebuke of the president since the war began. Four Republicans crossed party lines to back it. The vote is not legally binding, but it is a pointed symbol of how little appetite Congress has for a conflict it never voted to authorise. A separate Senate effort failed narrowly, 47 to 49, hours later.
For India, the stakes go beyond Washington politics. The Strait of Hormuz, through which up to 60 per cent of India's oil and over 80 per cent of its gas normally flows, remains effectively disrupted by the fighting, which is why Brent crude is sitting near a six-week high and the rupee is under renewed pressure.
Breaking.exe
NISAR rocket rolls out. ISRO rolled the NISAR satellite and its GSLV rocket out to the pad at Sriharikota ahead of a July 30 liftoff, the first joint Earth-observation mission between ISRO and NASA. |
Meesho narrows its losses. Meesho's net loss narrowed 54 per cent to ₹133 crore as marketplace revenue jumped 48 per cent to ₹3,707 crore, with transacting users up 29 per cent to 274 million. |
Fractal's AI payoff. Fractal Analytics' profit jumped 92 per cent year-on-year to ₹72 crore on revenue of ₹913 crore, one of the clearer signs yet that India's AI-services boom is showing up in company bottom lines. |
Go Digit's rough quarter. Go Digit General Insurance's profit slumped 37.5 per cent to ₹86.4 crore as claims and expenses outpaced premium growth. |
Pangaea Revisited
Two Gulf chokepoints shut. Both the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb have effectively closed as the Iran war intensifies, threatening roughly a fifth of the world's traded oil and driving the price spike rippling through Asian economies. |
Four US troops come home. The remains of four American service members killed in a strike on a base in Kuwait returned to the US in flag-draped cases this week, a stark marker of the human cost of a conflict Congress never formally authorised. |
Trump's new tariffs land. Tariffs of 10 to 12.5 per cent on goods from 60 countries, including India, took effect at midnight Friday, this time invoked under a different legal statute after courts struck down the earlier version. |
Also, Also, Also
India starts strong in Zimbabwe. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi smashed a maiden international fifty as India beat Zimbabwe by seven wickets in the first T20I in Harare, taking a 1-0 lead in the three-match series. |
Assam's flood toll climbs. At least 31 people are dead and 5.65 lakh affected as the Brahmaputra crossed the danger mark in 12 districts, with fresh IMD red alerts also issued for Himachal Pradesh. |
PVR Inox back in the black. The multiplex chain swung to a ₹56.5 crore profit from a year-ago loss, as India's overall box office collections grew 20 per cent on strength in Tier II and III cities. |
Vishal Mega Mart's strong quarter. The budget retailer's profit rose 26 per cent to ₹259 crore as revenue climbed 19 per cent to ₹3,727 crore, with its store count continuing to expand. |