Rising Macroeconomic Hurdles In Key Markets To Moderate Industry Growth To Mid-single Digits In FY2024

The rating agency Icra expects revenue growth for the Indian IT services industry to moderate to mid-single digits in USD terms in FY2024, owing to intensifying macroeconomic headwinds in key markets. 

However, it maintained its stable outlook for the industry, led by a well-established business position, healthy earnings profile and strong balance sheets of the industry players.

The Indian IT services industry witnessed strong revenue growth during and post the pandemic (H2 FY2021 till H1 FY2023) owing to accelerated demand for cloud and digital services across the globe. 

However, the growth momentum witnessed a slowdown in the last two quarters due to macroeconomic headwinds in the US and Europe, which together account for 80 to 90 per cent of the industry’s revenues.

In terms of segment mix, growth from the BFSI segment (which contributed 29 per cent to the revenues of Icra's sample set of top-five IT services companies during FY2023) tapered more than in other segments because of the recent US banking crisis as well as softness in the mortgage market due to firming interest rates. 

In terms of geographic mix, revenue growth from the US witnessed a sharper moderation compared to Europe, according to the Icra report.

Despite a strong order book and deal pipeline of Indian IT services companies, the rating agency expects the revenue growth to remain subdued in mid-single digits in USD terms in FY2024. 

"This is owing to persistent uncertainty in these key markets, resulting in delays in decision-making by customers, as visible from the slowdown in the conversion of deals to revenues to some extent," it said.

However, evolving consumer demand dynamics and the pandemic made technology spending far more integral to the overall capital allocation of corporates, which is likely to support industry growth over the medium term, it added.

Notably, the operating profit margin (OPM) of Icra's sample set remained healthy at 22.9 per cent in FY2023, although lower by 190 bps YoY due to wage cost inflation and normalisation of operational overheads. 

It expects the OPM to remain steady, despite the slowdown in revenue growth, given the agility to work with multiple levers such as onshore-offshore mix, utilisation levels, employee pyramid optimisation etc. to manage costs efficiently. 

There was a significant reduction in hiring by IT services companies in FY2023, given the slowdown in the growth momentum coupled with utilisation of the considerably excess capacity added in FY2022. 

"While revenue growth is expected to slow down in the near term, their credit profiles are not expected to be impacted materially, given their strong business position and balance sheets," Icra added.