Mumbai, Aug. 5: Cognizant has posted a 40 per cent decline in net profit at $252.4 million (around Rs 1,600 crore) for the second quarter ended June on higher provisioning for taxes and cut its annual revenue guidance, highlighting broader macro-economic challenges being faced by the global IT industry.

Revenues of the Nasdaq-listed company came in at $3.37 billion, a growth of 9.2 per cent from $3.09 billion in the second quarter of last year.

For the entire year, Cognizant lowered its revenue outlook to $13.47-13.60 billion, a growth of 8.4-9.5 per cent. This is well below industry body Nasscom's estimate of 10-12 per cent growth and much lower than Cognizant's 2015 topline growth of 21 per cent.

At the start of the year, the company had given a growth guidance of 9.9-14.3 per cent, which it had reduced after the first quarter to 9.9-12.7 per cent. It follows the January-December fiscal.

Bangalore-based Infosys had recently shocked the Street by slashing the annual sales forecast. Infosys has forecast a 10.5-12 per cent revenue growth in dollar terms for the fiscal ending March 2017, lower than its earlier estimate of 11.5-13.5 per cent in April.

"Our second-quarter performance, as anticipated, represented broad-based revenue growth across service lines, geographies and industries, including healthcare and financial services. While our revised guidance reflects the impact of near-term macro-economic headwinds, our longer term outlook and underlying business fundamentals remain strong," Cognizant CEO Francisco D'Souza said.

"We continue to see an expanding market opportunity ahead and are well-positioned to capitalise on the digital transformations taking place among enterprises around the world," he added.