Mumbai, April 13: Infosys Ltd, India’s second largest software company, today saw its shares crash 13 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange after the company failed to meet revenue estimates for the fourth quarter and then went on to paint a grim picture for fiscal 2012-13 with a lower-than-expected dollar revenue guidance of 8-10 per cent.

Net profit in the fourth quarter of 2011-12 rose 27.4 per cent to Rs 2,316 crore and were in line with the Street’s expectations. The company had reported a net profit of Rs 1,818 crore in the same quarter a year ago. The net profit, however, declined 2.4 per cent on a sequential basis.

Revenues in the fourth quarter of the 2011-12 fiscal stood at Rs 8,852 crore, a year-on-year growth of 22.1 per cent and a quarter-on-quarter decline of 4.8 per cent. In the year-ago period, Infosys posted revenues of Rs 7,250 crore.

The closely-watched Infosys results cast a pall over the entire information technology pack and the market lost confidence in IT stocks on Friday.

While Infosys tumbled 13 per cent to close at Rs 2,403.30, Tata Consultancy Services saw its stock fall over 5 per cent to Rs 1,069.55, while rival Wipro’s scrip closed lower by 4 per cent at Rs 420.95.

“The year ahead looks challenging for the IT services industry with slow recovery in the global markets,” said Infosys CEO and managing director S.D. Shibulal.

Marketmen expressed nervousness over the performance of the banking, financial services and insurance vertical — one of the revenue pillars of the company — which reported a 4.7 per cent decline quarter-on-quarter on account of slow project ramp ups.

Critical markets such as North America also declined 3.9 per cent quarter-on-quarter, whereas Europe remained flat at 0.2 per cent quarter-on-quarter, a report by Goldman Sachs noted.

Dipen Shah, head of fundamental research at Kotak Securities, said, “The results for Q4 were below estimates and so is the guidance for FY13. The guidance reflects the challenging macro scenario which Infosys is facing. We also understand that a part of the projected underperformance versus the industry is because of the strategy of not chasing low-margin business. The recent re-structuring within the company is impacting near-term growth but should help Infosys return to better growth rates in the medium to long term.”

“The major disappointment came from the FY13 US dollar revenue growth guidance, which came in at 8-10 per cent, much below Nasscom’s estimated growth of 11-14 per cent, which is highly negative. In addition, the company gave a tepid dollar revenue guidance for the Q1 of FY13 of 0-1 per cent quarter-on-quarter,” said a report prepared by brokerage Angel Broking.

Infosys CEO and MD Shibulal also expressed his pessimism on cautious spending by financial services clients in North America, saying that while their profits are going up, the customers are not increasing budgets.

Meanwhile, Infosys said its company secretary and compliance officer Parvatheesam K. had resigned from the company “to pursue higher studies”. He is being replaced by N.R. Ravikrishnan.