Macroeconomic uncertainty weighs on TCS across geographies and business verticals

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) reported mixed market and vertical performance during the first quarter of FY27, owing to macroeconomic and geopolitical headwinds.

All vertical segments of TCS, aside from the consumer business, showed positive annual growth. Among the verticals, Energy, Resources and Utilities, and Life Sciences led growth on a year-on-year basis. However, on a sequential basis, the energy, life sciences, and manufacturing verticals declined between 0.5 per cent and 4 per cent.

While BFSI performance was muted compared to the previous quarter, when it led growth, K Krithivasan, CEO and Managing Director at TCS, said banks continue to do well in the current global environment and voiced confidence in the segment’s growth. Regarding manufacturing, the segment suffered a hit as the auto business, which is a significant part of the segment, was affected by tariff pressure, macro uncertainty, EV recalibration, supply chain resilience, and cost pressures. However, management expects manufacturing to turn around in the coming quarter, considering core demand for AI transformation, automation, and compliance initiatives.

“Tech, software, and services continued to maintain growth momentum. We successfully won several large and mid-sized deals in this segment, including a multi-million dollar deal with ServiceNow,” he said.

However for the consumer business or retail, management flagged a combination of inflationary pressures and ongoing geopolitical uncertainties are impacting discretionary spend.

“In this environment, client priorities have been focused on managing their increasing costs. Growth initiatives remained selective, centered on targeted areas that could deliver scalable impact without increasing risk exposure,” said Krithivasan, adding that retail will return once there is improved sentiment around geopolitics conditions.

Last year, TCS market performance faced no disruption owing to global developments beyond travel and transport restrictions but spoke of potential impact in case of supply chain disruption.

In terms of geography, the Indian market reported a 22.9 per cent year-on-year growth and a 7.6 per cent sequential growth. Latin America declined 2.1 per cent annually, but grew 0.6 per cent sequentially. Meanwhile, the UK market fell 0.6 per cent annually and grew 0.3 per cent sequentially. West Asia and Africa grew 7.6 per cent annually but declined 1.8 per cent sequentially. Regional markets fell by 0.6 per cent year-on-year and grew 1.2 per cent sequentially.

“In the US, corporate revenue growth seems to be quite decent. Consensus expectations for this year, on growth overall is pretty broad-based across industries and seems pretty strong,” he said.