Thanuja B M

Bangalore

Despite seeing Europe’s share in overall revenues dip in the first quarter, Infosys Technologies is betting on the region. The deal pipeline looks reasonable, according to the company’s head of European business B G Srinivas.

“Growth from Europe will happen, but whether it will accelerate is a question with the hovering debt crisis. The recent intervention should hopefully help reduce the panic and things should be back to normal in 1-2 quarters,” Srinivas told FC.

The company is seeing traction in financial services, manufacturing, retail, energy and utilities, and pharma even as telecom is a mixed bag. Interest for outsourcing is coming from Global 1,000 firms from the UK, Switzerland, Germany and France, especially in the consulting packaged implementation, ADM, systems integration and BPO segments, Srinivas said.

He added that there were one or two large deals from Europe that Infosys is eyeing, but declined speci-fics. The average large deal size is between $40-100 million compared to $100-300 million in the US.

Things were not so rosy in Q1 with the geography’s share in total revenue (Rs 6,198 crore) going down to 20.3 per cent or Rs 1,258 crore. This was primarily due to economic instability and currency volatility of the Euro against the rupee. The dip in constant currency terms is only $2-3 million, according to Srinivas. He added that while client businesses didn’t have too much of a problem, the process has become longer.

However, investments and expansion by the company will continue. Infosys has identified Germany and France as focus countries in Europe this financial year. “We are also looking at building Europe-specific solutions at these centres with help from their India counterparts. Example of these would be a financial services solution to meet local statutory requirements,’’ he said.