Infosys tries to lower dependence on U.S. deals

Indian outsourcing giant Infosys Technologies is working to decrease its dependence on U.S. customers through faster growth in other markets, its chief executive said Wednesday.

"From a geography perspective, Europe seems to be positive, Australia is also positive," S. Gopalakrishnan said.

This is partly because Infosys is investing in those markets and also because these regions are catching up with the United States in outsourcing work.

"They have suddenly woken up to the fact they need to become more aggressive in leveraging this globalization phenomena," Gopalakrishnan said.

Gopalakrishnan added that although the business environment is currently more positive in Europe than the United States, U.S. clients are saying they will increase their offshoring if the U.S. economy slows down.

"We're not seeing any slowdown in terms of deals from the U.S. yet, but we have to wait and see," he said.

About 60 percent of the company's revenue comes from the United States, while Europe's contribution is 26 percent and growing rapidly. Nasdaq-listed Infosys would like to see 50 percent of its revenue coming from the United States, 30 percent from Europe and 20 percent from the rest of the world, although this is not a time-bound target.

"We are close to that, but not there yet. There are no target dates," Gopalakrishnan said.

Infosys, India's second-largest software services exporter, could raise billing rates by 3 to 4 percent for new contracts and 2 to 3 percent for existing contracts, Gopalakrishnan added.

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