TCS Vs HCLTech: Jobs Take Centre Stage, AI Infrastructure Steals The Spotlight

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and HCLTech took different approaches in their June-quarter (Q1 FY27) earnings calls, offering a study in contrast for India's two largest IT services firms.

TCS devoted much of its call to hiring, salary hikes and workforce readiness, while HCLTech centred its narrative on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, sovereign AI and a fresh push into data centres.

The divergence in tone came even as both companies posted healthy financial numbers for the quarter.

Both companies view AI as central to future growth, but their management teams chose to spotlight different aspects of that story. TCS focused on execution and preparing its workforce for AI-led delivery, while HCLTech used its call to detail a broader strategic shift toward AI infrastructure, enterprise platforms and data centre investments.

TCS: Reassurance On Jobs Amid Cautious Spending

TCS Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director K Krithivasan said delays in discretionary technology spending continued during the quarter, as clients remained cautious amid geopolitical tensions and macroeconomic uncertainty. Despite this, the company reaffirmed its hiring commitments.

Chief Human Resources Officer Sudeep Kunnumal said TCS had completed annual salary increments for all associates globally and aligned salary structures for its India employees with new labour code requirements. The company's workforce stood at 593,798 at the end of the quarter, he said.

Kunnumal said campus hiring remains focused on digital and AI-native talent, supported by a revamped learning programme and an AI-centric curriculum. Associates logged 14.6 million learning hours during the quarter and gained over 1.3 million competencies, he said, while more than 114,000 associates now hold higher-order AI skills. Lateral hiring, he added, is focused on domain-specific and AI-native talent, with more than half of lateral hires already possessing next-generation skills.

On the financial side, TCS reported a 5% year-on-year (YoY) rise in consolidated net profit to ₹13,349 crore, compared with ₹12,760 crore a year earlier. Sequentially, however, net profit declined 3% from ₹13,718 crore in the March quarter. Revenue from operations grew 14% YoY to ₹72,275 crore, up from ₹63,437 crore, and rose 2% sequentially from ₹70,698 crore. The company's board declared an interim dividend of ₹12 per equity share, with July 15, 2026, fixed as the record date and payment due on July 31, 2026.

HCLTech: A Story Built Around AI Infrastructure

Where TCS spoke of jobs, HCLTech Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director C Vijayakumar used his opening remarks to lay out how AI could open new revenue streams through enterprise AI platforms, sovereign AI, AI factories and specialised infrastructure. He said the company's strategy rests on five pillars: transforming its own services with AI, building differentiated intellectual property, expanding AI-led services, scaling AI partnerships and developing AI talent.

Vijayakumar said AI is now deployed across 92 client accounts. The company's AI Force platform received a 2.2 update during the quarter, adding features such as multimodal AI and long-term memory, along with a new "agent store" for reusable AI tools. HCLTech now offers 23 industry-specific AI solutions, he said, and its AI Labs unit has completed more than 1,000 AI engagements to date.

On partnerships, Vijayakumar announced a $150 million investment in Sarvam, an Indian sovereign AI company, aimed at building AI models and platforms for governments and enterprises. He also cited expanded collaborations with Google Cloud, Intel, OpenAI and AWS during the quarter. Separately, HCLTech was named a "market shaper" in Gartner's first assessment of physical AI services, which Vijayakumar said made it the only India-heritage services company in the top quadrant of that report.

The company's headcount stood at 223,889, a decrease of 3,292 from the previous quarter, with attrition at 12.7% on a last-twelve-month basis.

Vijayakumar said HCLTech is entering the AI data centre business, citing projections that global data centre demand will triple by 2030, with AI driving about 70% of that growth. He said the company plans to invest up to ₹3,500 crore in the business, with capacity to scale up to 50 megawatts, calling it a new growth vector for the company.

On the financial front, HCLTech reported revenue of ₹34,579 crore for the quarter, a 1.8% sequential rise from ₹33,981 crore and a 13.9% YoY increase from ₹30,349 crore a year earlier. In constant currency terms, revenue declined 0.9% quarter-on-quarter but grew 3% YoY. Net profit rose 20.2% YoY to ₹4,624 crore, compared with ₹3,843 crore a year earlier, while EBIT margin expanded by 56 basis points to 16.9%. Advanced AI revenue surged 62.1% YoY to $171 million, up from $155 million in the preceding quarter.

Total deal bookings for the quarter stood at $2.41 billion, up from $1.94 billion in the March quarter, with total contract value for FY26 at $9.32 billion. The company also declared an interim dividend of ₹12 per share and retained its FY27 guidance of 1% to 4% revenue growth and an EBIT margin of 17.5% to 18.5% in constant currency terms.

Analyst View

Nichal Jain, Quant Researcher at Share.Market by PhonePe, described HCLTech as "a resilient defensive anchor in the IT sector" following its Q1 FY27 results, calling the results "a significant earnings beat." He said the stock currently trades at a price-to-earnings multiple of approximately 19.3x, with a dividend yield of 5.07%, supported by the newly declared ₹12 per share interim dividend.

On technical trends, Jain said HCLTech's stock had corrected from a multi-year peak of ₹1,780.10 earlier this year, before finding support in the ₹1,030 to ₹1,050 range in early July. Since then, the stock has risen about 14% to trade around ₹1,184, he said, adding that the stock faces resistance between ₹1,220 and ₹1,250.