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India's TCS Expects Retail, Manufacturing Revival after Banking Recovery

A man walks past a logo of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) before a press conference announcing the company's quarterly results in Mumbai, India, January 11, 2024. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas/File Photo
A man walks past a logo of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) before a press conference announcing the company's quarterly results in Mumbai, India, January 11, 2024. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas/File Photo
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India's TCS Expects Retail, Manufacturing Revival after Banking Recovery

A man walks past a logo of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) before a press conference announcing the company's quarterly results in Mumbai, India, January 11, 2024. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas/File Photo
A man walks past a logo of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) before a press conference announcing the company's quarterly results in Mumbai, India, January 11, 2024. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas/File Photo

India's Tata Consultancy Services (TCS.NS), expects its retail and manufacturing clients in North America to step up spending on tech, following a similar upturn in its banking and financial services segment, a top executive of the nation's No. 1 software-services exporter, said.

"We have heard about good holiday season sales (in the US) that should boost consumer sentiment and manufacturing has some of the labour issues behind them," CFO Samir Seksaria told Reuters.

"If these three verticals (along with banking) improve overall, we should see a good recovery," he said.

Seksaria's cautious optimism highlights broader global economic uncertainties and sticky inflation that have forced clients to keep a leash on tech spending.

The company's revenue in North America, its largest market, declined for the fifth consecutive quarter even as banking and financial services posted their best performance since June 2023.

Retail and manufacturing are the second- and fourth- largest revenue contributors to the $29 billion behemoth.

Last month, Walmart Inc (WMT.N), Amazon.com (AMZN.O), and fast-growing e-commerce sites Shein and PDD Holding's (PDD.O), Temu, saw record-breaking sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

US online spending too rose nearly 9% to $241.4 billion during the recent holiday season.

TCS' communications and media vertical, a capital-intensive segment that is currently one of the company's laggards, will also see some pickup if interest rates start to go down, Seksaria said.

The comments echo CEO Krithivasan's sentiment that the incoming US administration is likely to remove policy uncertainty and boost client confidence to spend on discretionary projects.

On Friday, its Mumbai-listed shares closed up 5.6%, its highest single day rise since July 2024.

TCS also played down concerns over the rise in insourcing by multinational corporations through global capability centres (GCCs), potentially slashing work that would have been contracted to IT players in the past.

A growing number of global companies are increasing their local offices in India and expanding in-house teams, adding roles such as engineering, cybersecurity and accounting and finance. India's GCC market size is estimated to reach $105 billion by 2030.

"Initially, there could a cost advantage, probably GCCs are right now being seen as global cost saving centers. But as things go into next year, maintaining cost and delivering cost productivity in a 3-year to 7-year period is where the cyclicality of opening and shutting of GCCs keeps coming," said Seksaria.

In 2023, Infosys (INFY.NS), acquired the captive arm of Danske Bank (DANSEN.UL) and before that TCS acquired Post Bank AG's unit of 1,500 employees in late 2020.

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TikTok Warns of Broader Consequences if US Supreme Court Allows Ban

US, Chinese flags, TikTok logo and gavel are seen in this illustration taken January 8, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
US, Chinese flags, TikTok logo and gavel are seen in this illustration taken January 8, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
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TikTok Warns of Broader Consequences if US Supreme Court Allows Ban

US, Chinese flags, TikTok logo and gavel are seen in this illustration taken January 8, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
US, Chinese flags, TikTok logo and gavel are seen in this illustration taken January 8, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

The lawyer for TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance offered a warning during Supreme Court arguments over a law that would compel the sale of the short-video app or ban it in the United States: If Congress could do this to TikTok, it could come after other companies, too. The law, which was the subject of arguments before the nine justices on Friday, sets a Jan. 19 deadline for ByteDance to sell the popular social media platform or face a ban on national security grounds. The companies have sought, at the very least, a delay in implementation of the law, which they say violates the US Constitution's First Amendment protection against government abridgment of free speech, Reuters said.
Noel Francisco, representing TikTok and ByteDance, argued that Supreme Court endorsement of this law could enable statutes targeting other companies on similar grounds.
"AMC movie theaters used to be owned by a Chinese company. Under this theory, Congress could order AMC movie theaters to censor any movies that Congress doesn't like or promote any movies that Congress wanted," Francisco told the justices.
The justices signaled through their questions during the arguments that they were inclined to uphold the law, although some expressed serious concerns about its First Amendment implications.
TikTok is a platform used by about 170 million people in the United States, roughly half the country's population. Congress passed the measure last year with overwhelming bipartisan support, as lawmakers cited the risk of the Chinese government exploiting TikTok to spy on Americans and carry out covert influence operations.
Jeffrey Fisher, the lawyer representing TikTok content creators who also have challenged the law, noted during the Supreme Court arguments that Congress with this measure was focusing on TikTok and not major Chinese online retailers including Temu.
"Would a Congress (that is) really worried about these very dramatic risks leave out an e-commerce site like Temu that has 70 million Americans using it?" Fisher asked. "It's very curious why you just single out TikTok alone and not other companies with tens of millions of people having their own data taken, you know, in the process of engaging with those websites and equally, if not more, available to Chinese control." Democratic President Joe Biden signed the measure into law and his administration is defending it in this case. The deadline for divestiture is just one day before Republican Donald Trump, who opposes the ban, takes office as Biden's successor.
'FOREIGN ADVERSARIES'
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, arguing for the Biden administration in defending the law, said it was crucial that it take effect on Jan. 19 as scheduled in order to force ByteDance to act on divestiture.
"Foreign adversaries do not willingly give up their control over this mass communications channel in the United States," Prelogar said.
"When push comes to shove, and these restrictions take effect, I think it will fundamentally change the landscape with respect to what ByteDance is willing to consider. And it might be just the jolt that Congress expected the company would need to actually move forward with the divestiture process," Prelogar said.
If the ban takes affect on Jan. 19, Apple and Alphabet's Google would no longer be able to offer TikTok for downloads for new users but existing users could still access the app. The US government and TikTok agree that app would degrade and eventually become unusable over time because companies would not be able to offer supporting services.
The Supreme Court also debated whether the possibility of TikTok being used for covert influence campaigns or propaganda purposes by China justified the banning it.
"Look, everybody manipulates content," Francisco told the court. "There are lots of people who think CNN, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times are manipulating their content. That is core protected speech." Trump on Dec. 27 urged the court to put a hold on the Jan. 19 deadline to give his incoming administration "the opportunity to pursue a political resolution of the questions at issue in the case."
Under the law, the US president has the power to extend the Jan. 19 deadline for 90 days, but under circumstances that do not appear to apply to the current situation in which ByteDance has made no apparent effort to sell TikTok's US assets. The law mandates that the president certify that significant progress has been made toward a sale, with binding legal agreements.
Regardless, Trump does not become president until after the deadline - though Francisco said "we might be in a different world" once Trump is back in the White House.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked Prelogar whether the president could "say that we're not going to enforce this law?"
"I think as a general matter, of course the president has enforcement discretion," Prelogar said.
"Again, that's one of the reasons why I think it makes perfect sense to issue a preliminary injunction here and simply buy everybody a little breathing space," Francisco said.