Infosys sees Australia revenue cross $1 bn; dependence on H-1B visas coming down, says Wipro

Australia brings in over $1 billion for Infosys. Wipro has stepped up hiring in the US.

Infosys reports over $1 bn revenue from Australia

Information technology services and consultancy major Infosys has said its revenue from Australia has crossed $1 billion, The Economic Times reported.

The revenue comes to about 8% of the company's annual sales of around $12 billion it reported in the last fiscal year.

For the quarter ending June 30, Infosys reported that 62% of its revenue came from the North American market and 24% came from Europe. Most IT companies get more than half their revenue from the US or the North American market while around 20-25% comes from Europe.

Chief executive officer Salil Parekh told the newspaper that the company is expanding its business in the overall Asia Pacific region with strategic partnerships in Singapore and Japan. The company maintained that it would create 1,200 jobs in the country, the newspaper said.

Infosys had recently opened a 5G lab in Melbourne to accelerate and monetise their 5G network deployment. It is also expected to do experimentation of new technologies in areas like Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) and artificial intelligence (AI).

Wipro says 65% on-site employees in US are locals

Bengaluru-based IT major Wipro has said the company has seen its dependence on H-1B visas coming down significantly over the past four years, The Hindu reported.

Saurabh Govil, president and chief human resources officer, Wipro told The Hindu that the company has sought only 2,000 H-1B visas this year compared with 8,000 it had applied for in 2015. 

All IT companies have increased local hiring in the US after President Donald Trump took office in early 2017.

Infosys had hired more than 10,000 people in the US in the last couple of years owing to stringent visa regulations. This also had a sizeable impact on the margins of all IT services companies. There is also a tendency among immigration officials preferring US-based companies while approving H-1B visas.

Out of the on-site employees of Wipro, 65% of them were from the US during the quarter ending June as compared with 40% a few years ago, the report said.