Infosys, India's second-largest software exporter, today posted a 21 per cent rise in quarterly profits, boosted by the rupee's weakness against the dollar — its worst for a decade.

Net profits at the company, which relies heavily on Wall Street banks to drive earnings, rose to 13.02 billion rupees (£153 million) in the three months to the end of June, beating analysts' estimates.

The figures, which followed a similarly solid performance from US rival Accenture, went some way to assuaging concerns that India's IT industry will be badly affected by the meltdown in America's financial sector.

The rupee lost 6.8 per cent during the quarter, its worst performance since the three months ended in June 1998, according to Bloomberg.

Infosys also nudged up its revenue forecast for the year to March 2009 to between 27.5 and 29.5 per cent in rupee terms, up from April's forecast of between 19.2 and 21.1 per cent.

Kris Gopalakrishnan, chief executive of Infosys, said: "Although the global economic environment continues to remain unstable and could impact IT spending in the short term, we see several opportunities for growth as customers focus on improving efficiency."

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