Oracle on Tuesday reported earnings that mostly surpassed market expectations. The company reported total revenue of $17.19 billion for the third quarter of fiscal year 2026, compared with analysts’ average estimate of $16.91 billion, according to data compiled by London Stock Exchange Group. The company also raised its revenue forecast for fiscal 2027 to $90 billion.
Oracle has increasingly positioned itself as a major cloud infrastructure competitor, challenging companies such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. Amid this strategic shift, investors closely analyse the company’s earnings for signals about the broader AI and cloud computing economy. When Oracle meets or exceeds expectations, it often boosts confidence in the technology sector.
The positive sentiment driven by Oracle’s strong earnings pushed Wall Street higher in early trading hours before losing steam as investors weighed fading hopes for an earlier than expected end to the ongoing war between the United States, Israel and Iran. The tech heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 0.01%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.07% and the S&P 500 dropped 0.21%.
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Nuvama on IT services
Nuvama remained bullish on IT stocks, suggesting that the 20% correction seen since the beginning of the year due to expectations of AI led disruption in the sector following back to back AI tool launches by Anthropic has made valuations attractive.
“Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,” Nuvama said, citing Mark Twain’s quote as perfectly explaining the current situation of the IT sector.“Given the advent and adoption of Gen AI, obituaries of the Indian IT services industry are being written all around. The concerns have been amplified by the sharp stock reactions, first with global SaaS and now with IT services companies,” it said.
The Indian IT services industry is at a crossroads again. The advent of a new technology, Gen AI, threatens to disrupt the way it has been functioning so far, thereby raising concerns about its near term growth and long term survival, Nuvama said.
It sees no existential threat from Gen AI and believes that the requirement for a system integrator, which can customise an enterprise’s plug and play software inputs and outputs as per its requirements, will always exist.
“We also note B2B adoption of any technology is very different from that of the B2C segment. Eventually, enterprises going for automation of tasks will still need someone to take ownership of the system and that will be IT services firms,” it added.
Nuvama, however, cautioned that Gen AI adoption will follow the technology adoption curve, and IT services firms will face cannibalisation of revenue in the initial phase, which they are facing currently, before reaching the inflection point.
“Following this, the opportunity will lead to an expansion of TAM (USD300 to USD400 billion by 2030, as per Infosys management). However, the companies are likely to undergo a pivot from a headcount driven to an outcome based revenue model. This will lead to lower headcount addition and lower correlation with revenue growth in coming years,” it added.
IT services model is here to stay
Nuvama believes the IT services model is here to stay and that the Gen AI disruption would only lead to bigger opportunities.
“Post the recent sharp correction, we find valuations of all stocks highly attractive,” it added.
“We see this as a deja vu moment for the industry and believe it will come out of this disruption just like earlier ones, with a net increase in its TAM. We remain positive on the sector from a medium to long term view. Near term volatility may persist,” Nuvama said.
It now has a ‘Buy’ call on all the top ten IT services stocks.
It upgraded HCLTech, Wipro, Tech Mahindra and Hexaware Technologies to ‘Buy’, and prefers LTIMindtree, Persistent Systems, Mphasis, Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services.
(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)