India's Infosys Q1 net rises 21 pct, beats f'cast

BANGALORE, July 11 (Reuters) - Infosys Technologies Ltd (INFY.BO), India's No. 2 software services company, posted a 21 percent rise in quarterly profit, beating forecasts, boosted by a weaker rupee.

Infosys (INFY.O), which develops applications, designs supply chains and offers back-office services, said on Friday net profit rose to 13.02 billion rupees ($303 million) in the fiscal first quarter ended June from 10.79 billion reported a year earlier.

A Reuters poll of 15 brokerages had estimated a net profit of 12.69 billion rupees for Infosys, which counts ABN AMRO, Goldman Sachs (GS.N), Philips Electronics (PHG.AS), and U.S. insurer Conseco (CNO.N) among its 500 or so clients.

A large pool of English-speaking graduates and comparatively cheaper wages had helped Indian firms ride an outsourcing boom for years, but the growth slowed last year when Wall Street banks made huge write-downs related to the subprime crisis and as the U.S. economy lurched towards recession. Although Indian outsourcing firms are expanding to Europe, Asia and the Middle East to lower their dependence on the United States, the country still accounts for half of their sales. Shares in Infosys, which the market values at $23 billion, had risen 21 percent in the June quarter, outperforming a gain of 13 percent in the sector index .BSEIT and a 14 percent drop in the main Mumbai index .BSESN. ($1=43 rupees) (Reporting by Sumeet Chatterjee; Editing by Ranjit Gangadharan and Louise Heavens)