Infosys, India's second largest software and services outsourcer, announced Friday that it expected its revenue to grow by 28% to 30% to about $4 billion in its current fiscal year ending March 31 next year.

The company also reported revenue of $3.1 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31 this year, a 44 percent increase over revenue in the previous year. The company's profit for the year was $850 million, up by 53 percent from the previous year.

The results are based on U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).

Infosys' results come in the wake of increasing cost of staff in India, a strengthening of the Indian Rupee against the U.S. dollar, and an anticipated slow-down is some segments of the IT market in the U.S.

Infosys has however forecast strong growth for the global IT services industry.

Infosys' competitors Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) are also expected to report strong results later this month.

India's National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) in Delhi released estimates in January that indicated that India's software and services exports are likely to have grown by 32.6% to over $31 billion in the Indian fiscal year to March 31 this year.

India's small and midsize outsourcing companies are however getting squeezed out by the top three outsourcers -- Wipro, TCS, and Infosys, according to Forrester Research. Customers look for larger outsourcers with big brands and strong financials, said Sudin Apte, Forrester's senior analyst and country head for India, last month. The top three outsourcers are also able to hire staff in large numbers, he added.

Infosys added 19,526 employees during the year, taking the total number of employees to 72,241 as on March 31. The company competes for staff with other Indian outsourcers as well as the Indian operations of multinational services companies such as IBM and Accenture. The company's staff attrition rate for the year was 13.7% up from 11.2% a year earlier.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.