Indian IT isn’t in crisis — not yet. But the signals flashing from the March quarter results of TCS, Infosys, and Wipro are hard to ignore. Growth is stalling, client spending is softening, and confidence, once a fixture of management commentary, has given way to caution. This isn’t just another muted quarter. It’s a convergence of structural and cyclical stress: a slowdown in the West, tariff shocks from Washington, and a rapidly shifting technology landscape led by generative AI. For an industry built on predictability, the current moment feels unusually opaque. What’s more concerning is not that growth has dipped, but that no one, not even the biggest players, seems sure when or how it returns.

A slowdown made in America: Much of the current stress has its roots in the global economy, and specifically in the United States, which remains the biggest market for Indian IT exports. Elevated interest rates, inflation, and the spectre of a Trump-led tariff war have injected fresh volatility into corporate decision-making. President Donald Trump’s tariff policies - including reciprocal duties on tech equipment, data infrastructure components, and software services - are stoking fears of a trade war, one that could push the US into a recession. In this scenario, discretionary IT spending has become the first casualty. As Motilal Oswal notes in its April outlook: “The fallout from the Liberation Day tariffs has wreaked havoc on Indian IT service stocks, pushing the sector into the eye of the storm. Discretionary spend is likely to be put on hold again.”

Big Three, shrinking........

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