Infosys is looking to cut its reliance on the US market

Helping drive growth was strong demand from European clients, expansion into countries such as China, and a drop in the value of the rupee.

Net profit in the three months to 30 September was 6.06bn rupees ($136m), up from 4.47bn a year earlier.

Sales increased to 22.94bn rupees from 17.5bn, prompting the company to lift its full-year earnings forecast.

Revenues are now expected to hit 93.83bn rupees this year, especially after the rupee tumbled against the US dollar, boosting the value of the firm's foreign sales.

"It took us the whole of fiscal 2004 to reach a revenue of $1bn," said company boss Nandan Nilekani. "We reached the same level in the first six months of this year."

Moving on up

The company's shares rose as much as 3% in Mumbai on the news, and were most recently trading 2% higher at 2,675 rupees.

Bangalore-based Infosys is looking to reduce its dependence upon the US market, which is its biggest and accounts for almost two-thirds of all its business.

The firm recently won a large contract from Dutch banking group ABN Amro, as well as adding clients such as Bank of America.

In total, Infosys said it added 34 new clients during its second quarter and hired 8,026 employees taking total staff to 46,196.

"Profit is good," said Sameer Goyal, an analyst at Anand Rathi Securities in Mumbai.

"Good client addition and the sharp ramp up in its million-dollar-client base adds to the positive side of the performance," he added.