BENGALURU, Jan 11 Reuters Tata Consultancy Services said it was hard to predict a recovery in demand for IT services in the next two quarters as persistent inflation and recession fears pressure client spending in the company39;s key markets the U.S. and Europe.

The comments come after the industry leader reported its slowest quarterly profit growth since 2020 and rival Infosys missed thirdquarter profit estimates, signaling that the sector39;s pandemic boom was fading and international revenue was drying up.

From our perspective, the macro situation hasn39;t changed much, TCS CEO K. Krithivasan said in a postearnings conference.

The general optimism tied to potential U.S. interestrate cuts has not resulted in any groundlevel certainty or decisions towards new investments, the top executive said.

Indian IT companies have gained prominence since the early 2000s by giving Western clients lowcost solutions, and growing into global giants as outsourcing surged, but some analysts have emphasized a need for change.

The pain will not go away as the model needs to shift from labour arbitrage to technology arbitrage, HFS Research CEO Phil Fersht said. We are going through a genuine inflection point in the IT services industry after 25 years of doubledigit revenue growth.

TCS39; consolidated net profit in the seasonally weak third quarter rose 2 to 110.58 billion Indian rupees 1.33 billion from a year earlier. It included an impairment charge of 9.58 billion rupees tied…