India’s biggest IT companies are digging deep into their wallets—mostly for shareholders. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the country’s largest IT services exporter, has returned a whopping 99.7% of its net profit to shareholders on average over the past five years.
This includes both dividends and share buybacks. That’s nearly the whole pie.
Trailing closely behind are Tech Mahindra with a payout share of 91.2%, Infosys at 82.4%, HCL Technologies at 77%, and Wipro with 62.6%. These five firms collectively returned around ₹4.15 trillion to shareholders since financial year 2020-21 (FY21), against their total net profits of ₹4.79 trillion.
That works out to an average industry payout of 87%—a sharp contrast to the 27.4% average among BSE Sensex companies (excluding buybacks).
TCS, in particular, has stood out for its high payout strategy. Since FY21, the company has given back around ₹2.06 trillion to shareholders—almost the same as its ₹2.07 trillion profit in that period. But there seems to be a slight course correction now.
In FY25, the company’s payout share dipped to 92.5% from a sky-high 103.4% in FY24. The dividend amount was ₹44,888 crore, which is 5.4% lower than the previous year’s ₹47,467 crore. Despite a 5.8% rise in consolidated net profit to ₹48,553 crore, TCS opted not to buy back any shares in FY25.
The shift, while subtle, could hint at a change in strategy. TCS’s peers typically retain a bigger chunk of their profits—possibly for acquisitions, R&D, or future expansions.
TCS, on the other hand, has consistently chosen to hand over most of its earnings, suggesting a relatively conservative reinvestment stance.
