By Haripriya Suresh and Sai Ishwarbharath B

BENGALURU, July 13 (Reuters) - HCLTech, India's third-largest software services exporter, beat profit and revenue expectations for the first quarter on Monday, ‌buoyed by strength in its financial services and a weak rupee.

The company also retained ‌its annual revenue forecast while announcing a foray into the data center business.

Analysts have lowered their expectations for India's $315 ​billion IT industry as global clients cut non-essential tech spending and fears mount that advanced AI tools could disrupt the business models of software companies.

HCLTech's deal wins of $2.4 billion, its highest ever in the first quarter, are a positive indicator, CEO C Vijayakumar said in a press conference.

"There has been ‌some impact due to West Asia (conflict), ⁠which started in March, and some of that is continuing. Some of the discretionary spend softness continues to be there, but we see a large ⁠pipeline, very healthy booking. We expect strong booking even in Q2," he said.

A weaker rupee also boosted revenue for IT firms as they bill clients in foreign currencies, while incurring most costs in rupees.

HCLTech ​posted ​a 13.9% year-on-year rise in revenue to 345.79 billion ​rupees ($3.62 billion) during the June quarter, ‌against analysts' average estimate of 343.5 billion rupees, according to LSEG data.

Revenue in constant currency, or stripping out exchange-rate effects, rose 2.6%.

Analysts said the company's performance in financial services and retail segments was positive, with the financial services segment being the secular growth driver for the industry.

"It's a good set of numbers, but the FY27 guidance has not increased or narrowed. That was the ‌biggest monitorable, particularly because the company won a $1.14 billion ​deal this month. From that perspective, this was slightly ​disappointing," said Sushovon Nayak, analyst at Anand ​Rathi.

HCLTech also saw a net reduction in headcount of over 3,000, the ‌steepest drop in eight quarters.

The company announced ​a foray into the data ​center business, for which it plans to invest 35 billion rupees with the potential to scale to 50 megawatts of capacity.

"While the investment could modestly weigh on cash flows ​in the near term, it ‌positions HCLTech to participate across the full AI value chain," StoxBox research analyst Sagar ​Shetty said.

($1 = 95.6200 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Haripriya Suresh and Sai Ishwarbharath B in ​Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar and Devika Syamnath)