Cognizant Technology Solutions on Wednesday trimmed its full-year growth guidance for 2026 citing decline in discretionary spend and macro challenges. This was despite the IT major posting a constant currency (CC) growth of 4.1 per cent, well above its tier 1 peers.Cognizant now expects revenue for 2026 to grow in the range of 4-5.5 per cent as against an earlier estimate of 4-6.5 per cent (CC terms). The US-based company follows calendar year accounting. The guidance includes 150 bps of inorganic growth. Addressing media post the earnings, Jatin Dalal, CFO, Cognizant said that the guidance was trimmed as discretionary spends had not picked up in Q2 to the extent they earlier expected.“At the beginning of Q2, we had mentioned we expect the discretionary spend to return in the second half. The reality is that the macro conditions continue to remain what they were, and there has not been an uptick or superior momentum that can be seen from the discretionary side,” he said.Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar said that despite the macro pressures and lowered guidance, Cognizant will still be ahead of its peers. “The average midpoint of our peer group in the tier-1 is almost 150 to 200 basis points lower than us,” he said.Cognizant’s revenue growth in April-June quarter (on a CC basis) was ahead of peer firms like Infosys (2.4 per cent), Wipro (0.9 per cent), HCL Tech (2.6 per cent) and TCS (3.2 per cent).Strong tractionOn deal momentum, Kumar said that the share of new business as a proportion of the total bookings was up 10 per cent year on year. A significant portion of the bookings are AI-led efficiency projects but the company is also seeing strong traction in newer areas like cybersecurity and data analytics, he added. Bookings increased 5 per cent y-o-y to $29.1 billion with seven large deals (higher than $100 million) in Q2. Revenue growth in the quarter was led by the financial services vertical, which grew by 11.7 per cent. This was the second consecutive quarter of double-digit y-o-y growth in the segment.Cognizant’s headcount as of June 30, 2026 was 356,700, an increase of 12,900 from June 2025. This differential was also higher than its tier-1 peers.The company incurred $84 million in charges in June quarter towards Project Leap initiative. This included $56 million of employee separation costs and $28 million of other costs. Operating margins were up 30 basis points y-o-y.Phil Fersht, founder and CEO, HFS Research, said, that Cognizant has closed much of the gap with its peers over the past two years, but sustaining above-market growth will depend on proving that its AI investments continue to generate measurable client outcomes rather than simply strong bookings.On increasing enterprise demand for open weight models, the CEO said that companies will need both closed frontier models and open-weight models. “Closed frontier models power the advances and they remain cutting edge, and they will be ahead on the curve. Open-weight models can be industrialised in a much cheaper way,” he said.Published on July 29, 2026