The announcement was made during market hours today, 14 December 2018

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 15.58 points, or 0.04% to 35,945.22

On the BSE, 2.13 lakh shares were traded in the counter so far compared with average daily volumes of 4.41 lakh shares in the past two weeks. The stock had hit a high of Rs 706.95 and a low of Rs 693.50 so far during the day.

Infosys announced the formation of a joint venture with Hitachi, Ltd., Panasonic Corporation and Pasona Inc., strategically enhancing its presence in Japan. Executing on its strategy to help clients navigate their digital journey, the entity formed by complementary, iconic companies coming together, will accelerate business process transformation leveraging digital procurement platforms for the local and global needs of Japanese corporations.

Infosys will acquire 81% of the shareholding in Hitachi Procurement Service Co., Ltd., Hitachi's fully owned subsidiary that currently handles indirect materials purchasing functions for the Hitachi Group. Hitachi, Panasonic and Pasona will be minority shareholders of the entity.

Infosys will bring its global expertise in procurement processes, consulting, analytics and digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to the venture. Combined with Hitachi and Panasonic's knowledge of their procurement functions and local teams, and Pasona's human capital and BPM networks in Japan, the entity will provide differentiated, end-to-end, efficient and high value procurement capabilities to corporations.

On a consolidated basis, Infosys' net profit rose 13.8% to Rs 4110 crore on 7.7% increase in revenues to Rs 20609 crore in Q2 September 2018 over Q1 June 2018.

Infosys is a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting.