The 1, 2, 3 of India's top IT companies

New Jersey-based Cognizant Technology Solutions has displaced Infosys to become the second-largest Indian IT services provider by revenue, according to global technology research and advisory company Gartner. Tata Consultancy Services remains the leader. Globally, Cognizant stood 23rd, while Infosys was placed 26th. TCS towered above them at the 16th spot. Here's a brief look at the top five Indian IT companies.

TCS
TCS was established in 1968 as a division of Tata Sons Limited. TCS Limited got incorporated as a separate entity on January 19, 1995. Natarajan Chandrasekaran has been the chief executive officer and managing director of TCS since October 2009. During his tenure as CEO the company has grown at a compounded annual rate of 21 per cent.

The company achieved annual revenue of $10 billion for the first time in 2011-12. The company has 58 subsidiaries, employs around 2.7 lakh people and offers services in 44 countries.

Cognizant
It was founded as a technology arm of Dun & Bradstreet in 1994, and in 1996 it started adding third-party clients. It launched its IPO in 1998. It became a Fortune 500 company in 2011, ranking 484. Cognizant is considered to be an Indian IT firm because a majority of its employees are based in India.

Francisco D'Souza, one of the founders of Cognizant, took over as the CEO in 2007 at 38. Under him, revenues have grown from $1.4 billion to over $7 billion, while the workforce has swelled from 55,000 to over 150,000.

Infosys
Infosys was set up by N.R. Narayana Murthy and six other engineers in Pune in 1981 with an initial capital of $250 mostly borrowed from their spouses. Two years later, the company relocated its corporate headquarters to Bangalore, one of the first software companies to set up operations in the city that went on to become India's Silicon Valley.

Infosys listed on the Indian exchanges in 1993 and was among the first in India to introduce employee stock-option plan, a move to attract and retain talent. Six years later, in 1999, the company became the first Indian company to list on the Nasdaq, raising the profile of the Indian outsourcing industry in the US.

Wipro
Wipro was established by Mohamed Hasham Premji in 1945 as a vegetable oil manufacturer in Amalner, Maharashtra. It was then known as Western India Products Ltd. Its main area of business was production of sunflower vanaspati oil. Later on, it moved to soaps and other consumer care products. In 1966, after Hasham Premji's death, the business was taken over by his son Azim Premji, who was then 21.

In 1977, the company changed its name to Wipro Products Ltd. In 1982, the company was renamed Wipro Ltd. Wipro ventured into the IT business in 1981. Today, it has over 130,000 employees and clients across 54 countries.

HCL Technologies
HCL Technologies was formed in 1997 when parent HCL's R&D business was spun off to focus on India's growing IT services company. HCL Enterprises was founded by Shiv Nadar in the 1970s with its primary focus on the IT hardware industry.

In February 2013 Nadar announced that he would be stepping down as the chairman of the group and his daughter Roshni Nadar would take over.