Rakesh Vyas, Chief Investment Officer & Portfolio Manager at Quest Investment Managers, said he remains positive on mid-cap IT stocks despite headwinds from higher H-1B visa costs and concerns linked to artificial intelligence, and is also bullish on India's quick commerce sector. In the segment, he sets out where he sees the biggest opportunities now and indicates an expectation of 12-14% earnings growth.

Vyas was speaking in an interview published on CNBC-TV18's markets coverage on August 25, 2026. The video segment is tagged with mid-cap IT names including Coforge and Persistent Systems, alongside quick commerce, H-1B visa policy, IT stocks and earnings growth.

Mid-cap IT in focus

Mid-cap IT services firms such as Coforge and Persistent Systems sit between India's largest outsourcing companies and smaller specialist providers, and both have grown faster than the country's biggest IT exporters in recent years. The United States is the industry's biggest export market — IT services rank among India's largest export earners — and the H-1B visa has long been the primary route through which Indian IT companies deploy engineers to work on client projects there. Recent changes in US visa policy have substantially raised the cost of sponsoring new H-1B workers: legislation passed in 2025 added fees ranging from $15,000 to as much as $100,000 per new petition, depending on the worker's US education and the employer's size. The expense is borne by employers and is one of the two concerns Vyas said he is looking past.

The other is artificial intelligence. The rapid advance of generative AI has prompted a broad investor debate over whether automation will reduce demand for traditional IT services work even as it creates new project opportunities.

Quick commerce

Quick commerce — the rapid delivery of groceries and everyday essentials — has become one of India's fastest-growing consumer internet categories, led by operators such as Blinkit, owned by Eternal (formerly Zomato), along with Swiggy Instamart, Zepto and Flipkart Minutes. Blinkit has become Eternal's fastest-growing major business, and the leading platforms have been pushing beyond groceries into categories such as beauty, electronics accessories and apparel. The sector's expansion has also drawn official attention: India's food-safety regulator has ordered audits of the dark stores that quick-commerce firms operate, and trader associations have lobbied the government over the format's effect on traditional kirana retail.

The full interview, in which Vyas discusses where he sees the biggest opportunities, is available on CNBC-TV18, and the segment carries the network's standard disclaimer.