New Delhi, Sept. 12 -- Markets on Friday cheered Infosys Ltd's Rs.18,000-crore share repurchase plan, a playbook analysts expect India's top IT services firms to borrow to shore up investor confidence while they catch up with artificial intelligence and other new-age technologies.

Infosys shares ended the day's 1% higher on NSE, a day after it announced its fifth share buyback since its first in 2017.

But the company's spending report card raises an important question: Is India's second-largest information technology services vendor prioritising shareholder returns over making itself future-ready by investing in AI and buying companies with disruptive technologies?

"In a choppy market, buybacks are the easiest lever they have to prop u...