New Delhi, Oct. 14 -- Zoho Corp. co-founder Sridhar Vembu's Tuesday warning that the company will not give salary hikes this year amid artificial intelligence (AI)-driven disruption could signal broader challenges for India's software industry.

As Zoho's profits came under pressure amid a sharp rise in employee costs, Mint's review of the financials of software and software-as-a-service (SaaS) firms Darwinbox, TestMu (formerly LambdaTest) and LeadSquared also signals near-term profitability concerns across the information technology (IT) industry.

Darwinbox, which makes human resource (HR) management software, saw its net loss widen to Rs.179 crore in fiscal year 2025 (FY25), according to the latest available financials. TestMu, which a...