UPDATE 1 — India's Tech Mahindra jumps over 6% on strong deal wins

(Adds details from paragraph 3 onwards) Oct 16 (Reuters) — Tech Mahindra shares advanced 6.4% on Friday as robust deal wins helped the Indian IT services firm beat quarterly revenue expectations, lifting its peers. The shares were trading at 1,755.80 rupees, while the Nifty IT index rose 2.8%. Indian IT companies have increasingly relied on large multi-year outsourcing contracts to help offset weak discretionary spending by global clients, with investors closely monitoring deal wins for visibility on future revenue growth. Tech Mahindra's new deal wins during the quarter stood at $1.02 billion, up 25.4% from a year earlier as the firm reported second quarter revenue of 161.80 billion rupees ($1.71 billion), beating average analyst estimates of 151.95 billion rupees, according to LSEG-compiled data. After the results, Morgan Stanley upgraded the stock to "equal-weight" from "underweight" and raised its target price to 1,780 rupees from 1,480 rupees. Analysts at Morgan Stanley were positively surprised by the deal conversion-to-revenue metrics and said Tech Mahindra would be able to hold on to the improved conversion ratios within the next year. CLSA maintained its "hold" rating on t