Wipro posts 36 pc revenue growth in Q2

Bangalore, Oct 22: On Wednesday, India's third largest IT service company Wipro Ltd announced a 36 pc growth in its revenue during second quarter ending Sep 30. The revenues increased to Rs 6507 crore and profit after tax grew by 19 per cent to Rs 978 crore.

Azim Premji, the Wipro chairman told scribes at a press conference in Bangalore that for the quarter the company delivered an excellent performance with IT services revenues at $1110 million, ahead of the guidance of $1089 million. Retail, transportation, manufacturing, healthcare and financial services business led the growth with strong performances during the quarter, he said. Profit before interest and tax for IT services segment was at Rs 996 crore, a growth of 30 per cent year on year basis.

"Our differentiated services of technology infrastructure services, testing services and package implementation continue to show good growth. Our leadership in India and Middle East business was further re-emphasised with another quarter of strong year on year growth," he said.

Wipro had won six multi-year multi-million Dollar deals during the quarter, Mr Premji added.

IT services business was added with 28 new clients during the quarter, while IT products recorded 50 per cent YoY growth in revenues and 34 per cent YoY growth in PBIT. Wipro consumer care and lighting business revenue grew by 42 per cent YoY and PBIT was up by 46 per cent YoY.

Wipro Executive Director and CFO, Suresh Senapathy, said the performance during Q2 was strong reflection of Wipro's ability to deliver operational efficiencies. "Rate and realisation of fixed price projects mix improved sequentially by 200 basis points and 100 basis points respectively. Our continued emphasis on driving utilisation through an integrated delivery model resulted in utilisation moving up by 240 bps," he said.

These strong gains on operational front helped the company to improve our margins in the IT services business in spite of affecting salary increases to the off shore employees during the quarter, he said.

Wipro had 97,552 employees as on Sep 30. This included 75,748 employees in IT services business and 21,804 in BPO business.

IT services accounted for 73 per cent of the revenue and 90 per cent of the PBIT for the quarter.

Consumer care and lighting segment recorded revenues of Rs 527 crore, a growth of 42 YoY and PBIT of Rs 64.3 crore, a growth of 46 per cent. PBIT to revenue was 12.2 for the quarter.

In the current global environment of liquidity challenges, cash provides excellent flexibility to persue strategic initiatives and business. With that objective, the Board had decided not to declare interim dividend.

The company entered into a large multi-million dollar deal with one of the largest financial services group in Middle East and Africa region to provide testing as managed services, a five year deal with a global consumer apparel company of the US, and strategic engagement with a major French Telecom company.

UNI