Wipro shares down nearly 4% post Q1 earnings

Mumbai, July 24: Shares of IT major Wipro today fell nearly 4 per cent after the company's June quarter earnings failed to enthuse investors. The stock of the country's third-largest software services firm erased initial gains and fell 3.69 per cent to Rs 566.65 at the BSE.

On the NSE, the stock slipped 3.87 per cent to Rs 566.20. The stock was the biggest loser among the blue-chips on both key indices - Sensex and Nifty.

Wipro yesterday reported four per cent rise in net profit at Rs 2,187.7 crore for the June quarter of 2015-16 fiscal.

The firm which reported a net profit of Rs 2,103.2 crore in the year-ago period said it expected the coming quarters to be better than the quarter under review.

Its total income rose 10.5 per cent to Rs 12,894.8 crore for the said quarter from Rs 11,669.4 crore in the year-ago period.

The firm's IT services revenue, which constitutes a major share of its total earnings, saw a sequential growth of 1.1 per cent to USD 1.79 billion in the said quarter, meeting its revenue guidance of USD 1,765 million to USD 1,793 million.

Wipro expects to see pickup in momentum in the second quarter as reflected in the guidance and it expects the second half to be better than the first half of the fiscal, he added.

Dipen Shah, Head of Private Client Group Research at Kotak Securities, said Wipro's revenue growth of 0.2 per cent in constant currency terms was slightly lower-than-estimated.

"Growth was largely impacted by continuing softness in the energy vertical. However, the Q2 guidance of 1.5-3.5 per cent is slightly ahead of expectations," he said.

PTI