— Photo: G. R. N. Somashekar

ROBUST PERFORMANCE: Chairman of Wipro, Azim Premji (left), and President, Finance Solutions, Girish S. Paranjape, at a press conference in Bangalore on Wednesday.

BANGALORE: Surpassing market expectations, information technology major Wipro's third quarter net profit rose 27 per cent from a year earlier to Rs. 543.50 crore as revenues jumped on the back of a continued boom in outsourcing services from Western countries.

The consolidated revenues of Wipro for the October-December quarter increased by 30 per cent year-on-year to Rs. 2,743.90 crore.

Volume growth

The quarter-on-quarter sequential growth in net profit was 13.7 per cent while revenues notched a 9.5 per cent growth over the last quarter, the company said.

Wipro Technologies, the global IT services and products arm of Wipro, contributed immensely to the volume growth in the third quarter by garnering revenues of Rs. 2,122.30 crore, that is 33.6 per cent more than recorded in the year ago period.

Revenues of Wipro Infotech, the firm's IT business in India, the Middle East and the Asia Pacific, grew by 16.7 per cent from a year earlier to Rs. 399.20 crore while that of Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting rose 20.2 per cent to Rs. 154.90 crore.

Wipro Technologies and Wipro Infotech accounted for 77 per cent and 15 per cent, respectively, of the revenues of Wipro for the third quarter.

"The results for the quarter signal the next phase in Wipro's growth. Revenues from our global IT business were $473 million including $1.3 million attributable to two strategic acquisitions completed during the quarter and were ahead of our guidance of $463 million.

"For the quarter ending March 31, we expect revenues from our global IT business to be around $510 million," said Azim Premji, Chairman, Wipro Limited. Strong volume growth, higher proportion of offshore projects and continued operational improvements helped offset the impact of lower price realisation, lower utilisation and compensation revision for our offshore team and expand operating margins sequentially," Suresh Senapaty, Chief Financial Officer, Wipro said.

Reaches two milestones

Mr. Premji said Wipro crossed two significant milestones during the quarter. "Our IT business crossed Rs. 10,000 crore annual run-rate and our global IT business sailed past the 50,000 landmark in employee strength", he said.

Wipro thus became the second IT firm in India after Tata Consultancy Services to cross the 50,000-employee mark.

During the quarter, Wipro hired 5,189 people including 3,770 in IT services and 1,419 in business process outsourcing (BPO), jacking up the total staff size to 51,024.

Wipro said it would continue to hire to fulfil its contractual commitments with clients and meet revenue targets.

Wipro added a record 61 new clients during the quarter.

The U.S. continued to be the major market for Wipro contributing 50 per cent of its total revenues followed by Europe with 24 per cent and the rest of the world, including Japan with six per cent.

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