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Wipro IT business crosses $4 billion

— PHOTO: G. R. N. SOMASHEKAR

NEW ROLES: Girish Paranjape (left), Joint CEO, Azim Premji (centre), Chairman, and Suresh Vaswani, Joint CEO, Wipro, at a press conference in Bangalore on Friday.

BANGALORE: Wipro on Friday announced its financial results for the last quarter of 2007-08 as well as the annual results for the year. Overall revenues grew by 33 per cent, reaching Rs. 19,957 crore during the year. Post-tax profit grew by 12 per cent, amounting to Rs. 3,283 crore.

The company’s revenue increased by 32 per cent year-on-year to Rs. 5,700 crore and the profit after tax by three per cent to Rs. 880 crore during the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2008. Adjusting for one-time tax reversals in the quarter under review, the growth in profit after tax, year-on-year, will be 11.3 per cent.

The group’s mainstay, the IT business, generated total revenues of almost Rs. 17,387 crore ($4.3 billion) in 2007-08, clocking a growth of 28 per cent over the previous year.

The Global IT services business unit, which caters mainly to the markets in the U.S. and Europe, generated revenues amounting to Rs. 13,642 crore. The other main unit, Wipro Infotech, which caters to IT services and product markets in India, Asia and West Asia, generated revenues amounting to Rs. 3,746 crore. Wipro Infotech’s revenues grew by a relatively healthier 51 per cent; in comparison revenue growth from markets in the industrialised West was a relatively modest 23 per cent. Whether this reflects the company’s relatively lower revenue base in the Asian markets or whether it is a reflection of a slowdown in Western markets remains to be seen. While the company’s revenues increased by 18 per cent in the IT services space, its income from BPO operations grew 23 per cent during 2007-08.

Azim Premji, Chairman, said the company’s acquisition of Infocrossing positions the company “strongly” in the outsourcing space. The company has restructured its consulting wing to “embed” them into the company’s various “service lines”.

This unified consulting wing, he said, would employ about 1,000 consultants spread across geographies.

Suresh Senapaty, Chief Financial Officer, said the company’s “realised rate” of foreign exchange was Rs. 39.94 for the quarter ending March 31, 2008; the average realised rate for the previous quarter was Rs. 39.74. At the end of the last financial year, the company had about $3.5 billion worth of contracts with rates between Rs. 39.50 and Rs. 43.

Corporate Bureau adds:

During the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2008, global IT services and produces added 29 new clients.

The board has recommended a final cash dividend of Rs. 4 per share/ADS. This coupled with the interim dividend of Rs. 2 per share will make the total to Rs. 6 per share (300 per cent).

As of March 31, 2008, the company had 82,122 employees which included 61,844 employees in IT services business and 20,278 employees in BPO business. This represents a net addition of 2,290 employees comprising 1,919 in IT services and 371 people in BPO business for the quarter ended March 31, 2008. The company opened a BPO centre in Cebu, Philippines and Wroclaw, Poland.

PTI reports:

Wipro announced changes in the management structure of its IT business and expansion of its board. The firm appointed Girish Paranjpe, Suresh Senapaty and Suresh Vaswani to the board of Wipro. Wipro also re-structured its IT business by appointing Girish Paranjpe and Suresh Vaswani as joint-CEOs. Mr. Paranjpe was the President of the banking, financial services and insurance business unit of the Global IT Business of Wipro. Mr. Suresh Vaswani was the President of Wipro Infotech.

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