Bangalore, January 20: Wipro Ltd, India’s third-largest software exporter, said Wednesday its consolidated third quarter net profit beat forecasts to rise 21 percent, led by demand for outsourcing and higher fees.
Net profit rose to 12.17 billion rupees (266 million dollars) in the three months ended December 31, up from 10.04 billion rupees a year earlier, the Bangalore-based company said in a statement to the Mumbai stock exchange.
Revenues rose by more than five percent to 69.66 billion rupees.
By US accounting standards, Wipro showed a 19 percent rise in net profit at 12.03 billion rupees (263 million dollars), from 10.1 billion rupees a year earlier.
“We saw a positive demand environment, driving broad based sequential growth across all our services and regions,” said Azim Premji, chairman of Wipro, in a company statement.
IT budgets in the calendar year are expected to be flat, the company said, which is in line with most analysts’ forecasts.
The company expects revenues from IT services to be in the range of 1.16 billion to 1.18 billion dollars for the quarter ending March 31 this year.
Wipro shares rose as much as 2.1 percent or 15.5 rupees to a day’s high of 753 in early trade Wednesday, after earnings were announced. Prices retraced later on profit taking, to 737.45, down 0.54 percent or 3.95 rupees.
Wipro’s IT services business added 31 new clients in the third quarter, and a net addition of 4,855 employees.
In the quarter, Wipro entered into a multi-year outsourcing engagement with a leading global tobacco group.
The company said its Middle East operations also won deals. Wipro Arabia bagged a large order from an upcoming university in Saudi Arabia to set up their software and telecom infrastructure.
–Agencies