Wipro Q3 net grows 60%

BANGALORE: Wipro Limited, India's second largest IT company, has posted revenue of Rs 2090 crore for the October-December quarter, representing an increase of 34 percent year over year. On this net income was Rs 430 crore, a growth of 60 percent over the same period last year.

Azim Premji, Chairman of Wipro, said, "We continued our strong performance into the third quarter of the fiscal year. Our strategy of offering an integrated solution to our customers continues to pay off, as demonstrated by the healthy sequential growth in all our key verticals and service lines during the quarter. Looking ahead, for the quarter ending March 2005, we expect our Revenue from our Global IT services business to be approximately $370 million."

Revenue from its global software products and services arm, Wipro Technologies was registered at Rs 1590 crore, an increase of 38 percent over the year, while Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) stood at Rs 410 crore, an increase of 71 percent annually.

Vivek Paul, Vice Chairman, said, "This quarter saw a one sequential improvement in our price realization for both onsite projects as well as offshore projects. In terms of verticals, our finance solutions, telecom OEM and manufacturing businesses grew double digit sequentially, while in terms of service lines, our technology infrastructure services and testing services continued their momentum with double digit sequential growth, resulting in revenues of $352 million, ahead of our guidance of $347 million. annualized employee attrition came down to 12 percent."

The infotech arm of the company, Wipro Infotech recorded revenue of Rs 320 crore for the quarter, representing an increase of 20 percent over the quarter ended December 31, 2003. EBIT for the quarter, was Rs 26.7 crore, representing an increase of 45 percent over the same period last year.

One of the largest IT and ITES employers, Wipro's workforce was at 39,337 of December 31, 2004, which includes 24,997 employees in the IT Services business and 14,340 employees in the IT Enabled services business. This represents a net addition of 2,274 employees comprising the addition of 947 people in the IT Services business and 1,327 people in the IT Enabled services business.

During the quarter, the company added 26 new customers comprising 16 customers in R&D Services and 10 customers in Enterprise Services.