Wipro Q1 net up 12% at Rs 1,016 cr

Wipro Limited, India's third largest software services exporter riding on good volume growth coupled with a tight leash on operating costs, has posted a 12 per cent increase in net profit to Rs 1,016 crore for the first quarter of current fiscal as against the corresponding period of last fiscal. The topline of the firm, which also sells soaps, furniture and heavy engineering equipment, moved up by 5 per cent to Rs 6,274 crore.

The flagship IT services revenues declined 3.3 per cent on a yearly basis to $1033 million, which was a sequential decline of 1.3 per cent.

Sounding optimistic on the software services revival, Azim Premji the billionaire chairman of Wipro Limited said:  “We are starting to see the first signs of stability in the business as ramp downs start to taper off and volumes start to stabilize. We are adapting ourselves for the new reality with continued investments in Value Creation, Go-To-Market and driving significant Operational Productivity. Looking ahead, for the quarter ending September 30, 2009, we expect Revenues from our IT Services business to be in the range of $1,035 million to $1,053 million."

The IT services business added  26 new clients during the quarter as it operating profit was up 17 per cent on a yearly basis. “It was another quarter of strong performance. We improved on several operating parameters to deliver margin expansion of 0.6 per cent to 22.3 per cent in the IT Services segment,” said Suresh Senapaty, CFO, Wipro Limited.

Meanwhile, the stock opened on a flat note at Rs 455, down Rs 2, and then touched a low of Rs 453. The stock, however, has rebounded into the positive zone and is now up over 1% at Rs 464. The counter has seen trades of around 312,400 shares so far on the BSE.