Wipro posts third-quarter profit fall

REUTERS - India's third-largest software services exporter Wipro posted an 8.5 percent drop in third-quarter net profit on Friday, hurt by higher costs.

Net profit fell to 19.31 billion rupees ($303 million) in the three months to Dec. 31, from 21.10 billion rupees a year earlier, Wipro said on Friday. (http://bit.ly/2rjwAnr)

The average forecast from analysts was for profit of 21.58 billion rupees, Thomson Reuters data showed.

Revenue from Wipro's IT services segment rose marginally to 132.35 billion rupees.

($1 = 63.7575 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Tanvi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by David Goodman)