BANGALORE, India – India’s third-largest software firm Wipro reported Monday a 1.2 percent rise in quarterly net profit, beating market expectations, aided by a weak rupee and improved demand.
Net profit for the three months to September rose to 13.01 billion rupees ($267 million), from 12.85 billion rupees a year earlier.
The Bangalore-based firm said in a statement to the Bombay Stock Exchange that revenues in its fiscal second quarter rose 19 percent to 95.03 billion rupees.
Analysts had forecast Wipro to post a profit of around 12.9 billion rupees.
Shares in the company rose as much as 3.2 percent to a high of 381 rupees in early trade after the announcement.
Wipro reported IT services revenues — which account for about three-quarters of total revenues — of $1.47 billion for the quarter with a forecast in the range of $1.5 to $1.53 billion for the December-end quarter.
“We saw momentum build up in our IT business with healthy volume growth,” said Wipro chairman Azim Premji in a statement.
But Wipro, like rivals IT giants Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), said the macro-economic environment continued to be “uncertain”.
In the United States, high unemployment and a slow economic recovery are a cause for concern, while in Europe the sovereign debt crisis and turbulent financial markets were impacting the outlook, Wipro said.
India’s outsourcing sector, however, is still expected to post 16 to 18 percent annual export revenue growth, despite fears of a fresh slump in its key US and European markets.
India’s top software firms have all posted profit growth in the last quarter, helped by a strong dollar, which boosts its billings for overseas clients.
The rupee has depreciated 13 percent against its US counterpart in the past three months and hit a two-year low of 50 rupees against the dollar this month.
In the quarter, Wipro said it added 44 clients and 5,240 employees in the quarter.
They include leading financial services firm State Street Corporation, which has entered into a multi-year deal for application maintenance.
An unnamed leading European communications services provider has also expanded its existing contract with Wipro, the statement said.
Wipro, which is also listed at the New York Stock Exchange, is one of the “Big Three” Indian software exporters.
Premji, one of India’s wealthiest men, transformed the company into a multi-billion-dollar IT heavyweight from a soap and vegetable oil products manufacturer.
