Wipro net profit jumps by 58%

Bangalore: Wipro Limited, announced a net profit of Rs 1,629 crores for 2004-05 financial year. It is a net jump of 58 per cent when compared to the previous year's Rs 1,031.05 crores the company said in a press conference to announce its results on Friday.

The company's board also approved the issue of additional bonus shares to shareholders in the ratio of one additional share per share held by them. Apart from this, the board has also recommended a cash dividend of Rs 5 per share on existing paid-up capital.

Its dollar revenue in the global IT business has grown to the extent of 43 per cent, despite the rupee's appreciation. The company posted a revenue of Rs 8,169.8 crores, an increase of 39 per cent over Rs 5,881.2 crores in 2003-04.

Commenting on the results, Wipro chairman Azim Premji said that despite the increase in the compensation cost, non-cash charge of restricted stock units and sharply appreciating rupee, the company raised the bar on the operational efficiency leading to increased utilisation, improved price realisation and enhanced portion of revenues from offshore projects, resulting in a far healthier operating margin. "Considering the emerging opportunities in the global market and our unique business model, the future outlook looks as exciting as the journey has been so far. Looking ahead, for the quarter ending June 2005, we expect our revenues from Global IT Services to be approximately $395 million," Mr Premji said, while projecting the company's growth in first quarter of the current financial year.

He added that the process of strategic transformation of their BPO business will continue. "It will help the company in not only building competency among the BPO business, but also ensure a far superior go-to-market approach," he explained.

The NYSE-listed Wipro posted net profits of Rs 433 crores and income of Rs 2,312.10 crores in the fourth quarter ended March 2005 while it also added 41 new clients during the quarter.
The vice-chairman of Wipro, Mr Vivek Paul said that the last quarter witnessed strong sequential volume growth of 8.5 per cent and this led to the highest ever addition in billed man-months in a quarter.

"We saw healthy growth in the number of new clients as well as the deepening of our presence in existing customers," he added.

He clarified that the company's differentiated testing services continued to grow ahead of the company's overall growth rates. "This broad-based growth resulted in revenues of $375 million which is ahead of our guidance of $370 million."

Apart from increase in the customer volume, the IT major also added 2,520 people comprising 1,187 in IT services and 1,333 in BPO business in the fourth quarter of 2004-05 fiscal year to take its total employee strength to 41,857. The total employee strength includes 26,184 in the IT services business and 15,673 people in the BPO business.

Revenues from Wipro Infotech, the India and Asia-Pacific IT services arm, stood at Rs 1,396.4 crores and from consumer care and lighting business, Rs 472.3 crores.