India's Wipro beats second-quarter revenue expectations, deal bookings drop

BENGALURU, Oct 15 : Wipro, India's fourth-largest IT company, reported higher-than-expected second-quarter revenue on Thursday, helped by a revival in spending by its European clients and artificial intelligence unlocking new revenue streams.

The company's consolidated revenue rose 9.1 per cent to 247.53 billion rupees ($2.60 billion) in the July-September quarter, a tad above analysts' average estimate of 246.27 billion rupees, as per LSEG data.

Bengaluru-based Wipro forecast third-quarter revenue of $2.57 billion to $2.63 billion- which translates to a drop of 1.5 per cent to an increase of 0.5 per cent. Most brokerages had expected a guidance between 2 per cent decline and flat revenue growth.

Wipro said revenue from Europe, which contributes more than a fourth of its overall business, rose 5.1 per cent year-over-year, after stripping out currency fluctuations. The company also signed partnerships with Anthropic and Google during the year, helping it gain traction in terms of AI-related revenue and savings. 

The company posted a net profit of 32.01 billion rupees, compared with analysts' estimates of 33.69 billion rupees.

Total deal wins for Wipro fell to $2.6 billion from $4.7 billion a year earlier. It inked pacts with industrial giant ABB, cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike and oil major Aramco during the quarter ended September 30.

Larger rivals TCS and HCLTech revenue figures were largely in-line with Street estimates but their stocks surged as investors welcomed the uptick in AI revenue. 

The company's Mumbai-listed shares closed 1.4 per cent higher ahead of the results, with the Nifty IT index rising 1.7 per cent.