IT major Wipro on Thursday posted a 35.6 per cent jump in June quarter consolidated net profit to Rs 3,242.6 crore, and exuded confidence in logging double-digit revenue growth in FY22 following stellar Q1 performance and robust demand environment.

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The Bengaluru-based company had registered a net profit (attributable to equity holders) of Rs 2,390.4 crore in the year-ago period, as per Indian Accounting Standards (Ind-AS). Its revenue from operations rose by 22.3 per cent year-on-year to Rs 18,252.4 crore in the reported quarter.

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"We are in an acceleration mode, we have ramped up our supply chain engine and improved our talent acquisition machine and it has certainly helped. We have had a very strong performance in bookings now for three quarters...," Wipro CEO and Managing Director Thierry Delaporte said during a virtual briefing.

While the company doesn't provide guidance for the full fiscal, "the performance of Q1 and the Q2 guidance... (makes it) clear that we are gearing up for growth that will be well ahead of double-digit growth for the full year, even excluding Capco", he added.

In March, Wipro had announced the acquisition of London-headquartered Capco for USD 1.45 billion (over Rs 10,500 crore) - its biggest buyout to date.

Wipro - which gets the bulk of its topline from IT services - provided a strong revenue growth outlook of 5-7 per cent for the September quarter. It expects revenues from the unit to be in the range of USD 2,535 million to USD 2,583 million.

"Even at the lower end of this guidance, we will cross the USD 10 billion annual run rate of revenue, which we are very excited about," Delaporte said.

For the June quarter, Wipro's IT services segment revenue grew 12.2 per cent sequentially to USD 2,414.5 million (25.7 per cent y-o-y) - far higher than the company's guidance of 2-4 per cent growth for the first quarter of FY22.

"Our new business strategy to simplify the operating model and bold approach is starting to pay off. Our Q1 performance, therefore, continues to show considerable expansion and buoyancy. Our revenue growth trajectory has continued to show sharp improvement. Bookings have remained healthy, and our execution showed remarkable perseverance," Delaporte said.

He added that not only is this the best ever quarterly results, the first quarter also saw Wipro reporting its "highest organic sequential growth in 38 quarters".

"This tremendous growth was led by strong volumes across almost all markets, sectors and service offerings. Revenue from our latest acquisition Capco was also ahead of the guidance. The demand environment is robust and the quality of our overall pipeline is better than before," Delaporte noted.

Wipro announced its numbers after the close of market hours. Shares of Wipro closed at Rs 575.75 apiece, up 2.52 per cent from the previous close on BSE. Larger rivals Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys have also reported strong growth numbers.

TCS had posted 18.5 per cent growth in consolidated revenues to Rs 45,411 crore in the June 2021 quarter, while Infosys saw its topline rising 17.8 per cent to Rs 27,896 crore.
Infosys has raised its revenue growth outlook for the full fiscal to 14-16 per cent (from 12-14 per cent previously), buoyed by a robust deal pipeline and "strong" Q1 performance.

HCL Technologies is slated to report its financial performance on July 19.
Wipro said it closed eight large deals in the June quarter, resulting in a TCV of over USD 750 million.

Delaporte stated that higher attrition is becoming a universal issue and that Wipro is adapting quickly to tackle the challenge.

"We have doubled down on increasing intake from campuses across the world, as well as reskilling our existing workforce. We will onboard 33 per cent more freshers in FY22 versus the previous year. We also intend to onboard 6,000-plus freshers in Q2. Growth is our priority and we will ensure that talent supply is not a constraint to our ambition," he added.

In the short term, there would be some pressure on account of people cost as the company has announced a salary hike for 80 per cent of its employees, effective September 1 - its second hike in this calendar year, Delaporte noted.

The onboarding of 6,000 freshers in the second quarter would be the highest ever by Wipro, he said, adding that the company will roll out over 30,000 offer letters this year for freshers to join in FY23. Of the 30,000 offers, 22,000 freshers are expected to join.

In the first quarter, more than 10,000 people were lateral hires, while a little less than 2,000 freshers were onboarded. Wipro's IT services workforce crossed the milestone of 2 lakh with a closing headcount of 2,09,890. Its attrition was at 15.5 per cent in the June 2021 quarter.

Wipro had signed an agreement to acquire Ampion on April 1, 2021, for USD 117 million (about Rs 857 crore) and the deal was expected to close during the first quarter of FY22.

However, certain regulatory approvals are still pending and the transaction is now expected to be closed in the second quarter of FY22, Wipro said.

Wipro's IT product segment revenue for the quarter was Rs 130 crore, while that of India business from State Run Enterprises (ISRE) was at Rs 190 crore.

In June 2021, Wipro had also announced its first-ever dollar-denominated bond offering of USD 750 million with a 5-year tenor.

Sanjeev Hota, Head of Research at Sharekhan by BNP Paribas, said Wipro has reported better-than-expected revenue performance.

"Strong demand environment, return of multi-quarter highest organic growth, improving deal pipeline, record-high hiring, client additions and healthy deal wins are expected to drive revenue growth in coming years," he added.