BENGALURU: Wipro’s revenue dropped 0.7% year-on-year in constant currency in the Dec quarter, while it grew 0.1% sequentially, coming at the upper end of the guidance.
It forecast a sequential revenue growth of -2% to 0% in constant currency in the Dec quarter. “2024 was marked by macro-economic challenges. 2025 looks more hopeful and resilient. Clients are cautiously optimistic, and discretionary spending is slowly coming back. While cost optimization remains key, we expect significant growth in AI spending,” said Wipro CEO Srini Pallia during the earnings conference on Friday.
“We have a good pipeline, customers are now looking at cost optimisation, and that’s the pipeline we are building in Europe. We are also seeing demand coming back from discretionary spending, especially in some sectors specific to BFSI,” Pallia said. Its stock price rose 4% in early trade on the NYSE. In comparison, TCS, Infosys, and HCLTech registered 4.5%, 6.1%, and 4.1% year-on-year in constant currency in the Dec quarter, and 1.7% sequentially.
Wipro CFO Aparna Iyer said a lower-than-expected furlough in the Dec quarter resulted in Wipro meeting the upper end of its guidance. For the March quarter, Wipro projected revenue growth between -1% and 1%. Wipro’s total bookings were at $3.5 billion, which went up by 7.3% year-on-year in constant currency terms. Wipro is seeing more interest in smaller and medium-sized deals than the large and mega deals.
Its operating margin expanded 70 basis points to 17.5% compared to 16.8% in the Sept quarter. “A significant part of the margin improvement came because of the operational efficiency that we’ve driven both in our core business and in the consulting businesses of Capco,” Iyer said. Wipro acquired Capco, a London-based global management and tech consultancy, for $1.5 billion in 2021.
Wipro’s headcount dropped by 1,157 in the Dec quarter to take the tally to 2.3 lakh employees. Wipro’s CHRO Saurabh Govil attributed this to onboarding fewer freshers. It will hire around 10,000 freshers in the current fiscal.
