Software exporter Wipro Ltd announced its results for the three months ended September that saw a 14.4% rise in profits to Rs1,161.7 crore, compared with Rs1,015.5 crore in the June quarter. The company’s senior management—Suresh Senapathy, executive director and chief financial officer (CFO), and Girish Paranjpe and Suresh Vaswani, both executive directors and joint chief executive officers—spoke in an interview about the company’s performance. Edited excerpts:

Your guidance for the next quarter is quite optimistic at 4.5–5% growth at the top end. What’s making you so bullish?

Paranjpe: The plus side is that a broad-based growth (has happened) across all our industry verticals (business segments), whether it is telecom service provider, manufacturing, or retail. We are seeing strong growth…in Europe, America and Asia. So what gives us confidence is that we are not driven by one or two verticals but it’s much (more) broad-based on the ground. (more…)

Technology major Wipro on Tuesday said it has increased market visibility and expects more stability in business volumes and pricing in  the coming quarters. During Q2, Wipro posted consolidated total income of Rs 7057.4 crore and net profit of Rs 1,162 crore, a year on year growth of 6% and 19% respectively. The company’s IT services brought in revenues of Rs 4,996 crore, a growth of 5%.

Addressing a media conference to announce the company’s second quarter results, Wipro chairman Azim Premji said there was a certain amount of optimism and positive news in the market, though the macro picture remained fragile and clients continued to focus on cost cuts and capital conservation.

‘‘In my talks with CEOs of Fortune 1000 companies, I find the sentiment more upbeat than before,” he said. Infosys and TCS, which announced their Q2 results earlier this month, had also signalled the beginnings of a recovery from the downturn the tech sector suffered following the crisis in the financial sector that hit many of their core clients. (more…)

The Rural Development Department of Andhra Pradesh government and Infosys BPO Limited today signed a Memorandum Of Understanding(MoU) for setting up rural BPO centres in 22 districts across the state. Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) Chief Executive Officer T Vijaya Kumar and Infosys BPO Limited CEO and Managing Director Amitabh Chaudhry signed the MoU in the presence of Chief Minister K Rosaiah, State Rural Development minister Vatti Vasantha Kumar and other senior officials here.

Chaudhry said that one rural BPO centre would be set up in each of the 22 districts.

“The first such BPO centre will be set up in the next six weeks which will provide a testing ground for this model. The capital expenditure and other details will be worked out subsequently,” he said. (more…)