Wipro Ltd, India's third-largest software services exporter, posted a 2 percent rise in quarterly net profit on January 18, in line with street estimates, as it added 39 new customers during the quarter. The operating margins for its IT services business, however, fell to 20.2 percent in the quarter ended December, from 21.8 percent a year earlier, due to heavy flooding in Chennai city, where it employs about 13 percent of its staff.
Wipro forecast its IT services revenue to be in the band of $1.88 billion to $1.91 billion for the March quarter, an up to 4 percent rise over the preceding quarter, after it grew by a moderate 0.3 percent in the December quarter over the July-September period.
Wipro earlier this month named Abidali Neemuchwala as its new chief executive, as it looks to regain market share from larger local outsourcing competitors. Neemuchwala will start in his new role from February 1.
The appointment at Bengaluru-based Wipro, majority owned by its founder Azim Premji, comes at a time when the firm is looking to boost business in high-margin new digital technology services.