Shares in Wipro fell sharply on Monday after India’s third-biggest IT services exporter gave a muted revenue forecast for the June quarter. Revenue from IT services is expected to be between $1.72 billion and $1.76 billion in the current quarter, Wipro said, representing quarter-on-quarter growth of – 0.3 per cent to 2 per cent.
Analysts had expected the company to guide for at least 2-4 per cent growth in the June quarter. Macquarie said Q1 guidance is a sentiment dampener and further gains in the stock are capped. Credit Suisse also dubbed Wipro’s Q1 guidance as disappointing.
Wipro fell as much as 6 per cent to an intraday low of Rs. 550.75 in intraday trade. It was also the top loser on the 50-share Nifty benchmark.
Chief Executive T.K. Kurien attributed the lower-than-expected guidance to a traditionally weak season and said it is not a precursor to the year.
“The way our trends are … growth in full-year 2015 will be better than growth in full-year 2014,” Mr Kurien said on Thursday.
For the quarter to March 31, Wipro said net profit rose to Rs. 2,227 crore ($368.98 million) compared with Rs. 2.014 crore in the December quarter, up 10.5 per cent. Sales rose 3.4 per cent sequentially to Rs. 11,653 crore from Rs. 11,271 crore in the December quarter.
Revenues, in US dollars, jumped 2.5 per cent sequentially, while ebitda margins grew 150 basis points to 24.5 per cent, which is a 15-month high.
