Wipro Soars 8% as all Engines 'Fire' in Q3

Shares in Azim Premji-promoted Wipro jumped nearly 8 per cent on Monday as investors cheered its third quarter earnings released after market hours on Friday. According to domestic brokerage Nirmal Bang, "All engines fire(d) after a long time." (Read: How Wipro Fared in Q3)

Wipro, India's third largest outsourcer, reported a consolidated profit of Rs 2,193 crore on consolidated sales of Rs 12,085 crore for the three months ended December 31, 2014. Analysts polled by NDTV had expected the company to earn profits of Rs 2,149 crore on sales of Rs 11,999 crore.

In dollar terms, Wipro reported a growth of 1.3 per cent sequentially, beating bigger players such as Infosys (0.8 per cent quarter-on-quarter growth in dollar revenues) and TCS (flat). In constant currency, Wipro's Q3 dollar revenue grew 3.7 per cent sequentially, which is a 12-quarter high.

"We expect the latest performance, which has been ahead of both Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys from a constant currency QoQ revenue growth perspective, to result in the current 30 per cent P/E discount that it has with TCS to reduce to possibly 20 per cent - 25 per cent in the near term," said domestic brokerage Nirmal Bang.

Wipro has guided for 1.1-3.1 per cent sequential dollar revenue growth in the March quarter. At the higher end of its guidance, Wipro can end FY15 with 8 per cent revenue growth, which will be close to the revenue growth Infosys has promised (7-9 per cent) to deliver in this fiscal.

Wipro also reported a 40 basis point rise in its operating margin, but at 21.8 per cent margins were much lower than Infosys and TCS.

Wipro's bigger rivals Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys have also forecast accelerating growth from April, especially in North America.

As of 09.45 a.m., Wipro traded 7.7 per cent higher at Rs 597.75 outperforming the broader IT sub-index on the National Stock Exchange, which traded 0.7 per cent higher. (Track stock)