India's Wipro net profit edges up

India's third-largest software firm Wipro showed a marginal rise in first quarter net profit on Wednesday, beating forecasts, but its shares fell nearly four percent on a weak revenue outlook. The company said net profit rose 1.2 percent to 13.35 billion rupees ($300 million) in the three months to June 30, according to international accounting standards, from 13.19 billion rupees a year earlier. Total revenue for the quarter increased 18.4 percent to 85.64 billion rupees, the company said in a statement to the Bombay Stock Exchange. Analysts had forecast net profit of 13.23 billion rupees on revenues of 84 billion rupees. The outsourcing bellwether, based in India's southern technology hub of Bangalore, added 4,105 employees in the quarter and 49 new clients. But the company's shares slid as much as 3.76 percent to a day's low of 399.3 on a weak forecast for IT services. Wipro warned that revenue growth may dip below industry growth rates for the fiscal year ending March 2012. The company, whose earnings include IT services, customer-care and lighting products, also said rising wages will hit its second-quarter earnings to the end of September. Wipro has projected IT services revenues to be between $1.43 billion and $1.46 billion in the second quarter, up from $1.40 billion in the first. Analysts said the company could endure some troubles in the months ahead, until the full impact of a top management restructuring is seen. In January Wipro announced T.K. Kurien, a former head of its eco-energy unit, would replace joint chief executives Girish Paranjpe and Suresh Vaswani, who have since quit the firm. "Wipro's restructuring process is on. It could see pain in the fiscal year and take two quarters to get back to industry growth levels," said Sanjeev Hota, IT analyst with Mumbai-based equity research firm Sharekan. Wipro chairman Azim Premji said the firm is seeing "early signs of positive momentum" from a change in senior management. Kurien has said Wipro would focus on ramping up business in key markets and boost the quality of revenues. Earlier this month, Wipro's rivals Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys, said the global macroeconomic climate remained uncertain, even as demand for IT services improved. TCS, India's largest software outsourcer TCS showed a 28 percent rise in its first quarter net profit while Infosys posted a 16 percent rise in net profit, while giving a muted outlook.