Wipro's Q3FY18 consolidated net profit down 8% yoy; misses estimates

IT-giant Wipro missed analysts' estimates in both consolidated top-line (revenue) and bottom-line (profit) during the quarter ended December 31, 2017, (Q3FY18) period. 

The company posted consolited net profit of Rs 1,935.90 crore in Q3FY18, which was down by 8.45% from Rs 2,114.60 crore in the corresponding period of previous year and also below 11.58% as against Rs 2,189.60 crore in the preceding quarter. 

Consolidated revenue from operations stood at Rs 13,669 crore in Q3, sequentially lower by 0.13% from Rs 13,687.80 crore in Q3FY17, however up by 1.82% versus Rs 13,423.40 crore in Q2FY18. 

A Bloomberg poll of experts predicted Wipro's revenue and net profit during Q3FY18 to come in at Rs 13,686 crore and Rs 2,146 crore respectively. 

Abidali Z Neemuchwala, CEO and Member of the Board, said - “We continued to improve our growth trajectory driven by strong momentum in BFSI and uptick in Healthcare. This is also reflected in our outlook
for the next quarter. Our leadership in Digital continues to strengthen with over 25% of our revenues now coming from Digital.” 

IT Services Segment Revenue in Non-GAAP constant currency increased by 0.9% sequentially, in line with our Guidance. 

While IT Services Segment Revenue in dollar terms was $2,013.0 million, remaining flat sequentially and increasing by 5.8% YoY. 

Moreover, the IT Services Margin for the quarter was 14.8%, impacted by a provision of Rs 3,17.5 crore ($49.7 million) made with respect to insolvency of a customer post the balance sheet date. Adjusted for this event, IT Services Margin for the quarter was 17.2%. 

Wipro expect revenue from our IT Services business to be in the range of $2,033 million to $2,073 million for the current fiscal year FY18. 

During the current period, Wipro has concluded the buyback of 343.75 million equity shares as approved by the Board of Directors on July 20, 2017. This has resulted in a total cash outflow of 110,000
million.

In line with the requirement of the Companies Act 2013, an amount of 1,656 and 108,344 has been utilized from the share premium account and retained earnings respectively. Further, capital redemption reserves (included in other reserves) of 687 (representing the nominal value of the shares bought back) has been created as an apportionment from retained earnings. Consequent to such buy back,
share capital has reduced by 687.

Jatin Dalal, Chief Financial Officer, said “We have made strong progress in our client mining with number of clients contributing revenues over $50 million increasing from 33 to 41 in the last 1 year. In the first 9
months of the current fiscal year, we generated robust Operating Cash Flows of Rs 77 billion, 14.2% more than the same period last year. We also completed the Share Buyback in December and saw strong participation from our investors.” 

Consequent to insolvency of a customer post balance sheet date, the Company has recorded a provision of Rs 3,175 for impairment of receivables and deferred contract cost.

In a meeting held today, the Board of Directors of Wipro declared an interim dividend of 1.00 ($ 0.02) per equity share and ADR (50% on an equity share of par value of Rs 2).