Wipro Q4 profit up marginally, company announces bonus shares

Bengaluru: Wipro on Tuesday posted a marginal increase in its consolidated profit at Rs 2,267 crore for the quarter ended March.

The country's third-largest software services firm had registered a profit of Rs 2,257.3 crore in the year-ago period, as per Indian accounting norms.

The total income stood at Rs 15,033.8 crore in the said quarter compared to Rs 14,312.7 crore in the year-ago period, up over 5 per cent.

The company, which competes with the likes of TCS and Infosys, has said it will issue bonus shares within the next two months.

The move comes as larger peers like TCS and Infosys have already announced mega share buybacks to offer rich returns to shareholders.

Wipro will offer one bonus share for every one share held, the company said, adding that this was done to encourage participation of small investors, increase liquidity and expand retail shareholder base.

"... The issuance of bonus shares was not part of the agenda papers for the board meeting," it stated.

For the year ended March 2017, Wipro's profit fell nearly 5 per cent to Rs 8,518 crore while total income grew 7.4 per cent to Rs 57,995 crore compared to the previous financial year.

The company expects revenues from its IT services business to be in the range of USD 1,915-1,955 million for the April-June 2017 quarter.

IT service accounts for the lion's share of Wipro's business. This grew 3.9 per cent in the March quarter to USD 1,954.6 million from the year-ago period.

For the year, IT services revenues were up 4.9 per cent at USD 7.7 billion from the previous fiscal.