Wipro Sees 4Q profit up by 4 percent Despite Recession

India’s Wipro says 4Q profit up 4 percent.

MUMBAI, India — Indian outsourcing major Wipro Ltd. said fourth quarter profit rose 4 percent, even as revenue from information technology services slides amid a global slump in demand. Wipro said Wednesday that it earned 9.07 billion rupees ($178 million) in net income for the three months ending March 31, up from 8.75 billion rupees in the same period last year.

Total revenue was 65.46 billion rupees ($1.29 billion), an increase of 17 percent from a year earlier.

Revenue from IT services in dollar terms was $1.046 million, a 4.9 percent decline from last quarter, but the company still beat its own guidance.

The company said revenue would slide further in the next quarter, to between $1.009 billion and $1.025 billion.

Still, executives expressed cautious optimism about the future.

“It seems like the worse may be behind us,” joint chief executive Girish Paranjpe told reporters.

The company pushed aggressively into new markets over the past year, increasing business outside the U.S., Europe, and India by 91.9 percent. Revenue from the United States, which accounts for 45.7 percent of total revenue, rose 32.8 percent during the year ended March 31, despite the downturn.

The company trimmed staff by 401 in its IT services business, but added 1,246 people to its back office business.

The stock rose on the news and was up 3.5 percent, to 283.9 rupees a share, in mid-day trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange, outperforming the Sensex index, which fell 0.8 percent.