 "Wipro hits record high as digital services demand drives quarterly profit")
BENGALURU (Reuters) - Wipro Ltd's shares rose as much as 2.3% to a record high on Friday, a day after the Indian IT services firm reported a jump in quarterly profit ahead of analysts' estimates, helped by increased demand for digital services during the pandemic.
The Bengaluru-based company said consolidated June-quarter net profit rose about 36% to 32.43 billion rupees ($435.22 million). Analysts had expected a profit of 28.54 billion rupees, according to Refinitiv IBES data. Revenue from operations for the quarter jumped 22.4% to 182.52 billion rupees.
Wipro also forecast revenue from its IT Services business to be in the range of $2.54 billion to $2.58 billion in the September quarter, a sequential growth of 5% to 7%, on the back of strong deal pipeline.
Brokerage Wedbush raised the target price on Wipro's U.S.-listed shares to $8 from $4.8, and said the better-than-expected results were driven by "likely organic growth strength".
Wipro's profit beat and outlook follow strong results and forecast from larger rivals Tata Consultancy Services Ltd and Infosys Ltd, underscoring demand for India's outsourcing service providers.
The company is also seeing rising demand for new-age services like cloud, and will make a significant announcement about its cloud business in coming weeks, Wipro Chief Executive Officer Thierry Delaporte said in a news conference.
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The demand environment is robust and the quality of deal pipeline better than before, Delaporte said.
Indian IT services companies which offer a range of services to clients in the banking, retail and others, have seen a sudden surge in demand for services from cloud-computing, digital payment infrastructure, crypto platforms to cyber-security.
Wipro's gains limited a fall in the Nifty IT services index, which was down 0.25% after scaling a peak in the previous session.
Wipro's shares are up 49.10% so far this year as of last close, its best week since early January. They have risen 12% over the last three sessions.
($1 = 74.5140 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Nallur Sethuraman and Vishwadha Chander in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)
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