IT services company Wipro may continue the good form shown by its larger peers but may not outperform them, market men say.
The company, which is to announce its second quarter results on Tuesday, is being tracked to see if the buoyant demand for IT services, as evident from the numbers reported by TCS and Infosys, is part of a larger industry trend.
“For Wipro, growth will be better than the previous quarters. However, it will not be as high as TCS or Infosys. Anything upwards of 3 per cent in dollar revenues will be a positive,” said Sanjeev Hota, Sector Analyst, Sharekhan Securities. Wipro had provided dollar revenue guidance of between 2 and 4 four per cent, the highest in several quarters. Most brokerages expect the company to be at the upper end of this band.
Both TCS and Infosys have been beating analyst expectations, a trend attributable to the improving economic climate, rising demand for software services (in the US and Europe) and the depreciating rupee. “Both Infosys and Wipro are firms on a comeback trail. However, the probability of Wipro outperforming TCS and Infosys is very low,” said Alok Shende, Director, Ascentius Consulting, adding that Wipro’s revenue guidance for the forthcoming quarters would be the barometer of its recovery process.
According to Ankita Somani, Sector Analyst with Angel Broking, Wipro’s “revenues from infrastructure services are growing. Moreover, the company has been able to get more customers in the over $100-million billing range in the last 18 months. This quarter numbers will tell us if all these improvements translate into revenue growth,” she said.
Ahead of the results, the company scrip was down 0.1 per cent to close at Rs 506.45 on the BSE.
adith.charlie@thehindu.co.in