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Wipro growth will be lesser, but ahead of industry: Premji

Fakir Chand in Bangalore

Wipro chairman Azim H Premji on Friday claimed that his global IT-driven company would growth during the current fiscal year ahead of the Indian IT industry, slowdown in the tech industry nothwithstanding.

Premji, however, admitted in the same breath that on year-on-year basis, the growth rate in the ensuing quarters of this year would not be as higher as they were during the last several quarters. Wipro announced stellar annual results earlier in the day.

Unlike Infosys Technologies chairman N R Narayana Murthy, who gave a figure of 30 per cent growth rate for his company in the current year, Premji declined to spell out the percentage of decline in his global company's growth rate for this year.

"We anticipate that we will grow ahead of the growth rates for Indian software exports. Looking forward, predicting the future is not a science any one has perfected," the Wipro czar stated in support of his statement.

Even for the year gone by, though Wipro's last quarter and growth on annualised basis have witnessed spectacular performance by going beyond the expectations of the market analysts, Premji was modest in saying that industry data for the year was not available as of now.

"Based on our estimate of industry performance, we believe that we have grown ahead of the industry in all our strategic business segments, and have achieved operating margins comparable to the best in the industry," he added.

By industry growth standards, Premji was obviously referring to the Nasscom's export projections for the current fiscal which scaled down the country's software export growth rate to 40-45 per cent against over 55-66 per cent registered in dollar or rupee terms, respectively.

Asked how ahead would be Wipro's growth rate over the industry's projection, an unfazed Premji told rediff.com that it would be premature to quantify the percentage but the conclusion could be that the decline in his company's growth rate for the present year would be in proportion what Nasscom has projected as against the previous years.

Wipro's vice-chairman and president Vivek Paul also stated that the company's recruitment would also be pruned, especially in the case of joiners, but not so in the case of lateral absorption.

"To maintain the margins and sustain the growth rates, we will be tightening the belt where ever necessary, including cost cutting wherever required. The approach will be on case by case," Paul affirmed.

As part of its global marketing strategy, Wipro too would be limiting its exposure to the US-based tech industry, particularly in the areas of telecom, dot-coms, and the Internet-based carrier class service providers.

"On de-risking front, we have made substantial progress. US accounts for 61 per cent, Europe 31 per cent, and Japan 7 per cent. We have reduced dependence from the US," Premji asserted.

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