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spk00: welcome to Wipro Limited Q1 FY25 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star 10-0 on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Deepak Bohra, Senior Vice President, Corporate Treasurer and Investor Relations. Thank you and over to you, sir.
spk05: Thank you, Yashashree. Warm welcome to our quarter one financial year 25 earnings call. We will begin the call with the business highlights and overview by Srinivas Balya, our Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, followed by updates on financial overview by our CFO, Aparna Iyer. We also have our CHRO, Saurav Gohil, on this call. Afterwards, the operator will open the bridge for Q&A with our management team. Before Srivi starts, let me draw your attention to the fact that during this call, we may make certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Private Security Litigation Reform Act 1995. These statements are based on management current expectations and are associated with uncertainties and risks. which may cause the actual results to differ materially from those expected. The uncertainties and risk factor are explained in our detailed filing with the SEC. WIPRO does not undertake any obligation to update the forward-looking statements to reflect events and circumstances after the date of filing. The conference call will be archived and a transcript will be available on our website. With that, I would like to turn over the call to Srimi.
spk10: Thanks, Deepak. Thanks Deepak. Hello everyone. Thank you for joining me and my leadership team for our first quarter results for the financial year 2024-25. Over these past 90 days, I have traveled across our markets, meeting clients, employees, and engaging with partners and stakeholders. With each conversation, my appreciation of our business has deepened And my confidence in our team has grown stronger. It's truly inspiring to witness the trust our clients have placed in Wipro. Additionally, I've been able to hone the focus of our five strategic priorities that I shared with you last quarter. I will provide you with an update on this shortly. But let me first start with the financial highlights for the quarter. In Q1, we did not see a significant shift in the demand environment. Clients remained cautious and our discretionary spending continued to be muted. Our IT services revenue for Q1 was US$2.63 billion, reflecting a sequential decrease of 1% in constant currency, which was within our guided range for the quarter. Operating margin was 16.5% and increase of 0.1% for the last quarter. Let me now provide you with some color on how our SMUs performed in quarter one and our industry sectors. I will begin with America's one, which delivered a sequential growth of 0.4% in quarter one. You may recall that Americas 1 had a good year in financial year 2024, with the health and technology sectors leading the way. We now see momentum in consumer and communication sectors also. Americas 2 had a sequential decline of 0.7%, but BFSI performed well, achieving a sequential growth of 1.4% in Q1. With a year-on-year growth of 12.1% in Q1, bookings in Americas too, we are optimistic about returning to growth in this market in the medium term. In Q1, we also maintain positive momentum in our Capco business, achieving a sequential growth of 3.4%. However, Europe and APMIA remain soft for us, with sequential declines of 1.4% and 4.2% respectively. Our pipeline in Europe remains healthy and our primary focus there will be on improving conversion. We are reviewing our strategy for APMIA and will keep you informed of our progress in the upcoming quarters. Among industry sectors, we had varied performance. Banking and financial services retained its positive momentum from last quarter. And we have now seen growth in this sector for two consecutive quarters. This sector grew 0.5% sequentially in quarter 1. Driven by deal flow, the consumer business grew by 1.6% this quarter. However, Manufacturing and energy and utility sectors continue to show weakness for us, experiencing sequential decline of 3% and 6.3% respectively. Moving to order booking, our overall bookings TCV for the quarter was 3.3 billion U.S. with large deal TCV of 1.2 billion U.S. Now let me update you on the progress we have made on the five strategic priorities that I outlined last quarter. One, if you recall, we discussed prioritizing large deals as a clear area of focus. We are driving large deal creation systematically across our client base. We are shaping these opportunities by proactively engaging with influencers and partners. As a result, our pipeline for large deals remained robust. Once again, we had a quarter where our large deal bookings exceeded US $1 billion. Our success in securing 10 large deals in Q1 was a key factor that made this possible. Let me call out two of the deals that we signed in Q1. The first is with a US-based communication services provider, where we were chosen for a five-year contract to provide managed services for select products and building industry-specific solutions. You'd have already heard about this in the media. The second win is in the automotive segment in manufacturing. A US-based OEM has selected us to streamline their global infrastructure services. develop a solution leveraging both automation and AI to improve user experience and reduce operating costs. Number two, our next area of focus, which I've called out, is to strengthen our relationships with our major clients and strategic partners. We are investing in our established strategic accounts and high-potential accounts. Our focus will be on these clients within our priority sectors and markets we have defined internally. We will further strengthen our capabilities in consulting, delivery and solutioning in these accounts. In addition, we are actively collaborating with hyperscalers and strategic partners to co-innovate and develop unique propositions for our clients. In fact, I would like to emphasize that even in an otherwise soft demand environment, our revenue from top 10 accounts have grown 1.3% sequentially and 3.8% year on year in constant currency terms. Another key priority I had previously highlighted is to develop AI-powered industry and cross-industry solutions using a consulting-led approach. Clearly, our goal here is to help clients transform their business and operating models using the power of AI. We are also actively strengthening and accelerating our industry consulting capabilities to support this. We continue to build cross-industry solutions that will deliver value to clients across our horizontal plays. Let me give you two examples of our recent wins in Q1. In the healthcare sector, we have been selected by a leading US-based health solutions company to help them comply with CMS guidelines. Our consulting-led, AI-powered industry solution will seamlessly integrate CMS provisions into billing and various other processes. This will simplify prescription cost management for all the members. Moving on to the second example, we are collaborating with a leading financial services company in North America to develop a GNI-powered assistant for wealth management to help portfolio advisors. Let me now shift to our next area of focus, which is building talent at scale. Our goal at Wipro is to attract, nurture, and grow a diverse talent pool. We have ramped up our upskilling efforts across various practices, covering both emerging and core technology areas. In fact, during quarter one, we rolled out iAspire, an AI-powered career development platform. iAspire offers personalized learning pathways and aids in the career progression for each and every one of our employees. We have already provided foundational training to over 225,000 of our employees and an additional 30,000 employees have received advanced AI training. With Wipro as client zero, we are utilizing our in-house AI expertise to develop GenAI solutions across all units and functions within the company. We believe this will help us boost not only the capabilities of our employees, but also make Wipro GenAI ready. And finally, we are driving execution rigor with speed helping client-centricity and delivery excellence. We are focused on nurturing innovation in our delivery capabilities by investing in our Lab45 AI platform and the Wipro Enterprise GenAI Studio. In fact, we are also incorporating various GenAI tools throughout our software development lifecycle to enhance both the productivity and quality of our delivery. In closing, I would like to say this. The initial climb is both challenging and exciting. I am pleased with the momentum we have built in quarter one. Across the company, I have noticed a fresh energy and renewed dedication towards achieving our goals. With the commitment and passion of our 230,000 plus employees across the world, I firmly believe we will seize market opportunities ahead of us and will continue to progress steadily one step at a time. Now on to guidance. As we move into quarter 2, we do believe that we are now in a better position compared to the start of quarter 1. For quarter 2, we are guiding for a sequential revenue growth of minus 1.0% to plus 1.0% in constant currency. We are confident that we can sustain our margins within a narrow band with an upward bias in the coming quarters. With that, let me turn it over to Aparna for a detailed overview of our financials. Thank you. Over to you, Aparna.
spk01: Thank you, Srini. Hello, everybody. Let me quickly summarize the financial highlights for Q1-25, post which we can open it up for questions. Variety services revenues declined 1.2% sequentially in reported currency terms, which is a 1% decline in constant currency terms. This is well within our guided range for Q1. We are also pleased to share an expansion in our IT services margins of 0.4% year-on-year and 0.1% quarter-on-quarter. We delivered 16.5% margins on the back of a tough revenue environment and even after continuous investments in talent. Improved utilization, fixed price productivity, and optimization of overheads have been the key levers at play. We expect to gain from the tailwinds of our operational rigor and are confident of being able to operate in a narrow band with an upward bias. We generated yet another quarter of strong cash flows. Our cash flows of $479 million in Q1 is at 132% of our net income. With this, our current investments and cash balance now stands at $5.4 billion. Our other income, net of finance expenses, grew by 21% quarter on quarter and year on year. Our accounting yield for average investments held in India in Q1 was at 7.6%. Our net income at INR 30 billion grew 6% sequentially and our EPS for the quarter at 5.75 rupees grew 10% year on year. In terms of other key matrices, our ETR is at 24.5% for Q1 versus 24% in Q1-24. Our hedges continue to be in line with our policy. We had about $3 billion of forest derivative contracts as hedges at the end of Q1. Finally, I would like to reiterate the guidance for Q1. We expect revenues from our IT services business segment to be in the range of $2.6 billion to $2.652 billion. This translates to a sequential guidance of minus 1% to a plus positive 1% in constant currency terms. With that, we can open up for Q&A.
spk00: Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 on the touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We have a first question from the line of Abhishek Bhandari from Nomura. Please go ahead.
spk08: Thank you. Good evening, Shini. Shini, my first question is on the quarter gone by. Most of the peers who have reported were positively surprised by the execution during the quarter. While we have, you know, reported a number which is within the band, but it's towards the lower end. So, was there any, you know, incident in terms of, you know, negative surprises for you? Or you think your Q1 performance was in line with what you had anticipated at the start of the quarter?
spk10: Thanks, Abhishek. Hello. You know, Abhishek, first point I want to talk about is we did give a quarter one guidance range and we were within that guidance range. That's number one. Second, Like I said, we're still not seeing a significant change in the demand environment. You know, we see clients still cautious and discretionary spend is low. However, we have seen uptick in Capco, BFSI, consumer business in the U.S., which I called out. Sectors like ENU and manufacturing has been soft for us. Outside of the U.S., we are yet to see momentum build up in our other two SMUs, specifically Europe and APNIA. We are also still in early stage of the deal that we have signed, and deals like this usually take a few quarters to realize its full potential, and that's where our quarter two guidance is between minus one to plus one percent.
spk08: Got it. Thanks, Shini. My second and last question is, you know, on the telco deal, what you want in Q1, is it due for full ramp up in Q2 or there will be a staggered ramp up between Q2 and Q3?
spk01: Yeah, Abhishek. Like Shini said, these deals typically take some time to ramp up and it will take a few quarters for it to, you know, realize its full revenue potential. Of course, some upside is factored in the quarter two guidance.
spk08: Good. Thank you. Thank you, Panna, and thank you, Srini, and all the best. Thank you.
spk00: Thank you. Next question is from the line of Gaurav Ratheria from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
spk07: Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Srini, first question is on deal wins. Would you be able to provide some color on how average tenor has changed versus last few quarters, and also has there been any change in the new versus renew mix in the current quarter versus last few quarters?
spk01: You know, I'll go first, and then, Shini, you know, you can add. See, we don't share that mix between new versus renewal, but you know that the large deal that we had announced was, you know, net new, so that should give you some color. On your point on tenure of deal wins, we do see that the TCV bookings continue to be signed for longer tenure. Summer Fair is also a portfolio of what we win, but that continues to go up. It's something that we've noticed, Gaurav.
spk10: So just to add to that, hi, Gaurav. Deal tenures are definitely becoming shorter. Three-year to five-year deals are becoming more commonplace. The only deals where 10 years exceed five years includes optionalities and clients agree only when cost savings are front-loaded with potentially financial engineering involved.
spk07: Got it. Second question is on how are you thinking about implementing GenAI in your internal software development from a delivery point of view and could you share some color on initial results that you might have seen across different service lines?
spk10: Thanks, Gaurav. Gen AI is very exciting, and from my perspective, there are three ways where we are deploying Gen AI. First, number one, like I said, as Wipro is a client zero, we are actually implementing Gen AI across various process areas within Wipro, across all the units. In fact, we are helping, for example, in the HR segment the whole employee experience, if you will. Second, the iAspire that I talked about, we launched. It's about how do you build careers for our employees. They define what career part they want to take and what kind of training programs that we can apply to them in the context of GenAI. So those are the things that we're already doing. And this is also helping our teams you know, kind of build more capabilities and competencies in Gen-AI. It's also helping Wipro to be, you know, really and truly a Gen-AI-ready company. Second, Garo, is that, you know, in fact, if I have to really talk about some examples, you know, one of the things that we have done is WeNow. It's actually a conversational digital assistant of, you know, interacting with the various corporate systems. As of today, we had almost 7.4 million queries you know, resolved in IT, HR, and policy, and it has almost touched, I think, you know, 230K users. What excites me is the fact that 80% favorability rating from our employees. That actually, you know, is significant. Another one which, you know, I'm really, you know, excited about is ELISA, which is AI-powered sales assistant, which is supporting almost 3,000 sales force across the globe for us. So there are multiple, you know, what I would say, GNI-related solutions that we are implementing within Wipro. I tell people that, you know, you've got to drink your Kool-Aid first. And I'm very excited that employees are, you know, bringing in so much out there with the GNI. As far as the clients are concerned, Gaurav, you know, there are three components to it. One is, how do we deploy GNI in the context of software development lifecycle? Right? You know, we all heard of GitHub Copilot. So, how do you not only improve the productivity, but also improve the quality. In that, if you ask me, both on the coding side and also on the testing side. And this, to me, Gaurav, it will continue to improve as we move forward. And there is an excitement across our clients and our own employees deploying this. So thereby, we can improve the productivity and quality. The second part is, how do you infuse Gen-AI into managed services? both on the infrastructure side and also on the process side. I think that's one area that we are constantly looking at and how can we leverage Jene again from a productivity and also experience for our clients. The third piece, Garo, what we are trying to do, like I talked about, the industry solutions, cross-industry solutions that we are building, right? I talked about the telecom, I talked about the OEM, manufacturing, I talked about healthcare, I also talked about wealth management in the context of financial services. These are all AI-powered industry solutions which are consulting-led. So a combination of knowing the domain aspects of the client, understanding the technology landscape of the client becomes very critical, and more so, data. So we are also able to help the clients in the context of their entire data strategy, data governance, and how do you leverage the enterprise data within a reliable and secure way and, you know, implement Gen AI. And I feel very excited because of the deals that we have won, and now we are out there to execute them, and some of these can be replicated across Gaurav.
spk07: Thank you for the very detailed answer. Last question for Aparna. What has been driving the depreciation and amortization down for last two quarters? And you did talk about margin in a narrow band with an upward bias. So what would be the levers going forward? Thank you very much.
spk01: I think, you know, the depreciation and amortization expense doesn't really have anything that's very particular for me to call out. Perhaps a couple of quarters back, we may have had some acceleration of amortization of a particular intangible. But other than that, I don't think there are any one-offs to call out for Q1. Levers at play, like I said, will continue to be the fixed price productivity improvement in our pyramid. You know, Saurabh has spoken about, you know, onboarding freshers. We did a good number in Q1. And, you know, as we build our muscle on that, that will bring down the cost of delivery. The optimization of overheads is something that we've done in the context of, you know, declining revenues. It's very critical for us to shed weight and remain lean and efficient. And that's something that we are doing. There is also some synergies to be realized as, you know, acquired entities come into the larger, you know, WIPRO fold administratively. So these are all levers that can help us as we look at our margins in the future. I hope that answers.
spk07: Thank you.
spk00: Thank you. Next question is from the line of Abhishek Kumar from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
spk08: Good evening. Thanks for taking my question. Srini, first question on Capco. Some of your peers have also indicated, you know, green shoots in BFSI, especially around discretionary short cycle spend. Have you seen in Capco, you know, expansion of the areas where Capco has been winning deals from, you know, what you're doing and maybe a couple of quarters back?
spk10: Hi, Abhishek. Thank you for the question. First and foremost, I did talk about Capco having a sequential growth in the last couple of quarters. And our growth has come in across Europe and America. And we are also looking at Asia Pacific. For us, Capco is like tip of the spear, which is consulting and strategy-led. And then the rest of the Wipro engine actually implement that. So we are seeing a good traction around that, and we are seeing greater demand at larger institutional clients across the banks and financial services companies. So to me, what I would say, Abhishek, is that this gives you a little bit of a color to how the discretionary spending is coming back, at least in the banking and financial services. And it's also reflected in our BFSI growth. right, sequentially as well.
spk08: Sure. This vertical has been unusually soft for us, while we have not seen that for any of our peers. So, you know, any more color on what is driving softness? Is it client specific?
spk09: Are we losing out to peers in the consolidation scenario? Any color here? And how do we see this going forward? Thank you.
spk01: Yes. So, Abhishek, we lost you like for 10 seconds. Did you mean ENU?
spk08: Yes, energy and utility, yeah.
spk01: So, I'll go and then maybe, Shiri, if you want to add something. You know, see, in ENU, we've had some end of large programs. And as a result, we have seen some softness in that industry verticals. we got a good pipeline which we need to convert. And it has been perhaps something that has been softer for Wipro as compared to, you know, what the market has been. You know, Srini has spoken about both industry-specific and cross-industry service offerings that we have. We've particularly bolstered our presence in ENU. In fact, even Capco has a decent presence. That's something that gives us a lot of, and Capco is doing pretty well in that space, and especially in America. So we are seeing some bounce back there on that count. But we have some work to do. We've got a good set of service offerings that we need to win at the marketplace.
spk10: Thanks, Aparna. See, oil and gas, you know, is one of the areas where Capco actually has the conferencing capabilities. That's number one. Second, we are also building generic powered solutions. For example, we call it as Blue Skies, which is actually autonomous monitoring to detect flare and smoke in degassing stations. And we are getting good traction in some of the clients because we want to actually, you know, lead through specific solutions business problem that our clients are facing. And in fact, this particular one, you know, there was 80% reduction in, you know, efforts, response time to some of the two, you know, events. And so this is what our strategy will be going forward in the context of oil and gas. Like Aparna said, energy and utilities for us, because of some of the large projects coming down, has been soft in quarter one. And that's why you're seeing the sequential degrowth.
spk09: Okay, great. Thank you and good luck. Thank you.
spk00: Thank you. Next question is from the line of Sandeep Shah from Equirus Securities. Please go ahead.
spk06: Yeah, thanks. Thanks for the opportunity. The first question, Srini, Wipro being the first one to call out green troops, especially selectively in Capco, financial services, healthcare, and directionally the growth is expected to improve versus fourth quarter being a flattish growth versus this quarter, at least it should have shown the trend of upward trajectory versus actually a minus 1% kind of a growth. So what is it? Is it surprised you negatively or is it more WIPRO specific rather than external factors and which you believe can be rectified going forward?
spk01: So Sandeep, I'll go first. And of course, Srini will add, you know, We guide based on a visibility that we have. There are puts and takes. There are parts of the businesses where we are seeing momentum, and like you rightly said, we remain authentic and true, and we share with you proactively where we're seeing some of the discretionary spends come back. And true to that, I think Capco is one place where we've seen now three quarters. It is bouncing back quite broad-based. We've spoken about how America's One has had a continued growth momentum. We spoke of healthcare doing well, and this quarter we've seen acceleration of momentum in consumer and telecom in America's One. If you look at America's Two, we've said that BFS has done well in America's Two as a sector, and we're seeing a sequential growth there of 1.4%, and the bookings have been strong. And those are things that we have shared with you very clearly. The places where we see softness is Europe and Apnea. And guidance is actually a combination of both the pluses and minuses that we are seeing at the moment. Shini also said that we're entering Q2 with a little bit more confidence than what we did at the start of Q1. We'll have to take all that into, you know, consideration, Sandeep.
spk06: Yeah, fair enough, fair enough. And Srini, just wanted to understand, is there any timeline which you believe by that time we could be in a full execution mode and the restructuring changes will start delivering the results which have been aspired to under your strategic direction?
spk10: Sandeep, at this point in time, I'm not calling out the timeline. Our focus is to execute our quarter to guidance. Having said that, Sandeep, we have called out five strategic priorities. I did talk about the progress we made in each of the strategic priorities. I think what we need to do is to bring in that execution rigor with speed. We need to delight our customers, focus on delivery excellence, and all the operational metrics that Aparna talked about. We need to continue to focus on building large deals, growing our large clients, continue to build or invest into our building skills within Wipro. I talked about iAspire, which is very exciting for the employees as we speak. And we will continue to invest in industry-specific solutions, which are powered by AI, consulting-led, and also cross-industry solutions that are horizontal. I did talk about four wins in this segment. One was in telecom, one was in manufacturing, one was in healthcare, other one more on the wealth management within banking and financial services. That gives me comfort on two areas. One, I think our initial strategy is picking up momentum with our clients. Second, these things can be replicated across as well, Sandeep. And the skill sets we are building is someone with people who can execute to this as well.
spk06: Okay, fair enough. And last question, Aparna. This quarter, there has been a significant shift towards the on-site, which has increased by 250 bps. Versus that, the minus 1% revenue growth. Is it fair to assume the volume growth or volume decline could be even higher than the headline revenue declines? And in that scenario, even the margin has actually been very good in terms of execution and employee cost has gone down despite the on-site effort, which could be because of the rationalization and the decline in the employee is happening. So just wanted some clarity on this.
spk01: Thank you for the question, Sandeep. You know, I want to bring to attention that, you know, we've integrated a few of our entities As a result, which were more on-site specific, so I don't know if they're directly comparable between a Q1 and a last Q4 in terms of the on-site mix, but everything else that you've said is also true, that our employee compensation cost continues to go down because of a focus and a concerted action around productivity and making sure you're able to deliver to a cost that you would like to, given where our revenues are. So there is a lot of focus around it. and all levers are being flexed on that count. So we are not becoming more on-site centric. It's a metric which may not be directly comparable, but going forward, now that it's in the base, it will be. A couple of our on-site centric subsidiaries have now got integrated. That's one of the reasons why you're seeing it. But costs are, of course, comparable, and everything else that you set up tastes good.
spk06: Okay. Thanks, and all the best.
spk00: Thank you. Thank you. Next question is from the line of Ravi Menon from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
spk08: Hi, thank you for the opportunity and congrats on good execution on the margin side. I wanted to ask you about how are you thinking about improving the growth momentum? Do you want to take an approach where you invest up front and one of your peers where there's been a senior change. They've taken an approach to completely disregard, I think, near-term margins and try to focus on growth first and then thinking that margins will come later. Do you agree with that? What do you think we need to do to accelerate the growth?
spk01: You know, we've spoken about profitable growth as being our focus. Srini has spoken about it, and that remains. You know, our margin... continue to expand because of the operational rigor. This is something that we've been doing over the last six quarters and we continue to march on on that. Of course, one of the reasons why we believe that we will hold margins in a narrow band with an upward bias is also because we want to make sure that we are having enough room for us to invest for growth. You can be assured we won't hold back on our investments for growth. That remains the number one priority. I've also said that in Q1, we invested in our employees as well. We covered a few of our employees under the long-term incentive stock options. So that's also coming. So we continue to invest in our people, in our employees, in our associates, and we will continue to Invest for growth, everything that Srini has spoken about. We will continue to invest in them.
spk08: Great. Thank you very much, Aravind. And, of course, some of those customer tiers, we've seen that in the 75 million plus tiers, there has been a drop-off of three customers from Kotak. You're only still up by one. But just wanted to understand, if I look at it, it's not even dropped down to 50 million last year. That is down by two. So are we still seeing some pressure with even the largest clients in terms of spending? Are there still cutbacks in projects?
spk10: So Ravi, if we look at our client base, the top 10 clients have grown. Top 25 clients have grown. And there are certain clients where, you know, you've seen a little bit of a shrink. It's also tripled. to do with the discretionary spends, which have been a little bit slow in coming. Having said that, Ravi, the strategy for us is we want to invest in our top accounts. We also want to invest in the future top accounts. And then I clearly called out the investment will be at an account level where you actually bring in the right solutions, right delivery, and the consulting-led aspects of it. And that will be the journey for us. A few here and there, I'm not too worried about Ravi, but what's important is how our top clients are marching forward in terms of growth for us.
spk08: Thank you for your information. Best of luck.
spk10: Thank you.
spk00: Thank you. We have a next question from the line of Nitin Padmanabhan from Investec. Please go ahead.
spk08: Yeah, hi, good evening. Aparna and Sini, I think you had mentioned that we talked 10 years have grown around 1.3%. Top 20 or 25 have grown around 1%. So obviously it looks like the drag has been from these smaller customers. Are we still cutting tail accounts or is this just a broad-based kind of decline that they're seeing or any color that you could give us in terms of what you're seeing on that side of things? And what do you think will be the drivers for improvement there?
spk01: I think our strategy on tail accounts consolidation is nearly towards the end. At least this quarter, I don't think that's the compelling reason for the decline. It was more specific to APMIA, more specific to sectors like India, Middle East, where we had a long tail of clients and we felt it was important for us to make the clients fewer but go deeper. We are happy with the place where we are. We have executed on that. You know, the decline that you're also seeing is also a reflection of the lower discretionary expense and the decline that the company has seen overall, and therefore it reflects in a few client buckets like you mentioned. You know, we remain committed to growing our top 100 clients, and you should take assurance on the growth that you're seeing from us. top 25 like Srini said. There's nothing more that I need to add on that.
spk08: Sure, perfect. And lastly, on the BSSI side, so well, we have been very early in calling this out and it's worked out pretty well. What exactly is the current drag that you're seeing? Any specific sub-segments where you're seeing a little more pain because relative to the others? although we called it out earlier, the relative growth is slightly softer. So is there any specific sub-segments which is causing a little more pain for us?
spk01: Yeah, so I think BFSI, Americas is generally doing better compared to Europe. Asia Pacific has also done well. So that's the color from a market standpoint. You know, I think Europe is being slightly softer from a growth.
spk10: So let me just add a little bit more color to what Aparna said. In the context of BFSI, I think, you know, we are seeing a secular growth both in Europe and America that I talked about both in quarter one and quarter two. And since you asked the specific way we are seeing that, with Capco being the tip of the spear in some of the aspects of the clients across the risk and compliance, across cost optimization, And, of course, some of the business transformation, the clients are doing it. You know, Capco is actually leading the charge for us, and, you know, and Wipro is actually becoming more on the implementation side. And that's also coming together, Nitin.
spk08: Sure, super. And the way you see things today, just my final question, the way you see things today and the way things are sort of evolving, and you look at the environment in terms of elections, maybe in the second half, Are you seeing clients basically sort of talking of trying to close in some execution early on considering there could be some level of uncertainty in the end or that's not a right characterization of what you're seeing?
spk10: I like the word, Nitin, uncertainty. The macro environment today is definitely not really as predictable. The political situations vary. But also there are certain good news from the Fed, could be good news from the Fed in terms of the rates and also the inflation aspects of it. So it's kind of a mixed bag, Nitin, as we speak. But where we are focused is how do we execute a quarter two, especially in the context of the range that we give you and also the deals that we have in the pipeline, how do we convert them? I think that's the focus we're going to drive, Nitin.
spk08: Thank you so much and all the very best.
spk00: Thank you. Next question is from the line of Kumar Rakesh from BNP Paripa. Please go ahead.
spk08: Hi, good evening. Thank you for taking my question. My first question was for the last four quarters, the magnitude of QOQ revenue decline was coming down. And then in this quarter, we have seen the decline has increased again. This was despite the strength in BFSI that the industry has seen and you have relatively similar or higher exposure in that vertical. It shakes the confidence in the recovery that we were hoping that at some stage should start kicking in. From your commentary that you have made about the large deal wins that you are winning, some of the larger ones are actually net new and the strong deal pipeline you have. Some of your peers have also spoken about how the deal to revenue conversion now is improving. Do you think you have reached a stage that you can at least say that sequentially from here on the growth should start seeing improving revenue growth? And if not, then what is holding you back?
spk10: Hi, Kumar. I will not comment how our growth will be beyond quarter two, the guidance that we're given. But having said that, Kumar, I want to call out a few things. We're not still seeing a significant change in the demand environment. There is caution from our clients and discretionary spend is low. However, like I called out, we are seeing an uptick in Capco. We are seeing an uptick in BFSI and also talked about consumer business in the US. But the sectors like ENU and manufacturing specifically for us has been soft. And if you look at outside of Americas 1 and Americas 2, while they are building the momentum, the other two market units, which are specifically Europe and APMIA, we have seen a sequential decline. And in the context of large deals, some of the deals, we are in the early stage. Some of them are net new, are in the early stage. We have signed. And I presume that it will take a few quarters for us. And Aparna did talk about some component being taken in quarter two and quarters ahead. I would say that would be my summary for your question, Kumar.
spk08: Thanks for that. My second question was more of a clarification. So last month, Airbus came out with a profit warning. And since then, we have seen a couple of Europe-based IT services, some of the services companies issuing their own profit warning as well, cutting their guidance. Does our manufacturing weakness have anything to do with that? Or do you think any of that has any implication for Litho?
spk01: No, not really. You know, all what you mentioned really is not impacting us In fact, like Srini mentioned, we have a good pipeline. We've won a good deal. For us, you know, this is about our own conversion of the pipeline that we have. And I don't think, you know, the companies you mentioned or their profit warnings there have had anything to do with the softness that we've experienced.
spk08: Thanks for clarifying that, Dr. Panda.
spk00: Thank you. We have a next question from the line of Sudhir Guntapalli from Kotak Mahindra AMC. Please go ahead.
spk09: Yeah. Hi, Shini. Thanks for the opportunity. And just perplexed with the set of comments from your side, which seem to be contradicting each other. On one side, we are seeing that for the last three quarters, we are seeing an uptick in Capco, which is consulting slash discretionary heavy. And that is not necessarily translating into a very strong growth at the BFSI level or the overall company level, which I think some of our competitors have reported almost 7.5% to 8% sort of sequential revenue growth in BFSI in this quarter. So if you were to give us a cut on if Capco within BFSI is doing well, what is not doing well? I understand the geographical slicing and dicing you gave earlier. But any specific color on if you're facing any client-specific issues or any corporate action-related impacts, so on and so forth, that would be useful.
spk01: You know, Sudhir, I think, you know, let me summarize all the comments that we made. For us, we were the first to call out the momentum coming back in Capco in Q3. Q3, Q4, Q1, I think we have three dots of Capco doing well, both on bookings and a revenue standpoint. I think they've grown three. but upwards of 3% sequentially. The momentum looks good for Q2. And within Capco, we have a secular growth. Maybe there are some pockets of continental Europe that are weak, but other than that, they have a broad-based bounce back. BFSI outside of Capco, America's too, certainly is bouncing back. We've had some good wins with a few large regional banks and You know, we are accelerating momentum and, you know, things look to be in a better shape there, right? On the Europe BFSI outside of Capco, we are seeing some softness, which we have shared with you. It's a combination of a lot of things you have said, along with the macroeconomic environment being weak and lower discretionary spend.
spk09: Is that related, in any ways related to the corporate action that's going on between a couple of large European banks by any chance?
spk01: No, I don't want to call out anything specific. It's a combination of multiple factors. It's not really just one client or so.
spk09: Sure. And the other question is, it looks like we are now completely integrating Capcom Rising. on our books, if I were to understand one of the prior responses that we had given. Is that correct understanding?
spk01: No, it's not. They're always integrated. They're fully consolidated. That's not what I meant. I meant in terms of just the bringing together the larger perhaps the functions and, you know, the facilities and the optimization that you have by bringing perhaps two organizations closer together. You know, that's what I meant, including maybe, you know, integration of like, you know, the systems and the IT systems and the people, cross-pollination of talent, things like that. But they're fully integrated, fully consolidated. Yes.
spk09: Yeah, no, I was asking because earlier one of the concerns a few quarters back was that if they are deeply integrated, then probably the go-to-market positioning of the then Capcom rising companies we'll have to see a bit of a reset. So I'm just thinking as to whether that concerns are completely addressed now.
spk10: So one of the things that we see is both the teams are actually leveraging the complementary capabilities, especially in the context of transformation deals. So I think the collaboration between both Capco and Wipro's business have yielded strong origination and also significant number of synergy deals. This is also evident where we are jointly entering some of the new financial services market, especially in the APMEA region, specific to Middle East and India and domestic. And the advantage we have here is, like I said, Capco is the tip of the spear, right? And the areas that I called out, whether risk and compliance, whether it's to do with cost optimization, or the transformation of the bank or the customer experience, right? You know, I think it's a very good partnership between Capco and Wipro. Okay, sorry, I forgot to mention Rising. As far as Rising is concerned, Sudhir, if you look at the Rising, they are very strong and dominant on certain industry segments. For example, fashion retail, right? So the way we are doing it here is that, or SAP HANA, So whenever there's a large transformation program, the clients are looking at us sort of bringing the consulting capabilities of Rising along with the delivery and execution capabilities of Wipro together. And that's where we're able to win some of the transformation deals specifically in SAP. And we're seeing a good traction there.
spk08: Thanks, Sunil. All the very best.
spk10: Thank you.
spk00: Thank you. We have a next question from the line of Manik Taneja from Access Capital. Please go ahead.
spk04: I thank you for the opportunity. While some of my questions have already been answered, I just wanted to put you on the segmental margin performance, especially with regards to Europe and Atenia margins. While you've spoken about some of the revenue challenges in that geography, if you could help us understand what's driven the margin decline in those geographies, that's question number one. And the second question was with regards to the financial services performance in Europe. with some of the leadership changes in Capco and even at the company-wide level, is that also creating some drag for the financial services business in Europe for you?
spk01: Okay. So I'll take your second question first. I want to, like, you know, allay your fears fully. You know, the Capco leadership is fully stable and it's doing really well. You know, Srinivasan alluded to it where he said, you know, the collaboration is deeper, better. And, you know, the secular growth is back. So I don't think there is absolutely anything to do with that. You know, the softness in Europe is actually outside of Capco. And actually, even though we were doing well on Synergy Reels, there are some, you know, softness that is coming both due to the macroeconomic environment, the lower discretionary expense, and a few, you know, client-specific issues as well. So it's a combination. And I'll leave it at that. The first question on segment margin, you know, yes, there is a decline in both Europe and Acme. Actually, Acme has improved year on year, but Europe has actually declined year on year. And, you know, what you will see in the segment is that our unallocated costs have come down substantially between Q4 and Q1. We've changed the methodology in which we absorb some of these group costs. And, you know, therefore, their costs have been spread to the market units. So, therefore, you're seeing a decline to be a little bit more, you know, more deeper than it should be. But Europe, the weakness in margins is, again, linked back to our revenue performance. And nothing more to add on that. Acme actually is doing better year on year. And perhaps someone in the IR can, you know, give you more details.
spk05: Sure. Thank you, Aparna.
spk01: Sure.
spk05: Operator, we are having a few minutes left. Let us take one last question.
spk00: Sure, sir. We'll take a last question from the line of Girish Pai from B.O.B. Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
spk08: Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Aparna, the commentary on margins, it's moved from a narrow band to a narrow band with an upward bias. I'm seeing that being introduced for the first time. So what's leading to that to
spk01: You know, I think we've been able to execute on, you know, a bit by bit improvement over the last six quarters. The tailwind of the operational rigor gives us the confidence as we get into Q2. There is also, you must know that the guidance that we've given for Q2 is also perhaps amongst the better guidance range that we've given in the last six quarters. So all of that as to the confidence as we look at quarter two and beyond.
spk08: And upward bias could mean a 50 to 100 basis point upward bias?
spk01: You know, I think it's very, that's why you should read it along with narrow band and with an upward bias.
spk08: Okay. Last year, you pushed the wage hike, I think, by about three months. Would we see the same cycle this year and the quantum? Would it be pretty similar?
spk03: So salary hikes, last year we done it in December. We have not decided when to give the salary hikes. We'll decide in this quarter. But we'll be in line with the market whenever we decide.
spk08: Okay. My last question is to do with competitive intensity. And one of your larger peers was discussing that it was giving out fairly large productivity gains back to customers in areas like BPU and testing and stuff like that because of generative EIC. Is that what you're seeing in the market, a heightened competitive intensity because of Gen AI?
spk10: So Girish, like I said, clearly we have a strategy for Gen AI, and I talked about the three places where we're doing it. So whenever we put a solution to the client, all the deals that we have, we liberate Gen AI. So what goes to the client is Gen AI-powered solutions, if you will. And we are also infusing, like I said, JNI into some of the engagements that we have with our clients. So that would be the combination of the two. So JNI does help us in terms of productivity. So to me, this kind of trend is not new. There will be always, in the context of bidding and risky deals, there will be some companies who will try to pick up deals at an extremely low margin or extremely high risk. But, you know, those trends do not last for long. As such, approach is not, you know, clearly is not sustainable in the longer term, Girish. However, we are not worried about this trend and neither does it require any changes to our strategy. Okay. Thank you very much.
spk00: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference back to Mr. Deepak Bora for closing comments. Over to you, sir.
spk05: Yeah, thanks. Thank you all for joining the call. In case we could not take any questions due to time constraints, please feel free to reach out to the investor relations team. Have a nice evening. Thank you so much.
spk00: Thank you, members of the management team. On behalf of Wipro, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.
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