Wipro Limited

Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Wipro Limited Q2 FY25 earnings 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 then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Deepak Pohra, Senior Vice President, Corporate Treasurer and Investor Relations. Thank you and over to you, sir.

Thank you, Yashashree. A warm welcome to our quarter two financial year 25 earnings call. We'll 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 Govil, on this call. Afterwards, the operator will open the bridge for Q&A with our management team. Before 3D 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 Securities Litigation Reform Act 1995. These statements are based on management's 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 factors are explained in our detailed filings with 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 Srini. Thank you.

Thanks Deepak. Hello everyone.

Thank you for joining me and my leadership team for our second quarter results for the financial year 2024-25. In Q2, we met our expectations for revenue, bookings and margins. The long-term potential of our business is strong and we are prepared to handle the current economic uncertainties. We continue to focus on our five strategic priorities and building a strong talent pool to capture AI opportunities. Now let me go over the financial highlights for the quarter and share some specific insights on our markets and industry sectors. All the revenue growth numbers I share will be in constant currency. Our IT services revenue for quarter two was $2.66 billion, reflecting a sequential growth of 0.6%. This brings us closer to the upper end of our guidance. Operating margins came in at 16.8%, which is an expansion of certified basis points quarter on quarter, and 71 basis points year on year. In terms of total bookings, we ended the quarter at $3.6 billion, which is an 8.4% increase quarter-on-quarter. Our Capco business continued to see traction and grew 3.2% quarter-on-quarter and 6.9% year-on-year. Coming to our strategic market unit performances, we saw sequential growth in three of the four markets in Quarter 2. Americas 1 achieved sequential growth of 1.2%, driven by good performance in healthcare, technology, and communication sectors. Americas 2 also recorded sequential growth of 0.8%, supported by robust demand and strong execution in Bay Forsyth sector. Apnea grew by 0.3%, driven by traction in Capco. We are seeing early signs of a business stabilizing in this region. Europe registered a sequential decline of 0.1% due to overall weak demand and client-specific issues in few accounts.

Among industry sectors, we experienced varied performance.

With strong account mining and traction in Capco business, BFSI continued to accelerate, delivering 2.7% sequential growth. This growth was led by Americas. Additionally, we are seeing momentum in both Apmia and Europe. This marks the third consecutive quarter of growth in BFSI. Technology and communications grew by 1.6% sequentially, driven by the ramp-up of a recent large deal and momentum in existing relationships. However, manufacturing remained soft for us, with a sequential decline of 2%. We are seeing good progress with our consulting-led industry solutions in the automotive manufacturing segment. In addition, there are also signs of uptick in demand in the industrial segment. We will focus on converting this into wins to revive growth in manufacturing. Energy and utilities also remain weak with a sequential decline of 3.7%. However, we see opportunities for vendor consolidation and cost takeout

particularly in the energy sector.

As you may remember, from the last two quarters, we identified five strategic priority areas of growth. We have advanced in all five areas, and I would like to take this opportunity to share some indicators of our progress in quarter two. One, we stayed focused on growing our large accounts in our four profitable markets and six priority sectors, and we will continue to invest in them for expansion and growth. In quarter two, our top account grew 4% sequentially, top five accounts grew 6.2% sequentially, and top 10 accounts grew 3.7% sequentially, reflecting our focus

on expanding our footprint and scaling our large accounts. Of course, large deals are crucial for our growth.

During the quarter, we booked 19 large deals with a TCV of $1,489 million. This translates to a growth of 29% sequentially and 16.8% on a year-on-year basis. It is encouraging to see the diversity in our large wins across sectors. The deals we won cover a variety of themes from cost reduction and vendor consolidation to application modernization and cloud operations. In fact, we are leading these deals with industry and cross-industry solutions which are consulting-led and AI-powered. Let me briefly talk about the two largest deals we won in quarter two. A leading transportation and logistics company has selected Wipro to drive a business-critical SAP S4 HANA transformation program. This win involved collaboration between all our consulting arms rising Designit and Capco. It also highlights our industry knowledge and ability to deliver customized solutions to clients. The second example, a software technology company has selected us to support its product development and IT operations end-to-end. This is a total outsourcing deal where Wipro will consolidate vendors and take over engineering, application, infrastructure, and operations for the client. Additionally, we will implement GNI-powered solutions to solve business challenges and deliver operational efficiency. It's important to highlight that one of these deals involves a new client, while the other marks our transition from having a minimal presence to becoming a strategic partner.

Let me now talk about another strategic priority, which is building talent at scale.

We believe all our employees should adopt an AI mindset, have the right skill set, and use the right tool set in their work for our clients. In previous quarters, I have discussed our investments in reskilling our workforce for AI opportunities. We have now trained and certified over 44,000 employees on advanced AI. And we have a significant number of employees actively using AI developer tools across the company. In addition, we are developing talent closely aligned with our clients' business needs. For this, we have established account-specific academies to upskill employees, providing a clear roadmap for building capabilities relevant to both the industry and the technology context. Before I share our guidance for the next quarter, I want to thank all my colleagues for their amazing support. As an organization, we grow by actively listening to feedback. In August, we conducted our annual employee engagement survey. And in addition, I have made it a priority to connect with employees wherever I go. We have taken specific actions based on their feedback. As you're aware, we implemented Merit Salary Increase effective September 1, just nine months after the last cycle, demonstrating our ongoing commitment to our employees. Last month, we hosted a leadership summit where our top 300 leaders from across the globe gathered right here in Bangalore to reflect on our business and chart our future direction. It was encouraging to see that we have come together as Team Wipro and there's a strong commitment to driving client success.

I hope to harness this momentum and continue moving forward together. Now on to guidance.

Our Q3 revenue is expected to be affected by seasonal furloughs and fewer working days in this quarter. As a result, we are guiding for a sequential revenue growth of minus 2% to 0% in constant currency. Despite softness in revenue in Q3, we are confident of maintaining our margin in a narrow band. With that, let me turn it over to Aparna for a detailed overview of our financials. Thank you. Aparna, over to you.

Thank you, Srini. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'll share a quick update, after which we'll open up for Q&A. On the IT services revenue for Q2, we delivered a sequential growth of 1.3% quarter-on-quarter in reported currency and a growth of 0.6% in constant currency. This is closer to the upper end of our guidance range that we laid out last quarter. We are pleased to share that our operating margins for the quarter was at 16.8%, an expansion of 35 basis points quarter-on-quarter and 71 basis points year-on-year. This brings us one step closer to our earlier conveyed target band of 17 to 17.5%. This expansion in margins was achieved on the back of operational improvements and after absorbing one month of salary increments that we'd rolled out for our associates effective for September. We begin Q3 with headwinds of furlough and incremental impact of salary increases, yet we remain confident of staying in a narrow band of margins. Our net income grew 21.3% year-on-year. This was on the back of higher operating profits, which grew at 11.4% year-on-year. Our EPS was at INR 6.14, which grew 6.8% sequentially. Quarter 2 was yet another quarter of strong cash flows. Our operating cash flows of $510 million in Q2 was at 132.3% of our net income. With this, we have cumulatively for H1 generated nearly a billion dollars in operating cash flows. At the end of Q2, our investments and cash balances on our balance sheet now stands at $6.2 billion. In other key matrices, our other income, net of the finance expenses grew 34.2% sequentially. Our accounting yield for the average investments held in India was at 7.9%. ETR is at 24.6% in Q2. Our hedges continue to be in line with our policy. We had about $2.8 billion of forex derivative contracts as hedges at the end of Q2. Finally, before I move to guidance, I'd like to share that in our recently concluded board meeting, the board of directors have recommended issue of bonus shares to our shareholders in the ratio of one is to one, subject to the approval of shareholders. Initially, we are working through our revised capital allocation in line with our strategy, and hopefully we'll be able to share the details of that after our January board meeting. In terms of our guidance, to reiterate what was stated by Srini, we expect the revenues from our IT services business segment to be in the range of $2.607 billion to $2.660 billion. This translates to a sequential guidance of minus 2% to 0% in constant currency terms. With that, we can open up for questions. Operator? Yes, thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. 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'll take our first question from the line of Abhishek Kumar from JM Financial. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good evening and congratulations on very good dealings. My first question is on the guidance. You know, is this just the furloughs or are we also seeing flow through of one of the client-specific challenges that you mentioned, which kind of is informing slightly mutish guidance for next quarter.

Thanks, Abhishek.

As far as quarter three guidance is concerned, clearly follows like upon a call-out as one, and also the number of working days obviously is much lower. We also have some slowdown in Europe thanks to client-specific requirements reasons. Having said that, we see good momentum in our deal pipeline across Americas 1 and Americas 2 and also APMIA. We do have good pipeline in Europe too. The focus for us is to actually win some of those and maximize our deal bookings for this quarter.

Okay. Next question is on utility. You had mentioned last quarter also there are certain client-specific challenges here Are these now behind us or are they still there in front of us? How should we think about ENU as a continuous advent to our overall growth? Thank you.

So, like Srini shared in his speech as well, it is work in progress. There is a good pipeline. There is a demand for across vendor consolidation, cost takeout, and there are very, very good deals in the pipeline. We have to focus on conversion for us to improve our overall performance in ENU. And that's all that we have to say. It's all down to execution.

Just to add a little bit more color to what Aparna said, Abhishek, specifically in the energy sector, we are seeing opportunities around energy. cost optimization and vendor consolidation as well, which is good news.

Okay. Maybe just what I wanted to understand here is, are there any ramp downs that are continuing in few clients that is impacting us? And if that is so, then do we expect those ramp downs to be behind us?

Yes. You know, our guidance for quarter three has several puts and takes. It has furloughs. It does have fewer working days. It also has factors in certain impact of certain client-specific challenges that we've alluded to in Europe. All of this is factored into the guidance as we start Q3. And, you know, given the momentum that we are building up, if you would see there are performance across market units and sectors, you know, it has improved. And it is becoming a little bit more secular than what it was maybe, you know, three or four quarters back. So we are hopeful that we will build on that momentum once we are behind the seasonality of Q3.

Great, that's encouraging. Thank you and all the best.

Thank you. Thank you. We have a next question from the line of Nitin Parmanaban from Investec. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hi. Good evening.

Now, Apam, I wanted your thoughts on the drivers that are helping margin initiatives that are sort of offsetting the wage increase impact and the revenue headwinds special change?

So, we have a set of traditional levers that have been at play. We have been improving our utilization consistently over the last few quarters. I do think the levels at which we are, we have to continue to sustain that in Q3 Two, we've dipped our utilization slightly, but we are well above the benchmark that we would like to be at. Secondly, offshoring is also a lever that we have flexed. Going forward, what are the levers that we will use? There are the traditional set of levers, fixed price projects, pyramid improvements. The other lever that's very topical to us is around G&A optimization. We have spoken about that. We have done some work on it over the last few quarters. Some of it is paying off as we get into Q3. Also, some of the acquired entities, as they are getting integrated into the organization, there are certain synergy benefits that we are realizing around overheads and G&A. Those are some of the levers. If you look at our SMU-wise profitability metrics that we share, I think Europe and APMIA have improved profitability. And, you know, America too has improved profitability year on year. So there is a good, again, you know, orientation towards profitable growth, which is leading to operational improvements with it.

Thank you for that, Parna. The second question was around profitability. I think a lot of work has gone behind building deal momentum and sort of looking at the cost and all of those things over the last couple of quarters. In that context, do you think that return to growth could happen sooner rather than later overall? Are you happy with the way things are moving or do you see there are further areas that require fixes before we are able to really move back to growth?

we have grown in Q2. I think the key for us is to really build sustainable growth that we can deliver consistently. And that is still work in progress. There are parts of the business which are performing much better. We've alluded to Capco. I think BFSI as an overall sector is doing very well. America's one has momentum that's secular. and America is too, a set of EMRs, you know, energy and manufacturing, is doing well. So there is more secular return in some sense of momentum, at least in America. For us to bounce back to growth deterministically, Europe and ACMEA also have to chip in. ACMEA, we're seeing some early signs of stabilization. Europe is still a work in progress, and that's something that we will have to look at before we are able to give you a better color. Shini, if you want to add something.

So Nitin, let me go in the context of the deal pipeline that we have built. All I can say at this point in time is healthy. There is momentum around the deal pipeline. And it's also secular across the four markets and across the six sectors that we operate in, which is, for me, good news. I think the focus for me and my team is right now is how do we secure those wins quickly within quarter three and move forward in quarter four. The advantage in quarter four is that the furloughs and number of working days would change. That itself is one of the positives. And the deal momentum and the wins could actually add to that. So net-net, Nitin, I think I continue to state that we have good momentum. We need to execute to that.

So that's very helpful. Just one last one, if I may. Are you seeing an increase in smaller deals within the pipeline that could convert faster? Your peer had mentioned that in the recent call. Some of your peers have been suggesting that they're also seeing heightened smaller deals within their closures as well. So just curious to know your thoughts on what you are seeing on this aspect.

So, Nitin, while we talk about the pipeline, it's a combination of both large deals, mid-sized deals, and smaller deals. That's number one. Number two, if you look at our own bookings for quarter two, of the 3.6 billion, 1.5 came in from large deals. But if you remove that 1.5, the balance is a combination of both mid-sized deals and smaller deals. Second, if you look at the kind of opportunities that we get, especially when doing a discretionary spend around Capco, PSSI. Some of them tend to be much smaller. They need not be large deals. Overall, I think the way I see it is we do have smaller deals, mid-sized deals and large deals and we continue to remain optimistic on those pipelines.

Thank you so much and all the very best.

Thank you.

Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Sudhir Guntupalli from Kotak Mahindra AMC. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Sini, congrats on a good quarter. So just your intels are looking very good. Deal wins are looking good. You seem to sound more confident on a broad-based set of segments this time versus last quarter. However, the guidance seems to be a bit counterintuitive. So in that backdrop, a couple of questions. So when you say furloughs, this time around, most of the other companies are actually indicating that furloughs are just in line with normal seasonality. with some of them actually saying the furlough impact will be lower than the previous year. And historically, we had a relatively slightly better H2 compared to H1. So why is furlough such a game changer for Q3 guidance? That is number one. And number two, when you say client-specific issues in Europe, is it some part of the business that you want to rationalize as a new CEO and you have taken a strategic call to kind of cut that business? Or is this something where we have, you know, a certain client because of whatsoever, their specific reason has been hurting us. Again, I'm asking the Europe question because surprisingly this quarter, Europe has been good for most of the companies which reported so far. And we have been having very localized teams in Europe. So it's surprising why we are facing those challenges while others are not. So just those couple of questions. First on Parlo, second on Europe.

Nitin, sorry, Sudhir, in terms of furlough, our furlough, the visibility that we have is very similar to what we experienced last year, and that's the assumption that we are factoring in. Obviously, during the quarter, we will have to work through it with our clients. As far as lower working days is concerned, that's also something that is very seasonal for Q3 compared to Q2, both of which are factored. Additionally, we've called out for us, which is factored into our guidance, is the softness that we have in Europe. And I will ask Srini to respond to, you know, the questions that you posed on Europe.

Thanks, Aparna. Hi, Sudhir. So I think Aparna answered the question on furloughs. I think for us, relative to what you heard from other companies, that seems to be a constant issue. what happened last year at this time. Maybe it could be very specific to the clients that we are engaged with and the decisions that they take because some of the sectors have a lot more furloughs than the rest. So maybe that's one reason why we have some impact. We continue to have the same level of impact on furloughs. Now coming to specific to Europe and client-specific needs, I would say a couple of clients where we have been working with them have actually changed the direction because of which there has been some ramdowns. So it's very, very specific to the combination of some of the industries and Europe, which is actually contributing to that slowdown for us and a weak growth both in this quarter that you've seen. But having said that, I want to reiterate that the countries and the specific industries that we are focusing in those countries, the pipeline has built up. And right now, myself and my team, we are focused on winning those.

Fair enough, Srinath. So is it fair to expect that possibly when we look through this furlough and specific impacted time period of December quarter, subsequently we'll be able to build that secular growth momentum, part of which we had seen in this quarter as well?

So there, as a process, we just guide for the next quarter, which is quarter three. So, you know, you're right. I know in quarter three, we got impacted for the reasons that we stated. We said that some of them will not be there in quarter four. And also with the deal pipeline and momentum that we have, that should also help us going into quarter four. But I will not be able to predict how the quarter four is going to be at this point in time.

Fair enough, sir. All the very best. Thank you so much.

Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Gaurav Ratheria from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Hey, hi. Congrats on good deal execution and solid margin execution in the quarter. My first question is with respect to the large deal momentum. If you look at the rolling 12-month data, for a while you were stuck at $4.5 billion, and now we have crossed that and gone to $4.7, $4.8 billion. Just trying to understand what has driven this change. Is it more specific to Wipro in terms of the initiatives around largest put in place, which is triggering this increase and increase in the win ratio, or something has changed around the pipeline, or our approach to the overall large deal win. So just trying to understand how sustainable is this improvement that we are seeing here?

So Gaurav, if you look at in the context of large deal, what's very important for us is to be proactive with our clients. Second, we have to lead with consulting and with infused AI or AI-powered solutions. So the industry and cross-industry solutions that we have, it also helps us solution it right for the client and customize it right for the client. So the deal win that I talked to you about in the transportation industry very clearly demonstrates that, wherein we brought in our consulting arms and we brought in our industry-specific domain solutions to win that particular aspect. Second, it's also discipline. How you build a pipeline, both proactively, how do you qualify that pipeline, and then go for the win. And the whole process and the nine yards that you do. So picking the right deal that you want to go after also makes a big difference. So there are very small changes, but sometimes these changes can impact. Now, going back to the question on sustainability, like any large field, at the end of the day, it's a binary. So I will not be able to predict how it is going to go But if you have noticed, we have consistently been above billion dollars every quarter in terms of the large deals.

Got it. Thank you for the detailed answer. The second question is for Aparna. You did allude to a couple of factors which were specific initiatives of Wipro and topical to the company on margins. So have those initiatives already played out in the form of resulting in margin tailwind in the last two quarters or do you think that there are some more that will be flowing into the margins over the next two quarters? Thank you.

Certainly, there is a lot of effort that is still under, you know, still in process in order to improve. If you notice that, you know, we still have to absorb two months of salary increases and it's also seasonally weak water in terms of furloughs. So all hands on the deck. I think what will be very key is to execute Q3 well, and the topical levers are also at play. We still feel that there are optimizations that we can still do and achieve.

Thank you.

Thank you. We have a next question from the line of Sandeep Shah from Equirus Securities. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks. Thanks for the opportunity and congrats on the good numbers. Just wanted to understand, Srini, post you took the control, what in your assessment, which are the internal factors outside the macro factors which is affecting the demand? We have to correct or we have to rectify for us to go into a sustainable, consistent growth path.

So thanks, Sandeep. Now, Sandeep, if you look at it, what's very important is we've laid out our five strategic priorities, and we have to consistently stay focused on that. So if you look at the focus on large accounts in our priority industries, sectors and prioritize the markets. I think, you know, that is helping us. If you look at the growth that we got in the top account, top five accounts, top 10 accounts, reflect some of the focus that we have brought in. And we have to stay focused. We have to be consistent around that for, you know, going forward. Second is the large deals that I just talked about, the question that Agarwal asked about, right? You know, we have to be proactive. We have to shape the demand and we have to understand the client experience. both the business and the technology needs, and bringing the right industry and cross-industry solutions up front for the client to feel comfortable about Wipro and how we can execute for them. Third one is the industry solution itself that I talked about. Consistently stay focused on that, which are consulting-led and AI-powered. We've had some good successes in the last two quarters, and a few of this gets into implementation, then becomes more referenceable. I think you can actually more and more, depending on those solutions. Fourth one is building talent at scale. I did talk about the fact that we have to have the right mindset, skill set, and tool set across our employee base. After the initial 230,000 people who got trained on the basics of Gen AI, now we've got 44,000 employees doing that. So how do you lead with AI in the projects, whether it's in software development cycle or engineering, How do you infuse AI into projects which are more on the managed services, be it application, infrastructure, or process? And then how do you go after, how do you actually build AI-powered solution, which is the conceptualization itself starts with AI, right? And so those things we need to stay focused on, building the talent also for the specific customers and the clients that I talked about in the academies, right? Sometimes it's important to understand The industry the client is in, the specific technology landscape that they are in, so it becomes much more easier for it to execute. And the last point, Sunday phase, customer-centricity, client-centricity. We have defined five pillars of client-centricity. We got to deliver. We got to innovate our delivery as the technology landscape changes. So if we stay focused on these five top priorities that we called out, quarter after quarter, year after year, I'm sure we'll continue to get better.

Thanks. Thanks for the detailed answer. But despite this top five priority, every quarter we have somewhere or the other portfolio related issue which keeps our growth rate, March building positive, negative or flattish. So any timeline when you expect whatever rectification we wanted to do would be over and we can come back on a consistent growth path?

Fair comment, Sandeep. Very fair comment. And if you look at it, right, if you look at it from a market perspective, this quarter has been a little different from the last quarter where three out of the four kind of showed some sequential growth, which I think is a positive right step. As far as the sectors are concerned, I think we continue to lag both in manufacturing and energy and utilities. Having said that, I think, you know, we have got a good momentum going in other sectors, be it BFSI, which I talked about, healthcare, technology and communications, and also consumer. I think, you know, we will continue to stay focused on those four, bring in, accelerate the momentum in those four sectors while we do the correction in both manufacturing and E&U, which is more specific to Wipro than, you know, what you see in the industry.

And when do you expect those corrections to start to result in manufacturing and E&U?

So, Sandeep, you know, like, you know, I don't give a guidance beyond quarter three. But having said that, I did tell you that specifically if you look at in manufacturing sector, you know, I called out automotive segment, I called industrial segment. We are seeing pipeline and traction out there for us. Now, the question is, you know, do we win those deals? You know, if and when we win the deals, that will show up on the revenue side sooner than later. On the energy and utility segment, I did talk about specific deals in the energy sector sector, which has around cost optimization and vendor consolidation. Some of those deals, we are in the process, but I think, you know, you have to win. So if we do these, if we execute to this pipeline and deals that we have in these two sectors, Sandeep, you know, you know, things should get better. But at this point of time, you know, I can't give you a specific timeline.

Okay. And your earlier commentary suggests 4Q could be better than 3Q, right?

So, Sandeep, what I said was the headwinds we have when it comes to number of working days and furloughs, some of them may not be there in quarter four. That's a comment I made, Sandeep.

Okay. And just the last thing, post the budget, there is a tax ruling change on the buyback. So, any view, will we consider buyback as a continuing option to cash return to the shareholders or we may move to dividend because the tax treatment of both being neutral going forward in buyback, you still get a benefit of a reduced share count.

So, you've said it, Sandeep, you know, we do think that there are benefits of buyback compared to dividend, even after the, you know, proposed, after the budget that has been announced. But that said, I think we are drawing up our revised capital allocation policy in line with the strat plan that we are putting together for the next two to three years. And I think we will be in a position to share a more detailed and informed, you know, answer to your question in terms of, you know, what is going to be our approach. I think that's work in progress, and we'll do that.

Okay. And just related question, as we have indicated earlier, we now look for swing of pearls kind of an M&A rather than a big ticket M&A.

Sandeep, you know, the way I see M&A is a strategic advantage for us going forward. We do have, we do continue to look for opportunities in the marketplace, whether it's in a specific white spaces, markets or sectors. So in that context, Sandeep, the first thing is look at what are the opportunities that you have in market and then take a decision. So I'm not calling out anything like a spring of pearls, but all I'm trying to do is I want to be very deliberate and very focused in terms of what we want to do with M&A, but M&A is a big part of our strategy.

Okay, thanks and all the best.

Thank you. We have a next question from the line of Sumit Jain from CLSA. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. So, firstly, Shrini Aparna, I wanted to, like, know from you in this guidance of minus 2 to 0%, what are you building for BFSI next quarter? Are you still building in growth momentum to continue, but, you know, given it has high furloughs, but you are seeing a strong momentum?

So, you know, our BFSI business also has a component of Capco, which has higher furloughs compared to the rest of the work, you know, consulting in general. And of course, Capco is far more susceptible to furloughs. It is factored into our guidance. But other than that, I think the momentum in BFSI has been fairly strong. It is, you know, we have done well. If you look at our quarter two growth, it has done well across all market units. It has done across various service offerings. So we do think that the momentum in the BFSI sector from a volume trajectory is good. It is also impacted more deeply by furloughs, and that is factored as a part of our guidance.

Got it. And regarding, you know, further rationalization you mentioned in energy utility and manufacturing verticals, So it has been like a slow pain for the company for the last several quarters now. So rather isn't it better to have an instant death rather than a slow plane which with uncertainty we don't know when we'll get over.

Sorry, Sumit. I did not understand your question.

How long this decline in manufacturing and ENU or the energy utility verticals will continue? given that for the last seven, eight quarters now it has been declining. So the ramp down in the client-specific areas should have been over by now. So is it like a structural problem we are facing in these two verticals? Because when I look at manufacturing particularly, it has seen a very strong growth for most of our peers, plus the SAP S4 HANA transformation is a big opportunity, which you also mentioned is playing out in your logistics client. I just want to understand, you know, how manufacturing E&U will play out, let's say, over the next 6 to 12 months, forgetting about just next quarter.

First and foremost, these are very two important sectors for Wipro. We have been in energy and utilities and manufacturing sectors for a very long time. I have personally driven this business in the past. Having said that, your observation is right. that we have been slow relative to the peer group in terms of our growth and our lack of growth. However, like I mentioned, in manufacturing, for example, there are specific segments we continue to focus on. For example, automotive. There are opportunities, for example, in software-defined vehicles, which is our cloud car. That's more on the engineering side of it, for example. Second, you yourself mentioned SAP S4 HANA. Thanks to our acquisition of Rising, we can lead with consulting in SAP S4 HANA. So, to me, manufacturing and energy and utilities are very important sectors. We are staying focused on, and we also have the pipeline. Like I mentioned, even in energy, we do our pipeline and cost optimization and also in terms of cost transformation. So, What is important for us, what we need to do, Sumit, is to double down and focus on these two sectors and bring growth back.

I would look forward to that revival maybe in a few quarters. And secondly, on the deal side, I mean, we can see your reported deal wins have been good, but the conversion to revenues have been a bit slow. So is it like there is a delayed conversion of deals to revenue or is it like the duration of these deals is much longer, so the ACV is lower, leading to a lower revenue conversion?

So, you know, large deals typically have a cycle for ramping up, right? One of the large deals that we had earlier alluded to that we'd want, you know, it will take several quarters to ramp up. On the contrary, there is another large deal that we want in Q2, that is instantly ramped up and is giving us revenues. I think it depends on deal to deal. Overall, we are not concerned about the deal conversion being slower. We are happy with our last year bookings. In fact, while we don't give out a number, the net new in these bookings is fairly good, especially in Q2. I think we just need to focus on winning more and the conversion will happen. Yes, it takes two to three quarters for it to fully ramp up and deliver. But that will happen, Sumit.

That's right. Are you seeing any sort of delay in deal closures because of U.S. election-related uncertainty in the U.S. geography?

So, Sumit, you know, you know it. You've been tracking U.S. politics in respect of which party comes in, which leader comes in, Traditionally, U.S. economy continues to grow, and U.S. is a dominant economy if you look at it post-COVID as well in terms of growth. So I would say the impact of politics will not be that significant, at least from my vantage point, Sumit.

Got it. And just lastly, I mean, when I look at your number of active customers, it has been consistently coming down for the last seven to eight quarters. So any particular strategy we are following out there?

No, not really, Sumit. I think we had referred to exit of certain tail accounts in context of one of our market units, which was AP, any apnea. I think this was several quarters back. Other than that, we've also said that this number typically gets impacted because of the discretionary spend environment being weaker, and as a result, there is also a It also impacts the number of clients, especially at the bottom end of the pyramid. What I think you should also take heart with is that our top client, our top five, our top 10, in fact, our top 25 clients are doing really well. So I'm not going to read too much into that number. I think we need to focus on driving differentiated growth in our metal accounts, in our future metal accounts. And that's what we are focusing on.

No, thank you. That's very helpful. All the best. Thank you.

Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Ankur Rudra from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you. Maybe the first question, Srini, if you can elaborate a bit more on the U.S. BFS, you know, strong credit scheme, and also how that leads into discretionary spending. You know, your business, Capco, has got very high exposure to the capital market segment, a segment which is seeing very strong growth recovery over the recent result season. Many of your peers have commented about how they expect that to help them. If you could elaborate how you expect to seize that opportunity. Thank you.

Sure, Udra. If you look at, since the question is very specific to U.S. and BFS, the strategy for us in the U.S. market is to combined Wipro's strength of execution with Capco's consulting capabilities. So if you look at the banking, financial services, capital markets, insurance, I think our go-to-market strategy is to combine the expertise of both these companies and take it forward. Now, specific to discretionary spend comment that you made, obviously, Capco is growing for us. That means there is a discretionary spend because their dependence is completely on discretionary spend, which to me is good news in the context of what's coming in the future for us because some of this discretionary spend could be also transferred to the downstream revenue as well. So I would say at this point in time, I continue to be optimistic around the spend in BFS segment, especially in the U.S.

Thank you. Just to read a bit more into your previous comment, you said how the US has been a dominant economy and financial services, if I may add, is a dominant vertical. At what point does US BFS strength overcome all the small pocket challenges you're seeing, all of your other verticals, where the sort of smaller challenges you see is overwhelmed by this and overall good momentum begins to look a bit stronger?

So, Ankur, you know, for us to really grow well at an overall org level, I think we need to have nearly all cylinders firing. And I think that's the end of all. Yes, we are happy with the momentum that we have in BFSI. I think not just U.S., but across, we have a good momentum in BFSI. And we are happy about that. But I do think we need to have We need to at least arrest the decline and stabilize ENU and manufacturing, which Srini spoke of, and I think that's very, very key. We need to have more and more sectors joining in. I think health is doing well. BFSI has done well. We're seeing the deals that we had won ramping up, giving us growth in technology and communications. So three sectors, Good consumer is also done well. So if you're able to revive and win new deals in energy and manufacturing, I think that will hold the key.

Thank you. Just one question maybe on AI and generative AI. Overall deal wins have been relatively strong. How are you seeing the adoption of Gen AI in particular it into your, you know, deal construct to an extent. Are there any conversations about potential productivity pass-throughs or gain share as a result of, you know, those constructs in the deal that you're in?

So, Ankur, specific to GenAI, the way I see it is there's definitely excitement and opportunity for a company like Wipro. We want to be AI-powered Wipro. The and clearly we are investing big into Gen AIs. In terms of engagements, I would put it in three buckets. Number one is we have AI-led projects, whether it's in a software development cycle or a product engineering. That's one stream. Second one is infusing AI into the managed services, which could be for existing or for the new ones, where the point that you made, it's also operational efficiency, customer experience that you can improve. And the third is AI-powered solutions that I talked about, which is you're conceptualizing a solution for a process with AI being the core. So to me, this will continue to grow, and there will be productivity benefits in each of these areas. At this point in time, the way I see it is that there are specific projects in AI that which are going to help the clients in terms of improving some of their back-office operations, if you will, right? So how do you, you know, those are the projects that you get, but it's not necessarily a specific SDLC lifecycle, but it is an opportunity for the client to improve their processes or operations and so on and so forth. So those are the three buckets, Ankur, I would say GenAI, and will continue to improve. NetNet, I think, you know, GenAI will be positive for us and for the industry.

Thank you, appreciate the time. Best of luck.

Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Kavaljit Saluja from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks, Srini. Congrats on a fairly good quarter overall. The question I had for you, Srini, is that when I look at the performance in manufacturing, in EU, in maybe communication, though it has changed somewhat this quarter, it does indicate that, you know, it's not so much the environment, but, you know, shared losses in consolidation exercise. So, at a broader level, I wanted to have your view that, you know, how is the proposition, as I said, that I went to consolidation exercises at an overall level, and then going into verticals, you know, if there are any nuances as such.

So, thanks, Kavaljit. You know something? One of the things that I'm really excited is the opportunities under vendor consolidation. One of the large deals that I did talk about today is a vendor consolidation, which is a very large deal where we are doing end-to-end operations for us across infrastructure applications and the process. To me, there are multiple deal wins around vendor consolidation. We have our own opportunities. We have our own where we have displaced competition. And if I look at the current pipeline, there are opportunities. And what happens sometimes is the combination of cost optimization and vendor consolidation comes together in the broader context of cost benefit to the client. Sometimes the vendor consolidation happens purely because you are already dominant in one area. You can actually take care of the adjacent areas and bring in experience and operational efficiencies as well. So I'm very excited about the opportunities for vendor consolidation for us, Kavaljit, and we are winning.

And in this example that you gave on vendor consolidation, who did you consolidate out? Are you consolidating out other India Heritage vendors or are these legacy vendors who are on their last legs?

I'm sure a lot of people are listening to this conversation. All I can say is that it's a variety of vendors across the spectrum. That's all I can say.

Okay. Fair enough. The second question I had is for Aparna. Aparna, when I go through your expenses in the IFRS financial statements, it appears to be quite busy with a number of notes. Was there any one-off benefit into the quarter? Because there seems to be a number of line items. in which there are some one-off charges, there are one-off gains. You can just walk me through what's really happening in margins here.

Yeah, so, Kaval, if you look at it, we did have a higher S&M and we have a lower G&A. And if you look at SG&A as a bucket, there is no change. If you look at our operating margin improvement, that's come through the graph margin improvement. The noise that you've refer to. Yes, we have had certain one-off credits which are a part of our financials but there are also it's part and parcel of every quarter and what I will request is perhaps Abhishek or Deepak can take you through those items but if a broader direction that you can look at is S&M and G&A as a bucket have more or less remain flat and the improvement is coming in through the gross margins.

Got that. And what kind of environment do you require to get to your aspirational band of margin or aspirational margin number? Actually, it's not even aspirational, it's getting there almost, but you can just walk me through it.

So are you asking me for levers? Sorry, I didn't get the question clearly.

The type of environment required to get to the EBIT margin that you aspire for.

So, you know, we've laid out, like you rightly said, we are one step closer to that 17 to 17.5% target band that we've laid out, you know, several quarters ago. We're happy with the performance that we've had in Q2. We have taken one big step towards that. Obviously, in Q3, we will have to work through the headwinds that we are starting the quarter with. I think all hands on the deck as far as Q3 execution is concerned. You know, perhaps at the end of Q3, we will be in a better position to tell you, you know, how the margins look beyond. I think over the long term, for it to like, you know, really let's say, touch and sustain beyond 17% operating margins, we've said that the revenue environment also needs to improve. A lot of the margin improvement that we've delivered is on the backdrop of revenue decline. So certainly the growth in revenues will help the trajectory both to surpass that 17% and also sustain. Kabbalah.

Okay, fantastic. That's all I had. I wish you the best here.

Thanks. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference back to Mr. Deepak Gora for closing comments. Over to you, sir.

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 Industrial Relations team. Have a nice evening. Thank you once again.

Thank you, members of the management team. On behalf of Wipro Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.