Wipro Limited

Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Wipro Limited Q1 FY26 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 and zero 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.

Yeah, thank you, Yashastri. A warm welcome to our quarter one financial year 2026 earnings call. We will begin the call with business highlights and overview by Srinivas Palya, 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 Srini starts, let me draw your kind 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 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 Srini. Thank you.

Thank you, Deepak. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. Let me start with a quick view on quarter one and the broader environment. We started the quarter facing significant macro uncertainty, which kept overall demand muted. Our clients prioritized initiatives with immediate impact, primarily focusing on cost optimization and vendor consolidation. And at the same time, they accelerated their AI data and modernization programs. We saw a clear trend of many AI projects moving to scale and production. We quickly aligned with these priorities, deepened our partnerships, and secured key deals. The large deals we closed this quarter and last quarter along with a strong pipeline, put us in a good position for the second half of the year. With that, let me now turn to our quarter one performance. I will start with key financial highlights and an overview of our markets and sectors. Aparna will provide further details on the financials in her remarks. Our IT services revenue for quarter one was $2.59 billion, quarter-on-quarter degrowth of 2% in constant currency terms within our guidance range. Our IT services margin was 17.3%, an expansion of 80 basis points year-on-year. In our markets, America has grew 1.5% year-on-year in constant currency terms, and we are continuing to see strong yield momentum here. Appian's revenue stayed flat. Digital spending in India, Middle East, and Southeast Asia kept the market resilient. Europe continued to face headwinds, and clients remained focused on maintaining their competitiveness in this environment. Capco grew year on year, driven by strong performance in Latin America. Turning to our industry sector, in PSSI, demand is strong and steady. Clients are modernizing their IT landscape with a sharp focus on ALA deficiency and transformation. We also want two mega deals here, which I will discuss later. In consumer and EMR, we are seeing a more cautious mode. Retail, CPG, and manufacturing have been most affected by tariffs. Even though discretionary budgets are tight, Outsourcing renewals are creating new opportunities to gain wallet shares. In technology and communication, we are seeing a clear shift towards AI investments. Clients are looking to innovate and future-proof their software and platforms. We want a large deal here that has the potential to become a mega deal. Healthcare continues to do well as clients invest in modernization and digital transformation. While payers are under cost pressures, the overall outlook for the sector remains positive. These priorities and shifts in client focus are evident in the strategic deals we have won in quarter one. During the quarter, we reported bookings worth $5 billion in total contract value, a growth of 51% year-on-year. Our large deal bookings reached $2.7 billion, up 131% year-on-year. This includes 16 large deals this quarter, including 2 mega deals. Several of these wins were driven by vendor consolidation, where we continue to build strong momentum. These deals reflect a good balance of extension of existing work and securing new business. They also highlight our capabilities, domain expertise, and progress in AI. Let me share three examples to bring this to life. My first example is a global banking leader that selected us as a strategic partner to transform technology across multiple business lines and enterprise functions. They chose us for our deep BFSI expertise and consulting-led approach. We will transform the digital ecosystem, modernize their cloud and data platforms, improve cyber resilience, and embed AI across the software development lifecycle, helping boost engineering productivity and reimagine core processes. Second, a leading global semiconductor company signed a multi-year agreement with us to modernize its entire product lifecycle. Building on our long-standing partnership, we will drive end-to-end engineering transformation from silicon design and system software to platform development and hardware validation. Our focus is on using AI and automation to accelerate development, improve quality, reduce costs, and enable agile practices. Finally, we secured a mega deal with a leading North American bank, extending a decade-long partnership. We will transform the technology across core banking, wealth management, and retail using our AI-powered global delivery framework This includes modernizing their cloud infrastructure, strengthening cyber resilience, and enhancing their digital ecosystem and enterprise applications. This will accelerate innovation, improve time to market, and deliver a more customer-centric experience for our clients. In fact, these examples highlight a clear trend AI is no longer a niche. It's becoming essential to how businesses operate at scale. At Wipro, we see AI as a force reshaping industries and amplifying human potential. We at Wipro are building an AI-first, AI-everywhere enterprise focused on solving complex challenges, accelerating delivery, and reimagining operations at scale. By embracing autonomous and agentic AI, we are transforming business models and how organizations work. In fact, our AI capabilities are integrated into both industry and cross-industry solutions. By combining domain expertise with AI, we are able to deliver value through solutions such as hyper-personalized wealth management and predictive industrial insights, to name a few. So far, we have deployed over 200 AI power agents using advanced technologies from leading hyperscalers. For example, these agents enable smarter lending, intelligent claims processing, and autonomous network management. We are equally focused on talent and training our team with the skills and mindset to thrive in an AI-first world. Building on these strong foundations and our continued focus on five strategic priorities, we are well positioned for the future. I would like to now discuss our outlook for the next quarter. While we are cautious given the macro environment, our strong order book, healthy pipeline, and focus on consulting-led, AI-powered, solutions give us confidence in delivering long-term value to our stakeholders. Returning to profitable growth remains our priority. Based on our visibility, we are guiding for a sequential growth of minus 1% to plus 1% in constant currency terms. Let me hand over to Aparna for a detailed view on our financials. Thank you again and over to you, Aparna.

Thank you, Srini. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Let me give you a brief update on the financial performance for the quarter ended 30th June 2025. After that, we can open it up for questions. Our IT services revenue for Q1 sequentially declined by 2% in constant currency, which is well within our guidance range. On a year-on-year basis, the revenue declined by 2.3% in constant currency terms. Our operating margins for Q1 was at 17.3%, an expansion of 80 basis points on a year-on-year basis. As Srini alluded, many of our large deal wins are in the nature of cost takeout or vendor consolidation. These deals typically come with upfront investments and will cause pressure on the cost. As always, we will continue to focus on operational excellence in order to offset these pressures. Let me give you a color on our strategic market unit and sector performance. All growth numbers that I will share will be in constant currency. Americas 1 grew 0.2% sequentially and grew 5.8% on a year-on-year basis. Americas 2 declined 1.7% sequentially and declined 2.7% on a year-on-year basis. Europe declined 6.4% sequentially and 11.6% on a year-on-year basis. Apnea has grown 0.6% sequentially this quarter, though declined marginally on a year-on-year basis. Moving to sectors, BFSI declined 3.8% sequentially and also declined 3.5% on year-on-year terms. Health care grew 0.5% sequentially and has grown 3.5% year-on-year. Consumer declined 4% sequentially and declined 5.7% on a year-on-year term. Technology and communication grew 0.4% sequentially and they grew 0.3% year-on-year. Energy, manufacturing, and resources declined 0.7% sequentially and 2.4% on a year-on-year basis. Capco continues to perform well, growing 6%, on a year-on-year basis. Let me share with you some of the other key financial parameters. Our net income grew 10.9% on a year-on-year basis in this quarter. This was after absorbing for a one-time restructuring cost of INR 246 crores. Our EPS for the quarter at INR 3.2 grew by 10.8% year-on-year. Our free cash flow generation continues to remain robust it was at 115% of our net income. This takes our gross cash, including investments, to be at 6.4 billion, and net cash actually expanded quarter on quarter. In Q1, our net other income grew 62% on a year-on-year basis. Accounting yield for the average investments held in India was at 8.1% for Q1. Our effective tax rate was at 21.6% for Q1-26. This is versus 24.5%. that we had for the last year and same time last quarter was also 24 and a half. Hedges continue to be in line with our policy at about $2.5 billion of forex derivative contracts as hedges at the end of Q126. Finally, before I move to the guidance, I would like to share with all of you that in our board meeting today, the board of directors have declared an interim dividend of INR 5 rupees per share With this, we would have now distributed cash in excess of $1.3 billion in the last six months. As you know, we revised our capital allocation policy in January 2025 to increase the payout to a minimum of 70% of our net income over a block of three years. Thus, going forward, subject to the cash position and board approvals, our endeavor would be to pay these dividends twice a year, once along with the June results and then along with our December quarter results. In terms of guidance, to reiterate what Srini shared, we expect revenues from our IT services revenue business to be in the range of $2.56 billion to $2.612 billion. This translates to a sequential growth of minus 1% to plus 1% in constant currency terms. With that, we can take questions. Operator?

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 touch tone 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.

Yeah, hi, good evening. Thanks for taking my question and congratulations on very strong deal win. My question is, first question is on the deal win itself. So, you know, on an LTM basis, the overall deal, deal TCV has grown by 10%. But if I look at the smaller deals, on an LTM basis, it's down 10%. So my question is, have we seen any kind of given these large deals are longer in tenure, any material increase in deal duration? And therefore, how should we look at the ACV growth for us to really model growth going forward?

Thank you, Abhishek, for the question. You're correct that our PCV has been growing much faster than the ACV. And this is also because the deal tenors have been going up. Our pipeline has a good balance of both vendor consolidation, cost takeout deals, which are typically longer tenor, and deals that are coming in in the areas of data, AI, modernization that Srini alluded to. So it is a good mix of deals. But it is also true that today, if you look at just from a value standpoint, the large deals are dominating the pipeline in terms of how we've won. Because last year, we won two mega deals. This year, we're starting with two mega deals, wins in one quarter. So therefore, in some sense, the DCV bookings led by our large deals is indeed growing much faster than the smaller and medium Ds. It is also true when you keep in the context that the discretionary spends have been weak. And what is number one priority and agenda for our clients is also cost takeout and in some sense that also fuels what they would like to spend in newer areas. So that's basically how I would like to characterize that.

Sure, that's clear. Second question is on capital allocation. You know, the last two payouts after the tax regime change has been in the form of dividends. So have we decisively moved towards the dividend route and is buyback now not in consideration?

We raised our capital allocation policy from 45% to 50% of net income to upwards of 70%. on a three-year basis. And when we did do that, we had communicated that we continue to prefer dividends and buyback as a means of returning cash to our shareholders. For now, in the January quarter and this quarter, we've given out dividends. Buyback continues to remain an option, and we could consider that at an appropriate time.

Sure. Thank you in all the way.

Thank you. Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Nitin Padmanabhan from Investec. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hi, good evening. Good quarter. Parna, I wanted your thoughts on the margins. Now, you did mention that a lot of these deals obviously will have some margin impact. So considering that you'll have an execution of a lot of these deals coming through, Do you believe that current margins can hold on from where it is or how should we sort of think about margins on a going forward basis?

You know, on guide for margins, Nitin, we've had a very good run on operating margin improvement over the last eight quarters. We're very excited with the quantum of deals that we've booked. You know, these deals prove the capability of us you know, winning in large vendor consolidation. In fact, we shared that, you know, nearly a substantial portion of our large deals actually came from our top clients. So we're very happy with the win. Our focus and energy is going to be on conversion, right? A lot of these deals will ramp up over the next four to six quarters. These deals have a good balance of both renewing and an element of expansion. And the expansion will come to ramp up consistently over the next few quarters, right? So all hands on the deck, that will mean we will have to make certain upfront investments. And, you know, these are larger deals and are, like, strongly contested, and therefore the nature of the deals, you know, the margin profile is weaker compared to the rest of the portfolio. So there will be some pressures. You've seen our ability to continuously improve our operating margins. Those operating levers will continue to remain at play. And that's what I can share at the moment.

Sure, fair enough. That's helpful. Thank you so much and all the best.

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

Hey, congrats, Srini. Congrats, Pranav, on good execution. My first question is on the kind of the deals. If you look at the last one year, the areas where we have won the deals, like the deal with the insurance on the claim side, the deal with the telecom player in the US, these are areas where Wipro had traditionally not been very strong or been present. So what tweaks we have made to be able to win deals, which probably traditionally has not been very strong for Wipro. So just trying to understand the initiatives taken around that.

Thanks. Thanks, Gaurav. This is Shini here. Thank you for the question. If you look at what we called out at the beginning of last year, we said we want to be consulting-led and AI-powered. What that meant, Gaurav, is As part of the strategy, we called out five sectors and within those sectors, specific industries where we want to be dominant. So that means we invested in terms of creating domain expertise. Two, like Aparna said, we have won these deals, these mega deals in some of our top clients. We also talked about as part of a strategic priority that we're going to invest into growing our large accounts. So the two strategic priorities that we talked about, followed by the third one where we said we're going to build industry and cross-industry solutions. All the three strategic priorities really helped us to understand what the client was looking at, both in the context of business, in the context of experience that they were looking for their clients, and the way they have to modernize them, and how to leverage AI to bring in efficiency, optimization, and velocity. And so these deals are, for me personally, very exciting, Gaurav. And that's the reason I think we've been able to dominate in some of the deals that we talked about. Of the 16 large deals, two of them were mega deals. One has the potential to be a mega deal. And I talked about the three case studies. And if you look at it, clearly, you know, it has been AI-powered. It has been consulting-led. And it also understands the client's landscape. And we will continue to do more of this, Gaurav, as we move forward. And the last point is also being very proactive in terms of listening to the client and responding to their needs.

Thanks for the detailed answer. Second question on you mentioned last time that there were certain pauses on large projects. You gave example also on SAP project that were paused by the clients. Have you seen any update on that? Have things started to move? And is this part of your guidance?

So, Gaurav, if you look at the overall environment in the context of tariffs, in the context of geopolitics and the economy, I think there are certain sectors which have been really impacted. And we called out... manufacturing, especially automotive and industrial. We also called out retail and CPG, which has a great impact due to over reliance on global supply chain. And one of the projects that I called out last quarter was in one of the sectors and they are still, you know, as you know, tariffs are still being evaluated. So the client has bought from that particular program at this point in time, and they would want to have a complete clarity before they get started. So those kind of projects, Gaurav, are still on hold. And I'm hoping that if things settle down in the next couple of quarters, hopefully the client will come back to reinvest in those transformation programs.

Thank you. Last question on margins. I understand the puts and takes you explained on margins, especially on the large deals of front investment, but fair to say that you aspire to be in the band of around 17% that you had been calling out in the past few quarters, keeping these puts and takes into mind. Thank you.

Certainly that remains a band that is where we would like to operate Goddard But having secured these deals, our focus and priority is going to be to ramp up these deals and execute and deliver them. And therefore, there will be certain investments. So there could be certain quarters where we will have to make those investments. But you're right when you say that 17% to 17.5% ban that we called out earlier remains a ban that we would like to operate in.

Thank you.

Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Surendra Goyal from Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hi. Good evening. So just one question on the deals again. Like how comfortable are you that the 10-odd percent increase on trailing 12-month TCV will translate into a meaningful growth acceleration? And the reason I ask is like in FY23 also, we saw TCV was up 28% year over year. But FY24 and FY25, we saw a revenue decline. And in that context, is it possible to provide any sense on the ACV growth even directionally?

Maybe I'll give my comment and ask Aparna to add to that. First and foremost, if you look at the opening remarks that I made, is that we had a very strong bookings in quarter one. we have a very strong pipeline in quarter two. And I also said that our H2 will be much better than H1. And this confidence comes based on the bookings that we have done and the point that Aparna talked about. We are now staying very focused on execution. Some of these deals will get transitioned and get into steady state anywhere from three months to six months timeframe. So that gives us the confidence to talk about Second off, Surendra, and maybe Aparna, if you want to add something.

Surendra, your observation is right. Sometimes these TCV and ACV have a different growth trajectory given how long a tenor deal keeps getting signed and therefore what impact that has on conversion. The other factor that has come in the way of the conversion has been just the discretionary spend environment and therefore how there have been subsequent leakages on that count. For now, at least the discretionary spend environment seems to have stabilized. One was hopeful perhaps that at the start of this calendar year that it would improve, but for the moment, I think the way we are looking at this financial year is it's going to be stable. If we keep that assumption in mind, you should be able to see a much better conversion of some of these bookings into revenues, Surendra, and that's the end of it.

And any comments on ACV growth, even directionally, just for us to understand the trends a little better?

I think the ACV growth this quarter has grown well on a year-on-year basis as well. So this is not coming only on the back of longer-term deals. And we feel fairly confident about these deals.

Sure, and just one clarification.

Things are also quite good.

Yeah. Sure, sure. And just one last question. Capco, you mentioned 6% YOY. Could you share the sequential growth number there?

Thanks. So we're not calling out the sequential growth rate for Capco. It's a part of all the units. One additional point that we had called out in our earnings or in the media interactions today is that we've had a billion dollars of bookings. trailing 12 months, so it should give you a good sense that even into quarter two, we're looking at a good momentum and trajectory as we start the quarter.

Sure, thank you so much.

Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Vibhor Singhal from Nuwama Equities. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking my question and congrats on a solid performance in a very volatile environment. So, Mike, question was again on Capco. I think, as you mentioned, the Capco reported a decent mid-single-digit buy-on-buy growth. So, basically, if you could basically take us through the overall environment that we are looking at. I mean, this is an environment in which the post-tariff uncertainty one in which we have seen a lot of challenges and discretionary spends being put on hold. Capco, by the nature of its business, probably reflects that and still we are seeing good growth. Do you see this basically momentum continuing? Any reasons that you see specifically that we've been able to do well while others might be facing challenges? Any bit of thought on that will be really helpful.

Vibhor, as far as Capco is concerned, just to add to what Aparna talked about in the context of the year-on-year growth and also the billion-dollar booking that Capco did. We have seen Capco growth across the U.S. and APMEA on a year-on-year basis, right? And, you know, growth is driven across insurance, wealth and asset management, and energy, to be very specific where the growth came. Also, there has been a good momentum in both APMEA and LATAM, especially in Brazil, which is actually outside Capco's traditional geographies. So these actually helped us in the context of the growth and opportunities that we see going forward for Capco.

Vibhur, I'm sorry, you're sounding muffled. Yeah, sorry, I meant to ask, is the pipeline also looking good in Capco for the coming quarters?

Yeah, it continues to look good for the coming quarters, Vibhur.

Got it, got it. That's really helpful, Pranav. My second question is basically on the overall, basically the margins front. So I think, again, a solid performance in this despite the revenue decline. So I don't know if you've answered this before. Sorry, I was able to join the call late. But in terms of margins... Going forward, do we expect to maintain the same trajectory of 17% to 18%? Or given the kind of basically resilience that we have shown, there could be a possibility of maybe overshooting that range.

So we don't guide for margins, unlike some of our peers. We have in the past shared that there is an aspirational band of 17% to 17.5%. If you look at quarter one, we've landed somewhere bang in the middle of that band. But looking forward, you know, our focus is going to be conversion of some of these mega deal wins that we've had, large deal wins that we've had. And some of these large deal wins will come with upfront investment and lower margins, right? So there are going to be pressures that are going to get created. We will have to offset them through better operational rigor and a lot of levers that are there at our disposal. But it is going to be a work that's cut out for us. and that's all I can share at the moment with both.

Got it, got it. So just last to follow up on that. So, I mean, with all the headwinds in place of these large deals ramp up and all, we still aspire to maintain our margins in the 17% to 17.5% band range.

You know, I said that, you know, this is what we've delivered in Q1. We've done well in order to improve our profitability. For now, the... you know, our number one priority would be growth. Growth.

And execution. Got it, got it. I was just pushing my luck. Thanks a lot for taking my questions and wish you all the best.

Thank you. Thank you. Next question is from the line of Ravi Menon from Macquarie. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks so much. And congrats on really strong deal, Vincent. I was a little bit confused about the commentary in Americas. You know, you sounded very optimistic about the pipeline there and the strength of demand. But when you went by the industry by industry segment, it didn't really, it sounded more mixed with manufacturing, retail, CPG, all calling out some weakness there. So could you talk a bit about the Americas and then also talk about the decline in Europe this quarter, if that's very temporarily expecting a bounce back there?

Sure, Ravi. Let me take it one at a time. So if you look at the sectors in the US, we have BFSI. And like I said, that BFSI, the current pipeline is very strong and steady. Having said that, in quarter one, we won two mega deals, which are very strategic for us as a client and also for the clients bringing in the power of AI and bringing in the power of our execution capabilities, if you will. So in that context, in the US, BFSI, I see a positive traction. Second is technology and communications, which is another sector of ours. There again, if you look at it, Ravi, we won a large deal, which is likely to be a mega deal. And we are staying focused on that because both Technology clients and also communication clients, they are investing heavy in AI because they want to modernize their current software and platforms, which is one of our core. It's also a strength because it's coming through our engineering domain. That sector will continue to be positive for us. Third, in terms of healthcare, healthcare traditionally in the US played a big role in the payers, providers, and life sciences. and that has continued to grow, and we see that continue to grow. And also some of the industry solutions around payers that we have built actually is resulting in good differentiation and wins for us in the healthcare sector. Fourth, like you rightly said, consumer business has been a challenge. Within consumers, we have retail, CPG, and travel transportation. But if I look at the deal wins in quarter one, Specifically in the retail segment, we have had some good, interesting wins. And I think we are staying close to what's happening in the U.S. economy, how the tariffs will play in, and how this particular business will keep changing or evolving. The last one is energy, manufacturing, and resources. In that, you're right, manufacturing has been slow for us, and we continue to stay focused because especially in the automotive segment, I think we have We have seen the challenges that companies are going through. But we are also looking at opportunities where we can help them in the context of cost takeouts. And that's something that we are quietly discussing with those customers. So that's how the U.S. and the sectors are playing out, Ravi. Now, coming to Europe, right, the pipeline continues to be strong in Europe. And in the BFSI sector, specifically in Europe, we have a good pipeline. And having said that, The large Phoenix deal that we won in quarter four, we are going through the final planning phases. And actually, the revenue will start coming in quarter three. That can give a good momentum for us in Europe. Second, we also are staying focused on some of these deals, which are cost takeouts and vendor consolidation. And we have wins now. We have stories now, we have strength now, we will go back and bring that to bear in Europe. While the market in Europe is definitely uncertain, obviously, we have a good view on what's happening in each of the countries and across the European Union. But what is more important for us is staying focused on those clients and do the turnaround for us in Europe, which has not been great in the last couple of quarters, but I'm very confident With the team that we have put together, the energy and the enthusiasm they're bringing in and the pipeline they have, we'll get there.

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I have a quick question on this restructuring cost of 2.4 billion. This is showing up, I guess, as an unallocated cost in the segmental reporting, right? And whenever we had something like this earlier, there was a detailed footnote explaining what this restructuring was due to and whether we're taking impairment charges. Could you talk a bit about what's restructuring charges, Kota?

The restructuring costs pertain to restructuring in Europe that we did. This is very limited to a few associates in Europe, and this is one-off in nature and unlikely to recur. And you're right, it is a part of the reconciling items, and it's part of our EPS and our net incomes.

Thanks so much, best of luck.

Thank you. Thank you. Next question is from the line of Manik Taneja from Access Capital. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you for the opportunity and once again, congratulations on some of the internals that you've shown. I had a question with regards to some of the challenges that we've seen in Europe while the Phoenix large deal will help us and possibly you're talking about a strong pipeline there. But if you could talk about some of the customer specific challenges that you've had in Europe over the course of last several quarters. Are they largely behind us? That's question number one. The second thing is that while we continue to essentially defend our business within our top customers and which also reflects in the revenue performance within top customers, but our client metrics seem to essentially convey some sort of a weakness. If you could just elaborate as to what may be causing that. Those would be our two questions.

Sure, Manik. You know, in Europe, we have said that it's a combination of both the macroeconomic environment, the discretionary spend environment, and a few client-specific challenges. Client-specific challenges are now behind us. You know, to say when would Europe bottom out and start performing? We do feel confident that in the second half of this financial year, we should start seeing some stabilization and growth in Europe. One, certainly because of the Phoenix deal win. Also because we feel some of these client-specific issues are behind us. More to be done. More is desired. I think Shani has spoken about a good pipeline. We will continue to remain focused on converting those pipelines and also remaining very close to our top clients in that region. What was your second question, Manik? Can you just remind me?

I was also trying to simply probe you with regards to our client metrics performance.

Yeah, I now recollect your question. Yes, in some sense, if you look at the total number of active clients that has come down over a period of time, again, reflects discretionary spending environment. There's nothing strategic or intentional that we're doing in order to reduce any number of clients. But it's also a very, very, you know, we continue to also win, you know, the hunting logos, right? The big circle accounts where we would like to expand. That's something that we are doing. And we will continue to accelerate that momentum. But we are also investing a lot in our large accounts. And in some sense, you should look at our greater than $50 million accounts. They've actually grown quarter on quarter. We should continue to see momentum in what we call as metal accounts. And you will see that performance reflected there.

Sure. Thank you and all the best in the future.

Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Kumar Rakesh from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Hi, good evening and thank you for taking my question. I have just one question, more of a clarification. So it seems like on margin earlier when you used to talk about that it will be in a narrow band, you seem to be focusing more on driving top line growth. Earlier, she had talked about that the priority would be on profitable growth, and you have spoken about that the second half performance would be stronger than first half. Will you say that would also be reflecting in the bottom line growth as well? Will that also be better than the first half?

We don't guide for either the full year revenues or the profits, right? Yes, in the last few quarters, we've been talking about narrowband. In the last eight quarters, we've consistently improved our margins, and we've also created a good runway for us to invest back into our business. And the deals that we have secured are in our large client relationships, and they will need certain investments that we will have to make up front. And we will go ahead and focus on growth and execution. Eventually, yes, this will result in profitable growth.

Got it. Thanks, Aparna, for that. The only reason I was trying to ask this question was to understand what could be the bottom four margin if you're investing. Is there something you would want to put on? We have seen during this period earlier periods when we were focusing on driving growth, margin had even fallen to 15% sort of a level. So is there a scenario in which for a few quarters we could see similar contraction in margin by ramping up the deal and hence could have an impact?

Right now we're not sharing any commentary on that. You know, like I said, we will now focus on this execution. We are in a good place as far as margins are concerned in Q1. We will take it from there and we will certainly keep the market posted. as some of these deals will start to ramp up, what we are able to offset, how we are able to look at some of those pressures being offset, and then we will keep you posted accordingly.

Sure, that would be good. Thanks, Rapan.

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

Yeah, hi, Suni Aparna. Congrats on a good quarter and a strong deal win. First question, on the deal and strength compared to the long-term trend line of mix between NECMO deals and renewals, has this quarter seen any material divergence maybe in terms of skew towards renewals?

No, I don't think so. In fact, we have a good mix of both renewal and with an element of expansion in both the mega deal wins that we spoke of. One large deal where we have a potential to make it mega has a substantial portion of new in it. So I think when you look at overall large deals, I think the mix of renewal and new is quite evenly poised. And in some sense, we're excited about the booking.

Sure, Panna. So it is similar to what we had seen in the previous few quarters, right?

So Sudhir, just to re-emphasize on the excitement that Aparna is talking about, these are all global companies. These are companies where we have a footprint. So the good news is that we have secured our current book of work and now we are getting a new book of work. The focus for us is how do we maximize the new book of work and we are working through the planning process and we will stay focused on executing those deals. And it's a It's a very, very intense focus on execution and delivering to our clients.

Got it, sir. And in your presentation, you mentioned that decisionary funds are coming back in pockets, even if it is not in a uniform fashion. So can you elaborate on which pockets are those, which specific geographies and verticals apart from the BFSI which you spoke about?

broadly if you look at it the discretionary spend is coming around data AI and modernization and to just give you a little bit of a color around that for example you know we have won a deal where we are transforming of you know for a particular retailer we call it as fashion intelligence right now AI will know what to sell and this is the a large American fashion brand. They want to enhance the sales by identifying and optimizing 40 product features per item. So how do you display these features, right? Whether it's in terms of the differentiation of the product, intelligently extracting and analyzing the impact on the market performance and also helping their sourcing team on the strategic product decisions that they have to take to buy it. So that's one example of a discretionary spend, which is, of course, integration of data and AI. So similarly, one of the financial services companies, we are working with them on the power of intelligent automation, what we call it as smart credit decision. This is, right now, the client has a lot of manual credit risk operations. They are looking at it and how can we make this more AI so that it is less error-prone and also it's more accurate, right, so that they can disrupt the existing workflows. So these are the projects that are very important, need of the business, and that's where discretion is spent. I talked about entirely two different sectors, but those are the, just to give you a context around that, Sudhir.

Got it, sir. Thank you and all the very best.

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Sandeep Shah from Equitous Securities. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks for the opportunity and congrats on deal wins action. The first question is, when we say when we execute these mega deals, there could be a margin pressure because of the upfront investments. So, wanted to understand the nature of the investment and the margin pressure. Is it more cooperative pricing because our EBIT margin is already lower than versus most of the other peers. So, just wanted to understand. And second, these deals also involve some amount of higher pass through sales or these are normal traditional type of deals.

So, Sandeep, first and foremost, none of the deals have the pass. Second, When Aparna said that we have to invest into these deals, this is the time for us to do the planning process. Because let's say when there is a vendor consolidation, the kind of teams that we need to put together, both in terms of program management, program delivery, and thought management, and so on and so forth, you've got to get the talent first, get them also acclimatized, the customer's environment, and the process that they do. So these are all the investments that Aparna is talking about. Nothing to do with the past, Sandeep.

Okay. And any comment on pricing? Are you believing the competitive pressure is very high because of macro? Everybody is now behind growth even in the large cap basket.

So, Sandeep, like Aparna said, right, some of these large deal wins are very competitive. There will be price pressures on that. What matters is, you know, How do you transition and how do you execute these deals? And if you look at the current demand environment, I would say that each of these deals are extremely strongly contested. What's good news is that we have won despite that competition. And this is how the industry has always functioned. So we and everybody has to innovate. We have to generate more savings and continue to stay competitive.

Okay. And Aparna, you also mentioned we have to offset this with the new levers and you believe there are more levers. So can you elaborate on the same? Because your margin execution has been really excellent, which has juiced out headroom in many of the margin levers. So what are the pending levers which you believe can help you to offset some of these pressures?

I think productivity and fixed price programs, they continue to be a theme. I know we talk about it all the time, but with the newer technology, with a lot of AI focused, the productivity that we can drive is certainly a big lever. Secondly, even as we speak, there is margin improvement that we can make in some of our acquired entities and businesses as You know, they go from strength to strength. There will be improvement in margins that they are all executing to. Thirdly, if I had to look at it, we are continuing to optimize our GNA. Again, on the back of AI, on the back of a lot of process efficiencies that we are driving, that will continue to be a focus of simplification and reducing the number of layers. These have remained something that we continue to focus on some of those levers. Apart from this, the traditional focus will remain utilization we've invested in. Maybe we will need to continue to invest in utilization for a little bit more. But there are other factors like freshers hiring, rotation, pyramid optimization, all of which become easier as we grow and win more programs. And that's also something that will continue to operate as a And over and about that, you know, forex is something that has traditionally helped. That's something that is not within our control. But that is always something that has played out in the past as well.

Thank you and all the best.

Thank you. Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Ashwin Mehta from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. So Srini, in terms of the competition that you've won these deals against, who were the incumbents here? Was it largely the Indian providers or these were mostly MNCs?

Ashwin, I never talk about competition or name them. All I can tell you, Ashwin, is these were well-fought deals. very satisfying at the end of the day, Ashwin.

Okay, thanks. And just one follow-up. So given our commentary that Capco is growing at around 6-odd percent from a YOY perspective, the BFSI portfolio X of Capco seems to have declined by 6-7%. So what is exactly driving that? Is it largely ramp downs at clients? Is it some share loss? So any color here?

I think these are largely ramp downs that have happened. We have spoken about even within BFSI, I think America is much stronger. Asia Pacific has also had a much stronger growth in BFSI. The weakness is also largely emanating from Europe. And, you know, we are very confident based on the deal wins and the bottoming out of some of the client-specific issues that we can look to stability and growth. You know, Shini has spoken about two mega deal wins in BFSI. Phoenix is certainly in the same space that we had won in Q4. So... So the second half onwards, things look more optimistic. All focus on execution.

Just to follow up, in terms of the restructuring charges that they've taken, are they segment specific or they're across the board in Europe?

They're across the board in Europe and but very contained. The number of employees that would have got impacted because of this is very, very small and not material in the context of the overall business.

Okay. Thanks a lot and all the best.

Yeah. Yes, Shri. We can now close the call.

Yes. So, since we take that as the last... Yeah, I just put a thank you note.

Yeah. Yeah. So 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.

Thank you. On behalf of WIPRO Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines.