Wipro - Earnings Call - Q4 24/25

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Dipak Bohra, Corporate Treasurer and Head of Investor Relations. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Dipak Bohra (Corporate Treasurer and Head of Investor Relations)

Yeah, thank you, Yashasri. Warm welcome to our Quarter Four Financial Year 2025 Earnings Call. We will begin the call with the business highlights and overview by Srini Pallia, our Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, followed by updates on financial overview by our CFO, Aparna Iyer. We also have our CHRO, Saurabh 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 the 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 explained in our detailed filing with the SEC.

Wipro does not undertake any obligation to update the forward-looking statements to reflect events and circumstances after the date of filing. The conference call will be archived, and the transcript will be available on our website. With that, I would like to turn over the call to Srini.

Srini Pallia (CEO)

Thanks, Dipak. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. It's hard to believe that it's already been a year since I took over as CEO. When I look back at these 12 months, I can see clear progress across many areas. We went to mega deals this year. It's a strong sign that our large deal engine is working and continues to expand. Our clients have responded well to our consulting-led, AI-powered industry and cross-industry solutions. This is reflected in the strong growth in top accounts and large deal bookings in FY 2025. We have continued to invest in our people, skilling them for the new AI wave.

Our execution rigor with speed has been acknowledged by clients, and that is reflected in the clear improvement in our client satisfaction scores. We have done all of this while strengthening our margins.

It's a meaningful achievement in the context of such ongoing change. The global industry environment remained uncertain for most of the year, and the recent tariff announcements have only added to that. I've been speaking to clients across sectors to understand how things are playing out on the ground. Even though the underlying demand for tech reinvention remains strong, clients are approaching it more cautiously. In fact, they are focused on cost, speed, and AI-led efficiency, and that's exactly where we are leaning in. We see this as an opportunity to move with purpose, make smart bets, and stay committed to our five strategic priorities.

Driving consistent, profitable growth remains a clear priority for us, and we are focused on making that happen. With that, let's look at our quarter four and FY 2024-2025 performance. All the growth numbers I shared will be in constant currency.

Our IT services revenue for quarter four was $2.6 billion, reflecting a sequential decline of 0.8% and 1.2% on a year-on-year basis. The order booking for quarter four was at $4.0 billion, which is a growth of 13.4% sequentially and 10.5% on a year-on-year basis. Our operating margins came in at 17.5%, which is flat sequentially and 110 basis points expansion on a year-on-year basis. For the full year, IT services revenues were $10.51 billion, reflecting year-on-year degrowth of 2.3%. Our operating margin was at 17.1%, an expansion of almost 1% as compared to FY 2024. Now to our strategic market unit performance.

Americas 1 grew 0.2% sequentially and 6% on a year-on-year basis. Americas 2 degrew 1% sequentially and 1.8% on a year-on-year basis. Europe degrew 2.5% sequentially and 6.9% on a year-on-year basis. APMEA grew 1% sequentially and degrew 4.9% on a year-on-year basis.

Moving on to our industry sector performance, BFSI degrew 0.5% sequentially and grew 0.8% year-on-year. Healthcare degrew 3.1% sequentially and grew 0.1% year-on-year. Consumer degrew 1.3% sequentially and was flat year-on-year. Technology and communication degrew 0.9% sequentially and 1.1% year-on-year. Energy, manufacturing, and resources grew 1.1% sequentially and degrew 7% year-on-year. Capco continues to perform well, growing 6.5% sequentially and 11.5% on a year-on-year basis. Let me now provide an update on our five strategic priorities.

As I mentioned earlier, we have continued to see strong momentum in large deals. In quarter four, we closed 17 large deals with a total value of $1.8 billion across markets and sectors. For the full year, we closed 63 large deals for a total value of $5.4 billion, which is a year-on-year growth of 17.5%. Now, let me highlight two recent wins.

A global technology leader has chosen us for a major five-year transformation program. We will deliver AI-powered end-to-end IT services, completely reshaping the employee experience for 200,000 users across 200 countries. Our solution involves proactive support, intelligent self-service, and personalized digital interactions. My second example is our recent partnership with a leading global food distributor. We are taking over their entire IT infrastructure and corporate applications, which includes HR, finance, and legal systems. We are leveraging AI solutions, and we will drive automation and simplify user interactions.

For our client, this will result in higher efficiency, lower costs, and better user experience. As we all know, AI has been part of deal conversations for a while, but this year, it's become central to almost every opportunity, big or small, helping drive productivity and efficiency. This reflects a broader shift we are seeing across the board.

Let me now move on to large accounts. We continue to focus on our large accounts in our core markets and priority sectors. In quarter four, our top five and top ten accounts grew 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively, on a sequential basis. Let me also share an example that shows our momentum in strategic accounts. In quarter four, a leading Indian private bank expanded our strategic partnership as part of a business-focused digital transformation. We will provide the bank an AI-powered solution to strengthen compliance management and address critical needs for regulatory compliance, in addition to enhancing the overall experience for the bank. Now, this will also help the bank boost operational efficiency and realize its growth ambition across various functions. We continue to create impact for clients through our consulting-led AI-powered industry and cross-industry solutions. This was our third strategic priority we had called out.

In this context, let me talk about a recent win in the aviation sector. A well-known Pacific airline chose us to modernize its crew management and operations systems in quarter four. In fact, we were selected for our proven ability to future-proof clients' IT platform with AI. We will deploy our own TOPS platform to manage end-to-end crew operations, providing a unified, scalable solution that enhances experience and drives sustained operational efficiencies. Alongside all of this, we have put even more focus on client centricity and starting to show results.

Our latest third-party annual customer satisfaction survey clearly shows improvement in overall satisfaction scores and NPS. In fact, I would like to thank our team who have made this possible. As you are aware, we have also realigned our global business lines effective April 1 to better meet our customers' needs.

This change will help us deliver stronger business outcomes for our clients. Finally, and just as important, supporting and growing our global talent has been a top priority all year. You might remember that last quarter, I spoke about our focus on leadership development and how we are building future-ready leaders through our Wipro Leadership Institute. In fact, we have moved our top performers into key client-facing roles to ensure continuity and stability, and we have also launched a sponsorship program to help them succeed. Now, a note on guidance before I wrap up.

Given the uncertainty in the environment, we expect clients to take a more measured approach going forward, especially on large transformation programs and discretionary spending. With this in mind and based on our current visibility, we are guiding for a sequential growth of minus 3.5% to minus

1.5% in constant currency terms.

Let me now turn it over to Aparna for a detailed overview of our financials. Thank you, Aparna, over to you.

Aparna Iyer (CFO)

Thank you, Srini. Good evening and good morning, everybody. Let me share a quick update on our financial performance for the quarter ended 31st March 2025 before we move on to the, and after that, we'll take questions. Our IT services revenue for Q4 sequentially declined by 0.8% in constant currency terms. This is within our guided range. For FY 2025, our IT services revenue declined by 2.3% in constant currency terms. Our rigorous focus on operational improvement has ensured that the margins have steadily improved over the last few quarters.

For Q4, operating margins at 17.5% expanded by 1.1% year-on-year. This brings our FY 2025 operating margin expansion to 0.9%.

As we enter FY 2026, we are faced with headwinds on account of an uncertain macroeconomic environment that is putting a downward pressure on our revenues. Our endeavor would be to maintain these margins in a narrow band in the coming quarters. Our net income grew 6% quarter on quarter in Q4 and 19% for the full year. Our EPS for the full year was at INR 12.6, a growth of 20% year-on-year. We finished the financial year with a free cash flow as a percentage of net income at 118%, which takes our gross cash, including investments, to $6.4 billion.

In Q4, our other income grew by 45% sequentially, and our accounting yield for the average investments held in India was at 7.9%. Our ETR was at 24.3% for Q4 2025, against 26% in Q4 2024. Our hedges continue to be in line with our policy.

We had about $2.4 billion of forex derivative contracts as hedges at the end of Q4 2025. In terms of guidance, to reiterate what was stated by Srini, we expect the revenues from our IT services business segment to be in the range of $2.505 billion-$2.557 billion. This translates to a sequential guidance of negative 3.5% to negative 1.5% in constant currency terms. With that, I turn this over back to the operator for questions.

Operator (participant)

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 Nitin Padmanabhan from Investec. Please go ahead. Mr. Padmanabhan, please check if you're on.

Nitin Padmanabhan (Research Analyst)

Yeah, hi. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity. Srini, just wanted your thoughts on which verticals are you seeing the highest impact at this point in time.

Srini Pallia (CEO)

If you look at. Sorry, Nitin. I was speaking on mute. Hi, Nitin. If you look at the sector-wise view, the way the economic environment has become uncertain on the back of tariff increases, we are seeing this impact not just in the U.S., of course, but also in Europe.

Similarly, we are also seeing across sectors, directly or indirectly, these impacts. Some sectors have been impacted more, like consumer, manufacturing, within manufacturing, specifically automotive and industrial. We are seeing indirect impact on most of the sectors, if you will.

For us, the clients in all the industries are taking a lot more cautious approach at this point in time. They are also doing a scenario planning because they would like to see when this whole thing will settle down before they start making more business decisions. That is how currently it's playing out, Nitin.

Nitin Padmanabhan (Research Analyst)

Okay. How are you seeing BFSI broadly currently in terms of how they are thinking about things, both U.S. and Europe?

Srini Pallia (CEO)

If you look at our results, we have been seeing good traction in BFSI, specifically in the U.S. and in APMEA, and also our Capco business, both in terms of revenue and order book. I think what we faced is headwinds in Europe in the BFSI sectors. The good news is that we have a good pipeline, and there is deal momentum.

Now, obviously, if you look at the kind of deals that we are getting, right, one, we are definitely looking at apps and IT Infrastructure Modernization. There are opportunities around BPS, which is Business Process Services and Cybersecurity. We are also looking at opportunities in consulting, which is a reflection of our Capco business. Also, in some of our solutions, there is asset and wealth management. I think this is a good time the customers are re-looking at how they can leverage AI-powered solutions. We're also looking at insurance platform digitization, also payments, right, which is all around our AI-infused industry solutions.

We are seeing traction around that. What we are doing clearly is that we want to prioritize how Wipro and Capco can come together, bring in more synergies, with Capco being the tip of the spear and Wipro actually executing end-to-end.

I think this is also helping us as we move forward, specifically on the BFSI sector.

Nitin Padmanabhan (Research Analyst)

Right. You are not seeing any specific weakness in the near to medium term here? They continue to spend? You are not seeing any fallback of spending from a BFSI perspective?

Srini Pallia (CEO)

The two perspectives, Nitin. One is, like I said, the pipeline is strong, but the clients are cautious about the spend, especially BFSI, which is discretionary, right? The early signs are they are waiting and watching. Some of the decisions have slowed down, if you will. In case luck would have it, if the uncertainties come down in the next few weeks, we are hoping the clients will start taking decisions on these project opportunities because that is the need of the hour for them.

Nitin Padmanabhan (Research Analyst)

Sure. Perfect. This is very helpful. I will get back in the queue. Thanks, Srini.

Operator (participant)

Thank you.

Srini Pallia (CEO)

Thanks, Nitin.

Operator (participant)

We'll take our next question from the line of Abhishek Kumar from JM Financial. Please go ahead.

Abhishek Kumar (Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah. Hi. Good evening. Thanks for taking my question. Srini, first of all, congratulations on good deal wins in a difficult environment. My question is on deal-to-revenue conversion. If we look at our book-to-bill over the last two years, it has been consistently, at least on an LTM basis, about 1.3 times. It has not really translated into revenue growth. If we add to that better performance in Capco, where the conversion would be even better, looks like X of Capco, the conversion is quite soft. I just wanted to understand what exactly has driven this poor conversion so far. Is it cancellations? Is it lower ATV growth because of longer tenure?

Which of these two do you think going forward might change for us to build some sort of growth given improved deal wins?

Aparna Iyer (CFO)

Abhishek, as you know, the booking to revenues is very difficult to correlate within core quarters because the timing differs from deal to deal. For example, the large deal that we have secured in Q4 that we announced will take some time for it to ramp up. There is a schedule that's signed off with the client, and there's work to be done before for us to be able to start that. There will be some timing gap that will always be there in case of some of these large deal wins that we've had. You're right. Consistently, we've won more, and that is adding to revenue, even with, let's say, a deferred timing.

What gets reflected in the revenue is also some of the rundowns that happen as a result of lower discretionary spends and project spend going down, right? We need to win more. We need to fill that bucket a lot more for us for it to start reflecting in net revenue growth. That's how I would characterize it. We're happy with the way the engine has started to crank. With the same momentum that persists on large deals, if the medium and small-sized deals also come back into the fray, I think you will see a pickup in revenue growth.

Abhishek Kumar (Equity Research Analyst)

Sure. Maybe a quick follow-up there. Do you think those rundowns, which are client-specific, are now largely behind us, and therefore it is just a matter of timing before these deals start to reflect in revenues?

Srini Pallia (CEO)

Abhishek, let me give you some kind of a commentary on what we saw. If you look at it, we started quarter four on a positive note, but gradually during the quarter, the sentiments turned negative. I think this is because of tariff hike and anticipation around that, and it did have a cascading impact on this. Now, to me, this has definitely impacted our revenue growth momentum across sectors and markets. One example I can tell you is we were doing a large SAP program, which was very critical for the client, and this was in the consumer sector.

When the client heard about the tariff situation, they were bang in the middle of that, and they put the whole program on pause, not because they do not want to do the program, but they wanted to understand, get the certainties of the tariff situation.

That's one good example I can give where the program has been put on hold. Also, in Europe, some of the clients have slowed down transformation projects. It's not that they've paused it, but they said, "We can re-look at the timelines at this point in time." Also, we did see several instances of volume drop in some of our existing accounts, and maybe because some of them are because of the delay in initiating the projects, and some also there was an impact of rundowns. The way I see it is that this is a transitional phase, and hopefully, and obviously, I can't predict how the tariff situation, the macroeconomic will turn out, but this will gradually stabilize.

I think as an organization, what we are doing is we are working with the clients and understanding their scenario planning and trying to actually pivot to the way they are looking at how the business is coming next. I think that's most important for each and every employee of Wipro: sense and respond to the client situation.

Abhishek Kumar (Equity Research Analyst)

That's helpful. Thank you and all the best.

Srini Pallia (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Manik Taneja from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.

Manik Taneja (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you for the opportunity. Srini, basically, just wanted to pick your brains on two things. Number one, we've continued to see pressure in Europe through the course of the last several quarters. It would be great to get your perspective as to what's driving that.

The second related question to that, essentially, is that similarly on a segmental margin standpoint as well, while Capco has recovered, we've seen no improvement in terms of the segmental margins for the European geography. If you could talk about what's driving the margins here. Thank you.

Srini Pallia (CEO)

Sure. I think the Europe question, maybe I'll leave the margin situation to Aparna, Manik. Now, let me talk about this, right? I think your observation is right. If you look at our revenues for last year on a full-year basis, America has actually grown 1.2%, and it is Europe which has shown a degrowth. In fact, Aparna had degrowth, but in quarter four, they actually turned sequentially positive. Now, the situation at Europe, we have a new leadership team. Second, we have a very strong pipeline of deals.

Three, we just won a large deal, Phoenix Deal, which you are aware of, and that deal will start kicking off in a few months from now as per the contract term. Net-net, if you stay focused on the deals that we have on the table, which I think the entire European leadership team is currently focused on, we should be able to look at a positive momentum in Europe in the next coming quarters.

Aparna Iyer (CFO)

Manik, can you repeat your question on margins?

Manik Taneja (Equity Research Analyst)

Aparna, my question on margins was that during second half of FY 2023, we started to face some pressure in Capco. We blamed some of the margin decline that we saw in the European geography also because of the drag from Capco. Through the course of recent quarters, Capco has been doing quite well, but there has been no recovery in segmental margins for Europe.

If you could dwell into what's causing that. The last one, if I may just clarify, on the executive board refresh, if you could talk about where are we in that journey? Are we essentially done with most of the organizational changes?

Aparna Iyer (CFO)

Your question is not very clear. I think the question that you asked on margins was that Capco may have been a drag on Europe margins, and therefore how they're rebounding. In some sense, I think Capco has been doing well from the standpoint of its growth and bookings, and there has been a lift-off in the margins as well. Overall, they are doing much better, even from an operating margin performance. At least in Q4, they've done very, very solid performance.

In that context, yes, Europe margins have also been impacted by some of the other rundowns that we've seen and the non-Capco part of the business.

Manik Taneja (Equity Research Analyst)

Sure. In any sense on when do we start to see some of these pressures recede?

Aparna Iyer (CFO)

In Europe, you will note that we have actually won a very large deal, and that should start ramping up through the course of the year, especially towards the second half. Therefore, you will see a bounce back then. We also have a solid pipeline that we think we can close between now and September, and that should also then add.

Manik Taneja (Equity Research Analyst)

Sure.

Operator (participant)

Does that answer your question, Mr. Taneja?

Manik Taneja (Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah. Thank you. I'll get back in the queue.

Operator (participant)

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

Vibhor Singhal (Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks for taking my question. Two questions from my side. Srini, on the overall macro weakness that you have spoken about, can you give a bit of color as to, I'm sorry, I was disconnected for a part in that call, to highlight that some part of the weakness is also responsible for the slightly lower growth that we reported in this quarter. Given that we are exiting FY 2025 on a negative, I mean, on a decline, and we would be entering FY 2026 also on a negative note, is there a possibility that we would be able to report a positive growth in FY 2026, or FY 2026 also is likely to be a year of revenue decline, just like FY 2025 was. I have a follow-up for Aparna.

Srini Pallia (CEO)

Wipro, first and foremost, as you know, we do not give a full year.

Operator (participant)

I'm sorry to interrupt, sir. You are on mute mode, I believe.

Srini Pallia (CEO)

Sorry. Yeah. Sorry. Wipro, first and foremost, as you know, we do not give a full year guidance. Having said that, the recent developments, especially the macroeconomic situation, the tariff situation, we are, like I said, keeping a very close watch on how the situation is evolving and how our clients are responding to that or reacting to that. At this stage, our quarter one guidance represents the best visibility we have. We will share all the updates coming quarters as we get clarity on the situation. Also, if you look at what Aparna said on the Phoenix Deal we announced in quarter four, this is actually expected to ramp up starting hits through. That will help uplift our revenues.

Vibhor Singhal (Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Got it. The initial part of the question was, was there any weakness also felt in this quarter also because of which we came towards close to the lower end of the guidance for Q4?

Srini Pallia (CEO)

Yeah, Wipro, if you look at the last few weeks, right, and you've seen the economic environment, you've seen many of the analysts and how they've been forecasting. From January to February to March, there's a drastic change in terms of how the industry has been looked at, right? To me, this impact of tariffs, obviously, is not just U.S., but also in Europe, right? Again, it's not just in a few sectors, but across sectors. The only difference is certain sectors are seeing direct impact, certain sectors are seeing indirect impact. The ones I called out are consumer, manufacturing, especially automotive and industrial.

We have seen a direct impact of the customers. Obviously, they're looking at their cash position, they're looking at how to reduce the cost, and they're also looking at significant scenario planning because they have the manufacturing plants globally and in the context of tariffs, and these products move, components move from country to country and so on and so forth. They're holding back on any further investment. I think that's what we are seeing from our side as well.

Vibhor Singhal (Equity Research Analyst)

Of course. Of course. Sure. Thank you so much for answering my questions. Just one follow-up for Aparna. Aparna, I think margins have remained quite resilient through the year.

For the next year and going forward, I'm looking at you mentioned that we are expecting margins to remain in a narrow band.

In terms of, let's say, the growth not being strong in FY 2026, given the kind of headwinds that we are seeing on a macro level, do you see a risk to the margins from current levels on an overall year? Conversely, if growth were to return, especially in the distributing trend in the second half, we also have the— Wipro?

Operator (participant)

I'm sorry to interrupt. Wipro? Your voice is not very clear. Can you repeat the question and use your handset mode, please?

Vibhor Singhal (Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah. Sorry. Am I audible now?

Operator (participant)

Yes. Please go ahead.

Vibhor Singhal (Equity Research Analyst)

I'm so sorry for that. Aparna, just a question on the margins. As you mentioned, the margins have been remaining in a very narrow range from current levels.

I just wanted to check if, let's say, the growth in FY 2026 is weak, and if it turns from a decline front, then do you think the margins could be under pressure because of that as well? Conversely, if decision is when it's hard to pick up, let's say, two quarters down the line in H2, we also have the Phoenix Deal ramping up revenue for us, would that mean that we could basically have a good jump up in the margins and possibly some payments which could take it to the higher level? What are those levels that you're looking at?

Aparna Iyer (CFO)

Wipro, very difficult to say which way the revenues are going to go. I think what I heard is if the revenue environment continues to be bad, will we continue to hold margins, right?

Now, the reality is there will be pressure on margins as we start Q1. There are two headwinds. One, cause of a weak revenue environment. Two, that of a lot of deals that we've spoken about, which are a part of our pipeline, are actually cost takeout and vendor consolidation deals, which inherently come with a pricing pressure, and therefore are also very competitively fought. We will prioritize growth, we will prioritize the fact that we would like to invest in our clients, and therefore that will become priority, and therefore these two are headwinds. Like I said, our end of it would be to keep the margins in a narrow band.

It is a huge task given the kind of guidance we have given for Q1, but all hands on the deck. What can be the levers?

The levers will go back to everything that we have done up until so far to get to 17.5%, which will include making sure that our bench costs are managed tightly, making sure we are driving higher productivity in our fixed price programs, making sure we continue to optimize and cut down on some of the fixed spends that we have as the business comes down. Those are things that we've done without cutting into the muscle, without cutting into S&M. That's been our journey so far. We will only have to accelerate it. We do not guide for margins. The end of it is going to be to keep it at least in narrow band in the coming quarters, and then from there, we will see.

Vibhor Singhal (Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Thank you so much for taking my questions, and wish you all the best.

Aparna Iyer (CFO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

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

Kumar Rakesh (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi. Good evening. Thank you for taking my question. My first question, for a minute, I assumed that I didn't know about the macroeconomic issues and would have looked at the numbers that you have reported just as on. Your headcount on a sequential basis has increased quarter on quarter after a couple of quarters of decline. Your total bookings and large deal wins are pretty strong in the quarter, and Capco, which is quite discretionary focused, reported pretty solid growth in the quarter.

I would have expected that the next quarter would see a decent growth. In contrast to that, the guidance that you have given at the midpoint implies that you would see one of the lowest growths outside of COVID period, probably.

What is incrementally that you're looking at, which is giving you this, which is essentially making your guidance to be that weak? Are there specific rundowns that you're looking at? There are volume declines that you are building into that assumption. If you can give some more granular details, essentially, what specifically is pulling down this guidance?

Aparna Iyer (CFO)

There are two aspects. I will go first, and then Srini, you can add. Clearly, we've spoken about how there is some uncertainty in the macroeconomic environment that's playing out. While Capco has printed strong numbers for Q4, there is, and in some things, they've also witnessed gains in market share, etc., right? They put on a solid performance. The macroeconomic environment will impact other sectors that we spoke about, including consumer, manufacturing, where we are seeing some softness.

The other part of, from a market unit standpoint, for us, Europe, the weakness in Europe is likely to continue into Q1. Hopefully, from there, we look at how to build on the momentum on the back of some of these large deal wins that we've had both in Q4 and in Q1, Rakesh.

Srini Pallia (CEO)

Rakesh, maybe if I could add a few more points here. Based on my client conversations, right, a few things I'm noticing. One is large transformation projects, programs, one of them I talked about, are getting paused or being delayed or kind of changing the schedules. Second, while the clients have the budgets, they want to review it, post the certainty, or at least understand where the situation will end up. One of the things that I constantly see, especially in the industries that have direct influence, there are cost pressures.

I definitely think the demand for tech-driven efficiencies and cost will continue. That is the kind of pipeline that we are seeing, which is also how you help the clients bring in more efficiency, automation, and of course, GenAI. The point that Aparna made in the previous question is around vendor consolidation, tailwind consolidation, so on and so forth. The good news is that right now, the pipeline is strong. I think that is good news. This is, again, evenly distributed both in terms of large deals and also small deals.

I can tell you, while Europe has gone soft, has been soft for us, I see a good pipeline there across sectors. I think the focus for us has to be closing those deals quickly, which could translate to revenue, hopefully, the next few quarters, if you will.

Net net, the situation is compared to COVID, this situation is very different. The situation is not that the client businesses are going to stop. The situation here is how does tariffs impact the customer's business in the context of the cost, price, and consumer demand. I think that's what they're trying to wait and watch and see before they take decisions.

Kumar Rakesh (Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks for that, Aparna and Srini. My second question was if I step back and take a little longer-term view on the full year performance and the recent history. This is the second year in which we are seeing the revenue decline. Looking at where we would be exiting this year, the first quarter, even if for the rest of the year you grow, you would most likely will see a revenue decline in FY 2026 as well.

There is a high likelihood that we would end up with three years of revenue decline. The first quarter revenue would be back to where it was, the quarterly revenue back where it was four years back. While I'm aware of the five criteria, the five focus areas that you are working on, and we have started seeing progress on those areas, what do you think is the problem that essentially is ailing that we are consistently underperforming and likely to continue to underperform for the next few quarters?

Srini Pallia (CEO)

Sure. I think it's a good question. I can tell you that it was obviously for us, FY 2025 was a mixed year. We also made progress on a few fronts.

If you double-click on the revenues, while we have degrown 2.3% in FY 2025, I'll definitely call out Americas, which contributes close to 63% of our revenue. That piece of the business has grown 1.2% in FY 2025. The second piece of the business, which is APMEA, it has actually degrown 9%, but the region has recovered in the second half of the year and delivered a growth of 1% in quarter four sequentially. Europe, like called out, has been a challenge for us. It has degrown 7% year on year and 2.5% sequentially in quarter four. Our focus has been to stabilize and bring this region back to growth trajectory. To this end, we had new leadership.

The leadership has come together, and we are seeing it as far as the traction on the ground is concerned.

The good example is Phoenix Deal that we have closed, which will help us get some momentum on the revenue side, if not next quarter, second half of the year, like I said. What is the important thing that I want to call out is our deal pipeline in Europe. That is very encouraging to me. We have a good opportunity for us to stabilize and also bring growth back in Europe. Essentially, the problem statement is Europe and how Europe will turn around, which will have an overall impact on Wipro's performance.

Kumar Rakesh (Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks a lot, Srini, for that.

Operator (participant)

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

Gaurav Rateria (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi. Thank you for taking my question. I have a couple of them. Just first question for Srini, what exactly your guidance assumes with respect to normalization of the environment? Is it that the environment remains tough throughout the quarter is what your assumption is, or do you expect that to normalize over the coming weeks, and some bit of that reflects in improving growth over the coming months? May not be start of the quarter, but back half of the quarter.

Srini Pallia (CEO)

Gaurav, I'm talking to someone who is on a daily basis looking at what's happening in the macro environment. Maybe I should ask you offline this particular question. Clearly, in the context of the guidance we are given for quarter one, we have factored in assumptions both in the lower end and upper end of the guidance.

Our guidance for quarter one that we are given is based on the best visibility, both in terms of revenue and what we have seen currently, right? However, the upper end of the guidance is if we see the improvement in the demand situation from where we are today. The lower end of the guidance will obviously have to factor in a worsening of the demand environment. We are somewhere in between that, Gaurav. I do not have a crystal ball to say when this whole uncertainty will become certain. All of you have how you are forecasted from January to February to March.

It has never happened before. Even during the COVID crisis, we did not see the analysts coming back and changing the forecast so rapidly in three months and few weeks.

I'm only hoping for the best-case scenario, which will impact our higher end of the guidance, worst-case scenario, which will be at the lower end of the guidance. That's the best way I can answer your question, Gaurav.

Gaurav Rateria (Equity Research Analyst)

Sure, Srini. Thank you so much for that transparency and explanation. My second question is on the TCV that you report, the total TCV minus the TCV. If you look at that number on a trailing 12 months, it's down by around 13%-14% year over year. Is this the reason why the conversion of order book into revenue gets impacted? Because these deals convert into revenue much faster than your larger deals. Of course, you're doing great in the large deals, but that takes time to convert into revenue. This immediately flows into and correlate that this part of the business is driving a weaker conversion ratio?

Aparna Iyer (CFO)

If you look at our overall booking, we closed the full year with $14.3 billion of booking. In some sense, that is a down year on your quarter. If you look at our large deals, which is something that we've been categorically wanting to improve, have gone up. You're right that the deals that are there in the smaller and medium-sized bucket are not growing fast enough, and our bookings are largely coming through the large deals. To that extent, now whether that has direct correlation with do larger deals take longer to convert, either we do smaller deals, will they come into the conversion much faster? That's just conjecture.

I don't think there is an analysis or there is a causal effect to that extent. Yes, if that also starts to grow, it will have an impact on our overall revenue growth.

Gaurav Rateria (Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Last question for you, Aparna. Just trying to understand that when revenues actually decline, it has an impact on the utilization rate, which could be a possibility in one queue. Let's say if you were to maintain margins in a narrow band, what would be the underlying assumption for utilization rate? Should it be fair to believe that utilization has to be around 87-88% in the current to hold on to margins in a narrow band? Thank you.

Aparna Iyer (CFO)

There are,

Operator (participant)

Yeah. Go ahead, please.

Aparna Iyer (CFO)

Gaurav, there are several levers at play, and utilization is one of them. Certainly, utilization needs to improve or at least sustain, even though in a weaker revenue environment, that's what we will be focused on.

There are other levers at play that I spoke about: fixed price productivity, further cuts in our G&A, overhead rationalization, improvement in other programs that we are driving from a standpoint of how we're looking at profitability. There are many levers at play, with utilization being one of them, Gaurav.

Gaurav Rateria (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you so much.

Operator (participant)

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

Surendra Goyal (Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks a lot. Srini, just one question. Your sales and marketing spend in USD terms is down high single-digit YOY in FY 2025 at a time when you continue to lose market share versus peers. Do you think anything needs to be done differently here, or do you think you are doing enough, investing enough for this to be able to drive the catch-up with peers on growth rates? Thank you.

Aparna Iyer (CFO)

I think, Surendra, you've got to look at our S&M even year on year. I think that's a good reflection. Quarter on quarter, there could be certain noises that could impact. I must tell you that from an employee compensation standpoint, there is no change in the S&M, right? A lot of what we are doing is rationalization of maybe more G&A kind of roles, right? There, again, we are looking only at those roles that are by design need to operate from India. Therefore, if they're not client-facing and in high-cost geographies, we've cut them down.

You can be rest assured that we're not cutting down on S&M, especially from a sales standpoint. In fact, we are going ahead and investing in our people in the cross-industry and industry solutions and in AI. Srini, you want to add?

Srini Pallia (CEO)

Yeah, sure. Just to add, Surendra, to what Aparna said, first and foremost, right, we continue to invest in sales and marketing and the strategic areas that we talked about, whether it's consulting, whether it's AI-powered investments around innovation, and so on and so forth. We are investing for growth. I want to be very clear on that aspect of it. However, we have created design principles where if the roles are not client-facing, roles that can be done from homes, it does not necessarily make sense for them to be sitting there. We are moving such roles to low-cost. Either it could be in Europe, Latin America, or India, depending on where it is coming from.

That is what has reflected, Surendra. Let me be very clear.

If we have to be consulting-led, AI-powered Wipro for the industry segments where we are going to prioritize on, we are going to go full throttle on growth in those segments and investments, sorry.

Surendra Goyal (Equity Research Analyst)

Understand. You think you are doing enough. I get the point. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Ankur Rudra from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Ankur Rudra (Equity Resear Analyst)

Hey, thank you. Thanks for the guidance as well. Can you elaborate a bit on the extent of the rampdowns, cancellations, delays you mentioned? That has happened only in the last two weeks since the tariffs came out. How much of this is fresh? Is that what you're building into both ends of your guidance now?

Aparna Iyer (CFO)

Our guidance digs in the current visibility that we have, Ankur, at the moment.

It certainly reflects the macroeconomic environment and the visibility that we have in terms of the spend that our clients will make with us. In some sense, it factors, like Srini said, those uncertainties as well. As you know, we guide in a range, and that gives you a good perspective of what we're looking at for the quarter.

Ankur Rudra (Equity Resear Analyst)

Right. I just want to dig in a bit deeper to your previous answer where you spoke about if macro improves at the upper end, if macro does not improve at the lower end. I was wondering how much of that has changed in the last two weeks.

Srini Pallia (CEO)

Ankur, from our perspective, I think after the pause for 90 days on the tariffs, I think there's a little bit of stability that we have seen.

That is, I think, reflecting on the last two weeks that you are talking about, Ankur. We do not know what we do not know at this point in time, how this will play out, especially with China on the tariff side. It is a little difficult to predict. Just to repeat what I said and again what Aparna said, right? Based on the best visibility in terms of revenues that we have, we are giving the upper end of the guidance, assuming the demand situation from where it is today will stabilize and improve, and the lower end if it worsens further.

Ankur Rudra (Equity Resear Analyst)

Okay. Understood. Just talking a bit about AI, can you talk a bit about how AI-related productivity passbacks or deflation might be playing into your contract renewals?

If you are proactively infusing AI gains into your existing deals, does that put existing TCV numbers at risk?

Srini Pallia (CEO)

At this point in time, Ankur, I'm not seeing any significant impact either on revenues or margins, right? What we are doing is whatever benefits of GenAI that are applicable to our customers, right? In many of the cases, some of the times the customer's budgets are getting freed up. We are actually using GenAI and also getting some incremental work done for the same customer. That could also offset some of the revenue drops you're talking about.

What is important to call out is while we continue to infuse GenAI into managed services deals and also the managed services opportunities that currently exist with our existing clients, we're also leveraging GenAI to actually look at a completely new revenue stream.

That is for us part of changing the game, leveraging GenAI. It is not just operating better or developing better for the clients on GenAI, but also changing the game for them. That is an exciting piece if you ask me. I can just, for example, we just announced a partnership with NVIDIA on Sovereign AI, right? We did this collaborating with them, and we announced the SIAM.AI in Thailand. This is something which is very new, which has a huge impact on the tourism industry, starting with Thailand. It could get replicated across countries. That is one good example I can talk about.

Another example, Ankur, just leveraging GenAI, one of the large cities in Europe, we are actually doing, as part of the smarter city, we are doing predictive maintenance of the critical infrastructure, right? That is very interesting, very high-end kind of work.

In fact, we got these AI agents, actually the physical agents I'm talking about, going and looking at aging of the pipes that are there, ground situations, and so on and so forth. Everything is AI-based, and this is AI-based problem detection, right? Also, the end benefit for the city is preventive maintenance of the water pipelines, for example. This is also going to help the city in terms of reducing the manual inspection and, of course, the overall maintenance cost. These are the great examples, Ankur, that I'm seeing where GenAI can give us new opportunities for growth.

Ankur Rudra (Equity Resear Analyst)

Yes. Thank you. Just last question. Yeah. If I can just squeeze in one last question. You had mentioned success in your large accounts.

If I look at the client metrics for the last several quarters, and especially this quarter, it is across sizes, whether it is $100 million down to $10 million, there has been an element of softness. Could you clarify how much of this is from FX versus client losses or cuts in discretionary spending?

Aparna Iyer (CFO)

Yeah. If you look at the number of $50 million clients that we have, they broadly remain the same. We have said, we have mentioned that our top clients, our top five, our top ten, they are all growing. In fact, even in Q4 of 2025, on a year-on-year constant currency basis, all three have grown. The number of clients, active clients that we are seeing going down is just a reflection of the overall revenue environment and the lower discretionary spend.

Ankur Rudra (Equity Resear Analyst)

Appreciate it. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today.

I would now like to hand the conference back to Mr. Dipak Bohra for closing comments. Over to you, sir.

Dipak Bohra (Corporate Treasurer and Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you all for joining the call. In case we could not....

Operator (participant)

I'm sorry, sir. You're not audible. Ladies and gentlemen, we've lost the management connection. We request you to stay connected, please.

Dipak Bohra (Corporate Treasurer and Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you all for joining the call. In case we could not take any questions due to time constraints, please feel free to reach out to the investor relations team. Have a nice evening. Thank you so much.

Operator (participant)

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.