IT company Wipro on June 3 touched the Rs 3 lakh crore mark in market capitalisation (market cap) for the first time in its history, making it the third Indian IT firm after Infosys and TCS to attain the feat. The company stock hit an all-time high of Rs 550 per-share in early trade, increasing by 1.27% against the previous close of Rs 543.05 on the BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange), with the market cap rising to Rs 3.01 lakh crore. The share had slumped to a 52-week low of Rs 206.40 on June 12, 2020.
The stock rose on Thursday after news that the company had invested $1.2 million in SaaS (software as a service) startup Squadcast as part of a partnership to provide IT incident response and site reliability engineering services. Under the deal, which is expected to be completed before June 30, Wipro will buy a strategic minority stake of less than 20% in Squadcast. The IT firm recently sold its entire stake in Denim Group for a consideration of $22.4 million (about Rs 160 crore), which also stoked positive sentiment for the stock.
Wipro touched the Rs 1 lakh crore mark in December 2009 and then it took almost 11 years to hit the Rs 2 lakh crore mark in October last year. The firm has taken only nine months to hit the latest benchmark of Rs 3 lakh crore.
“We believe Wipro’s strong full services capabilities across applications, infra, BPS (business process services) and engineering will help in winning integrated deals, and help win large deals as seen in recent quarters. Hence, we expect the company to register 21% YoY dollar revenue growth in FY22 (of which 13% is organic and rest through acquisition) and 13% YoY in FY23,” ICICI said in a note to investors.
A total of 13 firms in India have crossed the Rs 3 trillion market capitalisation and Wipro now ranks at 14. Reliance Industries heads the list with a market capitalisation of Rs 14.05 lakh crore. Tata Consultancy Services Ltd and HDFC Bank come next with market cap of Rs 11.58 lakh crore and Rs 8.33 lakh crore, respectively.