The market had been expecting earnings of around 2.26 billion rupees for the three months to June, analysts said, and so the stock was sold down as a result.

"The market was expecting Wipro to announce a net profit of around 2.26 billion rupees for the quarter but the actual figure is much lower leading to a sell-off in the stock and in the tech sector," said Hemal Shah, dealer at Dalal and Broucha Stock Broking.

He said investors had been looking to Wipro's results to set the direction for the entire information technology sector.

Wipro closed down 21.90 rupees or 2.33 percent at 917, off the low of 838 rupees.

The Bombay Stock Exchange's 30-share index shed 21.33 points or 0.58 percent to close at 3,647.58.

In a statement, the company said total revenue grew 29 percent to 11.9 billion rupees, with Wipro Technologies, the global information technology arm, accounting for 76 percent of sales.

The company has five main divisions -- Wipro Technologies, business outsourcing firm Wipro Spectramind, Indian and Asia Pacific IT unit Wipro Infotech, Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting, and Wipro HealthScience.

The New York-listed firm said it hired 2,251 new employees this quarter, adding 895 software engineers to its IT services department and another 1,356 to the firm's growing IT-enabled services or outsourcing segment.

It added 38 new customers during the quarter.

"During the quarter we continued our success in selling business process outsourcing and energy utilities consulting services to our existing clients," said Vivek Paul, vice chairman of Wipro.

"The environment is one of volume growth coupled with an appreciating rupee," said Azim Premji, chairman of Wipro.

"Looking ahead for the quarter ending September, we currently expect our revenue from our global IT services and products, which also includes revenue from IT-enabled services to be approximately 210 million dollars," Premji added.

Premji, who is India's richest man, owns an 84 percent stake in Wipro.

He said revenue from business process outsourcing, which were nil last year, were now about nine percent of export revenues of 9.2 billion rupees.

"Customer interest in offshore IT services continues to to be high. The market for IT-enabled services continues to grow and at a healthy pace, and we believe that with our leadership and track record with Wipro Spectramind we are well positioned to lead this growth," he said.

Wipro acquired Sepctramind, one of India's largest outsourcing firms, last year.

Premji said challenges in the short-term continued and the appreciation of the Indian currency was a cause of concern.

"This has added a new challenge since the majority of our revenues are in dollars and a significant part of our costs are in rupees," he said. The rupee has appreciated more than two percent over the past year.

Premji added that Wipro was still looking to acquire global firms.

"The appetite is still there and we are continously on the search," he said.

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