Total revenues of the New York-listed firm grew 29 percent to 13.75 billion rupees for the three months ended September compared to the same period the previous year.

"Strong volume growth and declining pricing pressures resulted in revenues of 222 million dollars in our global IT services business -- ahead of our guidance of 210 million dollars," said Azim Premji, chairman of Wipro.

"During the quarter we saw robust sequential growth (of 12 percent in net profits) across all business segments in our global IT business," Premji said.

"The pricing environment is encouraging. We witnessed a modest rise in pricing last quarter and the trend of better pricing for new customers continues," he said.

Premji forecast revenues from the global IT business for the next quarter ending December to be about 241 million dollars.

Dealers said Wipro stock was steady after the company's results which were largely in line with market expectations although lukewarm compared to software major Infosys which last week said its net profit surged 33 percent.

"Wipro definitely has posted good results," said Anish Marfatia, assistant vice president at Asit C Mehta Investments."

Wipro added 3,091 employees in the second quarter and of them 2,030 were recruited for the outsourcing business.

Marfatia said the employee additions indicated strong growth in volumes.

Another dealer said Wipro's results indicated that global technology spending was increasing slowly, in turn signifying better prospects for Indian software companies.

In noon trade, Wipro was up 2.70 percent or 37.0 rupees at 1,412.0, while the Bombay Stock Exchange's 30-share index was up 42.27 points or 0.86 percent at 4,929.59.

The technology business of the company grew 16 percent on the previous quarter while business process outsourcing shot up 22 percent, the company said.

"On the profitability front, improvement in utilization (rates) and increased cost efficiencies offest the impact of the rupee's appreciation," Premji said.

The Indian currency has appreciated more than two percent in the last three months and Wipro said it had an impact of about 1.5 percent on its margins.

Wipro Limited consists of Wipro Technologies, the global IT business arm; Wipro Infotech, comprising the business in India, the Middle East and the Asia Pacific region, and Wipro Consumer and Lighting.

The global IT services and products arm accounted for 75 percent of revenues, with its sales up 39 percent to 10.18 billion rupees for the second quarter.

"Our technology business continued to recover ... account openings for the quarter continued at an encouraging rate with 35 new accounts of which six were Fortune 1000 companies," said Vivek Paul, vice-chairman of Wipro.

Fifteen of the new customers were from the research and development services sector and 17 of the total were from the United States.

Paul said the United States continued to be the engine for Wipro's growth and year-on-year it was expected to contribute more than 50 percent of its revenues.

He said global players who were setting up shop in India to grab a share of the outsourcing business were losing out to entrenched Indian companies.

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