Increasing Reach

Voice&Data Bureau

03 Jun 2008 09:00 IST

New Update

Wipro's telecom division recorded a turnover of Rs 5,585 crore in the last
financial year as compared to Rs 3,471 in fiscal 2006-07, a growth of 60.9%. The
revenue from network integration grew from Rs 1,028 crore in 2006-07 to Rs 1,517
crore in 2007-08. The telecom software revenue stands at Rs 3,208 crore, which
includes revenues from SI, software products, and embedded telecom software.

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In 2006-07, Wipro had realigned its telecom business units to combine product
engineering solutions and telecom service providers to form a separate vertical.
It seems Wipro is still struggling to find the right arrangement. Once again in
2007-08, the company realigned its verticals and horizontals. Wipro has
integrated telecom and product engineering with media business units to form a
new business unit that will address communication service providers, media and
entertainment, and technology service providers.

Among major deals won by the company was a large transformational outsourcing
deal with Aircel, greenfield implementation for a leading service provider in
the Middle East, two major deals in SDP and value added services space, and
carrier Ethernet network project for a leading telecom service provider in
India. Wipro also won a Rs 200 crore, five-year contract from Eihad Atheeb
Telecommunications Company in Saudi Arabia. The scope of the contract includes
provisioning and management of a comprehensive suite of OSS/BSS telecom
solutions.

Wipro 5

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In response to the increasing contribution of the Apac region to its
revenues, Wipro would be focusing more on that market and the Middle East.
However, Europe and the US will continue to be major contributors to its
engineering business revenue. In Europe, Wipro will continue to focus on
building leadership. The company is targeting revenues of Rs 4,000 crore from
the European region in the next one year.

Wipro made key strategic tie-ups and acquisitions to boost its business. The
company increased its footprint in Europe by forming an alliance with Nokia
Siemens Networks. Under the agreement all radio access R&D activities currently
performed in Berlin will be provided to NSN by Wipro.

Wipro has developed alliances with key partners like Oracle, HP, Cisco, and
Amdocs to deliver comprehensive products and service-support portfolios.

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Being the largest independent R&D services provider in the world, Wipro is
likely to play a major role in new product engineering. Till now this capability
has been largely servicing the needs of the technology vertical.

Going forward, it will act as a service line and will address the embedded,
real-time, VLSI, and system software needs of business units like manufacturing,
healthcare, energy and utilities, and retail, transportation, and services in
addition to the needs of the communication, media, and technology verticals.

We have realigned our verticals and
horizontals to serve our customers better

VP, Media and Communication Service Provider Vertical, wipro

Suryanarayan Valluri

Address: Wipro Technologies, Doddakanneli, Sarjapur Road,
Bangalore-560035

Tel: +91-80-28440011

Fax: +91-80-28440256

Website: www.wipro.com

Highlights

Realigned new
verticals and horizontals
Major traction from
the Apac region this year
Invested heavily in
building innovation labs focusing on convergent technologies
Network integration
becomes the key focus in the Indian market

How would you rate your performance in
2007-08?

Our telecom service provider segment has grown significantly and we have
seen major attractions from Apac this year. Our European business has also
grown on all service lines and we have built leadership in key geographies.

In the mobile devices segment, we have helped
some of the top OEMs realize complex feature phones with highly evolved
multimedia functionality through our software integration service and have
helped them launch differentiated and high revenue generating mobile
devices, applications, and services.

In the semiconductor space, we helped our
customers make timely releases of their platforms to the OEM, thus,
optimizing the platform for better power utilization and improved software
stability.

What were your developments in the
equipment vendor space?

In the equipment vendor space, we have grown in all the top 10 TEMs as
compared to last year. We are responsible for total engineering of some of
their products including small sample manufacturing. We have also tied up
with EMSes and ODMs to deliver white label products.

What is the way forward for Wipro in
2008-09?

Wipro is uniquely positioned as a partner, vendor, and consultant to provide
customers a convergent view of these industries and “enable service
ubiquity”. Our offerings range from network engineering services to IT and
operations that help in addressing this transformation of processes,
systems, and networks; and provide end-to-end solutions.

After studying the industry dynamics we have
realigned our verticals and horizontals to serve our customers better. We
have integrated our telecom and product engineering with media business
units to form a new business unit that addresses communication service
providers, media and entertainment, and technology service providers.

This business unit today serves ten of the
top fifteen communication service providers and all tier-1 equipment
manufacturers. We are also working with seven out of the top ten mobile
terminal vendors and fifteen of the top twenty semiconductor firms. Further,
we are associated with six of the top ten mobile chipset vendors and twelve
of the world's top fifteen high-tech firms and leading media providers.

What will be the most exciting thing in
the Indian telecom market that will benefit the growth of Wipro's telecom
vertical?

The market value of Indian wireless service providers is already
sky-high and with spectrum constraints, M&A activity is on the rise. We see
players like Verizon and AT&T trying to enter into India soon. This M&A
activity and entry of new operators provides significant opportunities for
Wipro.

Wipro will bring its global system
integration expertise coupled with two decades of R&D experience in the
telecom domain and vendor neutral approach to help telecom operators in
their transformation journey. We will also support carriers' move to content
services by offering modular, flexible, and open solutions.

Though Wipro is not in the products business,
we foresee equipment vendors engineering special products to address this
demand.

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