Wipro is counting on two unsigned deals to reverse a sharp decline in bookings. It is also banking on artificial intelligence (AI) to change how it wins and delivers business. Neither has yet translated into stronger revenue growth.
On October 15, CEO Srinivas Pallia attributed the company’s weak large-deal bookings in the September quarter to paperwork. He said two confirmed orders missed their signing deadlines in the quarter ended September 30.
Large-deal bookings fell 58.6% sequentially in constant currency to $674 million, according to results released the same day. IT services revenue remained flat sequentially in constant currency and up 0.6% year on year, at $2.61 billion.
Wipro’s guidance for the December quarter implies sequential growth of between a 1.5% decline and 0.5% growth. Pallia said both deals will be signed in the December quarter, while Chief Financial Officer Aparna Iyer said closing them should help revenue in the March quarter.
The same earnings call carried a broader claim about Wipro’s AI business. Pallia said the unit, launched in April, is seeing “growing success in outcome-based deals and driving nonlinear growth.” But Wipro did not disclose AI revenue for the quarter or the value of the two deals.
The immediate question is whether the delayed signatures will restore bookings momentum. The larger one is whether Wipro’s AI strategy can deliver sustained growth in a business where revenue has remained largely stagnant.
The Rebound Rests on 2 Unsigned Deals
Regarding the unsigned deals, Pallia said they are “not going anywhere.” Iyer said Wipro is “confident of securing both the deals” and will update analysts in January.
Total bookings fell 22.9% sequentially in constant currency terms to $2.60 billion from $3.37 billion. Large-deal bookings have rebounded after weak quarters. They were $871 million in the December 2025 quarter, $1.44 billion in March and $1.63 billion in June.
Management has also offered a timing explanation before. On the July 16 call, Pallia agreed with an analyst that decisions on some deals had slipped into the September quarter. Bookings in the September quarter then fell.
The distinction matters. July’s slippage concerned decisions; this time, Pallia cited missed signing deadlines. The call did not address whether the deals whose decisions had slipped in July have since closed.
What AI Is Supposed to Change
Pallia said AI is “really helping us” build pipeline and win deals. Wipro’s AI Native unit carries that case, with more than 2,000 engineers, including forward-deployed engineers.
Wipro does not disclose AI revenue. Its peers do. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) reports annualised AI revenue of $3.1 billion. HCLTech reported $219 million of Advanced AI revenue for the quarter. Each uses its own definition, limiting direct comparisons.
The absence of a figure from Wipro makes it difficult to assess the scale of its AI business. It does not, by itself, establish how well the unit is performing.
The economics are the harder question. Wipro Chief Technology Officer Sandhya Arun told Reuters in September that AI initiatives had increased productivity equal to the output of 20,000 employees, who were redeployed within the company.
Iyer said Wipro’s contracts run two to 2.5 years on average and that the deflationary cycle is about 1.5 to two years old. She expects an “inflection curve in a few quarters.”
Shubham Singh Rathore, Principal Analyst at research firm Gartner, describes where client budgets are moving. “Current enterprise AI adoption reflects a strategic budget shift away from traditional time-and-material contracts toward outcome-based composite platforms,” he tells AIM.
Wipro did not clarify what share of its deals are outcome-based, leaving a gap between AI-led growth and investors’ expectations.
Bookings Have to Become Revenue
Bookings and revenue have diverged before. Brokerage ICICI Securities noted in an April report that Wipro’s revenue fell 1.6% in constant currency in fiscal 2026 even as total bookings rose 14%. It suggested AI-led deflation and market share loss as possible reasons.
Wipro’s own commentary offers a slower ramp as one explanation. Pallia said a mega deal announced earlier has only now begun to ramp up after a delay.
Gaurav Vasu, CEO and Founder of market intelligence firm UnearthInsight, points to leakage. “Wipro continues to struggle to convert AI-led opportunities and new client additions into sustained revenue growth,” he tells AIM.
“Revenue leakage from existing accounts appears to be higher than the revenue from new clients,” Vasu says. He adds that Wipro continues to pass efficiency gains, including those from AI, back to customers.
Wipro does not disclose a leakage figure. Pallia said a European banking client moved part of its work to an in-house captive unit, which hurt revenue.
Organic growth is also out of view. Iyer said in July that Wipro does not break out acquired revenue after the first quarter of an acquisition. Mindsprint, acquired from agribusiness firm Olam Group, contributed two months to June-quarter revenue and a full quarter to September guidance, she said.
She called the contribution from Alpha Net, a tuck-in acquisition, “not very material.” The flat revenue figure cannot be split between acquired and organic growth.
Efficiency is where the quarter improved. Operating margin rose to 16.5% from 16.0%, which Iyer attributed to operational improvements and rupee depreciation, partly offset by investment. Headcount fell by 6,716 to 2,36,328, which management linked to the absence of campus hiring and AI productivity.
“Efficiency can support margins for now, but it cannot replace a stronger deal pipeline,” Vasu says.
Wipro or the Market
Peers reported steadier numbers. TCS grew 2.8% year on year in constant currency, and HCLTech grew 2.6%, while Wipro grew 0.6%. HCLTech reported record deal bookings, while TCS’ bookings were slightly below the previous year, and Wipro’s fell about 45%. Each company defines bookings differently.
Praveen Bhadada, CEO and Managing Director of advisory firm Neovay Global, sees a gap in commercial momentum. “Wipro is increasingly lagging its peers on growth and deal momentum,” he tells AIM.
He says HCLTech has delivered stronger services growth on deal wins, TCS continues to post modest growth alongside large-deal wins, and Accenture is growing at roughly twice the pace of Indian IT majors. The consulting firm grew 5% in local currency in fiscal 2026.
The earnings call did not isolate a cause for Wipro’s fall in bookings. Pallia said the demand environment had “remained largely unchanged.” When an analyst asked whether the war in the Gulf had slowed client decisions, as some companies have said, he repeated the paperwork explanation.
He also said vendor consolidation remains a client priority.
The Test Comes in January
Pallia described the pipeline as “very robust” and said he expects stronger bookings in the December quarter. Four numbers will show whether that holds.
The first is whether both deals are signed. The second is whether December-quarter bookings recover. The third is whether revenue lands in the upper half of the guided range, as it did this quarter. The fourth is whether Wipro puts a figure on its AI revenue.
Iyer said Wipro guides one quarter at a time. Vasu says the key test is whether Wipro can move beyond cost optimisation to sustained organic growth. “Until then, we expect FY27 growth of 0% to 1% at most,” he says.
“As clients move towards larger, AI-led transformation programmes, the opportunity is expanding, but Wipro must demonstrate that it can convert this demand into meaningful deal wins,” Bhadada says.
Iyer has set the date for the next update. It is the January earnings call. By then, Wipro will have to show whether the two delayed deals have converted into bookings, whether those bookings are translating into revenue, and whether AI is contributing to growth beyond productivity gains.