Calcutta, Oct. 22: Wipro Technologies today issued a cautious revenue outlook for the third quarter in spite of posting an 18.76 per cent growth in consolidated net profit for the second quarter.

“The global economic environment has deteriorated over the past couple of months, and our outlook is cautious in the near term. However, we are confident of the resilience of our business model to tide over these challenging times,” Wipro chairman Azim Premji said.

The consolidated net profit for the second quarter (July-September 2008) stood at Rs 978.2 crore against Rs 823.7 crore a year ago. Total revenues during the period rose to Rs 6,507.3 crore from Rs 4,776 crore a year ago. On a standalone basis, Wipro reported a net profit of Rs 852.50 crore in the September quarter against Rs 760.30 crore a year ago.

IT services, which account for 73 per cent of the company’s revenues, grew 36 per cent to Rs 4,750 crore.

For the six months ended September 30, Wipro reported a standalone net profit of Rs 1,885.8 crore against Rs 1,549.3 crore in the year-ago period.

Wipro added 28 clients in IT services, while it secured six multi-million dollar deals.

Shares of Wipro fell 5.79 per cent to Rs 279.25 on the Bombay Stock Exchange today.