Jio Financial’s Profit Doubles as Wipro Posts a Q1 Miss

Jio Financial Services more than doubled its June-quarter profit to ₹830 crore (about $93 million) on Friday, the same day Wipro missed Street profit estimates and posted its weakest IT services margin in 15 quarters. Tech Mahindra’s profit jumped 28.4%, CEAT’s fell 27%, and India’s Q1 FY27 earnings season is rewarding some companies while punishing others inside the same 24 hours.

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) reports after the closing bell tonight. The oil-to-chemicals-to-telecom conglomerate is India’s largest company by market value. GIFT Nifty futures, the Nifty 50 contracts traded on India’s Gujarat International Finance Tec-City exchange, pointed to an open around 14 points lower. Brent crude held near $85 a barrel on renewed Middle East tension, adding to the caution.

₹830 Crore Up, ₹98 Crore Down

Jio Financial Services, the lending, insurance broking and payments arm carved out of Reliance Industries, reported consolidated net profit of ₹830 crore for the quarter ended June 2026, more than double the ₹325 crore it earned a year earlier.

Total income nearly tripled to ₹2,005 crore from ₹619 crore. Interest income climbed to ₹962 crore from ₹363 crore, and expenses grew to ₹1,016 crore from ₹261 crore as the lender scaled up its book, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Wipro told a different story a few hours earlier. The Bengaluru-based IT major’s net profit rose less than 1% to ₹3,360 crore, short of the ₹3,460 crore Bloomberg’s analyst consensus had penciled in, even as revenue climbed 10.6% to ₹24,480 crore.

Tech Mahindra and CEAT posted an even sharper split within the same batch of results.

Tech Mahindra’s growth was broad-based, led by manufacturing and financial services clients, with additional momentum in healthcare and retail, the company said. Management pointed to a strong order book and long-standing client relationships as reasons to expect “sustained” performance through the rest of the year, provided the macroeconomic backdrop holds.

CEAT’s revenue grew 18% to ₹4,163 crore from ₹3,521 crore. Net profit still fell 27% to ₹98 crore. Dairy company Heritage Foods missed profit estimates the same day.

Wipro’s Margin Falls to a 15-Quarter Low

Wipro’s IT services operating margin fell to 16%, its weakest level in 15 quarters, as employee costs and spending on artificial intelligence ate into earnings even as the top line grew.

Aparna Iyer, Wipro’s chief financial officer, told analysts the decline reflected the “incremental impact of salary increase, ramp up of large deals won earlier, and our ongoing investments in AI,” according to a transcript of the July 16 earnings call.

Chief executive Srini Pallia sounded more upbeat. “Clients are moving beyond technology modernisation to AI-enabled operating models that improve quality, resilience, and productivity,” he said.

Wipro’s growth will depend on its ability to convert strong deal momentum into revenue and scale AI-led transformation programmes.

said Biswajit Maity, a senior principal analyst at Gartner. Business Standard reported that Wipro’s current pipeline is skewed toward cost-optimization and vendor-consolidation projects, deals that ramp up slowly and draw fiercer price competition.

New deals kept coming in despite the margin hit. Total bookings came in at $3.37 billion, down 2.4% quarter-on-quarter in constant currency, but large-deal bookings alone rose 12.9% to $1.63 billion. Wipro’s headcount stood at 243,044 at the end of June, a net addition of 888 employees, with voluntary attrition at 13.8%.

Wipro’s board also declared an interim dividend of ₹2 a share, payable by August 14 to shareholders on record as of July 27. Investors shrugged off the miss before it even landed: Wipro shares gained 1.8% during Thursday’s session to close at ₹177.70, hours before the numbers were released after market hours.

Why Is India’s IT Sector Bracing for a Soft Quarter?

India’s top IT services firms are heading into Q1 FY27 with growth stalled by cautious corporate spending, wage inflation and a shift toward artificial intelligence that is shrinking the size of traditional outsourcing deals. Brokerages including Equirus Securities and HDFC Securities expect most tier-one firms to post flat or shrinking revenue this quarter, with only a couple of exceptions.

Two brokerage notes this month capture the mood.

• -1.7% to +1.1%: the constant-currency revenue range Equirus Securities expects the top six IT services firms to report this quarter.
• -1.3% to +1.1%: HDFC Securities’ growth band for tier-one IT companies, against -1.0% to +3.7% for mid-tier peers.
• Two names: Infosys and Tech Mahindra are the tier-one stocks brokerages expect to outperform, while Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), HCL Technologies and Wipro lag.

Equirus pointed to sudden budget cuts by European equipment makers reacting to their own profit warnings as a fresh drag on the quarter, on top of the usual caution around discretionary technology spending. TCS and HCL Technologies are expected to trail the pack, per brokerage estimates for tier-one IT growth this quarter.

A weaker rupee is one of the few tailwinds. The currency’s slide against the dollar, the same pressure pushing banks to court diaspora deposits, gives dollar-billing exporters like Wipro and Tech Mahindra a translation gain once revenue is converted back into rupees.

CEAT’s Profit Drops 27% as It Bets on Two-Wheelers

CEAT Ltd, the tyre maker controlled by the RPG Group conglomerate, approved a ₹1,205 crore investment plan to expand two-wheeler tyre capacity, even as standalone net profit for the quarter fell 27% to ₹98 crore.

The company plans to lift daily two-wheeler tyre output from 80,000 units to roughly 133,000 by fiscal 2031, adding capacity in phases, according to its regulatory filing. The expansion plan and the profit decline were disclosed in the same filing.

Reliance and Jio Wait Until After the Bell

RIL’s board meets Friday to approve standalone and consolidated results for the quarter, with an analyst call to follow. Brokerages are broadly upbeat but split on the numbers.

Systematix Institutional Equities expects net profit to slip nearly 3% year-on-year to ₹19,700 crore, even as EBITDA rises 9.9% to ₹47,100 crore. Antique Stock Broking is more bullish. It projects EBITDA growth of 12% to ₹48,100 crore, led by a rebound in the oil-to-chemicals (O2C) business and steady gains at Reliance Jio. Retail and oil-and-gas exploration are expected to stay soft, brokerage previews show.

Centrum expects Reliance Jio, the telecom arm, to add about 7 million subscribers during the quarter, taking its base to 531 million. Regulatory shareholding data show RIL’s promoter group lifted its stake to 50.48% during the quarter, up from about 50% three months earlier.

Investors will also listen for an update on Jio Platforms’ pending stock market debut. The unit has already filed paperwork for what would be India’s largest share sale, and analysts expect management to address tariff plans ahead of that listing.

The Rest of Friday’s Earnings Slate

Reliance and Jio Financial are far from the only names reporting. As many as 33 companies on the BSE’s list are due to announce June-quarter earnings on Friday, including Federal Bank, JSW Steel, Tata Technologies, Central Bank of India, Oberoi Realty, Havells India, RBL Bank and Turtlemint Fintech Solutions.

Coworking operator WeWork India narrowed its consolidated net loss to ₹4.30 crore from ₹14.10 crore a year earlier. Total income rose to ₹700.74 crore from ₹545.71 crore, though operating expenses climbed too, to ₹704.77 crore from ₹559.46 crore.

Several smaller corporate actions are also in play.

• ITI Limited – the state-run telecom equipment maker won an ₹856.39 crore order to build a 4G network for Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) across 7,613 sites in the west zone.
• HCL Technologies – signed a seven-year deal with U.S. insurer The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America to expand artificial intelligence-led modernization work.
• PC Jeweller – its board cleared a plan to raise up to ₹1,000 crore through a qualified institutions placement (QIP).
• Physicswallah – put in roughly ₹72 crore to lift its stake in Sarrthi IAS to 51%, making the UPSC coaching platform a subsidiary.
• Bandhan Bank – launched a provident fund payment service linked to the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) for business banking customers.
• Maruti Suzuki – said it will contest a consumer commission order to replace a customer’s E20-compatible car over a fuel contamination claim.

By the time Friday’s trading wrapped, the Sensex had added 1.03% to close at 77,983, with Jio Financial among the day’s biggest gainers, up 4.1%. Reliance’s own numbers, and any word on the Jio Platforms listing, land only after the bell.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and should not be treated as investment advice. Stock markets carry financial risk, and earnings figures can be revised after publication. Consult a registered financial advisor before making investment decisions. Figures are accurate as of publication on July 17, 2026.