Early years The company was incorporated on 29 December 1945 in
Amalner by MH Hasham Premji as
Western India Vegetable Products Limited, a manufacturer of
cooking oils. The software division began in 1984 with the development of a
spreadsheet and
word-processing suite but shifted to
offshore software development in 1990. By the mid-1990s, Wipro had become one of India's leading manufacturers of
personal computers,
peripherals, and medical diagnostic equipment. In 1998, the company reported being the second-largest software exporter from India, and gradually increased its focus on the higher-
margin software services business which accounted for the vast majority of its profits. During the
dot-com boom of the early 2000s, Wipro became the largest company in India by
market capitalization, reaching a value three times that of the next largest listed company,
Infosys. Consequently, Wipro's majority shareholder Azim Premji was the
richest Indian for five consecutive years. In 2004, Wipro became the second listed
Indian IT company to report annual revenues exceeding US$1 billion. By 2006, approximately 30% of its total revenue came from
product engineering R&D services. In 2007, Wipro introduced a line of
supercomputers known as
Wipro Supernova. In 2011, Wipro, in collaboration with the
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), developed India's then-fastest supercomputer,
SAGA-220, which was deployed at the
Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre. In 2012, Wipro
demerged its non-IT businesses into a new private company named
Wipro Enterprises. In 2014, Wipro set up its
design and
mobility services business division called Wipro Digital. In 2015, Wipro established its
strategic investment arm–Wipro Ventures–to invest in early- and mid-stage
enterprise software startups and
venture capital funds in the US, India and Israel. In 2021, Wipro reported that a third of its workforce was engaged in
cloud projects, and announced a $1 billion investment in its FullStride Cloud Services vertical. ==Operations==