Wipro Ltd, India's No 3 software exporter, said on Friday it stepped up hiring in the past quarter to cope with rising outsourcing business.

The company said it made 1,304 net staff additions in the third quarter ended December 31 compared with 753 in the preceding quarter. Wipro's total staff strength rose to 12,602.

New York Stock Exchange-listed Wipro leads a pack of Indian companies aiming to become a one-stop shop for technology services, from software consulting to back-office processing.

Analysts had expected the company to report net staff additions at less than 1,000 people in the past quarter.

Bangalore-based Wipro also said in a statement it added 24 new clients in October-December, down from the 30 it added in the preceding quarter.

The company said the new clients included five from the Fortune 1,000 list.

Wipro, 84 per cent owned by India's richest man Azim Premji, is the country's largest listed software firm by market value at about $7.7 billion. It has about 200 clients globally including General Motors and Lucent Technologies.

Wipro earlier on Friday reported a three per cent rise in quarterly profit to Rs 231 crore (Rs 2.31 billion), from a year earlier, and forecast modest IT sales growth in the current quarter.