Accenture raises business outlook for CY21; Q3 revenue beats estimate

Shift towards digital transformation drive as business embrace cloud, digital and security services made IT services major Accenture report better than expected third quarter numbers. The company also raised its fiscal 2021 (company follows January to December financial calendar) growth guidance to 10-11 per cent. This is up from the 6.5 per cent and 8.5 per cent it had guided in the last quarter.

Accenture reported revenue of $13.3 billion, up 21 per cent YoY, and 9.9 per cent sequentially.

New bookings for the quarter were up 39 per cent at $15.4 billion, with consulting bookings of $8 billion and outsourcing booking of $7.4 billion.

Julie Sweet, Accenture’s chief executive officer, said, “Our outstanding financial results reflect our continued momentum driven by the demand for digital transformation, the depth and breadth of our client relationships with the world’s leading companies, our talented people and the strength of our business across geographic markets, industries and services. We are particularly pleased with our ability to continue to invest significantly in our business and our people. This includes acquisitions of 39 innovative companies that we have announced for the fiscal year to date, bringing us scale and new or expanded capabilities.”

With Accenture reporting bullish number for the Q3 and with its revenue guidance raised augurs well for the Indian IT services players that also compete in the same segment. This also means that the first quarter numbers (April-June) of FY22 will be a positive for the industry as well.

Tier-I players like TCS, Infosys, HCL Technologies and Wipro have guided for double digit growth for the fiscal 2021-22.

To address the demand side issue, Accenture also announced the promotion of a record 117,000 people, including almost 1,200 managing directors so far this fiscal year.