Accenture raises FY25 revenue growth guidance to 3-6% despite FY24 miss

"We are hiring primarily in India," says Julie Sweet

IT consulting and services major Accenture has upped its revenue guidance for financial year 2025 to be in the range of 3–6 per cent, even as the company missed its FY24 growth target.

Accenture, the largest player in the segment, which follows the September–August financial year, provided guidance for FY25 that is higher than its FY24 guidance of 1.5 per cent to 2.5 per cent.

The company reported revenue of $64.9 billion for FY24, up 1 per cent. For the fourth quarter of FY24, the company reported revenue of $16.4 billion, up 3 per cent in the US.

Julie Sweet, chair and chief executive officer of Accenture, said that fiscal year 2024 was a challenging year, but the company has performed well. “Our successful strategy to lead reinvention for clients and continued investments in our business have positioned Accenture for strong growth in fiscal 2025. I want to thank our 774,000 people around the world who work every day to deeply understand the needs of our clients, allowing us to achieve profitable growth and create even more 360° value for all our stakeholders,” said Sweet.

Accenture continued to show momentum in its generative AI (GenAI) deals. The company’s new bookings in GenAI touched $3 billion, and revenue from this segment was $900 million.

The company’s performance, which is generally considered a benchmark for the Indian IT services industry, had a few elements that would impact the sector. For instance, during the analyst call, Sweet said that the macro environment continues to be the same. “The environment has been kind of cautious. The macro is kind of the same. But if you look industry-wise, there is a big scope for digitisation. We expect the US to be a bit slow and Europe to do better,” said Sweet to analysts.

The management also added that discretionary spending has not seen any significant shift. During the call, Sweet said that clients continue to save on IT budgets to invest in driving new technology adoption like GenAI.

Accenture said that it will continue to hire in the Indian market. In Q4 alone, the company added over 24,000 people. “We are hiring primarily in India, as we are hiring more in technology. This also addresses our pyramid structure. We hire all over the world and in technology, which is a big driver for growth as we see for FY25. We will be hiring more in India,” said Sweet.

The company’s total headcount for FY24 ended at 774,303, which is an addition of 41,484 people over FY23.

The booking for the fiscal year was one of the highest at $81.2 billion. Of this, consulting was 46 per cent of the total booking, and 54 per cent came from the managed services segment.