IT consulting firm Accenture Plc on Thursday forecast better-than-expected second-quarter revenue as more customers seek its cloud and security services, sending its shares more than 10% in premarket trade.
Customer spend, which hit pre-pandemic levels last fiscal year due to a shift to hybrid working models, remains strong with Accenture’s reported quarter bookings of $16.8 billion, up from a year earlier. 30% higher.
“This is a direct result of years of executing on our strategy to transform our business into digital, cloud and security,” said Julie Sweet, chief executive officer of Accenture.
New bookings are a record $16.8 billion, a 30% increase in both US dollars and local currency from last year’s first quarter, with record consulting bookings of $9.4 billion and outsourcing bookings of $7.4 billion.
Analysts expect the company to invest in these segments, which hired 50,000 people during the quarter, to generate long-term profits and better compete with Cognizant and Infosys for market share in the fast-growing segment. Will help.
This strong industry-wide growth will likely be sustainable, as the pandemic helped create a multi-year IT spending cycle, said Wedbush Securities analyst Moshe Katri.
Shares in Ireland-based Dublin have outperformed the S&P 500 index this year, thanks to increased spending on digitization and cloud adoption.
Accenture now expects full-year revenue to grow between 19% and 22%, up from 12% to 15% previously.
Revenue rose 27% to $14.97 billion for the quarter ended November 30, according to data from Refinitiv IBES, against analysts’ average estimate of $14.19 billion.
Accenture said it expects current quarter revenue of between $14.30 billion and $14.75 billion, compared to analysts’ average estimate of $14.09 billion.
The company earned $2.78 per share during the first quarter. Analysts had expected a profit of $2.63 per share.
Never miss a story! Stay connected and informed with Mint.
download
Our App Now!!
,