BENGALURU: Accenture has made a prediction sales growth from 2% to 5% in fiscal year 2024, indicating moderate growth business environment as customers cut back on discretionary spending. It also expects revenues for the first quarter of fiscal 2024 to be between $15.8 billion and $16.4 billion, translating into growth of -2% to 2%. Accenture’s earnings underline a softer outlook, which will impact Indian IT companies’ September quarter results.
For fiscal year 2023, revenues were $64.1 billion, up 4% in US dollars and 8% in local currencies compared to fiscal year 2022. Accenture follows a September-August fiscal year. “We and our clients have faced a macro environment that is more difficult than we expected at the start of the 2023 fiscal year. It has played out differently across markets and we have seen more caution globally with lower discretionary spend, slower decision-making and for us, a significant impact from the challenges the media and technology industries have faced,” said the CEO from Accenture Julie Sweet said in the investor call. New bookings for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023 amounted to $16.6 billion, down 10% in both US dollars and local currencies.
Sweet said that while the pace of spending has changed, the fundamentals have not: All strategies continue to lead to technology. “And companies will need to reinvest every part of their business technology, data and AI to optimize their operations and accelerate growth. To do this, they must build a digital core. We continue to see significant demand in areas such as cloud migration and modernization and the rise of genAI, which represent areas of great opportunity, and it is still early days,” she said.
Accenture is seeing the early days of monetization for some of the genAI deals. “We are also rapidly taking a leading position in genAI, which will be a key part of our customers’ reinvention over the next decade. Last quarter we announced that we had sold 100 projects in the past four months with approximately $100 million in revenue. Demand accelerated in the fourth quarter, with approximately another $200 million and genAI sales bringing our total to over $300 million for the year. We also embrace the use of genAI in our own services. Our customers’ generative AI bookings of $300 million in the last six months put us at the heart of the beginning of an AI-powered reinvention,” said Sweet.
Moshe KhatriMD of Wedbush Securities, said: “Accenture reported mixed Q4/Y23 results (weaker than expected in communications, media and technology), while FY24 revenue growth prospects pointed to a full year of back -end.”
For fiscal year 2023, revenues were $64.1 billion, up 4% in US dollars and 8% in local currencies compared to fiscal year 2022. Accenture follows a September-August fiscal year. “We and our clients have faced a macro environment that is more difficult than we expected at the start of the 2023 fiscal year. It has played out differently across markets and we have seen more caution globally with lower discretionary spend, slower decision-making and for us, a significant impact from the challenges the media and technology industries have faced,” said the CEO from Accenture Julie Sweet said in the investor call. New bookings for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023 amounted to $16.6 billion, down 10% in both US dollars and local currencies.
Sweet said that while the pace of spending has changed, the fundamentals have not: All strategies continue to lead to technology. “And companies will need to reinvest every part of their business technology, data and AI to optimize their operations and accelerate growth. To do this, they must build a digital core. We continue to see significant demand in areas such as cloud migration and modernization and the rise of genAI, which represent areas of great opportunity, and it is still early days,” she said.
Accenture is seeing the early days of monetization for some of the genAI deals. “We are also rapidly taking a leading position in genAI, which will be a key part of our customers’ reinvention over the next decade. Last quarter we announced that we had sold 100 projects in the past four months with approximately $100 million in revenue. Demand accelerated in the fourth quarter, with approximately another $200 million and genAI sales bringing our total to over $300 million for the year. We also embrace the use of genAI in our own services. Our customers’ generative AI bookings of $300 million in the last six months put us at the heart of the beginning of an AI-powered reinvention,” said Sweet.
Moshe KhatriMD of Wedbush Securities, said: “Accenture reported mixed Q4/Y23 results (weaker than expected in communications, media and technology), while FY24 revenue growth prospects pointed to a full year of back -end.”
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