Accenture shares fell Thursday after the IT services company lowered its revenue growth forecast for the fiscal year.
Accenture (Ticker: ACN) said it expects revenue growth in the range of 8% to 9% for fiscal 2023. So far, the company was expecting revenue growth of between 8% and 10%.
Accenture reported third-quarter adjusted earnings per share of $3.19 on revenue of $16.56 billion. Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting earnings of $3.01 per share on sales of $16.49 billion.
“Our third quarter results reflect solid bookings and revenue and very strong adjusted operating margin, earnings per share and free cash flow, demonstrating the rigor and discipline with which we conduct our business,” said CEO Julie Sweet in the earnings report.
WIlliam Blair’s analyst Maggie Nolan was upbeat about the results. She wrote in a research note that she believes “performance is a positive impact on IT services peers and faster-growing IT services companies… as the results indicate the demand environment is not deteriorating significantly any further.”
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Other IT consulting firms have been under pressure lately as clients cut budgets due to higher inflation and economic uncertainty.
Accenture shares fell 3.7% on Thursday to $301.54. The stock is up 13% this year.
The earnings came after the company earlier this week announced artificial intelligence collaborations with some of the top tech companies, including Amazon.com (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT) and Alphabet (GOOGL).
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Accenture announced Wednesday that it is expanding its collaboration with Amazon Web Services to help clients “reap the value of big language models and generative AI for faster business transformation.” The company announced similar collaborations to help Microsoft and Alphabet customers navigate AI.
In the company’s earnings announcement, management said that Accenture is “well positioned to be the premier trusted AI partner for the company as it moves from exploration to experimentation to reinvention.”
Write to Angela Palumbo at [email protected]