Bengaluru: Accenture remains committed to leveraging Indian talent and is expected to increase its hiring in the country. “We are primarily hiring in India, especially as we expand our technology capabilities. This also aligns with our pyramid structure. While we hire globally, technology continues to be a key growth driver for FY25, and India will see more hiring,” Accenture CEO Julie Sweet mentioned during an investor call.
Accenture employs over 3 lakh people in India, out of its total global workforce of 7.7 lakh. In the 2024 financial year, the company added a net total of 41,484 employees, with over 24,000 joining in the August quarter alone. Accenture follows a September-August fiscal year.
The company’s board approved a $4 billion share buyback, bringing its total outstanding authority to approximately $6.7 billion. Accenture has also revised its revenue forecast for FY25 to a range of 3% to 6%, an improvement from its earlier projections, driven by a more favorable macroeconomic outlook and the US Federal Reserve’s recent decision to reduce interest rates.
For the first quarter of FY25, Accenture expects revenues between $16.8 billion and $17.4 billion, reflecting a 2% to 6% growth. Over the full year, the company’s revenue grew by 2%, reaching $64.9 billion, with the August quarter’s revenue at $16.4 billion, marking a 5% year-over-year increase.
New bookings for the 2024 fiscal year reached a record high of $81.2 billion, up 13% from the previous year, while bookings in the August quarter amounted to $20.1 billion, showing a 21% increase compared to the same quarter last year. In Q4 of FY24, Accenture secured Generative AI bookings worth $1 billion. “We achieved full-year new bookings of $81 billion, including a record 125 quarterly client bookings exceeding $100 million, and now have 310 Diamond clients, which are our largest relationships. We are leading the charge in generative AI, which we believe will be the most transformative technology of the next decade, contributing $3 billion in new bookings for the year. Our strategic focus on client reinvention and ongoing investments has positioned Accenture for robust growth,” Sweet said.
Sweet further emphasized in an email to employees that this success is remarkable when compared to FY23, where the company had approximately $300 million in sales and around $100 million in GenAI revenue. She also highlighted that smaller deals, which convert to revenue faster, have impacted growth as clients reduced spending on these deals this year.