What happened
Shares of Accenture (ACN 6.22%) popped as much as 10% today after the company reported fiscal first-quarter earnings. The results topped expectations and Accenture boosted its full-year outlook.
So what
Revenue in the fiscal first quarter was $11.76 billion, easily beating the consensus estimate of $11.36 billion. That translated to adjusted earnings per share of $2.17, compared to the $2.05 per share in adjusted profits that Wall Street analysts were looking for. Bookings in the quarter were $12.9 billion. The consulting giant recently announced Accenture Cloud First, an initiative to help clients adopt modern technologies as part of their digital transformations.
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"I am pleased that we delivered first-quarter revenues above our expectations, with broad-based improvement across industries and geographic markets, reflecting the relevance of our services, the strength of our growth strategy, and the advantages of our scale in digital, cloud, and security," CEO Julie Sweet said in a statement. "New bookings, profitability, and free cash flow were all very strong, and we again returned substantial cash to shareholders while continuing to invest in our business and our people."
Now what
Accenture expects revenue in the fiscal second quarter to be $11.55 billion to $11.95 billion. The company boosted its outlook for fiscal 2021 and now expects revenue to grow by 4% to 6%, up from a previous forecast of 2% to 5% growth. That should result in adjusted earnings per share of $8.02 to $8.25 this fiscal year, which would represent growth of 8% to 11% compared to fiscal 2020.
