Global professional services company Accenture (NYSE: ACN) will be reporting earnings this Friday before the bell. Here’s what investors should know.
Accenture beat analysts’ revenue expectations by 3.2% last quarter, reporting revenues of $17.69 billion, up 9% year on year. It was a very strong quarter for the company, with a decent beat of analysts’ EPS estimates.
Is Accenture a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free.
This quarter, analysts are expecting Accenture’s revenue to grow 5.4% year on year to $16.61 billion, improving from its flat revenue in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $2.81 per share.
Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. Accenture has missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates three times over the last two years.
Looking at Accenture’s peers in the it services & consulting segment, some have already reported their Q1 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. EPAM delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 11.7%, beating analysts’ expectations by 1.6%, and Gartner reported revenues up 4.2%, in line with consensus estimates. EPAM traded up 11.1% following the results while Gartner was also up 2.3%.
Read our full analysis of EPAM’s results here and Gartner’s results here.
Investors in the it services & consulting segment have had fairly steady hands going into earnings, with share prices down 1.1% on average over the last month. Accenture is down 3.7% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $353.80 (compared to the current share price of $308.49).
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