What happened: Accenture (ACN) stock surged more than 20% in early trading on Thursday.
What’s behind the move: Accenture’s quarterly results, released on Thursday morning, eased a major concern among investors this year — that AI would squash demand for traditional consulting and IT.
The consulting firm’s fiscal fourth quarter earnings per share grew 9% on an annualized basis while revenue grew 6% to $18.7 billion. Operating margin grew 370 basis points to 15.3%.
The company reached a new record high of 141 client bookings of $100 million or more in the fourth quarter, with full-year bookings reaching an all-time high of $84.5 billion.
215.22 +31.85 (+17.37%)
As of 2:41:34 PM EDT. Market Open.
What else you need to know: Top- and bottom-line growth are particularly important because they indicate strong demand for consulting services. Investors have feared AI could disrupt the industry.
Accenture has leaned into providing consulting services for AI safety, auditing, and governance.
In September, Accenture announced a partnership with Anthropic (ANT.PVT) to put dedicated safety experts directly inside the AI developer’s labs to stress-test their artificial intelligence models and catch security risks or errors before they reach customers.
To fund the deal, both companies plan to invest at least $1 billion each over the next five years.
Accenture stock has been hammered this year amid worries that generative AI could automate consulting and managed services work.
The stock was down roughly 30% year to date as of Wednesday’s close.
Ines Ferre is a Senior Business Reporter for Yahoo Finance covering the US stock market, publicly traded companies, and commodities. She has reported live from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq.
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