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Accenture (ACN) to Post Q2 Earnings: Here's What to Expect

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Accenture plc (ACN - Free Report) is scheduled to release second-quarter fiscal 2024 results on Mar 21, before market open.

ACN has an impressive earnings surprise history. Its earnings surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 5.9%.

Q2 Expectations

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the top line is currently pegged at $15.8 billion, suggesting a marginal dip from the year-ago quarter's reported number. The expected decline due to lower discretionary spend, and softness in software and platforms, communications and media, and banking and capital markets is likely to have been significantly offset by strength in cloud migration and modernization, ERP, data advancements, AI (including GenAI), platforms and security.

Accenture PLC Price and EPS Surprise

Accenture PLC Price and EPS Surprise

Accenture PLC price-eps-surprise | Accenture PLC Quote

Our estimate for revenues from the Managed Services segment is pegged at $7.7 billion, suggesting a 2.5% rise from the year-ago quarter's reported actuals. Our estimate for Consulting revenues is pegged at $8.1 billion, indicating a 2.6% decrease from the year-ago quarter's recorded figure. The decline is likely to have been due to a decrease in discretionary spending.

Our estimate for the Health & Public Services segment’s revenues is pegged at $3.2 billion, indicating a 4.6% increase from the year-ago quarter's level. We anticipate revenues from the Resources segment to be $2.2 billion, indicating a marginal increase from the year-ago reported figure. Revenues from the Communications, Media & Technology segment are expected to decline 5.6% from second-quarter fiscal 2023 actuals to $2.7 billion.

Our estimate for the Products segment’s revenues is pegged at $4.7 billion, indicating a marginal decrease from the prior-year levels. We expect Financial Services revenues to be $3 billion, implying a marginal decrease from the year-ago fiscal quarter.

Moving to geographical markets, our expectations for revenues from the EMEA region are around $5.6 billion, suggesting a marginal rise from the year-ago fiscal quarter. This is likely to have been due to growth in public services, and banking and capital markets.

We expect revenues from North America to have decreased slightly to $7.4 billion due to declining revenues in software and platforms, communications and media, and banking and capital markets.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the bottom line is pegged at $2.7 per share, which indicates a 1.5% decrease from the year-ago fiscal quarter. The decline is likely to have been due to business optimization actions.

What Our Model Says

Our proven model does not conclusively predict an earnings beat for ACN this time around. The combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) increases the odds of an earnings beat. But that is not the case here. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they are reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

ACN has an Earnings ESP of 0.00% and a Zacks Rank of 3. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Recent Results From Other Service Providers

Equifax (EFX - Free Report) reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter 2023 results. It reported earnings (excluding 75 cents from non-recurring items) of $1.81 per share, which beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4% and increased 19.1% year over year. Revenues of $1.33 billion beat the consensus estimate by 1.1% and increased 10.7% year over year on a reported basis and 14% on a local-currency basis.

Republic Services, Inc. (RSG - Free Report) reported an impressive fourth-quarter 2023 results. RSG’s earnings (excluding 2 cents from non-recurring items) of $1.41 per share beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 10.2% and increased 24.8% year over year. Revenues of $3.8 billion surpassed the consensus mark by 2.9% and increased 8.6% on a year-over-year basis.


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