Steady Execution by Accenture

Analysts believe that the IT outsourcing market will grow 2.1% over the year to $251.7 billion in 2012.  Within IT outsourcing, cloud computing is projected to grow 48.7% to $5 billion. During the year, the application outsourcing market is expected to grow 2% to $40.7 billion. On the other hand, the data center outsourcing segment is expected to fall 1% this year.

Accenture’s Financials

Accenture’s (Nasdaq:ACN) Q4 revenues grew 2% over the year to $6.84 billion, ahead of the market’s projected revenues of $6.75 billion. EPS of $0.88 was lower than previous year’s $0.91 but was ahead of the Street’s targeted earnings of $0.87. The company ended the year with revenues growing from $25.51 billion to $27.86 billion. Net income grew 13% over the year to $3.39 per share.

By segment, outsourcing revenues grew 10% to $3.1 billion and consulting revenues fell 4% to $3.74 billion. Revenues from the Americas grew 5% over the year, while those from Europe, the Middle East and Africa fell 4% over the year. Asia Pacific revenues reported strong growth of 11% during the period.

During the year, Accenture hired more than 60,000 employees. It ended the year with 257,000 employees, and its Global Delivery Network grew to 162,000 employees compared with 141,000 a year ago. During the quarter, utilization remained flat sequentially at 87%. Attrition fell marginally from 13% a quarter ago and 14% a year ago to 12%.

For the current quarter, the company projects revenues to grow 5%-8% over the year, with EPS of $4.22-$4.30. The market was looking for earnings of $4.17 per share. Accenture expects to end the quarter with revenues of $7.1 billion-$7.35 billion, with EPS of $1.02. The market was looking for revenues of $7.25 billion for the quarter.

Accenture’s Acquisitions

Accenture is expanding its offerings through acquisitions. Recently it acquired NewsPage, a Singapore-based developer of sales software solutions. NewsPage is a provider of software solutions to consumer goods companies that are delivered both on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) basis and on-site. Accenture will be able to use the acquisition to complement its CAS software platform and strengthen its position in emerging markets.

Earlier last month, it also completed the acquisition of Octagon Research Solutions. Octagon helps develop software solutions and provides clinical and regulatory information management solutions for the pharmaceutical industry. The acquisition will help Accenture enhance its clinical services capabilities, such as providing clinical data management and clinical programming services, to name a few.

The stock is trading at $79.03 with a market capitalization of $48.25 billion. It touched a 52-week high of $66.75 earlier last month.