Story perspectives

Accenture Beats EPS, Misses Revenue, Cuts Outlook, Announces $4B Acquisitions

6/18/2026

Summary

Accenture Cuts Outlook

Accenture posted Q3 earnings with EPS of $3.80 beating the $3.71 forecast, while revenue of $18.7 billion missed the $18.8 billion estimate, sending the stock down more than 16%.
Accenture cut its full-year revenue growth outlook to 3%-4% from 3%-5%.
Accenture announced $4.18 billion of acquisitions, including a majority stake in Dragos and purchases of runZero and NetRise.
It raised its annual acquisition spend to $9 billion to grow AI, cloud and data services.

Summary

IBM Shares Slide

IBM shares fell 6.9% to $244.20 after Accenture’s outlook, showing sector contagion.
A June 17 IBM survey found 91% of executives lack full insight into AI vendor, model and infrastructure dependencies.
The same survey reported 71% say switching an AI vendor or model would be difficult, raising lock-in concerns.
IBM forecasts Q2 2024 EPS of $3.00 and revenue of $17.85 billion after a Q1 EPS beat of $1.91 versus $1.81.

History

Historical Context

In October 2018 IBM unveiled a $34 billion purchase of Red Hat, its biggest deal ever. The Justice Department cleared the merger in May 2019 and it closed on July 9 2019, adding OpenShift and Kubernetes to IBM’s hybrid-cloud portfolio. The move builds on IBM’s 2013 SoftLayer buy and its 2018 bare-metal Kubernetes launch, aligning it with rivals Microsoft, Amazon and Google that also eyed Red Hat.

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Accenture Cuts Outlook

Accenture posted Q3 earnings with EPS of $3.80 beating the $3.71 forecast, while revenue of $18.7 billion missed the $18.8 billion estimate, sending the stock down more than 16%.
Accenture cut its full-year revenue growth outlook to 3%-4% from 3%-5%.
Accenture announced $4.18 billion of acquisitions, including a majority stake in Dragos and purchases of runZero and NetRise.
It raised its annual acquisition spend to $9 billion to grow AI, cloud and data services.

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