Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) is one of the AI Stocks in the Spotlight This Week. On September 24, Evercore ISI analyst Amit Daryanani lowered the price target on the stock to $300.00 (from $330.00) while maintaining an Outperform rating.
As per the analyst, Accenture’s upcoming quarterly report seems promising. The firm expects it to deliver a “steady performance with some upside potential” owing to a stable FX backdrop and de-risked setup.
Post earnings, the firm lowered the price target on the stock to $280.00 (from $300.00) while maintaining an Outperform rating.
“ACN reported modest upside to Aug-qtr results with rev/EPS of $17.6B/$3.03 vs. street at $17.4B/$2.98 – notably new bookings came in at $21.3B (+6%) and gen AI bookings saw a strong acceleration coming in at $1.8B (+80%% y/y). From a geographic basis the ~4.5% cc growth was driven by ~5% growth in Americas (8% ex-public AFS headwind), 6% in APAC and 3% in EMEA. For FY26, the reported revenue guide came in at up +4-7% reported top line growth vs. street expectation for up 5.8% (though guide is inline with buyside expectations). EPS guide came in at $13.52-13.90, bracketing street expectation of $13.78. For FY26 the expectation is for – a) growth to be balanced across consulting and managed services in the low to mid single digit range, b) discretionary spend to decline modestly at low-end of guide an stay flat at the high-end of their FY26 guide, c) EBIT margins to keep expanding as ACN noted they see AI project pricing to be accretive to their overall profile vs. fears that it would be dilutive and d) headcount is expected to grow across all regions and capex is going up y/y by $400M to reflect more hiring and more return to office.