Accenture trims upper end of its guidance, new bookings drop in Q3 2026

Dublin-headquartered technology and consulting company Accenture has cut the upper end of its full-year revenue growth guidance by 100 basis points. The full-year revenue growth projections for 2026 now stand at 3-4% from the earlier 3-5%. The weak growth outlook saw Accenture’s stock tumble nearly 15% on the New York Stock Exchange during trade.

The company, which announced its third-quarter FY26 results, reported revenue of $18.7 billion, up 3% in reported currency. However, total bookings declined 3% year-on-year to $19.3 billion from $19.7 billion in the year-ago quarter. While consulting bookings rose to $10.26 billion from $9.08 billion in Q3FY25, managed services bookings fell to $9.06 billion from $10.62 billion a year earlier.

“Demand for large-scale reinvention remains strong — 104 quarterly client bookings of $100 million or more year-to-date, up 13% — and we are seeing more large-scale AI transformation programmes, while executing our strategy to capture new areas of growth,” said chair and CEO Julie Sweet in a statement.

Accenture will also be acquiring a majority stake in industrial technology cybersecurity company Dragos at a $3.2bn valuation and a 100% stake in runZero, an asset intelligence and exposure assessment company, and NetRise, a device security and software supply chain security company, with the combined enterprise value of the three companies being approximately $4.17 billion. The transactions are expected to close in August or September 2026. On the acquisition, Sweet said in the statement, “our agreement to acquire a majority stake in Dragos and all of runZero and NetRise, leaders in OT Security, is the type of move that defines our strategy: it is expanding our addressable market, creating a new platform-led growth opportunity, and is positioning Accenture at the centre of one of the most critical cybersecurity challenges our clients face.”