It’s been a smart session for the Indian IT stocks after Accenture delivered a fairly neutral set of read-through for the tech sector. The consulting and outsourcing giant beat the top end of its own quarterly guidance, booked over two lakh crore rupees worth of new deals, and raised its full-year revenue growth target. However, in terms of client budgets for 2026, it is expected to be unchanged.
Motilal Oswal on Accenture’s revenue numbers
Accenture reported revenue of $18 billion for the second quarter of 2026, up 4% year-on-year in constant currency terms. That places the result near the upper end of the guidance range of 1% to 5%. Motilal Oswal noted that managed services revenue grew 5% year-on-year in constant currency while consulting services grew 3%. The firm upgraded the lower end of its full-year revenue growth guidance from 2% to 3%, taking the range to 3- 5% in constant currency terms. However, after stripping out inorganic contributions of approximately 1.5%, organic growth guidance for the full year stands at just 1.5% to 3.5%.
“Accenture reported 4% YoY revenue growth in Q2FY26 to $18 billion, which was near the top end of its quarterly guidance range,” Motilal Oswal said.
Motilal Oswal on bookings and the deal pipeline
Total bookings came in at $22.1 billion, up 6% year-on-year. Outsourcing bookings reached $10.78 billion, while consulting bookings were higher at $11.33 billion. The book-to-bill ratio held steady at 1.2 times, consistent with the average over the past four quarters. Notably, the share of fixed-price contracts in the mix has risen to approximately 60%, which Motilal Oswal reads as a sign that clients are getting more disciplined about costs even as they engage Accenture on large programmes. The company also said it expects bookings from emerging artificial intelligence and data ecosystem partners to double year-on-year in fiscal year 2026.
“Accenture reported outsourcing bookings of $10.78 billion, up 3.3% YoY, while consulting bookings were up 8.2% YoY at $11.33b,” Motilal Oswal said.
Motilal Oswal on what artificial intelligence is actually doing to demand
This is the part that matters most for Indian information technology companies. MOFSL is candid that the artificial intelligence wave is not yet producing the demand acceleration the sector had hoped for. Accenture acknowledged on its earnings call that foundational work in artificial intelligence is picking up, but the brokerage firm argues this is not yet sufficient to drive meaningful acceleration.
They point to a data point showing that 49.7% of all tool calls made to Claude, Anthropic’s artificial intelligence model, are directed at software engineering tasks. Back-office automation is a distant second at 9.1%. The implication- software engineering is the primary area where AI impact is being seen, which puts significant pressure on the traditional headcount-based model that many Indian technology firms still rely upon.
“While Accenture noted that foundational work in AI is picking up, we believe this is currently not sufficient to drive the acceleration in demand we were anticipating earlier,” Motilal Oswal said.
Motilal Oswal on the geopolitical and macro overhang
Accenture’s management was careful to flag that its upgraded guidance does not account for a significant escalation of the Middle East conflict or any major economic disruption. MOFSL points out that this is an additional variable that markets and Indian technology investors have not fully priced in.
Discretionary spending by clients remains similar to 2025 levels, and there is no macro catalyst that has emerged yet to push it higher. The US Federal government business, which Accenture flagged as a drag of approximately 1% on full-year revenue, adds another layer of uncertainty. The Department of Government Efficiency-related impact is being separately called out, and MOFSL adjusts the organic growth guidance upward to 2.5% to 4.5% once this federal headwind is excluded.
“The guidance reflects management’s current view of the potential impact of the Middle East conflict in H2, but does not account for any significant escalation or major economic disruption,” Motilal Oswal said.
Motilal Oswal on headcount and margins
Accenture’s workforce remained virtually flat quarter-on-quarter at approximately 7.86 lakh employees. Attrition held steady at 13%, the same as the previous quarter, and utilisation stood at 93%. Adjusted Earnings Before Interest and Taxes margin improved by 30 basis points year-on-year to 15.4% in the second quarter, and the company expects the full-year adjusted margin in the range of 15.7% to 15.9%. For MOFSL, the muted headcount addition is a direct read-through for Indian technology peers since it indicates that demand does not require large-scale hiring yet. Artificial intelligence is reducing technical effort even as it expands the overall scope of transformation work, which means revenue can grow without proportionate headcount additions.
“ACN workforce growth was flat QoQ at around 7,86,000, attrition remained at 13%, and utilisation stood at 93%,” Motilal Oswal said.
Conclusion
Accenture’s second-quarter results confirm that global technology spending has not collapsed, but it has also not accelerated in the way the market hoped artificial intelligence would trigger. For Indian information technology companies, the MOFSL read is a neutral-to-cautious one. Clients are spending, but carefully.
Artificial intelligence is winning deals and expanding scope, but it is simultaneously compressing the effort required for execution. The sector is caught between two forces pulling in opposite directions, and until one wins out decisively, the path forward for Indian technology firms remains narrower than the headlines around artificial intelligence would suggest.