Accenture announced earnings this morning and exceeded market expectations for both top line revenue and bottom line net income. And the results would have been even better had it not been for foreign currency headwinds. The main driver of Accenture's continued growth is a surge in digital services revenue and cloud services business.
Also encouraging, Accenture announced they are increasing their dividend by 8% and adding $5 billion to its share repurchase program. Both of these are good things because it is a return of cash to shareholders. Even though Accenture is growing quickly it still generates more cash than it needs, and is able to return a lot of it to shareholders.
Accenture's stock price has declined slightly this morning mainly because the overall market is down slightly. However, the company also gave guidance for next year's earnings in a range of $5.09 to $5.24 per share, slightly below street expectations of $5.22 per share.
Bottom line, this is a great business, that generates lots of cash and continues to grow. You can check out our complete thesis on Accenture here.