(Reuters) -IT services firm Accenture on Thursday unveiled a $4.0 billion share buyback and reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter revenue thanks to demand from companies looking to adopt generative artificial intelligence technology.
Shares of the company were up nearly 7% in premarket trading.
The Dublin-based company reported fourth-quarter revenue of $16.41 billion, compared with analysts expectations of $16.38 billion, according to LSEG data.
Its generative AI business, which helped the company offset the slowdown in demand for IT services, continued to grow for a fourth successive quarter.
Accenture’s new bookings, a key metric indicating the value of customer contracts with spending commitments, rose to $20.1 billion for the fourth quarter, up from $17.25 billion in the third quarter.
Generative AI bookings contributed $1 billion to the company’s new bookings, compared to $900 million in the previous quarter.
(Reporting by Rishi Kant in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman and Tasim Zahid)
