Julie will then provide a brief update on our market positioning before Angie provides our business outlook for the third quarter and full fiscal year 2026. We delivered another strong quarter with $18 billion of revenue growing 4% in local currency and once again taking significant market share. We had record bookings of $22.1 billion, bringing H1 bookings to a total of $43 billion. We delivered 30 basis points of operating margin expansion with strong EPS growth year-over-year, generating significant free cash flow while investing significantly in our business.
We closed 3 strategic acquisitions, deploying $1.6 billion of capital, and we now expect to deploy $5 billion in acquisitions this year with capacity to do more for the right opportunities. In double clicking on our revenue, our revenue growth was broad-based across geographic markets and types of work. Revenue from our top 10 ecosystem partners continues to outpace our overall growth and we are expanding these partnerships. We delivered these strong results through the disciplined execution of our growth strategy as our market remains roughly the same.
Our long-term growth strategy is to help our clients reinvent and to capture other new opportunities created by AI. Our goal with acquisitions is to more rapidly expand into higher growth areas with attractive margins, which will fuel organic growth and increasingly help us grow non-FTE related revenue. We also acquired two companies to accelerate our growth with Palantir, an emerging ecosystem partner. We acquired a 65% stake in DLB Associates, a data center engineering and consulting firm with high double-digit growth.
What went well
- Record new bookings of $22.1 billion (6% USD growth), a third consecutive quarter of $20B+ bookings, bringing H1 bookings to $43 billion
- Revenue of $18 billion grew 4% in local currency (8% in USD), landing at the top end of the guided range, with growth broad-based across geographic markets and types of work while taking market share
- A record 41 clients with quarterly bookings greater than $100 million (74 in H1, 12 more than the prior year)
- Operating margin expanded 30 basis points to 13.8% and EPS grew 4% to $2.93, while still absorbing significant investment in the business and people
- Strong free cash flow of $3.7 billion in the quarter and record year-to-date free cash flow of $5.2 billion; returned $2.7 billion to shareholders via buybacks and dividends
- Surpassed the AI/data talent goal early with over 85,000 AI and data professionals (goal was 80,000 by end of FY2026); closed 3 strategic acquisitions deploying $1.6 billion
What went wrong
- US federal business remained a drag, causing a decline in Americas public service; excluding the ~2% federal impact, Americas grew ~6% versus reported 3% in local currency
- New bookings grew only 1% in local currency (the 6% figure was US-dollar based), reflecting FX-aided headline strength
- Effective tax rate rose to 24.3% from 20.4% a year ago, and G&A expense increased to 6.7% of revenue from 6.3%
- Growth-focused AI programs are picking up but efficiency use cases (content summarization, etc.) still lead the way; growth value has not yet translated to the biggest driver on the ground
- Middle East conflict introduces uncertainty (~3,000 colleagues, ~1%/$1B of FY2025 revenue in the region); guidance excludes any significant escalation or major economic disruption
- Higher multiples paid on some recent acquisitions mean lower immediate margin uplift than prior deals; inorganic contribution held at ~1.5% due to deal timing despite raising acquisition spend to $5B
Guidance Changes
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Performance Breakdown
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Earnings Call Themes & Trends
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Reported 2026-03-19 · figures from the Accenture plc Q2 2026 earnings call.