India IT Services: Read-through from Accenture’s 3QFY26 results

Research evidence excerpt

India IT Services: Read-through from Accenture’s 3QFY26 results

eals (each in the

USD300-500mn range) moved from FY26E into FY27E for company-specific client reasons —

not macro-driven.

• Increase in M&A intensity: Accenture announced the acquisition of a majority stake in Dragos

(unlisted) (a leading Operational Technology (OT) cyber platform), plus 100% of runZero

(unlisted) and NetRise (unlisted). The company’s rationale for these acquisitions include: 1)

95% of historical cybersecurity spend has been on IT security — OT security has been

massively underinvested despite being where critical infrastructure lives; 2) Physical AI is

coming — everything is becoming connected (power grids, pipelines, manufacturing, data

centers). Running AI at scale needs securing the physical infrastructure beneath it; and 3)

geopolitical risk is accelerating the urgency — nation-state threats to critical infrastructure are

rising sharply. Management noted that USD208mn in acquired revenue is growing at 48%.

This more than triples Accenture's TAM in OT security. According to the company, the total

acquisition spend for FY26E is now expected to be ~USD9bn vs USD5bn previously.

• Impact of Middle-East conflict: Accenture mentioned that there was a direct impact of

~USD100mn revenue miss in 3QFY26 from the Middle-East business itself (all consulting-type

work). The indirect impact which was seen in the past few weeks of 3QFY26 was in the

Products industry group and to a lesser degree Resources — largely due to discretionary

spend pullback. There was a sales impact of USD400mn in the Middle-East and EMEA due to

a longer decision-making cycle in 3QFY26. The Automotive vertical which was already a

challenged sector saw added pressure due to higher oil/gas prices. Management expects the