Accenture shares soar 70% in three months, while TCS remains flat: Decoding the IT divergence

TCS shares are among the top gainers in the Nifty 50 on Friday after the company announced strong double-digit revenue growth for the quarter ended September 2026. The optimism spread across all the other IT peers as shares of Infosys, Wipro, Tech Mahindra and HCL Technologies surged as much as 4% in Friday’s trading session. The rally in IT stocks comes at a time when shares have already fallen over 30%-40% and trade near 52-week low levels.

While considerable Indian IT companies are facing similar headwinds, the global IT majors like Accenture Plc, Cognizant Technologies and Salesforce have posted a sharp rebound in the past few months. Accenture Plc shares nearly doubled from its June 2026 lows; Cognizant Technologies shares also soared 76%, and Salesforce, which is a guiding path for IT deal wins, surged over 80% in the same period.

The divergence between the share price performance of Indian IT companies and global IT majors warrants close attention by investors. Here is how TCS fares against Accenture Plc after the latest quarterly earnings and outlook

Share price performance

On a YTD basis, the performance of Tata Consultancy Services and Accenture Plc shares is largely comparable, with the former falling 33% and the latter 23%. However, the divergence started in recent months, when TCS shares remained largely flat after excluding today’s rally. On the other hand, Accenture shares surged 70% in the last three months and nearly 94% after considering its post-earnings rally to recent highs. The massive divergence explains why Indian IT companies are facing excessive selling pressure in comparison to global peers, despite a decent correction from record highs.

Earnings growth

For the latest quarter comparable, both TCS and Accenture have delivered robust earnings growth, contrary to market expectations. Though each company has beaten market estimates in different categories, they have broadly turned the environment positive for the sector altogether. TCS’s September quarter revenue jumped over 11% to ₹73,188 crore ($7.6 billion), while Accenture Plc’s revenue stood at $18.6 billion, up 7% YoY in local currency terms. In terms of profitability, Accenture delivered a 4.6% YoY jump in profits to $2.03 billion, as against a 15% YoY jump in TCS’s net profit to ₹13,884 crore ($ 1.66 billion).

TCV wins

Besides the earnings growth, the fundamental divergence starts here, where the deal wins, or total contract value for Accenture Plc was the real catalyst for a sharp swing in its share price performance. Accenture Plc reported $22.1 billion in deal wins, outperforming market expectations of $19.9 billion. Whereas TCS reported a TCV of $9.6 billion, which was largely flat compared to the previous quarter. The deal composition played a pivotal role in robust deal wins for Accenture; $12.7 billion in managed services held the lion's share of the deal wins. Whereas for TCS, the acquisition of Porsche’s IT consulting arm was a major highlight for the quarter. BFSI vertical, which is the largest revenue contributor to both firms, saw steady growth during the quarter. However, TCS’s increased emphasis on the AI segment has started to bear fruit, as AI annualised revenue run-rate has now crossed $3.1 billion, more than 10% of the total revenue.

Geographical divergence

Accenture delivered all-round strong regional growth in revenue for the quarter in USD terms and in local currency terms. But TCS witnessed some disparity in regional growth for the quarter. The Americas region provided $9.4 billion in revenue for Accenture, up 7% YoY, followed by 6% YoY growth from EMEA and 3% from Asia-Pacific. Whereas for TCS, the Americas region saw muted 1.5% YoY growth for the quarter. Continental Europe and the UK delivered incremental growth of 4.5% and 3.3% YoY.

Slower-than-expected growth in the Americas region for TCS could remain an overhang on its margins and broader revenue growth. While Accenture continues to gain a strong foothold in the region, this could prove pivotal in its future revenue growth.

Key takeaway

TCS’s underperformance in comparison to Accenture Plc has more global and geopolitical factors to it, rather than just fundamental disparity. Strained India-US relations over a trade deal and the aftermath of AI on enterprise spending also continue to remain major headwinds for Indian IT companies as compared to their global peers. Whether this will reverse in coming years needs to be closely watched. Investors globally are rerating Accenture Plc after its latest earnings, due to its better-than-expected deal-win growth. TCS’s margin contraction due to unfavourable geographical divergence spoiled deal-win growth for the company. In addition, regulatory headwinds from the US are also expected to pressure broader investor sentiment.