PwC hits $35.9b gross revenue in FY2016

The PricewaterhouseCooper (PwC) network yesterday reported total global gross revenues of $35.9billion for the fiscal year ended on 30 June 2016. With the record revenue, PwC’s total global revenues rose by over seven per cent.

Chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers International Ltd, Bob Moritz, said the revenue growth in FY16 across all major markets and businesses is testament to their fundamental purpose of building trust and solving problems.

Moritz said: “The strength of our brand, the opportunities we provide for our people, the quality of our services and our focus on meeting the needs of our stakeholders are at the heart of PwC and how we measure our success.

“To secure future growth, we are investing heavily in technology to enhance the quality and impact of our services and make the best use of the skills of our people. The world is changing rapidly and we are planning for the services our clients, capital markets and other stakeholders will need tomorrow, as well as serving their needs today. Whether it’s the tax and audit services of the future, transformational consulting, blockchain or augmented reality, we are implementing a strategy to meet the long-term needs of our stakeholders and the career aspirations of our people.

“This is an era of unprecedented scrutiny and the public expects more from business today. We are focused on how we can best serve not just the needs of our core stakeholders but society at large. This is reflected in our purpose, the culture we’re building right across our network and in the stories we tell in our annual review,” he said.

PwC noted that more revenue growth is coming from developing markets – particularly Asia where revenues grew by 10 per cent, with strong performances in India and China.

In North America and the Caribbean revenues grew by eight per cent boosted by a strong performance from the U.S., their largest market in the world. While in South and Central America, revenues were up nine per cent.

In Western Europe, growth was steady at six per cent. Central and Eastern Europe posted robust revenue growth of 10 per cent.In FY16 PwC’s $15.3 billion assurance business grew by six per cent. Broader assurance services such as IT, risk and data assurance are all areas where PwC is driving innovation and increasing investment.

Advisory growth of eight per cent to $11.5 billion was driven by an increased demand from clients for PwC network’s strategy through execution services and by excellent growth across a broad range of consulting, forensics and deals-related work. In particular, cyber security, digital and data & analytics services benefitted from their significant recent investments.

The strong market for deals positively impacted our network’s tax operations, with revenues increasing by seven per cent to $9.1 billion. In addition, there was continuing strong demand for compliance, corporate consulting and transfer pricing work globally.

Quality continues to be the driving force of all PwC’s operations around the world. In FY16 alone US$500 million was invested to further enhance the quality and delivery of our services as we continue to focus rigorously on meeting the needs of our stakeholders, PwC said in a statement.

In the area of people, the PwC network welcomed a record level of new joiners to the network, adding 58,081 people in FY16, including 26,780 graduates.

Overall PwC’s global headcount grew by over seven per cent to more than 223,000 people. The largest increases in workforce were in the strongly-growing markets of Asia and Central and Eastern Europe. In addition 83 per cent of people say they are proud to work at PwC.

In FY16, just over half of new graduate recruits were female. In addition, 665 partners were admitted across the PwC network with, for the third year in a row, female partner promotions increasing, now reaching 27 per cent of total new partners.

Moritz said: “We have an unwavering commitment to diversity and inclusion. With the increase in female partners admitted this year and the highest ratio of female leaders in our history on our global leadership team, we are making progress; but there is much more to do. We strongly believe that diversity of experience and culture improves the quality of work we deliver to clients.”

In FY16, PwC firms and people donated $63 million to community activities and more than 820,000 working hours in professional services and skilled volunteer activities.