Consulting services firm Accenture today trimmed its yearly forecast for profit margins, overshadowing quarterly results that comfortably topped Wall Street targets.
Accenture now expects fiscal 2018 operating margin - profit as a proportion of revenue - of 14.8%, a level consistent with results in fiscal 2017.
But the figure is lower than the 10 to 30-basis-point expansion originally expected by the company.
Cccenture flagged lower profits from services for healthcare and public service clients as well as higher spending as reasons for the revised forecast.
The company also said it expects operating margin to expand in the second half of the year.
Accenture has spent more than $3 billion over the last three years - nearly half of it in fiscal 2017 - on some 70 acquisitions, to boost its digital and cloud services in order to compete better with Cognizant and IBM.
Those services helped Accenture grow net revenue by 15.2% to $9.59 billion in the second quarter ended February 28, the biggest increase in at least five years.
Net revenue also soared past analysts' average expectation of $9.31 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.
The digital and cloud services, which Accenture calls "the New," also made up more than 55% of revenue, reaching a record level.
Accenture began investing in businesses such as digital marketing and cybersecurity about five years ago, compared with its peers that began a similar effort only one or two years back.
The company forecast current-quarter revenue between $9.90 billion and $10.15 billion, well ahead of analysts' average estimate of $9.68 billion.
The company said its net income rose to $863.7m in the second quarter, from $838.8m a year earlier. Accenture reported earnings of $1.37 per share in the latest quarter.
The company's results included a $137m charge related to the new US tax code.
