Firm Management
PwC’s Global Revenue Tops Out at $55.4 Billion in 2024
PwC's 4.3% revenue growth is larger than the 3.8% and 3.6% year-over-year growth shown by EY and Deloitte, respectively, this year.
Oct. 29, 2024
Global revenue for PwC grew 3.7% in local currency terms and 4.3% in U.S. currency terms to $55.4 billion during its 2024 fiscal year that ended June 30, the Big Four accounting firm said on Monday.
PwC’s 4.3% revenue growth is slightly larger than the 3.8% and 3.6% year-over-year growth shown by its Big Four counterparts, EY and Deloitte, respectively, this year. The slower growth in Big Four accounting firm revenues in 2024 is primarily due to a slowdown in consulting work over the past 12 to 18 months, which has resulted in layoffs at each firm in several locations, including in the U.S.
Last year, PwC’s revenue soared to $53.1 billion, a nearly 10% increase in U.S. currency terms over 2022’s result of $50.3 billion.
“It’s been a year full of successes and challenges, in which we’ve supported our clients and made meaningful contributions to our stakeholders in the regions and communities where we live and work,” PwC Global Chairman Mohamed Kande said in a statement. “Despite a backdrop of economic headwinds, we’ve seen revenue growth across all of our lines of business, deepened our strategic alliances, and invested $1.5 billion to expand and scale our AI capabilities. As a network, we are focused on building trust and delivering quality services that our clients need to prosper today and to reinvent their businesses for tomorrow. We are focused on collaboration and innovation to help our stakeholders navigate an increasingly complex global environment, and I am proud of what our 370,000 people have accomplished this year.”
The scant revenue growth this year at PwC can be attributed to its Asia Pacific region, where revenue went down 7.1% in U.S. currency terms to $9.3 billion in 2024. The firm attributed the decline in growth to “difficult market conditions.”
“Demand was particularly slow in China where revenues fell, and in Australia economic and business headwinds, as well as the divestment of the firm’s government consulting business, contributed to a decline in revenue over last year,” PwC said in a media release. “India continued to perform very well with a strong increase in revenues.”
But as the Financial Times noted on Oct. 28, two recent scandals in that region have caused PwC to lose clients in China and forced the firm to sell its government consulting arm in Australia.
Chinese regulators ruled PwC had helped conceal a fraud at the collapsed property developer Evergrande, one of its largest audit clients in the country. State-owned enterprises have ditched PwC as their auditor as a result of the scandal, and PwC China last month had its licence to operate suspended for six months.
In Australia, the firm has been in the middle of a political furore after a partner in its tax practice was found to have used confidential information from his work with the government to help colleagues woo multinational technology companies. The firm sold its government consulting business in the country to avoid losing federal contracts.
In both countries, PwC’s global bosses replaced the heads of the local businesses, and PwC China was stripped of its representation within the firm’s top leadership team.
Across the Americas revenues were up by 3.4%, while Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) revenues grew 11.2% in U.S. currency terms this year.
As Kande noted, revenue in each of PwC’s core service lines—assurance, advisory, and tax and legal services—grew year over year in 2024, with tax and legal services leading the way at 7.1%
“Regulatory uncertainty and technological disruption continued to fuel our largest growth area in tax—connected tax compliance. This includes both Pillar Two and sustainability which have increasingly complex reporting requirements,” PwC said. “Demand for our legal and workforce services grew strongly in FY24. We focused on supporting clients as they undergo mergers and acquisitions, business transformation and workforce planning efforts—all underpinned by an assessment of the impact of artificial intelligence on their people, processes and business.”
Advisory revenue increased only 3.1% in U.S. currency terms in 2024 as “a continuing slow market for mergers and acquisitions, sluggish economic growth in a number of key markets, and political uncertainty holding back investment in some key projects meant that the growth of our advisory operations slowed over the last 12 months,” the firm said.
PwC’s assurance business had 4% revenue growth in U.S. currency terms, bolstered by demand for newer services such as risk and broader assurance in areas such as environmental impact, the firm said.
In 2021, PwC committed to creating more than 100,000 net new jobs over a five-year period, with an emphasis on hiring specialists in areas such as cybersecurity, cloud, climate, transformation, and supply chain. PwC said it has reached three-quarters of its target hiring goal in just three years, adding 6,161 jobs in 2024 and 68,681 over the prior two years, taking the firm’s workforce to over 370,000 people around the world.