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PwC Global Revenue Hits $41.3 Billion in Fiscal Year 2018

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You can breathe a sigh of relief, Green Dot Nation—Deloitte remains the largest accounting firm in the world. We thought maybe, just maybe, PwC would overtake Deloitte for the No. 1 spot this year, but PwC’s global revenue of $41.3 billion for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2018 fell short of Deloitte’s global revenue of $43.2 billion.

PwC’s revenue is up 10% in U.S. dollar terms and 7% in local-currency terms over last year’s $37.7 billion, the firm announced on Oct. 2, making it the first time PwC has cracked the $40 billion mark.

The Americas region continues to be the most profitable for PwC, growing 4% in FY 2018 to nearly $17.5 billion in revenue. The region with the biggest increase in revenue over last year is Asia, at 15%, totaling $5.7 billion.

Two of PwC’s three service lines had higher revenue growth in FY 2018 than in FY 2017. Here’s the breakdown:

  • Advisory: 10% growth, $13.8 billion (7.9% growth in 2017)
  • Assurance: 4%, $17.1 billion (6% in 2017)
  • Tax and legal: 8%, $10.4 billion (5.8% in 2017)

We mentioned in early August that PwC’s legal operations brought in $91.8 million in revenue during the 2017-18 financial year.

Proud PwC Papa Bear Bob Moritz credits the “impressive growth” to the “hard work, professionalism and dedication of our 250,000 people who continue to develop and innovate to meet the changing needs of our stakeholders around the world.”

As the global chairman mentions, PwC’s worldwide headcount is now at 250,930, up 6% from 236,235 last year. And, according to the firm, 49% of new PwCers are women.

One thing in Moritz’s lengthy quote in the press release that stood out was his acknowledgement that PwC “made mistakes” this past year. Most notably, the firm was fined a record amount of £6.5 million ($8.5 million) by the U.K.’s Financial Reporting Council in June for bungling the audit of now-defunct retailer BHS.

Moritz said:

“No organization is, however, perfect. We have been criticized this year, and where we have made mistakes we have taken responsibility for our actions. There are always lessons for us to learn and more that we can do to improve. We are also very conscious of some of the criticism that has been leveled at our profession. We take this very seriously; we are working hard to address it and to better demonstrate the contribution that we make to the capital markets and society as a whole. Nothing is more important to me than to lead a PwC that remains trusted, relevant and vital to serving the needs of all our stakeholders.”

The FY 2018 Big 4 revenue scorecard currently looks like this:

  1. Deloitte ($43.2 billion)
  2. PwC ($41.3 billion)
  3. EY ($34.8 billion)
  4. KPMG (???)

KPMG usually releases its global revenue numbers in mid-December, but we’re pretty confident they’ll stay in the cellar. After reviewing revenue growth trends and talking to three people eating lunch at Panda Express, Going Concern is projecting KPMG’s global revenue to be $28.1 billion in FY 2018. We’ll see in a couple months if our prognostication is correct.

In addition, Grant Thornton LLP had revenue of $1.8 billion in FY 2018 and BDO USA had revenue of $1.47 billion.