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Deloitte’s 3.9% Increase In FY 2020 Global Revenue Is the Smallest Growth In About 5 Years

After perusing Deloitte’s FY 2020 global revenue announcement and impact report today, I thought I’d highlight some of the good news and some of the bad news over the past 12 months for D-towners everywhere.

First, the good:

  • For the fifth consecutive year, Deloitte has won the Big 4 revenue dick-measuring contest by reporting $47.6 billion for FY 2020 ending May 31, an increase of 3.9% over last year in U.S. currency terms and 7.6% in Deloitte’s beloved local currency terms. The $47.6 billion is the most revenue Deloitte has ever recorded in a single fiscal year.
  • Four out of five of Deloitte’s core service lines (consulting, tax and legal, risk advisory, and financial advisory) either increased revenue over 2019 or stayed the same (in U.S. currency terms). In a year other than the year of our COVID Lord 2020, all five of Big D’s service lines would have likely beat last fiscal year’s revenue numbers, but in a pandemic year, having 80% of your LoS beating last year’s results or staying flat is probably a small victory for the House of Renjen. (FWIW, Deloitte says all five service lines, including audit and assurance, grew over the last year in local currency terms.)
  • All three regions (Americas; Europe, Middle East and Africa; and Asia Pacific) either increased revenue over last fiscal year or was SALY.
  • The firm’s global headcount increased 7.3% in 2020 to 334,800.

And now for the bad:

  • Not mentioned in the press release but the 3.9% increase is the smallest year-over-year revenue growth at Deloitte since 2014-15 when revenue grew by about 3.2%.
  • Like PwC and EY, Deloitte was rolling along the first nine months of its fiscal year, with an aggregate growth rate of 7.5% in U.S. currency terms and 8.9% in local currency terms. But then the pandemic hit and the global markets took a nosedive, which turned that nine months of gold into shit.
  • Audit and assurance was the lone service line that had revenue decrease in 2020 over the previous fiscal year ($10.2 billion in 2019 vs. $9.9 billion in 2020).
  • Not really a 2020 thing but it’s still worth mentioning that despite hiring 22,800 warm bodies in FY 2020, Deloitte also laid off a slew of people in the U.S. (before and during the pandemic), Canada, and Australia shortly after its 2021 began.

Three of the Big 4 firms have now released their FY 2020 financial results; KPMG’s 2020 fiscal year doesn’t end until Sept. 30. So here’s the standings as we sit today:

  1. Deloitte: $47.6 billion
  2. PwC: $43 billion
  3. EY: $37.2 billion
  4. KPMG: ?

[Deloitte press release] [Deloitte 2020 Global Impact Report]

Related article:

With $46.2 Billion In Fiscal 2019 Global Revenue, Deloitte Should Continue to Rule the Big 4