Ernst & Young reported a 9 percent increase in global revenue to $29.6 billion for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2016, the sixth straight year of growth.
Various service lines contributed to growth in fiscal year 2016 for EY, led by transaction advisory services, which grew 14.2 percent, advisory up 13.1 percent, assurance at 4.8 percent, and tax at 9.6 percent.
Revenue increased across all four of EY’s geographic areas. The Americas region grew 9.7 percent. The Europe, Middle East, India and Africa (EMEIA) region grew 7.5 percent. The Asia-Pacific region grew 12.5 percent and Japan grew 6.4 percent.
The U.S. led growth within the developed markets, recording $12.2 billion in revenue, a 9.3 percent increase over fiscal 15. Revenue in the U.S. was driven by double-digit growth across the firm’s tax, transaction advisory services and advisory service lines, combined with several major audit engagement wins. Also in the developed markets, the United Kingdom saw strong growth, led mainly by EY’s assurance and tax businesses. EY also experienced strong growth across its member firms in Australia, France, Italy and Japan.
EY's emerging market practices saw a second consecutive year of double-digit growth, increasing 12.8 percent overall—outpacing growth in FY15 of 12.3 percent—despite difficult economic conditions in some emerging market economies. Growth in emerging markets was led by India (18.4 percent), Greater China (14.6 percent) and Brazil (12 percent), where the EY member firm in Brazil sponsored the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and was the official professional services provider to the Rio 2016 Organizing Committee.
"These solid global results have been achieved in a difficult business environment,” said EY global chairman and CEO Mark Weinberger in a statement. “We are seeing continued global economic headwinds including geopolitical uncertainties, divergent monetary policy and turbulent emerging markets. Businesses are facing unprecedented disruption in their business models due to the pace and scale of technological innovation. Our sustained, strong growth rate over the past several years is the result of the quality and value our people are bringing to the market. Significant investment in our people and new technologies have allowed us to respond to the dynamic environment. There is still more work to do as we focus on helping businesses solve their toughest challenges.”
EY member firms made 26 strategic acquisitions during the fiscal year and signed seven new alliance agreements in FY16. EY also launched a global innovation team this past fiscal year to bring leading-edge robotics and artificial intelligence to businesses. In addition, the firm has been continuing a $450 million program for investing in audit quality innovations.
EY said 714 people have been promoted to partner in the past fiscal year and more than 380 people joined EY firms as partners. This year's newly promoted partner class is among the most diverse ever for the firm, with 35 percent coming from emerging markets and 29 percent of them women. Overall, EY’s headcount increased by 9.2 percent over FY15, now totaling 231,000 people globally. The firm announced plans this week to hire 15,200 new employees in the U.S. in fiscal year 2017 (see
