Big Four firms' India operations shine amid global slump

Mumbai: The Indian units of the Big Four firms closed fiscal year 2026 as some of the fastest-growing operations within their global networks when growth has been sluggish in mature markets, the lucrative Middle East market slowed, and some regions saw layoffs.

In FY26, PwC reported around ₹14,000 crore in gross revenue with 21% growth, Deloitte clocked ₹14,500 crore with 22% growth. KPMG's revenues crossed ₹10,000 crore, including royalties, a one-off asset sale and revenue from KDN, its global delivery centre. And EY, whose fiscal year ends on June 30, has surpassed ₹16,000 crore, two senior partners who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. Comparing the firms, however, is not straightforward.

The firms, which operate as private partnerships, are locked in a race to appear bigger and have increasingly adopted different revenue reporting styles. Some include out-of-pocket expenses billed to clients, GST, royalties received to global headquarters, subcontracted work, India-centric work executed through global delivery centres and even asset sales, creating a 10-25% variation in revenue figures.


Excluding these additions, the Big Four's core India revenue is estimated at ₹51,000-₹52,000 crore. All four firms have now crossed the $1 billion India revenue mark, with KPMG becoming the latest entrant after PwC and Deloitte last year. The firms' chiefs characterised FY26 as a year of steady expansion.

PwC India chairman Sanjeev Krishan said the firm maintained "steady growth momentum while continuing to invest", Deloitte South Asia CEO Romal Shetty described it as "meaningful growth on a large base", while KPMG India CEO Yezdi Nagporewalla said the firm was in a "transformative phase." Technology consulting emerged as the biggest growth engine and largest service line across firms. It contributes nearly 50% of PwC's business, 65% of Deloitte's and, along with business consulting, 35-40% of KPMG's overall revenue.

"Consulting has been driving growth, led by cloud, data analytics, automation, digital enterprise services and business transformation, growing 24% and now accounting for 50% of the overall India business," said Krishan. "The key drivers for the next three-to-five-year growth cycle are already in place, and we are now pushing for the next phase of scale." Deloitte owns the biggest scale-up story among the Big Four over the past year, continuing to expand its technology consulting footprint and client base.

"Over the last three years, we have kept our heads down and invested heavily in building new growth engines, and those investments are now paying off. In FY26, we generated nearly ₹19,000 crore in sales and have a pipeline of close to ₹34,000 crore. Given the momentum, we are still hiring about 1,000 people a month. Demand has softened somewhat, but we are confident of delivering similar numbers next year as well," said Shetty. Meanwhile, KPMG is leaning harder into advisory including deals, the domestic market and government work while striving to narrow the gap with its larger rivals.

"We are focusing more on domestic market, building new solutions, scaling up indirect tax and expanding our government advisory business. While our tax and audit practices have performed exceptionally well, the firm is making bold, long-term bets on advisory and AI. From the initial 8-10%, advisory and deals has now grown to almost 70% of gross revenue," said Nagporewalla.

Market leader EY retained leadership in its tax and deals businesses, despite ceding technology consulting leadership to Deloitte and facing margin and working capital pressures in that business. EY did not respond to ET's queries. Over the past year, the firm focused on scaling up its GCC business, strengthening its regional corridors, winning a larger share of work from India's biggest companies and defending its traditional strongholds of tax and deals, where it continues to enjoy a clear edge over rivals, EY partners quoted above said. EY India contributes 3-4% of EY's global revenue.