Public and semi-public sector as growth drivers
Demand for IT services from adesso remains high as companies and organisations undergo digital transformation. As in 2023, the industry ‚Public Sector‘ generated the highest revenue in 2024, with a significant year-on-year increase of 12 percent. For the first time, it was able to close the year with a turnover of over 200 million Euro, thus catching up with the business area ‘Cross Industries’, which, however, combines several industries. The ‘Healthcare’ and ‘Utilities’ industries also recorded particularly high sales growth of 44 percent and 41 percent respectively.
Yet revenue also increased in the core industries for adesso: the areas ‘Insurance’ and ‘Banking/Financial Services’ continued to grow at a high level of 5 and 6 percent, respectively, and each generated revenue more than 150 million Euro.
Better capacity utilisation benefits earnings
adesso's capacity utilisation has recovered, mainly thanks to the planned reduction in the pace of new hires in financial year 2024 and is once again approaching the average of recent years. The trend is stabilising compared to the first quarter of 2024, capacity utilisation has also improved in the first months of 2025.
Specifically, the average number of full-time equivalents (FTE) at adesso rose by 12 percent in 2024, which is disproportionately low compared to revenue. In absolute figures, this corresponds to 1,111 more employees and an average level of 10,059 FTEs in 2024. The trend towards reduced hiring momentum becomes even more apparent when looking at the number of full-time equivalents at the end of the year. At that time, adesso employed 10,320 people, around 8 percent more than in the previous year. Personnel costs per FTE rose moderately by 2 percent. In absolute terms, they increased by 15 percent to 888.9 million Euro (previous year: 773.2 million Euro), almost in proportion to revenue.
Complete takeovers: KIWI Consulting and adesso orange
adesso already held the majority of the shares in adesso orange AG, which was renamed adesso business consulting AG in February 2025, and KIWI Consulting EDV-Beratung GmbH. In the first quarter of 2025, adesso paid around 27 million Euro for the remaining 28 percent of the shares in adesso business consulting and the remaining 30 percent of the shares in KIWI Consulting. Thus, adesso SE now owns 100 percent of the shares in both companies, which will reduce the comparatively high share minority interests (2024: 2.1 million Euro) in the consolidated result. Both transactions will have a positive effect on earnings per share in 2025.
Positive outlook for 2025 and beyond
For 2025, adesso currently expects further revenue growth to between 1.35 and 1.45 billion Euro. With anticipated higher capacity utilisation over the year as a whole and a recovery in the product business from the second half of 2025, EBITDA is expected to increase further to between 105 and 125 million Euro. The positive margin trend is expected to continue. The EBITDA margin is also expected to approach the target corridor of 11 to 13 percent again, helped by the additional working days in 2026 and 2027.
