Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Capgemini Quarter One 2026 Revenue Webcast and Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you need to press star one and one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising you are in the queue. To withdraw your questions, please press star one and one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Aiman Ezzat, CEO. Sir, please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, thank you for joining us for this Q1 2026 revenue call. I'll be joined today by our CFO, Nive Bhagat. The group had a solid start of the year, actually slightly better than what we anticipated. We generated revenue of EUR 5.943 billion, which represent a year-on-year growth of 11% at constant exchange rates. This reflects robust underlying momentum in line with Q4, as well as the expected contribution from the acquisition of WNS and Cloud4C. Bookings were up 6.2% at constant exchange rates, reaching EUR 6.054 billion, which demonstrate a strong commercial momentum. Growth rates in Q1 are fueled by solid organic trends, complemented by the scope impact of WNS and C4C. From a sector perspective, all major sectors are growing when excluding acquisitions.
Strong underlying growth in financial services, public sector and TMT, supported by AI-led transformation. From a geo standpoint, the strongest traction is in North America and in the U.K., backed by solid underlying demand. While continental Europe, including France, is gradually recovering. Finally from a business perspective, both Strategy and transformation and Applications and technology have maintained a good momentum. Operations & Engineering grew by 25%. Beyond the scope impact of WNS and Cloud4C activities, it's important to note double-digit like-for-like growth for our digital business process services, which confirm that this remained the fastest-growing segment in our business. What's driving our performance this quarter is very clear. It's focusing on clients' large-scale transformation programs. Clients are accelerating AI adoption, the conversation have moved to agentic AI to transform end-to-end operation and processes.
That shift is forcing a CEO-level agenda around modernizing core technology stacks, data foundation, and operating models, so AI can scale safely and deliver measurable impact. In this context, we are seeing strong momentum around agentic AI driven by clear trends. First, AI is now simply part of every client conversation. Clients are looking at AI either to drive cost efficiency or to improve business outcomes such as faster delivery, higher reliability, stronger compliance, higher customer satisfaction, or better overall operation performance. Second, clients are clearly stepping up the pace of AI-driven transformation. We see a real shift from isolated use cases and standalone tools to AI embedded into end-to-end core processes. To enable that, they have to modernize the core technology stack. That's why we increasingly brought into big architecture discussions at scale, which now includes C-level executives around the table.
We are well-positioned to capture this demand. Our offering portfolio, now enriched with intelligent operations, is leading to some noticeable deals in Q1. Just to mention a couple of them. For U.S. utility provider, we are designing, developing, and scaling an agentic AI operation platform spanning across customer operations, supply chain, support function, and issue resolution. This platform represents a next approach to how large organizations harness AI, not as a standalone tool, but as an integrated layer embedded directly in employees' way of working. For European banking clients, we are replacing fragmented processes, notably onboarding and due diligence, with agentic end-to-end automation. This will allow our client to reduce its operational efforts, strengthen regulatory compliance at lower cost, reinforce data quality, achieve faster processing times, and a more scalable operating model, thus realizing measurable business value. On AI, the message from clients is very clear.
We need to see measurable business impact. To get there, they need to run AI at enterprise scale, which implies getting the foundations right, including data quality, infrastructure readiness, governance, cyber, and trust. If there's one critical element that people tend to underestimate, it is the human side. This is about people working effectively with AI to ensure that we capture the value at scale. That's exactly where we make the difference. We are one of the few partners selected by OpenAI or Anthropic to help enterprises capture value from AI. Delivering value from AI requires a much broader set of expertise, from Strategy and transformation to technology and deep architecture through data and AI engineering and operations. This needs to be complemented by deep industry knowledge and real domain process expertise.
In parallel, we're also accelerating our own AI transformation. With four streams, all equally important: solutions, workforce upskilling, delivery, and operations. We are developing, for example, solution data, AI by design, whether we're talking about SAP implementation or SDLC or others. The point is simple. With a disciplined end-to-end value approach, we consistently turn AI investments into scalable and sustainable value, both for our clients and also for Capgemini. A quick note on defense. We continue to see stronger momentum in defense, driven by two structural trends: a sharp ramp-up in defense manufacturing across Europe, including new entrants from civilian industry, and a growing demand from European ministries of defense for software-defined, digitally enabled solution to modernize systems and architectures. Now, this creates an opportunity to partner in building sovereign European solutions.
Our defense business is scaling across three areas: helping industrial players scale manufacturing, especially civilian entrants with the digital and systems capabilities required; accelerating innovation platform to develop, integrate, and deploy next-generation defense technologies faster, and expanding our role in cross-border programs by addressing demand for new air and ground system architecture across Europe. Together, these trends strengthen our position as a key partner in Europe's defense ecosystem, combining scale, digital expertise, and cross-border delivery.
Moving on to the outlook. Q1 was solid with underlying growth in line with Q4. For Q2, we expect around 10% constant currency growth, including approximately 6.5% from inorganic contribution. The group's financial targets for 2026 are unchanged. Revenue growth of around 6.5%-8.5% at constant exchange rates, an operating margin of 13.6%-13.8%, and an organic free cash flow of around EUR 1.8 billion-EUR 1.9 billion. Our assumption on inorganic contribution and the impact of the Fit for Growth initiatives are also unchanged. With that, I will hand over to Nive.
Thank you, Aiman. Good morning, everyone. Let me start with the top line. Q1 2026 represents a solid start to the year. Group revenues came in at EUR 5,943 million, slightly ahead of our expectations, up 7% year-over-year on a reported basis. Underlying trends remain steady across the group. I'll come back to that in a moment. At constant currency, revenue growth was 11% in the quarter, including around 6.5 percentage points of scope, primarily from the WNS and Cloud4C acquisitions. As anticipated, foreign exchange was a headwind in Q1 with a negative impact of 400 basis points.
Based on current exchange rates, we expect FX to be less of a drag going forward, with an impact of around -1 to -1.5 points in Q2 and broadly similar for the full year 2026. Turning to revenues by sector. We saw a solid underlying performance in Q1. On a like-for-like basis, financial services, TMT, and the public sector continued to grow at good pace. Manufacturing saw a modest improvement, although it remained subdued. This underlying momentum was further supported by the contribution from WNS and Cloud4C acquisitions, with the impact most visible across financial services, energy and utilities, services, and consumer goods and retail. At constant currency, financial services was the strongest sector, growing by 21.9%, followed by services at 17.4%.
All other sectors delivered growth of around 10%, broadly in line with Q4 2025, apart from manufacturing at 3.5%. Revenues by region. Looking at the business geographically, momentum remained strong in Q1. On a like-for-like basis, North America and U.K. and Ireland delivered another quarter of robust growth. France showed improvement while still slightly negative. The rest of Europe remained broadly flat. As in the previous quarter, the scope impact from WNS and Cloud4C acquisitions was most visible in North America, the U.K., and Asia Pacific. At constant currency, North America grew by 20.7%, driven by strong performances in financial services alongside solid growth in TMT and manufacturing. U.K. and Ireland delivered 21.7% with strong growth across almost all sectors. France declined by -1%.
Growth in financial services and energy utilities was more than offset by weakness in consumer goods and retail and the public sector. While manufacturing, excuse me, improved, albeit remaining slightly negative. The rest of Europe grew by 1.7% with strong public sector performance and a return to growth in consumer goods and retail, more than compensating for ongoing manufacturing softness. Finally Asia Pacific and Latin America recorded the strongest growth at 26.9%, primarily driven by financial services, with solid traction also seen in consumer goods and retail and energy and utilities. Moving to revenues by business line. Strategy and transformation delivered growth of 6.2% at constant exchange rates. Applications and technology services, which is our core business, posted a 4.8% growth. Operations and Engineering Services grew by 25.2%.
This reflects solid underlying growth across the portfolio, further reinforced by the contribution from the WNS and Cloud4C acquisitions. At this moment, I would like to highlight one important point. Digital business process services maintained double-digit growth in Q1 on a like-for-like basis across both Capgemini and WNS. This clearly confirms the strategic rationale and the strong commercial traction we're seeing in the space. Turning to bookings. We recorded EUR 6.1 billion in Q1, up 6.2% at constant currency. Our book-to-bill came in at 1.02, which is slightly above our 10-year average for the quarter. What is particularly encouraging is the continued momentum we're seeing in large transformation deals and longer-term client commitments. This is especially evident around areas such as AI, intelligent operations, and defense, which remain key drivers of demand.
Before moving to headcount, a quick update on the Fit for Growth initiative. You will see the bulk of the 2026 charges in H1 with the benefits starting to come through in H2 of this year. A quick word on headcount. We closed the quarter at 421,000 employees, up 23% year-on-year, reflecting the integration of WNS since Q4 last year. Compared to year-end 2025, headcount is broadly stable, down around 0.6%. Offshore leverage stands at 66%, up eight points year-on-year with the WNS integration and flat versus the end of 2025. Since January 1, 2026, our last 12-month attrition rate now includes WNS and stood at 18.6% in Q1. On a like-for-like basis, this represents a 1.2 point decrease year-on-year. On that note, Aiman, I will hand back to you for the Q&A.
Please go ahead with the Q&A instruction.
Thank you. To ask a question, you need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Sven Merkt from Barclays. Please ask your question.
Good morning, Aiman Ezzat. Good morning, Nive Bhagat.
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my questions. Congrats on the good quarter. Maybe first, on the outlook for the rest of the year, the full year guidance implied a slowdown on an organic basis. I know you normally not raise the guidance at the Q1 results, how should we think about the implied performance for the rest of the year? Is there a conservatism baked in, or is there any other reason you would point out? Secondly, I noticed that Applications and technology sequentially slowed. Can you just provide us a bit of color what drove this? Thank you.
Okay. listen, as you said, we don't raise at the end of Q1. We don't see a change in the environment so far. You know, it's, we'll review the guidance as required at the end of H1. We give you some visibility on Q2. So far, the, you know, we're quite confident for the rest of the year. On the Applications and Technology sequence is slowing down. You know, I did nothing really to flag that specifically. Yeah. I mean, it's not a trend. I think it could be some fluctuations or startup of contract. I mean, from my perspective, there's nothing special to flag.
Okay, perfect. Maybe just rephrasing maybe the first question a little bit. I mean, when we're looking at the Q2 guidance that you have just given us, it's also kind of a slowdown versus Q1. Is there anything you would point out there, any puts and takes, we should consider when we're thinking about Q2?
No. Really nothing special. I mean, again, it's pretty much in line with Q1. We see around, you know, we'll see where we end up. I mean, we're not gonna give a guidance at ±10, 20, 30 basis points or something like that. We're not in that level of detail. I think it shows that we continue with a similar momentum going into Q2. There's no changes-
Perfect. Thank you.
...in the environment for us. I mean, we don't see a slowdown. We don't see clients scaling back. We don't see things getting canceled or delayed. For me, there's absolutely no change in the environment right now.
Okay. Perfect. Makes sense. Thank you.
Questions. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Balajee Tirupati from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. Firstly, congratulations on my side as well. Two questions, if I may. First on competitive intensity. With uncertain macro and many of our peers seeing growth pressure, are you observing any incremental change in competitive intensity? Second question on increasing organization's AI investments. Are you seeing acceleration of AI projects moving to production as well as new AI capabilities coming, changing your clients' expectation of what they can achieve with the technology and altering their tech investment decision? Thank you.
On the competitive intensity, honestly, I don't see a change. It has been quite competitive for last three years, I would say, because there's been less growth overall. I cannot say that there's been any change in competitive intensity from our perspective. Client, you know, they're not yet into production, but I think what the realization is, it's been moving away from a proof of concept and use cases, individual use cases, to understanding that if you want to see real benefits coming from AI at enterprise scale, you really have to start looking at fundamental transformation. Okay. That's really what we start embarking on. We have big discussions and projects starting with clients on really, you know, you have to reconceive your tech stack. It's a different one.
In the agentic world, you have to start putting in place the components to be able to run AI at scale. I mean, like, it's a fundamental change going from GenAI to agentic AI. Agentic AI is really making the difference. You're creating a digital workforce. You're gonna have to be able to manage it. I mean, we see the consequences. People start to see some of the consequences, you know, if you don't put the right guardrails. It's not only about defining what agents should do, but it's about clearly defining what agents should not do. You know. You have to define the red lines. It is complex. It's a complex world with a lot of potential, but it requires significant transformation. I think clients start to really realize that.
I think as opposed to some of the tech work we used to do in the past, here we're doing transformation work that's clearly visible. When we implement something, we see directly the results. You know? It's not something. We're not gonna enable something to happen. We're actually making things happen, so it becomes visible. Clients are expecting that visibility and expecting to see that impact. This is not a tech budget, you know? You are fundamentally transforming companies. If you're hyper-automating processes and improving fulfillment rate, this is what's financing that investment. It is not the tech budget that's financing that investment. We need to start shifting around where the money to do this work is coming from. It's not coming from the tech budgets.
Very useful. Thank you.
Good for the questions. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Laurent Daure from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, Aiman and Nive. I also have two questions, and also congrats for the first quarter. The 1st is on the large transformation program you were alluding to, I was interested to see if you see a difference by regions, and more importantly, if you compare the gross margin you could achieve on such project, are they comparable to the rest of the business or higher? My second question is, I know it's early stage, but the partnership you have with OpenAI and Anthropic on a typical contract, how do you share the value with them? How is the budget split between what customer will pay to the LLM and what you will get in revenue? Thank you.
Okay. On the first question, there's definitely more traction in the Anglo-Saxon world to this than there is in continental Europe, right. It doesn't mean that there's no activity in continental Europe. It's starting, but the urgency seems higher definitely in the U.K. and the U.S. than it is in continental Europe. Okay. We see good programs as well in continental Europe. I think it will accelerate. Yes, there is a lag as usual from that perspective. On the gross margin on this type of deal, Laurent, I think all these things are too early. I mean, as I said, the commercial models are evolving bit by bit. We are at the early stage of some of this transformation.
The way I would look at it is different, is the potential for value creation is much higher and it is visible. The difference here is that the value creation is visible. If I go and transform an end-to-end process with agentic, I see the results immediately. It's not I'm developing a technology that's supposed to enable a business which hopefully will deliver results. It's measurable, it's visible, and that of course, will provide opportunities as we deliver to consider the fact that, yes, we should be able to deliver higher gross margin if we create significant value. On the value sharing on partnership with OpenAI and Anthropic, remember, you know, they at the end of the day, what they're looking for is consumption, okay?
Tokens. This will be the revenue model. We are looking for creating value through services. We are definitely not at all on the same on the same driver. You know, I'd say I put OpenAI closer to a software company in terms of what they're looking for in a certain way, as opposed to us, which are the service, which are looking to deliver revenue from the transformation. We are complementary. It's not, it's not really a value-sharing model, but there's a source of value and we're sharing it.
Great. Okay. Thank you.
Questions. Our next question comes from the line of Frederic Boulan from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, Aiman. Good morning, Nive. If I can follow up on the kind of pricing discussion, is there any area where you see some price pressure for more, for more efficient delivery, supported by GenAI? How do you think about the opportunity around some traditional software, implementation? Do you see some faster and cheaper delivery on specific process, say, kind of, you know, SAP cloud transformation? How do you think about the, the opportunity around those processes?
I mean, I don't think there's any price pressure. I mean, there is, of course. Listen, if you do managed services deal today, clients have some anticipation in terms of some of the benefits we're gonna be able to deliver from deploying GenAI or agentic AI as part of our delivery. There's nothing new. It has been the case now already for, you know, for several quarters. I don't consider it being a price pressure. I think there is a an anticipation that's different already, you know. You know very well that every time we do managed services deal or managed services renewal, the client expect, you know, some cost reduction. I don't call it as price pressure.
Call this as being improvement that's expected, hence you basically have to deliver more for the same amount of money. On software, on traditional software implementation and things like that, yes. I mean, we are redesigning solution delivery. Of course. If you look at SAP, for example, we are reinventing how we deploy SAP, we are embedding, of course, GenAI and agentic AI as part of that. Part of it, yes, we're gonna be able to do that faster in a more efficient way and hopefully at a lower cost as well.
It is part of what we do. Now we're doing it by design. Before, we were giving tools to people, telling them, try to make it better. Now we are designing how things should happen for us to be able to deliver more efficiently. We are redesigning a number of our solutions by embedding, as expected, agentic AI and GenAI as part of the design of the solution. It will all be by design versus hoping that people, by using some tools, will be able to become more efficient.
Okay. Thank you. If I may follow up, Q1 growth still, you know, very healthy versus the rest of the industry. Any specific area you can call out that can explain that performance? I mean, is this an exposure on some specific end market where you have stronger momentum? I mean, any specific, you know, area you can flag?
Frederic, I think it's really, as you know, we have been focusing on execution, especially focusing around how we can really derive value from AI. What are the fundamentals we need to tackle? really thinking strategically about, you know, what really needs to happen there, that it's not just about use cases or how do you say, staffing a few people to go and do some high-end work. But we really think about transformation and what do we need to line up to be able to drive this transformation. And I think it's starting to pay off in terms of credibility, in terms of getting embarked in some good large-scale transformation programs. Of course, more to come around that when in the Capital Markets Day.
Thank you.
Questions. One moment for the next question. Our next question comes from the line of Josh Webb of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Morning, Aiman and Nive. A couple of questions, please. I mean, firstly, you mentioned the slightly better than expected Q1. You know, where did you see that outperformance versus your expectations prior to the quarter, or was it pretty broad-based? Secondly, is there a kind of a twist on some of the questions that have already been asked? You know, with regards to the latest waves of agentic AI coding tools and the innovation that's come out over the last few months.
Mm-hmm.
Are your developers seeing any kind of step changes with regards to the ability to reduce delivery timelines and effort in certain project types, or are those kind of feeling more like incremental improvements than significant ones? Thank you.
On the outperformance, I would say probably where we came a bit ahead is in U.K. and North America. On the agentic AI, yes, I mean, we see difference, but it is not across the board. I think what is difficult is basically what's happening at scale. Yes, there are some areas where we see a real difference, but there are some areas where we still find it complicated to be able to deploy. Also it depends on client environment and clients themselves. You know, some clients are still pretty hesitant around some of these. It is a mixed bag, but where we're able to really deploy, well and we're able to, have a clean environment with a, with a proactive client and, good working environment and the perfect skills, yes, you can start to really see some good impact, and that's positive.
That's very clear. Thank you.
Questions. Our next question comes from the line of Mohammed Moawalla from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Great. Thank you. Morning, Aiman, morning, Nive, and congrats on the good performance in Q1, also relative to peers. I had two. Firstly, could you talk where you are on the extraction of some of the revenue synergy on WNS? I know you sounded quite optimistic in terms of the pipeline, but where are we? I know it's still early in the year. To what extent is this also kind of driving the connection to some of these kind of larger transformation deals that you're talking about? Secondly, just in terms of sort of gross margin evolution, there's obviously pressure on the customer side, but you talked about kind of agentic AI now starting to go from pilot to more mainstream projects or larger transformational.
How should we think of the kind of impact of this in terms of the gross margin? Really, be interesting to get some perspective from prior cycles. For example, when you went from on-prem to cloud, there was this sort of perception of, look, IT services are not gonna be needed. In the end, you know, digital and cloud drove that big mix improvement. Curious to get your perspective on that kind of more medium-term evolution at the margin as agentic goes more mainstream. Thank you.
Okay. Listen, on revenue synergies from WNS, as you know, we are quite satisfied so far in terms of some of what being generated. The pipeline is pretty strong. As you know, it takes a bit of time to shape some of this new larger deal, but they are there. Some very large deals are being shaped up on the back of our intelligent operation concept. I mean, I'm Frederic, I'm really quite satisfied, it's really working well. You know, we're really generating double-digit growth on the legacy Capgemini part and the WNS part. It's quite profitable. I think it's so far so good from that perspective. On the gross margin. Listen, again, for me, you have to think about it as.
Is the ability to be able to have improvement in gross margin is coming from value creation. Okay? You know, if you take the example, when we moved to offshore, the reason why there was margin expansion, because there was so much value being created that the value could be shared. Here, I think with the agentic AI transformation, we are on the brink of something that's similar. If you're really able to deliver the value that is expected, there's enough value creation for us and the client to be able to share into that value. Okay? If it's an incremental improvement, it gets squeezed, you know. We are at the early stage, so the value is not yet delivered. There's a perspective about value, delivering the value, but we haven't yet delivered the value at scale.
If we're able to deliver the value at scale, it will accelerate the deployment, and clients will be more willing to give part of that value away to people who really help them achieve it. That's where we're trying to position ourselves, is really showing that the value can be created. I insist, this is a business transformation. This is not a technology transformation. It's a business transformation supported by technology. What makes it different is that the value we create is visible, tangible, and measurable. Okay. It will not come in the future as a co-consequence of technology deployment. I think that makes a whole difference because we are associated directly with visible, tangible value creation. I think that puts us in a great place to see how we can share better in terms of that value creation.
That's great. Thank you.
Our next question comes on the line of Nicolas David from Oddo BHF. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, Aiman Ezzat and Nive Bhagat, for taking my question, and congrats for the strong start to the year. I have two, actually. The first one is regarding the cyclicality of the sector in the context of current macro, which is, as you pointed, it's currently not affecting the business. Let's say that if the conflict in Iran continues, maybe it could have an impact. Do you think that this time the sector could be a bit more or a bit less cyclical than previous cycle, macrocycle, given that discretionary spending is already at a very low level and there's a sentiment of emergency from client to invest in AI? Do you think that it's going to be cyclical like it has always been? My second question is regarding continental Europe.
You are mentioning improvement there, but it's not really visible in the constant currency figure. Is there something that we don't see in the CC figure that you want to point out, showing that there is a real improvement, not only in term of users, other Europes? We have seen some of your peers in that region rebounding a bit faster than you. I know that you're overexposed to automotive, which is a tough sector, but don't you think that you can take some action to revive the growth faster? Not only manufacturing, also, you point manufacturing as growth driver in the U.S., as a drag in Europe, why is there such difference between the two? Thank you.
Okay. On the cyclicality of the sector, I mean, listen, I don't see any signs of anything slowing down so far. Yes, the urgency around the AI investment is what was gonna carry the sector growth. Okay? Right now, you know, I feel quite comfortable. We haven't seen any early signs of things slowing down. That's positive. On continental Europe, listen, again, when I look at the details, I look at our different country, the underlying trends, we are improving. France is improving. France will end up getting back to growth. You know? I remember we were at - 4% or -5%, two or three quarters ago. Yes, no, things are improving. In parts, we have some unfavorable mix, you know, that basically playing against us.
Auto is still negative in Europe. We take auto, it's positive in the U.S., it's negative in Europe. Still negative in Europe. it's still a drag in Europe. It's fading away, but it's still a drag. on the other side, you know, aerospace and defense, for example, is now quite positive. same thing on life sciences. we start to see improving trends in Europe. It's slower because of the mix and the size that we have. we have one or two areas of weakness that we're trying to address in some countries specifically, you know, in the next two or three quarters. overall, you know, I am, I'm quite confident on the fact that Europe is rebounding and that we will see a better growth rate going into H2.
That's very clear. Thank you.
Thank you for the question. Please hold for the next question. Our next question comes on the line on Michael Briest from UBS. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning. Thank you. Nive Bhagat, I think you talked about margin trends for the year being back-end loaded. Can you give a bit more sort of context around that? I'm assuming that WNS has a sort of positive impact on the first half, but how should we think about the seasonality of margins this year, given the Fit for Growth program maybe having more of a second half impact? Is the historical H1, H2 sort of trend something we should look for?
Then, WNS, I think historically got about 20% of its revenues from travel and leisure and shipping and logistics. I appreciate your comments, Aiman, about, you know, broader demand seems constant, but anything you could say about the profile of customers in those sectors and whether you're expecting any sort of challenges in Q2, and that's why you're looking for a slight deceleration in organic growth. Thank you.
Okay. Michael, let me address the first point. I think I first want to reiterate that we are confident about our full-year margin guidance. I just want to set that out upfront. Now, as far as H1 is concerned, we expect the reported margin to be broadly in line with last year. Coming back to your point on seasonality, the seasonality is pretty straightforward. The benefits from the Fit for Growth initiative will be visible in H2 and not H1.
I think, to further sort of mention that in the context of the Continental Europe point that was asked earlier and Aiman made, we do have some bench that continues to sort of build up in Q1. It's a slight bit of a headwind there, which we expect will then get sorted and resolved in H2 as we go through from our, you know, our Fit for Growth initiative. Sort of that gives you a perspective of essentially how we're thinking about margins.
Okay.
The revenue from travel and leisure, no, to be frank, we don't see. We haven't seen any slowdown so far. There might be small fluctuation, but there's nothing that's significant that would impact the revenue at this stage, Michael.
Thank you. Nive, just to confirm, you're saying stable on last year's Capgemini standalone margin for H1 because WNS obviously was a higher margin business. You're not saying pro forma.
I'm saying on a like-to-like basis, yes.
On a like-to-like basis. Okay.
Meaning in the full Capgemini. Capgemini plus WNS, that's what I mean.
Okay. Got it. Thank you.
Questions. Our next question comes from the line of Ben Castillo -Bernaus from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Just two for me, please. Just one on bookings up 6%. Could you just give us a sense of the contribution from WNS and Cloud4C in here? I'm just curious on the bookings front, you know, how was that relative to your expectations? Did you see any impact in, you know, late March, from the Middle East conflict? Second question, just on gross margins, please again. You mentioned last year, you know, Continental Europe was a drag here. We're seeing some stabilization, some improvement. How confident are you that last year was, you know, a sort of low point for gross margins and perhaps some thoughts on the trajectory from here? Thank you.
Okay. Sorry. On bookings contribution, I mean, at this stage on WNS, we take booking is for revenue. When we make acquisition for the first couple of quarters, we don't track direct bookings and we take booking equal revenue because most of the time we have some of these companies don't really track bookings directly the same way we do them, as we have a different way of doing it. It will be, we start tracking real bookings from WNS starting in Q2.
Overall, taking the concept of bookings out, the business expectation coming out of WNS and the growth remains pretty good. The what we have in the pipeline, the deals we're signing will continue to fuel growth in the coming quarters, if that's really what was underlying your question. On the gross margin, sorry, what is it? Yeah, I'm not sure about the low point of last year on gross margin. I'm not sure I understand the question. If you can rephrase it, please.
Sure. Yeah. Last year, gross margins saw a little bit of pressure. Our understanding was that was really driven by the softness in Europe, and we're now starting to see Europe stabilize. You're talking about some improvement there. I guess with that in mind.
Sure. I mean.
Should we think that last year gross margins were a low point and it should trend higher from here? Yeah.
We should see improvement as we deploy our Fit for Growth program. Okay? We should definitely see improvement in H2. It's a bit early to talk about the one in H1, but for the full year, we should see improvement as Fit for Growth get deployed.
It kicks into H2.
Yeah.
Than it will H1.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you very much. That was the last question. We wish you a great day and look forward to interacting with you pretty soon. Next time, Capital Markets Day on May 27th. Thank you. Bye-bye.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.