By Leo Marchandon and Noemie Naudin (Reuters) -French IT consulting firm Capgemini raised its growth forecast on Tuesday, citing solid demand for AI solutions and strong performance in North America, after its third-quarter revenue rose by 2.9% in constant currency terms. The Paris-based company now expects its annual revenue to grow between 2% to 2.5%, excluding currency exchange effects, after previously guiding for -1% to +1%. It also narrowed its operating margin forecast to between 13.3% and 13.4%, from an earlier range of 13.3% to 13.5%. Capgemini, which provides services ranging from cloud to artificial intelligence and data across many industries, reported third-quarter revenue of 5.39 billion euros ($6.29 billion) and quarterly order bookings of 5.16 billion euros. "North America is now the group's locomotive, accounting for 28% of global revenue," CEO Aiman Ezzat said in a call with journalists. Capgemini's quarterly revenue grew 7% in the region. "This performance is driven by financial services, telecoms, media and technology, and industry, particularly in the life sciences," Ezzat added. Capgemini is also seeing growing demand for AI solutions, he said, a trend that was also behind the group's recent $3.3 billion acquisition of technology outsourcing firm WNS. "We saw an increase in demand even before the acquisition. That's why we did it. And today, we have already started to sign some nice contracts and have a very promising contract in the pipeline to be finalized by the end of the year," Ezzat said. The company's headcount increased by 4.7% to 354,700 employees at the end of September, compared to a year earlier. ($1 = 0.8575 euros) (Reporting by Leo Marchandon in Gdansk, editing by Milla Nissi-Prussak)
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