(Reuters) -French IT consulting firm Capgemini reported a 2% drop in its annual constant currency sales on Tuesday, but narrowly beat market expectations, helped by sustained demand for its cloud and AI services.

"Generative AI supported strong bookings and accounted for around 5% of bookings in Q4," CEO Aiman Ezzat said in the earnings statement.

Capgemini attributed the continued client demand to the appeal of efficiency and cost-optimization programs, which have boosted its Cloud and Data & AI services businesses.

Its full-year sales fell to 22.10 billion euros ($23.11 billion), but landed just ahead of the Visible Alpha consensus, cited by Jefferies, that had forecast sales of 22.07 billion euros.

Despite the overall decline, Capgemini noted improvements in its Financial Services and Consumer Goods & Retail businesses, along with a strong performance in the unit servicing the public sector.

The company, whose services range from cloud and AI to enterprise management across a wide array of industries, said it expected 2025 sales development to come between a 2% decline and a 2% rise in constant currency terms.

It sees an operating margin of 13.3% to 13.5% for the year.

Last year, Capgemini slowed down hiring to reduce costs. It said on Tuesday its total headcount at the end of December was 341,100, up 0.7% from a year earlier.

Its board proposed a dividend of 3.40 euros per share to be paid for 2024, unchanged from a year earlier.

($1 = 0.9565 euros)

(Reporting by Leo Marchandon and Mara Vîlcu in Gdansk; Editing by Milla Nissi)