IT services giant Atos grew revenue by 36% to €6.8 billion in 2011, the company revealed today.

However, much of that growth resulted from its acquisition of German engineering company Siemens’ IT outsourcing division. Underlying, organic growth was just 0.3%.

The company’s systems integration unit shrank by 2% compared to 2010, falling to €1.8 billion, while the consulting and technology unit dropped 3% to €588 million.

This was offset by 2% growth in managed services, the company’s largest unit, up to €2.9 billion. This was driven by expansion in the Germany and UK, where managed service revenue grew by 4.4% and 3.5% respectively.

On a conference call this morning, group CFO Michel-Alain Proch pointed out that the divisions that shrank were those that rely on cyclical spending, whereas those that grew are based on recurring revenue. "So 74% of our revenue is now recurring, which is important in the current environment," he said.

Thanks to the addition of Siemens’ IT division, Atos grew its headcount from 48,278 in 2010 to 73,969 in 2011, cementing its position as Europe’s largest IT company.

The company’s net income was €182 million, up 56% from €116 million in 2010. CEO Thierry Breton reiterated his goal to grow the company’s operating margin to between 7% and 8% in 2013, up from 4.8% last year.

Last week, Atos announced a cloud-focussed joint venture with information management vendor EMC and virtualisation pioneer VMware. New company Canopy will offer a full suite of cloud computing services, from consultancy on building private clouds to software-as-a-service applications for the public sector and healthcare industry.