IBM beats revenue expectations on cloud, consulting strength
Jan 24 (Reuters) - IBM beat fourth-quarter revenue expectations on Monday, bolstered by its cloud and consulting businesses as more enterprises turned to the IT giant to digitize operations.
Revenue at the consulting business, a segment where IBM competes with Accenture Plc and SAP, rose 13.1% to $4.75 billion.
The 110-year-old company has doubled down on the high-growth software and consulting businesses to boost stagnating revenue, after shedding its former managed infrastructure business in November following years of growth and margin pressures.
In its new business model, software and consulting make up about 70% of total revenue, with the company now reporting in new segments to reflect its focus areas.
IBM's cloud revenue rose 16% to $6.2 billion during the quarter.
With cloud adoption surging worldwide, the company has shifted its focus to the so-called "hybrid-cloud", where enterprises use a combination of their own data centers and leased computing resources to store and process data.
Big Blue also reiterated its forecast for mid-single-digit revenue growth in 2022, compared with 3.9% last year.
During the quarter ended Dec. 31, net income rose to $2.33 billion, or $2.57 per share, from $1.36 billion, or $1.51 per share, a year earlier.
Revenue rose 6.5% to $16.7 billion, adjusted for the separation of the managed infrastructure services business, now Kyndryl. Analysts on average had expected $15.96 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. (Reporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)
