IBM profit rises to $2.02 billion
Marketwatch - July 18, 2006 4:34 PM ET
IBM profit from operations rises 9%; sales flat
<<SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- International Business Machines Corp. said late Tuesday second-quarter profit from continuing operations rose more than 9% from a year ago, helped by lower administrative costs, even as revenue from the company's key global services and hardware divisions fell.
IBM (IBM) posted a profit of $2.02 billion, or $1.30 a share, compared to $1.85 billion, or $1.12 a share in the year-ago quarter.
Revenue for the quarter ended June 30 slipped to $21.9 billion, down from the $22.3 billion in last-year's second quarter. Excluding year-ago results from the personal-computer business IBM sold to Lenovo Group, revenue would have risen by 1%.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call forecast a profit of $1.29 a share on $21.89 billion in revenue.
Revenue from IBM's global services division dipped slightly, and sales of its high-end server products also retreated from a year ago. IBM during the last few years has looked to its huge services business to help boost growth as sales of some of its hardware products have slowed.
Global services remained IBM's top revenue generator, accounting for $11.89 billion in down about 1% from the $12 billion IBM reported a year ago. Also, the company reported new services contracts of $9.6 billion, which was below many analysts estimates of between $12 billion and $13 billion.
Hardware revenue also fell from a year ago, to $5.15 billion from $5.56 billion.>>
IBM closed at 74.26 today. At the moment it is trading around 76.20, up about 2 to 3 percent. Maybe that will give the market a little traction tomorrow |
