IBM drops after revenue declines for 13th straight quarter
By Bloomberg
IBM shares fell after reporting second- quarter sales declines across all of its major business units, marking the 13th straight period of falling revenue.
Profit excluding some items was $3.84 a share, International Business Machines Corp. said in a statement Monday, beating the $3.78 average projection from analysts as reduced administrative and research costs offset a decline in its services and software businesses. That average had already been cut 4.7 percent from three months ago.
Chief Executive Officer Ginni Rometty has been trying to shift the century-old technology company into a peddler of cloud computing and data analytics. The move has been slow, with new initiatives not growing fast enough to make up for sales lost through divestitures and weak demand for older hardware, software and services.
“The falloff in IBM’s traditional businesses is dwarfing the company’s ability to capture new revenue opportunities as the market shifts,” Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. wrote in a note Monday before the results were announced.
IBM, based in Armonk, New York, fell as much as 5.2 percent to $164.15 in late trading after closing up 0.4 percent to $173.22 in New York. The stock has lost about 10 percent in the past year.
Services Business
Within the services business, IBM’s biggest division, revenue for Global Technology Services dropped 10.5 percent as reported while Global Business Services declined 12 percent.
“Parts of our services business aren’t delivering sufficient productivity in the base to fund the investments we are making” and offset the impact of the strong dollar, Chief Financial Officer Martin Schroeter said on an earnings conference call. “We need to drive more productivity to drive the profit profile.”
IBM saw a 9 percentage-point drag on revenue from the strong dollar in the second quarter, matching its forecast three months ago. Divested businesses accounted for an additional 4 percentage points of sales declines. The company expects 2015 revenue to take as much as an 8 percentage-point hit from exchange rates, more than its forecast for a 7 percentage-point drag three months ago.
Total revenue fell 13 percent from a year earlier to $20.8 billion, or a 1 percent decline adjusting for currency impact. Analysts estimated $20.9 billion on average. The company said it cut total expenses by 7.9 percent from the year-earlier period.
Last quarter, IBM said full-year earnings would greatly hinge on its software business, which saw a sales decline of 10 percent in the second quarter, or a 3 percent decrease when excluding currency impact. The hardware business’ sales fell 32 percent as reported.
The company maintained its previous forecast for profit excluding some items for full-year 2015 of $15.75 to $16.50.
“IBM is in the midst of transforming its business model to the higher value segments,” Maynard Um, an analyst at Wells Fargo Securities LLC, wrote in a note late last week. “While it is taking the correct strategic steps, we think the transition will likely take some time.”
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