IBM released strong fourth quarter earnings today, posting record revenue of $29 billion, up 7 percent from the fourth quarter in 2009, and surpassing analyst expectations. EPS were $4.18, up 16 percent; an increase of 16 percent from the same quarter in 2009.
Big Blue also posted record net income in the fourth quarter, $5.3 billion, compared with $4.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009, up 9 percent. Net income for the year came in at $14.8 billion compared with $13.4 billion in 2009, an increase of 10 percent. Diluted earnings were $11.52 per share compared with $10.01 per diluted share in 2009, an increase of 15 percent. Revenues for 2010 totaled $99.9 billion, an increase of 4 percent (3 percent, adjusting for currency), compared with $95.8 billion in 2009.
IBM’s CEO Samuel J. Palmisano said in a statement: “We completed an outstanding year, with record profit and free cash flow, and exceeded the high end of our 2010 earnings per share roadmap objective…We also capped a decade in which our shift to high-value businesses, our global integration of IBM, our investment in research and development of almost $60 billion and our acquisition of 116 companies have helped us to nearly triple our EPS and return more than $100 billion to shareholders.”
Revenues from the Software segment were $7 billion, an increase of 7 percent (8 percent, adjusting for currency) and revenues from from the Hardware Systems and Technology segment totaled $6.3 billion for the quarter, up 21 percent (22 percent, adjusting for currency) from the fourth quarter of 2009.
IBM ended the fourth-quarter of 2010 with $11.7 billion of cash on hand, which is a little bit more than the $11.1 billion leftover in third -quarter earnings. IBM’s acquisition spree tapered off in the fourth quarter but Big Blue bought a number of companies earlier in the year, including Initiate Systems, Cast Iron Systems, Sterling Commerce, Coremetrics, BigFix, Datacap, Unica, OpenPages, Netezza and most recently, Blade Network Technology for $400 million. In 2010, IBM spent roughly $6 billion to acquire 17 companies.
IBM, acronym for International Business Machines, is a multinational computer technology and consulting corporation. The company is one of the few information technology companies with a continuous history dating back to the 19th century. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and offers infrastructure services, hosting services, and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology…
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