IBM posts first revenue miss in 5 quarters as shares tumbleApril 19, 2017 - 16:02 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) reported a bigger-than-expected decline in revenue for the first time in five quarters due to weak demand in its IT services business, a sign that the company's turnaround could take longer than expected, according to Reuters. Shares of IBM, whose revenue has now fallen for 20 quarters in a row, tumbled 4.7 percent to $162 in trading after the bell on Tuesday, April 18. At current levels, the stock is set to more than erase its roughly 2.5 percent gain this year. With demand for its legacy hardware and software businesses stagnating, IBM has been shifting towards cloud-based services, security software, data analytics and artificial intelligence such as its supercomputer Watson, which once defeated human contestants in the quiz show Jeopardy. These "strategic imperatives", spread across IBM's various businesses, continued to grow in the first quarter, but failed to offset weakness in the company's core operations, especially at the technology services and cloud platforms business. IBM could not close some large deals in that business, which is its largest, while a couple of large clients took their operations in-house, Chief Financial Officer Martin Schroeter said on a conference call. As a result, IBM's overall revenue decline increased to 2.8 percent in the first quarter from 1.3 percent in the fourth quarter, and widely missed analysts' expectation of a 1.6 percent drop. "I think the frustration lies with the overall miss on revenue," Edward Jones analyst Bill Kreher said. "The Street has given IBM some credit over the last year that the transition is taking shape, so I think that's where the risk lies ... execution needs to be strong." Top stories Yerevan will host the 2024 edition of the World Congress On Information Technology (WCIT). Rustam Badasyan said due to the lack of such regulation, the state budget is deprived of VAT revenues. Krisp’s smart noise suppression tech silences ambient sounds and isolates your voice for calls. Gurgen Khachatryan claimed that the "illegalities have been taking place in 2020." Partner news Most popular in the section | The Power of One Dram to benefit Road of Life charity The companies inform that the May beneficiary of The Power of One Dram is the “Road of Life” charitable organization. Kazakhstan welcomes Yerevan, Baku’s agreement to meet in Almaty Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has welcomed the agreement of Baku and Yerevan to hold negotiations in Almaty. Armenia offers to temporarily host, preserve Gaza manuscripts The Armenian Foreign Minister has said Yerevan is ready to help preserve manuscripts from the conflict zone in Gaza. Aliyev says no need for mediators in Armenia-Azerbaijan process Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev believes that Baku and Yerevan do not mediators in the process of normalizing relations. |