IBM gains 13.7% more in the second quarter and reaffirms its commitment to artificial intelligence

The US company International Business Machines (IBM) reported a net profit of $1,583 million (€1,408 million) between April and June, representing an increase of 13.7% over the result of the same period in the previous year. This was stated by the company, Thursday, in presenting its results. The company’s turnover in the second quarter amounted to $15,475 million (13,768 million euros), 0.4% less than the revenue recorded in the previous year. Looking at the results, IBM Vice President and Chief Financial Officer James Kavanaugh announced that part of the profits would be invested in it Enhancing its strategy in the field of artificial intelligence With “seven new acquisitions” not detailed.

IBM sales grew 7.2% in software, to $6,608 million (5,879 million euros), including an 11% increase in Red Hat sales, while revenue from the consulting area added $5,013 million (4,460 million euros), up 4.2%. more. .

In contrast, revenue from the infrastructure business decreased by 14.6% to $3,618 million (€3,219 million). In this way, in the first six months of 2023, the multinational company earned a net profit of 2,511 million dollars (2,234 million euros), an increase of 18.2% over the first half of the previous year, while the income remained stable. It stood at 29 727 million dollars (26.447 million euros).

IBM was one of the last multinational technology companies to join The Great Wave of Layoffs that occurred in the sector. In January of this year, after presenting the results in 2022, with an increase in revenues of 5.5% and a decrease in benefits of 71%, due to the extraordinary charges for pensions, the multinational announced that it would dismiss 1, 5% of your employees. The measure affected 3,900 jobs

“We continue to respond to our customers’ needs for trusted enterprise AI solutions and are particularly excited about the response to the recently launched Watsonx AI platform,” said Arvind Krishna, Chairman and CEO of IBM.

In this sense, Kavanaugh noted that IBM has leveraged its strong cash position to invest in growth, and has announced seven acquisitions to bolster its hybrid cloud strategy and artificial intelligence. In fact, hybrid cloud revenue in 2022 reached $22.4 billion, an increase of 11%.

For the full year 2023, the company continues to expect revenue growth of 3% to 5%. On the other hand, it estimated that at the end of this year it would have free cash flow of about $10,500 million (€9,341 million), an increase of nearly a thousand over the previous year.

Finally, while waiting to see how stock markets react to its results, second-quarter earnings per share came in at $2.18, up 0.16 from expected and improved expectations for this section of the year. Its shares closed yesterday at $135.48, up 7.7% in the past three months and 4.8% in the last 12 months.

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