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IBM Reports 2013 First-Quarter Results

IBM announced first-quarter 2013 diluted earnings of $2.70 per share, a year-to-year increase of 3 percent.  First-quarter net income was $3.0 billion, down 1 percent year-to-year.

Total revenues for the first quarter of 2013 of $23.4 billion were down 5 percent (down 3 percent, adjusting for currency) from the first quarter of 2012.

Geographic Regions

The Americas’ first-quarter revenues were $10.0 billion, a decrease of 4 percent (down 3 percent, adjusting for currency) from the 2012 period. Revenues from Europe/Middle East/Africa were $7.3 billion, down 4 percent (down 4 percent, adjusting for currency). Asia-Pacific revenues decreased 7 percent (down 1 percent, adjusting for currency) to $5.7 billion. OEM revenues were $426 million, down16 percent compared with the 2012 first quarter.

Growth Markets

Revenues from the company’s growth markets decreased 1 percent (up 1 percent, adjusting for currency). Revenues in the BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China — decreased 1 percent (up 3 percent, adjusting for currency).

Services

Global Technology Services segment revenues decreased 4 percent (down 2 percent, adjusting for currency) to $9.6 billion. Global Business Services segment revenues were down 3 percent (flat, adjusting for currency) to $4.5 billion.

Pre-tax income from Global Technology Services was up 7 percent and pre-tax margin increased to 16.1 percent. Global Business Services pre-tax income increased 17 percent and pre-tax margin increased to 15.1 percent.

The estimated services backlog at March 31 was $141 billion, up 1 percent year over year at actual rates (up 5 percent, adjusting for currency). The company closed 22 service agreements of more than $100 million in the quarter.

Software

Revenues from the Software segment were flat at $5.6 billion (up 1 percent, adjusting for currency) compared with the first quarter of 2012. Software pre-tax income increased 4 percent and pre-tax margin increased to 31.5 percent.

Revenues from IBM’s key middleware products, which include WebSphere, Information Management, Tivoli, Social Workforce Solutions (formerly Lotus) and Rational products, were $3.5 billion, up 1 percent (up 2 percent, adjusting for currency) versus the first quarter of 2012. Operating systems revenues of $578 million were down 2 percent (down 1 percent, adjusting for currency) compared with the prior-year quarter.

Revenues from the WebSphere family of software products increased 6 percent year over year. Information Management software revenues decreased 2 percent. Revenues from Tivoli software increased 1 percent. Revenues from Social Workforce Solutions (formerly Lotus) software increased 8 percent, and Rational software decreased 2 percent.

Hardware

Revenues from the Systems and Technology segment totaled $3.1 billion for the quarter, down 17 percent (down 16 percent, adjusting for currency) from the first quarter of 2012. Excluding Retail Store Solutions (RSS), revenues were down 14 percent (down 13 percent, adjusting for currency). Systems and Technology pre-tax loss increased $0.3 billion.

Total systems revenues, excluding RSS, decreased 13 percent (down 13 percent, adjusting for currency). Revenues from System z mainframe server products increased 7 percent compared with the year-ago period. Total delivery of System z computing power, as measured in MIPS (millions of instructions per second), increased 27 percent. Revenues from Power Systems were down 32 percent compared with the 2012 period. Revenues from System x were down 9 percent. Revenues from System Storage decreased 11 percent. Revenues from Microelectronics OEM decreased 16 percent.

Financing

Global Financing segment revenues were up 2 percent (up 4 percent, adjusting for currency) in the first quarter at $499 million. Pre-tax income for the segment increased 5 percent to $538 million.

Gross Profit

The company’s total gross profit margin was 45.6 percent in the 2013 first quarter compared with 45.1 percent in the 2012 first-quarter period. 

Expense

Total expense and other income decreased 3 percent to $7.1 billion, compared to the prior-year period. S,G&A expense of $5.6 billion decreased 5 percent year over year. R,D&E expense of $1.6 billion increased 3 percent, compared with the year-ago period. Intellectual property and custom development income decreased to $183 million compared with $255 million a year ago. Other (income) and expense was income of $60 million compared with prior-year income of $58 million. Interest expense decreased to $94 million compared with $110 million in the prior year.

Tax Rate

IBM’s tax rate was 15.9 percent, down 4.1 points year over year.

Cash

IBM ended the first-quarter 2013 with $12.0 billion of cash on hand and generated free cash flow of $1.7 billion, excluding Global Financing receivables, down approximately $0.2 billion year over year. The company returned $3.5 billion to shareholders through $0.9 billion in dividends and $2.6 billion of gross share repurchases.

IBM is reiterating its expectation for full-year 2013 diluted earnings per share of at least $15.53.

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