طارت في الافتر اورز ...84.4
In the three months ending Sept. 30, IBM earned $1.52 billion, or 94 cents a
share, on revenue of $21.5 billion. In the same period last year profit was
$1.55 billion, or 92 cents a share, on revenue of $23.3 billion.
But comparisons are complicated because last year's figures included IBM's
personal-computer division, which since has been sold to China's Lenovo Group
Ltd. (0992.HK). The year-ago quarter also included a one-time charge of $320
million from the settlement of a pension-related lawsuit.
Without that charge and the PC operations, the continuing operations last
year earned $1.03 a share.
This year's third quarter included a $525 million tax payment that IBM had to
make as it repatriated $9 billion in profits earned overseas. Without that
charge, IBM's continuing operations earned $1.26 a share.
That easily surpassed the $1.13 a share that analysts surveyed by Thomson
First Call had been expecting. IBM fell short of the revenue forecast of $21.7
billion. Sales rose just 4% over last year's non-PC operations.
The results were an important benchmark in what has been an uneven year for
IBM, which has yet to completely persuade Wall Street that its strategy of
selling a wide slate of "business performance transformation services" will
dramatically transform IBM's own results.
The company's first-quarter results fell short of Wall Street's forecasts,
prompting the company to cut 14,500 jobs. While the next period provided
stronger earnings, IBM shares are still down 16% this year.
Even upgrades from some analysts in the past week failed to do much to lift
the stock, which gained 24 cents to close at $82.59 on the New York Stock
Exchange before Monday's report was released. The shares have traded between
$71.85 and $99.10 over the past 52 weeks.
Although the third quarter often has some seasonal slowness, Big Blue's
hardware division benefited from the September release of IBM's new z9
mainframes, giant corporate computers that cost more than $1 million each.
The segment of business transformation services also posted good results,
with revenue rising 35%.
"IBM had a good quarter," Chairman Sam Palmisano said in a statement. "It
showed the strength of our business model across hardware, software and
services, and we continued to see the benefit of the strategic transitions that
we've implemented in past quarters."
In the first nine months of 2005, IBM earned $4.75 billion, or $2.90 a share,
on revenue of $66.7 billion. In the first three quarters of last year, profits
were $4.65 billion, or $2.72 a share, on revenue of $68.6 billion.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires