2Q12: IBM Income Up, Revenues Down

If there are any IT companies that get to move more money around than Intel, IBM is definitely one of them, as shown, once again, by their quarterly earnings report.

IBM really didn't leave anything out when it published its earnings report for the second quarter of the year (April-June, 2012). It's enough just to look at how long it is to figure out as much.

That said, we'll only mention the most relevant bits here, as we see them, starting with the total revenue itself.

IBM made $25.8 billion, which is about the same as €20.99 billion, give or take. That was much more than Intel made but, overall, it was a 3% drop compared to the same period of 2011, partially due to the negative impact of the currency ($1 billion / €813 million).

That left net income of $3.9 billion / €3.17 billion, which is actually better than the $3.7 billion / €3.01 billion of 2Q11.

“In the second quarter, we delivered strong profit, earnings per share and free cash flow growth. This performance reflects continued strength in our growth initiatives and investments in higher value opportunities,” said Ginni Rometty, IBM president and chief executive officer. “These are fundamental elements of our long-term business model.

“Looking ahead, we are well positioned to deliver greater value to a wider range of clients and to our shareholders. Given our performance in the first half and our outlook for the second half, we are raising our full-year operating earnings per share expectations to at least $15.10.”

All in all, IBM has been doing well, and we can see why, surveying the most recent product launches and other achievements.

Powering the world's fastest Supercomputer ever, Sequoia, is definitely a major accomplishment, although advanced research projects like PCRAM aren't far behind. One might even say that whatever issues led to the layoffs in February have been taken care of.