IBM blames UK again after 21st consecutive quarter of revenue decline
Legacy business continues to weigh heavy on IBM's top line
IBM has seen its revenue decline for a 21st consecutive quarter as its legacy business continues to weigh down its emerging divisions.
For the three months ending 30 June, IBM saw revenue drop five per cent to $19.3bn, while gross profit was down 9.4 per cent to just under $8.7bn.
IBM however pointed to the areas of the business it classifies as "strategic imperatives" as a true reflection of the company's future direction. These parts of the business - namely cloud, analytics, mobile and as-a-service offerings - saw year-on-year revenue growth of five per cent to $8.8bn.
"The quarter played out as we expected with continued solid growth in our strategic imperatives which now really reflects organic growth," IBM CFO Martin Schroeter said on a conference call transcribed by Seeking Alpha.
"We've been focused on helping our enterprise clients transform their businesses to leverage their data for competitive advantage and to improve the efficiency and agility of their IT environments.
"Our strategic imperatives performance has been an indication of our progress in moving to these areas.
"Our clients are taking the productivity savings we're delivering to them in the more traditional areas of IT and reinvesting those savings to move into these new areas; these are the dynamics you've seen in our revenue."
IBM saw year-on-year growth in its cloud business of 15 per cent, up to $3.9bn, but the Technology Services and Cloud Platforms division which encompasses cloud saw revenue drop five per cent to $8.4bn.
Declines in revenue were also seen across Cognitive Solutions, Global business Services, Systems and Global Financing.
IBM however highlighted revenue growth in its analytics and mobile businesses, which grew four per cent and 27 per cent respectively. Revenue from security was also up four per cent.
On a geographical basis, IBM again blamed the UK and Germany for bringing down overall performance in Europe.