IBM achieve $100bn sales in 2010

In the mainstream enthusiast sector, IBM aren't often brought up in conversation. Although with the recent news of them backing ARM technology, this might change. Latest financial reports however show that in the professional sector they racked up $100bn of sales in 2010.

IBM mainframe sales in 2010 were the best that the company has reported in six years, helping to drive record sales, up 4 percent on the year previous. Net income rose by 9.2 percent to $5.26 bn.

Sam Palmisano, IBM's president, chief executive officer and chairman said “We completed an outstanding year, with record profit and free cash flow, and exceeded the high end of our 2010 earnings per share roadmap objective. We also capped a decade in which our shift to high-value businesses, our global integration of IBM, our investment in research and development of almost $60 billion, and our acquisition of 116 companies have helped us to nearly triple our EPS and return more than $100 billion to shareholders.”

He added “As IBM enters its second century, we will continue to focus on our long-term strategic initiatives – growth markets, Smarter Planet Solutions, cloud and business analytics – as we drive to achieve our new roadmap target of operating earnings per share of at least $20 in 2015.”

IBM just signed deals with 24 brand new mainframe businesses helping to drive sales even further. Their Power Systems line was hit by the recession, much in line with all RISC and Itanium platform providers. Their sales were impressive however in the low end and high end markets, helping to drive 2 percent growth. Not as high as they would have liked, but considering the financial climate, quite an achievement.

Global Technology Services, the sector of IBM services that handles outsourcing, hardware and software maintenance and system integration had $10.2 billion in sales, up 1.1 percent and Global Business Services who provide business process reengineering and consulting has sales of $4.76 billion, up 3.6 percent.

IBM spent $2.9 billion in Q4 acquiring other companies, such as Netezza, Blade Network Technologies, Clarity Systems and Open Pages. This was a substantial portion of the $6 billion spent across the whole year.

KitGuru says: If they keep on track, 2011 should be another successful year for IBM.

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