ARMONK, N.Y. - 18 Jul 2017:  

Highlights

• Diluted EPS from continuing operations: GAAP of $2.48; Operating (non-GAAP) of $2.97
• Revenue from continuing operations of $19.3 billion
• Strategic imperatives revenue of $34.1 billion over the trailing 12 months, up 11 percent (up 12 percent adjusting for currency); represents 43 percent of IBM revenue

         --  First half revenue up 8 percent (up 10 percent adjusting for currency)

         --  Second quarter revenue up 5 percent (up 7 percent adjusting for currency)

• Cloud revenue of $15.1 billion over the trailing 12 months

         --  As-a-service annual exit run rate of $8.8 billion in the quarter, up 30 percent year to   

          year (up 32 percent adjusting for currency)

• Maintains full-year EPS and free cash flow expectations

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced second-quarter earnings results.

"In the second quarter, we strengthened our position as the enterprise cloud leader and added more of the world's leading companies to the IBM Cloud," said Ginni Rometty, IBM chairman, president and chief executive officer.  "We continue to innovate, adding regtech capabilities to our portfolio of Watson offerings; developing solutions based on emerging technologies such as Blockchain; and reinventing the IBM mainframe by enabling clients to encrypt all data, all the time.”

"We finished the first half of the year where we expected, including continued strong free cash flow generation," said Martin Schroeter, IBM senior vice president and chief financial officer. "This allowed us to continue our strong R&D investment levels and return more than $5 billion to shareholders through dividends and gross share repurchases during the first half."

Strategic Imperatives

Second-quarter cloud revenues increased 15 percent (up 17 percent adjusting for currency) to $3.9 billion.  Cloud revenue over the last 12 months was $15.1 billion.  The annual exit run rate for as-a-service revenue increased to $8.8 billion from $6.7 billion in the second quarter of 2016.    Revenues from analytics increased 4 percent (up 6 percent adjusting for currency).  Revenues from mobile increased 27 percent (up 29 percent adjusting for currency) and revenues from security increased 4 percent (up 5 percent adjusting for currency).

Full-Year 2017 Expectations

The company continues to expect operating (non-GAAP) diluted earnings per share of at least $13.80 and GAAP diluted earnings per share of at least $11.95.  Operating (non-GAAP) diluted earnings per share exclude $1.85 per share of charges for amortization of purchased intangible assets, other acquisition-related charges and retirement-related charges.  IBM continues to expect free cash flow to be relatively flat year to year.

Cash Flow and Balance Sheet

In the second quarter, the company generated net cash from operating activities of $3.5 billion; or $3.3 billion excluding Global Financing receivables. IBM’s free cash flow was $2.6 billion.  IBM returned $1.4 billion in dividends and $1.4 billion of gross share repurchases to shareholders.  At the end of June 2017, IBM had $2.4 billion remaining in the current share repurchase authorization.

IBM ended the second quarter of 2017 with $12.3 billion of cash on hand.  Debt totaled $45.7 billion, including Global Financing debt of $29.0 billion.  The balance sheet remains strong and, with the completion of the reorganization of its client and commercial financing business, the company is better positioned over the long term.

Segment Results for Second Quarter

• Cognitive Solutions (includes solutions software and transaction processing software) -- revenues of $4.6 billion, down 2.5 percent (down 1.4 percent adjusting for currency).  Pre-tax income increased at a double-digit rate.
• Global Business Services (includes consulting, global process services and application management) -- revenues of $4.1 billion, down 3.7 percent (down 1.7 percent adjusting for currency).  Strategic imperatives grew 8 percent led by the cloud and mobile practices.
• Technology Services & Cloud Platforms (includes infrastructure services, technical support services and integration software) -- revenues of $8.4 billion, down 5.1 percent (down 3.6 percent adjusting for currency).  Strategic imperatives, driven by hybrid cloud services, grew 20 percent.
• Systems (includes systems hardware and operating systems software) -- revenues of $1.7 billion, down 10.4 percent (down 9.6 percent adjusting for currency).
• Global Financing (includes financing and used equipment sales) -- revenues of $415 million, down 2.2 percent (down 1.7 percent adjusting for currency).

Tax Rate

IBM's reported GAAP and operating (non-GAAP) tax rates of 4.5 percent and 9.2 percent, respectively, include the effect of discrete tax benefits in the quarter, which contributed $0.18 to the company's earnings per share.  For the second quarter, IBM's ongoing effective GAAP and operating (non-GAAP) tax rates were approximately 12 percent and approximately 15 percent, respectively.  The company continues to expect a full-year ongoing effective operating (non-GAAP) tax rate of 15 percent plus or minus 3 points, excluding discrete items.

Year-To-Date 2017 Results

Consolidated diluted earnings per share were $4.32 compared to $4.69, down 8 percent year to year.  Consolidated net income was $4.1 billion compared to $4.5 billion in the year-ago period, a decrease of 10 percent.  Revenues from continuing operations for the six-month period totaled $37.4 billion, a decrease of 4 percent year to year (decrease of 3 percent adjusting for currency) compared with $38.9 billion for the first six months of 2016.

Operating (non-GAAP) diluted earnings per share from continuing operations were $5.35 compared with $5.30 per diluted share for the 2016 period, an increase of 1 percent.  Operating (non-GAAP) net income for the six months ended June 30, 2017 was $5.0 billion compared with $5.1 billion in the year-ago period, a decrease of 1 percent.

Forward-Looking and Cautionary Statements

Except for the historical information and discussions contained herein, statements contained in this release may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.  Forward-looking statements are based on the company’s current assumptions regarding future business and financial performance.  These statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, including the following: a downturn in economic environment and client spending budgets; the company’s failure to meet growth and productivity objectives, a failure of the company’s innovation initiatives; risks from investing in growth opportunities; failure of the company’s intellectual property portfolio to prevent competitive offerings and the failure of the company to obtain necessary licenses; cybersecurity and data privacy considerations; fluctuations in financial results, impact of local legal, economic, political and health conditions; adverse effects from environmental matters, tax matters and the company’s pension plans; ineffective internal controls; the company’s use of accounting estimates; the company’s ability to attract and retain key personnel and its reliance on critical skills; impacts of relationships with critical suppliers; product quality issues; impacts of business with government clients; currency fluctuations and customer financing risks; impact of changes in market liquidity conditions and customer credit risk on receivables; reliance on third party distribution channels and ecosystems; the company’s ability to successfully manage acquisitions, alliances and dispositions; risks from legal proceedings; risk factors related to IBM securities; and other risks, uncertainties and factors discussed in the company’s Form 10-Qs, Form 10-K and in the company’s other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or in materials incorporated therein by reference. Any forward-looking statement in this release speaks only as of the date on which it is made.  The company assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements.

Presentation of Information in this Press Release

In an effort to provide investors with additional information regarding the company’s results as determined by generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), the company has also disclosed in this press release the following non-GAAP information which management believes provides useful information to investors:

IBM results --

• presenting operating (non-GAAP) earnings per share amounts and related income statement items;  
• adjusting for free cash flow;
• adjusting for currency (i.e., at constant currency).

Free cash flow guidance is derived using an estimate of profit, working capital and operational cash outflows.  The company views Global Financing receivables as a profit-generating investment, which it seeks to maximize and therefore it is not considered when formulating guidance for free cash flow.  As a result, the company does not estimate a GAAP Net Cash from Operations expectation metric.

The rationale for management’s use of these non-GAAP measures is included in Exhibit 99.2 in the Form 8-K that includes this press release and is being submitted today to the SEC.

Conference Call and Webcast

IBM’s regular quarterly earnings conference call is scheduled to begin at 5:00 p.m. EDT, today.  The Webcast may be accessed via a link at http://www.ibm.com/investor/events/earnings/2q17.html.  Presentation charts will be available shortly before the Webcast.

Financial Results Below (certain amounts may not add due to use of rounded numbers; percentages presented are calculated from the underlying whole-dollar amounts).