After more than a year of declining revenues, IBM experienced incremental growth in the fourth quarter of 2019, according to an earnings report released Jan. 21.
Four things to know:
1. In the fourth quarter, IBM reported revenue of $21.8 billion, a year-over-year increase of 0.1 percent. This marks the tech giant's first revenue increase since the second quarter of 2018, when the company grew 4 percent to reach $20 billion.
2. The revenue bump was due largely to strong results in the cloud and cognitive software and systems segments. The cloud segment reported fourth-quarter revenues of $7.2 billion, a year-over-year increase of 8.7 percent, led by growth in its cloud, security and internet of things offerings.
3. Additionally, in the second full quarter since finalizing its $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat, IBM attributed significant growth to the cloud software provider. According to the release, Red Hat revenue was up 24 percent in the fourth quarter, and the company saw its debt reduced by $10 billion since the acquisition.
4. The report also included IBM's full-year financial results, demonstrating an overall dip in revenue, down 3.1 percent to $77.1 billion. However, total cloud revenue was up in 2019, representing an 11 percent increase to $21.2 billion.
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