IBM reported better-than-expected third quarter results and said its AI book of business now tops $9.5 billion.
The company reported third quarter earnings of $1.7 billion, or $1.84 a share, on revenue $16.3 billion, up 9% from a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings were $2.65 a share.
Wall Street was expecting IBM to report third quarter non-GAAP earnings of $2.45 a share on revenue of $16.09 billion.
As for the outlook, IBM said its revenue will top more than 5% with free cash flow of $14 billion, up from its previous projection of $13.5 billion.
CEO Arvind Krishna said IBM "accelerated performance across all of our segments."
In the third quarter, IBM delivered software revenue growth of 10% with infrastructure up 17% driven by its new mainframe cycle. Consulting revenue was up 3%.
Here's the segment breakdown:
- Software revenue of $7.2 billion in the third quarter was driven by hybrid cloud (Red Hat), automation, up 24%, and data, up 8%.
- Hybrid infrastructure was up 28% and IBM Z revenue was up 61%.
