International Business Machines Corp. and Apple Inc. posted quarter profit reports on Tuesday, both beating the Wall Street's estimates, showing an upbeat profit season for U.S. IT companies.
IBM, the world's largest computer-service provider, reported that the profit for the fourth quarter last year rose to 5.3 billion dollars, or 4.18 dollars per share, higher than 4.8 billion, or 3.59 a year earlier. Analysts on average expected net income per share of 4.08 dollars.
Sales climbed 6.6 percent to 29.0 billion dollars as revenue of IBM's newest mainframe surged and companies bought more analytic software, topping the average estimate of 28.3 billion dollars.
Meanwhile, Apple reported today a profit of 6 billion dollars, or 6.43 dollars a share in its fiscal first quarter ended Dec. 25, 78 percent up from 3.38 billion, or 3.67 a year earlier. Analysts projected profit of 5.41 dollars a share.
Sales increased 71 percent to a quarterly record of 26.7 billion dollars, much better than Wall Street's forecast for revenue of 24.4 billion dollars. In the quarter, the Cupertino, California based company sold 16.2 million iPhones, up 86 percent, 7.33 million iPads, 19.45 million iPods and 4.13 million Macs in the quarter, all exceeded expectations.
Analysts commented, these earnings could be translated into picking-up of world economy and uptick in IT spending. The outlook for 2011 remained optimistic.
Last week, the world's largest chipmaker Intel Corp. posted record earnings report, also beating the economists' expectation. It reported net income rose 48 percent to 3.39 billion dollars and revenue rose 8 percent to 11.46 billion dollars in the fourth quarter last year.
"2010 was the best year in Intel's history. We believe that 2011 will be even better," said Paul Otellini, Intel president and CEO.
