IBM, the world's biggest computer company, benefited from strong sales and a weak dollar in its latest quarter. Fourth quarter revenues grew 7% to $27.7 billion, while net income jumped 12% to $3.1 billion.
As Business Week notes: "Revenues from services were the big story, rising 10%, to $12.6 billion. Consulting was up an impressive 12%. IBM signed services contracts totaling $12.7 billion and ended 2004 with a backlog of $111 billion.
"Hardware revenues came in at $9.5 billion, up just 4%. While sales of Windows servers increased 25% and Unix servers were 15% higher, mainframe revenues shrank 4%, and Personal Systems Group revenues increased just 2%."
IBM's software revenues grew 7% to $4.5 billion for the quarter, with a gross profit margin of 89%, and by 5% to $15.1 billion for the year.
Total revenue for the year was $96.5 billion, up 8%, and earnings were $8.4 billion, up 11%.
The IBM press release is here.
No doubt IBM will finally push its annual revenues over $100 billion this year.
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