IBM的赌注尚未获得回报

今年第一季度，IBM销售额从上年同期的186.8亿美元降至181.6亿，连续第20次出现季度销售额滑坡。这个数字也低于分析师预计的183.9亿美元，IBM股价因此在市后交易中下跌4.2%，报162.90美元。

按照惯例，IBM强调“战略性业务”，也就是云计算、移动和数据处理第一季度实现收入78亿美元，上升13%。IBM首席执行官罗睿兰今年1月份介绍，这些关键业务占该公司2016年全年收入的40%。

IBM首席财务官马丁·施洛特上周二下午在CNBC表示，他相信该公司将扭转局势。施洛特说：“我对IBM重新实现增长有信心。我们循序渐进，目的就是确保自己在正确的地方投资，并得到我们想要的那种边缘型高价值对象。”

最主要的问题在于什么时候才会出现这样的转变，原因是IBM的对手正在迅猛增长，比如亚马逊旗下的Amazon Web Service，其业务内容就是将计算和存储设备租给企业客户。

IBM依然存在的一大问题是它在这些新兴领域的增长仍然无法抵消传统业务销售额下降的影响。罗睿兰一直想通过大量投资把注意力集中在成长型业务上，同时继续通过削减成本来掌控IBM的传统业务。

IBM公布，今年第一季度云业务收入增长33%，达到35亿美元，而过去12个月的云业务收入为146亿美元。但此项数据很难坐实，原因是老牌科技公司的创收业务未必和云计算有关。

就IBM而言，云业务收入对分析师最重要，因为选择此类业务的企业客户越来越多。随着企业逐渐放弃自建数据中心，亚马逊和微软都在这个领域获得了高额收入。

第一季度，IBM的硬件和操作系统收入减少16.8%，降至14亿美元。同时，咨询业务收入下降3%至40亿美元。不过，咨询业务中和云相关的咨询和服务收入实现了“两位数”增长，但IBM未披露详细情况。

剔除部分成本后，IBM实现每股收益2.38美元，超过市场预期，FactSet分析师预测的数字为每股2.35美元。（财富中文网）

译者：Charlie

审稿：夏林

The decline to $18.16 billion in the company's first quarter from $18.68 billion in the same period last year marked the 20th consecutive quarter of falling sales. The amount fell short of the $18.39 billion that analysts had expected, sending company's shares skidding 4.2% at one point in after hours trading to $ 162.90.

As has become its custom, IBM stressed that revenue from its "strategic imperatives"—cloud, mobile, data crunching, and mobile—rose 13% to $7.8 billion for the period. For full year 2016, these key categories made up 40% of the company's revenue, IBM chief executive Ginny Rometty said in January.

IBM chief financial officer Martin Schroeter took to CNBC Tuesday afternoon to express his confidence that IBM will turn the corner. "I am confident that the IBM company will grow again," he said. "We're taking time to make sure we invest in the right places and make sure we get the kind of margin high-value profile we're looking for."

The overriding question is when that will happen given the booming growth of rivals like Amazon Web Services, Amazon's business unit that rents computing and storage to corporate customers.

One big issue continues to be that growth in these newer areas has not offset declining sales in its older businesses. Rometty has been trying to shift focus to growing areas by investing heavily in them while continuing to manage the company's older businesses and by cutting costs.

For the quarter ending at the end of March, IBM said cloud revenue was up 33% to $3.5 billion and that the company had $14.6 billion in cloud revenue over the past 12-months. But cloud numbers are hard to pin down because older tech companies often lump in revenue from businesses that aren't necessarily associated with cloud computing.

With IBM, cloud revenue is what matters most to analysts because it's where businesses customers are increasingly headed. Amazon, Microsoft (msft, -0.14%), are the biggest recipients of those dollars as corporations shift from building their own data centers.

For the first quarter, revenue from IBM hardware and operating systems fell 16.8% to $1.4 billion. Meanwhile, revenues at IBM's consulting arm fell 3% to $4 billion, although cloud-related consulting and services within that group grew in the "double digits," IBM said without providing additional details.

IBM beat consensus estimates on profit logging $2.38 per share, excluding some costs, while FactSet analysts were anticipating $2.35 per share.