IBM's Billion Dollar Miss
Technology superpower International Business Machines (IBM) reported disappointing earnings Monday, coming in almost a billion dollars below revenue expectations. The dismal quarter came as a bit of a surprise, as analyst predictions pegged the company's stock at $4.32 per share, but they were reported at just $3.68. Analysts expected $23.37 billion in revenues, however, the company underdelivered with only $22.4 billion, a four percent decrease from this time in 2013.
Unsurprisingly, IBM executives are none too pleased. "We are disappointed in our performance. We saw a marked slowdown in September in client buying behavior, and our results also point to the unprecedented pace of change in our industry," Ginni Rometty, IBM chairman, president and chief executive officer, said in a statement. "While we did not produce the results we expected to achieve, we again performed well in our strategic growth areas–cloud, data and analytics, security, social and mobile—where we continue to shift our business. We will accelerate this transformation."
IBM is down about 7 percent since the news broke:
All this bad news means IBM investors are frustrated, but perhaps none more so than Warren Buffet, as his famed company, Berkshire Hathaway, lost about a billion dollars when the stock began tanking. IBM is the third largest holding in his portfolio, reports CNBC, just behind Coca Cola and Wells Fargo.
The poor quarter was a worldwide issue for IBM: The Americas' were down 2 percent on revenues, Europe, the Middle East and Africa also 2 percent, Asia-Pacific down 9 percent, Brazil, Russia, India and China all down 7 percent.
This article was originally published at http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/ibms-billion-dollar-miss/381674/
