IBM's global revenue 1999-2019
In 2019, the revenue of IBM reached more than 77 billion U.S. dollars, continuing a trend of declining revenues over the past eight years since 2011 when IBM’s revenue peaked at a record 106.9 billion U.S. dollars. Despite the declining revenues over the past few years, IBM is still one of the most valuable technology brands in the world behind only Google, Apple, Microsoft, Tencent, and Facebook.
IBM’s response to a shifting market
A tech giant since the nineties, IBM has faced struggles adjusting to changes in the marketplace. Recently the company has focused on what it terms “strategic imperatives”: getting rid of low-margin businesses and investing in high-margin businesses; at the end of 2018, for example, IBM sold IBM WebSphere Commerce to HCL Technologies for 1.8 billion U.S. dollars. IBM is still very profitable, although not at the level as between 2006 and 2012. Reflecting the changing demands of digital transformation, the largest source of IBM’s revenue for fiscal year 2019 now comes from its technology services and cloud platforms business segment, which specializes in helping organizations integrate their traditional infrastructure into a multicloud environment.
IBM’s response to a shifting market
A tech giant since the nineties, IBM has faced struggles adjusting to changes in the marketplace. Recently the company has focused on what it terms “strategic imperatives”: getting rid of low-margin businesses and investing in high-margin businesses; at the end of 2018, for example, IBM sold IBM WebSphere Commerce to HCL Technologies for 1.8 billion U.S. dollars. IBM is still very profitable, although not at the level as between 2006 and 2012. Reflecting the changing demands of digital transformation, the largest source of IBM’s revenue for fiscal year 2019 now comes from its technology services and cloud platforms business segment, which specializes in helping organizations integrate their traditional infrastructure into a multicloud environment.
