IBM global net income 1999-2020

IBM achieved a net income of 5.59 billion U.S. dollars in 2020, a reduction from the 9.43 billion U.S. dollars recorded in 2019. After experiencing a steady increase of net income over roughly a decade up to 2013, the company’s performance over the past seven years has been somewhat uneven. Some of this can be attributed to a quickly evolving market environment. IBM is transforming its business following an industry wide change of digital transformation, shifting away from being a hardware, software, and services company, towards becoming a cognitive solutions and cloud platform company. In 2016, IBM changed its segment reporting to reflect this directional modification, and realigned the software portfolio.

Adjusting to the era of cloud computing

IBM is now focusing on hybrid and multi-cloud, as well as artificial intelligence (AI) to better align its portfolio to market demands, emphasizing strong integration between the two subjects. This combination is exemplified by IBM’s 34 billion U.S. dollar acquisition of AI open-source software company Red Hat that was completed in mid-2019. Other significant acquisitions include the data analytics and management services company Truven Health Analytics, and cloud object storage system company Cleversafe. IBM is aggressively expanding into cloud computing and data analytics, though it faces strong competition with cloud providers Alphabet and Amazon.