IBM’s drastic dip in earnings may spell more than just trouble for the global tech giant. IBM reported declines in EVERY market, from a 2% revenue dip in America to an Asia-Pacific revenue plummet of 9%. Shares are getting blasted and that alone hits the Dow in the gut. What people want to know is whether IBM’s poor performance is about IBM itself, or is it reflective broadly of the global markets it serves.
“We are disappointed in our performance,” CEO Ginni Rometty said, before spinning out some good results in new growth areas like cloud computing and security. The bigger concern is here: “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.” If clients aren’t buying what IBM has to offer, that’s one thing and it’s CEO Rometty’s problem. But if clients in general aren’t buying, that could be much bigger.
