IBM: Fiscal 3Q21 Financial Results
Finally back to growth for storage systems after deeply decreasing last 4 quarters, thanks to tape ad AFA
By Jean Jacques Maleval | October 21, 2021 at 2:33 pmIBM Corp. announced third-quarter 2021 earnings results for the period ending September 30, 2021.
Global revenue reached $17.6 billion, up 0.3% Y/Y.
As usual, Big Blue reveals only one figure on storage, and only for storage systems: 11% yearly growth, after 4 quarters of high decrease (see table below). From 4FQ11, this segment records Y/Y decrease for as much as 32 quarters!
This business is included into systems segment with revenue performance down 12%, driven by product cycles in IBM Z and Power, and with profit margin down.
The company explains that storage growth was driven by demand from hyperscalers for tapes and in entry-level AFA following product refresh early this year.
It’s very rare that the firm announced its tape business is up, here probably following the recent release of LTO-9.
Revenue Growth of IBM Storage Systems
| Fiscal period |
Y/Y growth |
| 4Q11 | -1% |
| 1Q12 | -4% |
| 2Q12 |
-4% |
| 3Q12 | -10% |
| 4Q12 | -5% |
| 1Q13 | -11% |
| 2Q13 | -7% |
| 3Q13 | -11% |
| 4Q13 | -13% |
| 1Q14 | -23% |
| 2Q14 | -12% |
| 3Q14 | -6% |
| 4Q14 | -8% |
| 1Q15 | -4% |
| 2Q15 | -10% |
| 3Q15 | -19% |
| 4Q15 | -11% |
| 1Q16 | -6% |
| 2Q16 | -13% |
| 3Q16 | -9% |
| 4Q16 | -10% |
| 1Q17 | 7% |
| 2Q17 | 8% |
| 3Q17 | 4% |
| 4Q17 | 8% |
| 1Q18 | -15% |
| 2Q18 |
2% |
| 3Q18 | -6% |
| 4Q18 |
-7% |
| 1Q19 |
-11% |
| 2Q19 |
-21% |
| 3Q19 |
-4% |
| 4Q19 |
+3% |
| 1Q20 |
+18% |
| 2Q20 |
+2% |
| 3Q20 |
-20% |
| 4Q20 |
-17% |
| 1Q21 |
-14% |
| 2Q21 |
-7% |
| 3Q21 |
11% |
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