IBM (NYSE: IBM) strengthened Wednesday morning, on announcing fourth-quarter and full-year 2019 earnings results.
The “Think” company, based in Armonk, New York, reported in the fourth quarter net cash from operating activities of $3.5 billion, or $6.7 billion excluding Global Financing receivables. IBM’s free cash flow was $6.0 billion. IBM returned $1.4 billion to shareholders in dividends.
For the full year, the company generated net cash from operating activities of $14.8 billion, or $14.3 billion excluding Global Financing receivables, and full-year free cash flow of $11.9 billion. IBM returned $7.1 billion to shareholders through $5.7 billion in dividends and $1.4 billion of gross share repurchases.
IBM ended the fourth quarter with $9.0 billion of cash on hand which includes marketable securities. Debt, including Global Financing debt of $24.7 billion, totaled $62.9 billion – down $3.4 billion since the end of the third quarter, down $10.1 billion since the end of the second quarter.
Q4 revenue was $21.8 billion, up 0.1%. GAAP gross profit margin up 190 basis points, while operating (non-GAAP) gross profit margin up 230 basis points
Full-year revenue proved to $77.1 billion, down 3.1%.
IBM Chair Ginny Rometti said, "We ended 2019 on a strong note, returning to overall revenue growth in the quarter, led by accelerated cloud performance,"
"Looking ahead, this positions us for sustained revenue growth in 2020 as we continue to help our clients shift their mission-critical workloads to the hybrid cloud and scale their efforts to become a cognitive enterprise."
Shares leaped $5.67, or 4.1%, to $144.84
