Petroc Taylor
Research expert covering global developments in the use of data
Get in touch with us nowIBM revenue worldwide 2009-2023, by quarter
In the fourth quarter of 2023, IBM generated 17.4 billion U.S. dollars in revenue. Over the course of recent years, IBM has been in the process of shifting away from its declining and expensive hardware and service division, and towards cloud computing, analytics, and AI.
Reinventing company strategy
IBM has been a key player in numerous technology markets since 1990, but faced declining revenues in the ten year period following 2011. In April 2020, the company appointed Arvind Krishna as its new CEO, who has worked at IBM for 30 years as a business leader and technologist. Under his leadership, the company has changed its strategy to focus on Hybrid Cloud and AI as the businesses' key pillars.
Corporate reorganization and acquisitions
In 2019, IBM acquired Red Hat, an open source software company as part of its hybrid cloud strategy. It continued efforts to expand their hardware and AI capabilities by acquiring 15 companies in 2021 and increasing its R&D spending. A large part of IBM's infrastructure business was spun off into a separate entity, Kyndryl, in November 2021.
Competitive landscape
IBM has invested heavily in hybrid cloud technology, but it has a low market share. Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure command a large share of the cloud infrastructure market, but IBM strives to partner with them through the Red Hat platform instead of looking to compete.
