今年第一季度，IBM銷售額從上年同期的186.8億美元降至181.6億，連續第20次出現季度銷售額滑坡。這個數字也低于分析師預計的183.9億美元，IBM股價因此在市后交易中下跌4.2%，報162.90美元。

按照慣例，IBM強調“戰略性業務”，也就是云計算、移動和數據處理第一季度實現收入78億美元，上升13%。IBM首席執行官羅睿蘭今年1月份介紹，這些關鍵業務占該公司2016年全年收入的40%。

IBM首席財務官馬丁·施洛特上周二下午在CNBC表示，他相信該公司將扭轉局勢。施洛特說：“我對IBM重新實現增長有信心。我們循序漸進，目的就是確保自己在正確的地方投資，并得到我們想要的那種邊緣型高價值對象。”

最主要的問題在于什么時候才會出現這樣的轉變，原因是IBM的對手正在迅猛增長，比如亞馬遜旗下的Amazon Web Service，其業務內容就是將計算和存儲設備租給企業客戶。

IBM依然存在的一大問題是它在這些新興領域的增長仍然無法抵消傳統業務銷售額下降的影響。羅睿蘭一直想通過大量投資把注意力集中在成長型業務上，同時繼續通過削減成本來掌控IBM的傳統業務。

IBM公布，今年第一季度云業務收入增長33%，達到35億美元，而過去12個月的云業務收入為146億美元。但此項數據很難坐實，原因是老牌科技公司的創收業務未必和云計算有關。

就IBM而言，云業務收入對分析師最重要，因為選擇此類業務的企業客戶越來越多。隨著企業逐漸放棄自建數據中心，亞馬遜和微軟都在這個領域獲得了高額收入。

第一季度，IBM的硬件和操作系統收入減少16.8%，降至14億美元。同時，咨詢業務收入下降3%至40億美元。不過，咨詢業務中和云相關的咨詢和服務收入實現了“兩位數”增長，但IBM未披露詳細情況。

剔除部分成本后，IBM實現每股收益2.38美元，超過市場預期，FactSet分析師預測的數字為每股2.35美元。（財富中文網）

譯者：Charlie

審稿：夏林

The decline to $18.16 billion in the company's first quarter from $18.68 billion in the same period last year marked the 20th consecutive quarter of falling sales. The amount fell short of the $18.39 billion that analysts had expected, sending company's shares skidding 4.2% at one point in after hours trading to $ 162.90.

As has become its custom, IBM stressed that revenue from its "strategic imperatives"—cloud, mobile, data crunching, and mobile—rose 13% to $7.8 billion for the period. For full year 2016, these key categories made up 40% of the company's revenue, IBM chief executive Ginny Rometty said in January.

IBM chief financial officer Martin Schroeter took to CNBC Tuesday afternoon to express his confidence that IBM will turn the corner. "I am confident that the IBM company will grow again," he said. "We're taking time to make sure we invest in the right places and make sure we get the kind of margin high-value profile we're looking for."

The overriding question is when that will happen given the booming growth of rivals like Amazon Web Services, Amazon's business unit that rents computing and storage to corporate customers.

One big issue continues to be that growth in these newer areas has not offset declining sales in its older businesses. Rometty has been trying to shift focus to growing areas by investing heavily in them while continuing to manage the company's older businesses and by cutting costs.

For the quarter ending at the end of March, IBM said cloud revenue was up 33% to $3.5 billion and that the company had $14.6 billion in cloud revenue over the past 12-months. But cloud numbers are hard to pin down because older tech companies often lump in revenue from businesses that aren't necessarily associated with cloud computing.

With IBM, cloud revenue is what matters most to analysts because it's where businesses customers are increasingly headed. Amazon, Microsoft (msft, -0.14%), are the biggest recipients of those dollars as corporations shift from building their own data centers.

For the first quarter, revenue from IBM hardware and operating systems fell 16.8% to $1.4 billion. Meanwhile, revenues at IBM's consulting arm fell 3% to $4 billion, although cloud-related consulting and services within that group grew in the "double digits," IBM said without providing additional details.

IBM beat consensus estimates on profit logging $2.38 per share, excluding some costs, while FactSet analysts were anticipating $2.35 per share.