IBM FALLS AFTER MISSING QUARTERLY SALES ESTIMATES

International Business Machines Corp. missed Wall Street estimates for quarterly revenue on Thursday, hurt by a rare sales decline in its software unit as clients shied away from longer-term deals due to pandemic-induced uncertainty. The 109-year old firm is preparing to split itself into two public companies, with the namesake firm enhancing its focus on the so-called hybrid cloud, where it sees a us$1-trillion market opportunity. IBM beat profit estimates on the back of strong growth in its cloud business, and said it is confident of returning to sales growth in 2021. Still, the company’s shares dropped nearly four per cent after the bell following IBM’S fourth-consecutive quarter of sales decline. “Clients are opting for shorter duration deals, which is impacting our average deal revenue size,” said CFO James kavanaugh.