IBM and SAP’s cloud financials continue to impress – but bigger hitters still to come

IBM has delivered its third consecutive quarter of growth – with cloud revenue up 20% and now representing almost a quarter of the company’s total revenue.The company posted total revenues of $20 billion (£15.4bn) for the most recent quarter, up from $19.3bn this time last year, with six month revenues of $39.1bn, compared with $37.4bn from the year before.Alongside cloud – which has hit $18.5bn in revenue over the past 12 months – IBM cited AI, analytics, blockchain and security as key strengths to its ecosystem. On the earnings call, Jim Kavanaugh, SVP and chief financial officer, told analysts that IBM was exiting the quarter with ‘as a service’ annual run rate of more than $11bn.“This reflects our success in helping enterprise clients with their journey to the cloud and we’re becoming the destination for mission-critical workloads in hybrid environments,” said Kavanaugh. “We’re capturing this high-value growth with our unique differentiation of the innovative technology combined with deep industry expertise underpinned with trust and security, all through our integrated model.”