News of IBM Corp’s conference call with analysts came through long after the business pages were closed yesterday: the company said that the US started bubbling for the first time in may a long quarter, with US turnover rising almost in the double digit percentage range, while non-US revenue was flat – and the growth in the US was led by hardware sales and services; outside the US, hardware sales fell, mostly in Europe, but were offset by gains in software, services and financing revenue; total turnover in Europe declined in the quarter but Asia Pacific revenue rose in the double-digit range, half of which was due to IBM Japan Ltd’s acquisition of the remaining interest in Computer Systems Leasing Ltd; sales of large systems were up, but offset by an expected weakness in displays and other equipment; unit shipments of personal computers increased in the double digits, but revenue was essentially flat; RS/6000 workstations continued to experience solid growth in both unit shipments and in revenue; the first quarter represents the last quarter of comparisons with earlier turnover that contains turnover from printers that are now part of Lexmark International Inc – adjusting for the Lexmark deal, hardware sales would have been essentially flat; overall gross margins declined 2.5 percentage points from the year-ago quarter’s 53.2%, but appear to have stabilised; selling, general and administrative expenses declined 3.5% year on year, while research and development expenses declined by 4.5%.
