The company’s fourth quarter net income of $0.09 per share beat analysts’ expectations by a respectable $0.02. But by the end of trading yesterday EMC’s stock price had fallen by 1% on the previous day, possibly because the market had hoped that the company would do even better than it did in the last quarter. Over the last fifteen months EMC’s stock price has blossomed, rising fairly steadily from a low of under $4 in October 2002 to just under $15 currently.

The guidance EMC gave yesterday for 25% plus revenue growth this year is complicated by the fact that the company has recently boosted its revenue by acquiring three sizeable software companies – Legato, Documentum and VMWare. In terms of organic growth, it represents about the same as the growth EMC saw last year.

To make the translation into a figure representing organic growth, EMC said the 25% projection should be compared to the combined revenues that it and its three acquisitions achieved in 2003.

We’re telling you that we’ll get that [combined] base pretty close to 15% [growth] – which is two percent more than we told you on stage last August. So I’d say that’s more bullish, not less bullish, said EMC CEO Joe Tucci.

Last summer EMC told an analysts’ conference that percentage revenue growth in 2004 would be in the mid-teens – although the Wall Street Journal reported that after the meeting, EMC said the low-end of that range represented growth without Legato, and the high-end included Legato’s revenue. At that time, EMC had not made its bids to buy Documentum and VMWare.

Yesterday a spokesman said that EMC’s growth this year will be skewed towards the acquisitions, which will show about 20% growth, while the rest of EMC will grow at around 13%. One uncertainty however is the effect of the weakening value of the US dollar, which EMC said boosted its revenue by 5% in the last quarter. It would not say what currency effect it has included in its 25% guidance.

Regardless of that, the forecast shows organic growth handsomely outpacing what EMC is predicting will be a 6% increase in storage spending this year, compared to around 3% to 4% for overall IT spending.

For the fourth quarter ended December 31 2003, EMC reported net income of $220m, compared to a $64m loss last year, on revenue of $1.9bn, up 25% on last year.

For the full year ended December 31 2003, net income was $496m, compared with a net loss of $119m on the previous year, on revenue up 15% at $6.2bn.

This article is based on material originally published by ComputerWire