IBM to cut about 3,900 workers, still hiring in ‘higher growth’ areas

International Business Machines (IBM) delivered an upbeat annual sales forecast while announcing it would eliminate about 1.5 per cent of its global workforce, following similar job cuts the past few months by many of its technology peers.

The reductions will amount to a “ballpark” figure of 3,900, chief financial officer James Kavanaugh said Wednesday in an interview.

The cuts will focus on workers remaining after spinning off the Kyndryl and Watson Health units and will cost the company about $300m, he said.

IBM still expects to hire in the “higher-growth areas,” Kavanaugh said.

In its forecast, IBM said free cash flow in fiscal 2023 is expected to be $10.5bn while revenue will increase in the mid-single digits.

Analysts, on average, estimated $9.18bn of free cash flow and annual sales growth of 1.2 per cent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

IBM is being helped by a weakening US dollar expected in 2023, Kavanaugh said.

The effect of currency fluctuations should be neutral overall in 2023 — they’ll drag on results in the first half while becoming a tailwind in the second half, he said.

Chief executive officer Arvind Krishna has been trying to pivot Big Blue from its traditional business of infrastructure and information-technology services to the fast-growing cloud-computing market.

The company’s revenue increased in 2022 for the second consecutive year after almost a decade of no growth or slipping sales.

Fourth-quarter revenue was unchanged at $16.7bn, the Armonk, New York-based company said in a statement.

$IBM has announced 4Q 2022 earnings. Details are available below:

— IBM News (@IBMNews) January 25, 2023

Analysts, on average, estimated $16.4bn. Earnings, excluding some items, were $3.60 a share in the period ended December 31, while analysts projected $3.58 a share.

Hybrid cloud revenue was $22.4bn in 2022, up 11 per cent from a year earlier.

Krishna’s strategy has been focused on bolstering the company’s offerings in hybrid cloud — providing services to customers that run their own data centres in some combination with public cloud providers such as Amazon.com and Microsoft.

Read: Microsoft plans 10,000 job cuts, will take $1.2bn charge

IBM’s current headcount is 260,000, Kavanaugh said. That is about 22,000 lower than the figure disclosed for December 2021.