IBM told Wall Street to raise its 2008 estimates last night.
IBM's chief financial officer Mark Loughridge
said earnings would be between $8.20 and $8.30 per share in 2008.
Investors responded by bidding IBM shares up 5 per cent to $106.20 after hours. Before the earnings report, the stock had fallen 53 cents to close at $101.10.
In the last three months of 2007, IBM earned $3.95 billion, or $2.80 per share, on revenue of $28.9 billion. The profit rose 12 per cent from a year earlier, when IBM made $3.54 billion, $2.31 per share, on revenue of $26.3 billion.
That 10 per cent revenue gain would have been 4 per cent if not for weakness in the dollar. Payments in other currencies now translate into more dollars.
IBM had released the per-share and revenue figures on Monday because the numbers were well beyond Wall Street's expectations. Analysts had been expecting $2.60 per share on revenue of $27.8 billion.