The “cloud” and “big data” continue to drive business for EMC (NYSE: EMC).
The storage technology firm, which has a major presence in the Triangle for both research as well as manufacturing, reported a surge in earnings before the markets opened Wednesday. And top executive Joe Tucci hailed the news.
“The strength and demand we saw during the quarter, despite a cautious IT spending environment, speaks to the soundness of our strategy, the value customers see in our federated business model, and the massive opportunity ahead in cloud computing, big data and trusted IT,” said the chairman and chief executive officer.
“EMC Information Infrastructure, VMware and Pivotal are positioned on the leading edge of these significant trends. Each business is focused on building its own unique technologies and independent partner ecosystems to offer customers greater choice. Collectively they add up to a very competitive technology stack that not only addresses our customers’ top IT needs in 2013, but also their longer-term business transformation priorities.”
Second-quarter net income was driven higher by nearly 8 percent thanks to surging demand data storage equipment. The company also affirmed its full-year profit and revenue guidance, and its shares jumped more than 6 percent in early trading.
For the quarter ended June 30, EMC earned $701 million, or 32 cents per share, compared with $650 million, or 29 cents per share, last year. Adjusted to exclude stock-based compensation expenses, amortization costs and other items, earnings were 42 cents per share.
Revenue rose 5.7 percent to $5.61 billion from $5.31 billion, with both product sales and services logging gains.
U.S. revenue, which represents just over half of all revenue for the company, rose 4 percent. Revenue outside of the U.S. jumped 8 percent. The Asia Pacific and Japan and the Latin American regions both posted double-digit gains, EMC said.
The results come a day after EMC’s majority-owned subsidiary VMware Inc. posted a 27 percent jump in second-quarter net income, helped by growing demand for its virtualization software.
During the second quarter, EMC and VMware formed a new company called Pivotal, which very good progress” in its debut, according to EMC. It is scheduled to launch the first version of its new platform for next-generation big and fast data applications by year-end.
EMC expects 2013 earnings per share of $1.85 and revenue of $23.5 billion. That’s slightly better than the $1.86 per-share earnings and revenue of $23.42 billion projected by Wall Street.
The Hopkinton, Mass., company also said it expects to repurchase $3.5 billion of its stock in 2013 and the first half of 2014.
“Our second-quarter results are further evidence that our business strategy is on target and that we continue to deliver our ‘triple play’- to gain market share, reinvest for the future and deliver leverage,” said Chief Operating Officer David Goulden. “With another solid quarter behind us, we are reaffirming our full-year revenue, non-GAAP EPS and free cash flow goals. EMC’s robust product roadmap, combined with the success we are seeing across our cloud, Big Data and trusted IT initiatives, and the continued interest from customers in our market-leading technology, have us very energized and highly focused on seizing the opportunities that lie ahead.”
The full earnings report can be read online.
