Storage technology giant EMC (NYSE: EMC), which has a major and growing presence in RTP, is going to be buying back shares after reporting financials that missed Street expectations.

Early Wednesday, EMC reported a drop in profits and also missed Wall Street analysts’ expectations on revenue.

To bolster its shares, which closed Tuesday at $22.36, EMC said it was buying back $1 billion in shares.

EMC Chairman and CEO Joe Tucci defended the company’s performance.

“EMC’s solid first-quarter financial results speak to the strength of our execution and the soundness of our strategy that offers customers greater efficiency, control, choice and agility,” he said in a statement.

“Our three federated businesses – EMC Information Infrastructure, VMware and Pivotal – are squarely focused on areas of IT that are expected to experience high growth over the next decade: cloud computing, Big Data and trusted IT. Each business is chartered to build its own technology and partner ecosystem necessary to succeed, while staying aligned to leverage one another’s strengths and to create value for our customers and shareholders. I am incredibly energized by the strength of our business model and the way we have positioned the company to lead this transformative era in information technology.”

EMC operates manufacturing as well as research and development facilities in the Triangle area.

Net income fell 1.2 percent to $580.1 million, or 26 cents a share, from $586.8 million, or 27 cents, a year earlier, the Hopkinton, Massachusetts-based company said. Excluding some costs, profit was 39 cents a share, missing the 40-cent average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Sales rose 5.8 percent to $5.39 billion, compared with the $5.42 billion average analyst projection.

EMC customers are trimming storage-computer purchases amid an uncertain economic outlook. International Business Machines Corp. last week reported first-quarter profit that missed analysts estimates, hurt by a hardware slump. It cited the poor performance of some businesses, such as certain storage products. Sales growth at EMC’s VMWare Inc. subsidiary has been under pressure as U.S. companies and federal agencies are reducing technology budgets.

Sales for 2013 will probably be $23.5 billion, the company reiterated today.

EMC r shares have declined 12 percent so far this year, compared with an 11 percent gain for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

VMware, the software maker that’s majority-owned by EMC, on Tuesday forecast second-quarter sales that fell short of analysts’ projections as business customers trim spending. The shares dropped 6 percent in extended trading.

EMC Chief Financial Officer David Goulden said in March that the company will boost revenue by at least 8 percent a year and profit excluding certain costs will rise 10 percent annually through 2016 as it increases market share. Sales will exceed $30 billion in 2016, Goulden said at an analyst meeting in New York.

(Bloomberg news contributed to this report.)