IBM shares climbed nearly 5 percent Wednesday following the company's announcement late Tuesday of a 54 percent increase in Q3 earnings -- a figure that surpassed Wall Street analyst expectations.
Reporting a quarterly profit of US$2.2 billion, IBM handily beat Wall Street's expectations with its Q3 earnings. Impressive sales of its hardware and licensed software sales were the primary driver of the company's gains.
The only cloudy note in the report was the decline in its services unit, which constitutes almost half of IBM's business. The company signed $10.5 billion in new service contracts -- a 29 percent decrease from last year's quarter.
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