EMC's second-quarter profits are in the cloud.
The company reported Wednesday that its net income and operating
and free cash flow hit record levels. Year over year, net income
was up 108 percent and consolidated revenue rose 24 percent.
With much of the world's IT operations shifting to cloud computing,
EMC is storing much of the data making its way to the cloud. "The
IT industry is in the midst of a major transformation to cloud
computing and, ultimately, to a more agile way to consume and
deliver IT," said Joe Tucci, EMC chairman and CEO, in a statement.
"The strength and demand that we saw during the quarter is
testament to the value our customers see in our information
infrastructure and virtual infrastructure solutions."
EMC earned USD 426 million on revenue of USD 4.02 billion in the
second quarter. The company, which describes itself as the world
leader in information infrastructure solutions, predicted the rosy
financial results would continue in the current quarter.
The firm's flagship storage solutions, including its Symmetrix and
Clariion brands, rose more than 30 percent while sales at its
VMware unit hit USD 673 million -- an increase of 48 percent over
the previous year's quarter. EMC is the majority owner of VMware
and the unit has been a key factor in EMC's partnership with Cisco,
as the firms move more aggressively to provide solutions for data
centers.
After noting that EMC has recorded three consecutive quarters of
net income gains, Tucci defined the U.S. market as "good with good
prospects" and Asian markets as "robust." He indicated Europe is a
different story where EMC is seeing a "slowdown" in southern
Europe. Even so, IT spending is still growing in Europe, he
added.
EMC's CFO David Goulden also painted a rosy future picture. "Moving
forward," said Goulden, who is also EMC executive VP, "we remain
confident that we have the right business and operating model to
continue delivering annual double-digit revenue and earnings growth
over the long term."