EMC Q4 Earnings Boosted by Strong Enterprise Storage and Cloud Demand

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Boosted by strong sales of its enterprise and midrange storage systems, EMC today announced record fourth quarter earnings and year-end results.

EMC hit the $6.0 billion revenue mark for the first time during the fourth quarter of 2012 (4Q12), an 8 percent increase over the same year-ago quarter. Profits for the quarter hit $870 million, a 5 percent year-over-year increase. For the year, revenues rose 9 percent to hit $21.7 billion. At $2.7 billion, net income shot up 11 percent compared to 2011 on a GAAP basis.

The data storage giant credits its high-end networked storage systems, the company’s VSPEX cloud system platform and VMware’s virtualization and cloud software portfolio for EMC’s record-breaking financial results.

In a statement, EMC CEO Joe Tucci offered, “EMC remains squarely at the center of the most disruptive and opportunity-rich shift in IT history, propelled by the benefits of cloud computing, Big Data and trusted IT. These high-priority IT spending areas are core to our strategic focus and represent market segments where EMC has established leadership positions and competitive advantage.”

EMC reports that last quarter, revenues for its Symmetrix storage line rose six percent compared with the same year-ago period. Isilon NAS helped EMC’s midrange storage portfolio boost year-over-year revenues by 5 percent last quarter.

“EMC’s VSPEX reference architecture solutions continued to gain momentum with rapid adoption and increasing popularity among customers and partners who have sold more than 1,300 VSPEX solutions since their launch in April 2012,” said EMC. Similarly, as businesses shift to the cloud model of consuming IT resources, VMware is reaping the financial benefits. Revenues for the virtualization division grew 22 percent year-over-year, reported EMC.

Going forward, EMC executives expect flash storage to join the cloud in raining revenues down on the company’s coffers. During today’s earnings call, EMC COO and CFO David Goulden sang flash-based storage’s praises. “This is an exciting space and one where the bulk of our opportunity lies ahead,” he predicted.

Goulden also said to expect a new MLC-based PCIe server flash board. He also touted the company’s all-flash storage system. “Our all-flash array, code-named Project X, is on track. When we formally introduce it later this year, we expect it to be the very best all-flash storage array in the market,” he said. So far, feedback from beta testers has been “outstanding,” he added.

Tucci signaled that EMC will continue pursue some of the fastest growing IT markets under the expectation that global IT spending will rise 3 percent this year. “The top IT spending priorities will be in the areas of mobility, private cloud computing, public cloud computing, Big Data, predictive analytics and security,” he informed. Against that backdrop, he forecast 8 percent revenue growth to $23.5 billion for 2013.

Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at Internet News, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.

Pedro Hernandez
Pedro Hernandez
Pedro Hernandez is a contributor to Datamation, eWEEK, and the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals. Previously, he served as a managing editor for the Internet.com network of IT-related websites and as the Green IT curator for GigaOM Pro.

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