IBM posts smallest drop in quarterly revenue in over four years

International Business Machines Corp reported its smallest drop in quarterly revenue in more than four years, helped by continued growth in the company's cloud and analytics businesses.

The company's revenue marginally fell to $19.23 billion in the third quarter ended Sept. 30 from $19.28 billion a year earlier.

Net income fell to $2.85 billion, or $2.98 per share, from $2.95 billion, or $3.01 per share.

Under Chief Executive Ginni Rometty, the company has shifted towards more profitable areas such as cloud services, analytics, and security.

Revenue from those areas, which the company calls "strategic imperatives", rose 16 percent to $8 billion in the third quarter.

(Reporting by Narottam Medhora and Nayyar Rasheed in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)