Big Tech Firms’ Sales Up 16% in Fourth Quarter

Most enterprise technology companies had strong growth in the fourth quarter, with IBM and Microsoft benefiting from strong sales of software, and EMC and Citrix from acquisitions.

The average sales growth among technology companies was 16%, according to an analysis by Baseline. The magazine looked at 17 companies with market capitalizations in excess of $1 billion. All have reported their earnings in the last two weeks (see tables below).

IBM was helped by a 22% jump in sales of WebSphere, a middleware product that makes companies’ data accessible through browsers. At Microsoft, strong server and tools sales made up for a delay in versions of Windows Vista and Office 2007 intended for consumers. Those products will become available this week. Sun Microsystems posted its first profit in a year and a half on rebounding server sales. After the quarter was over, Sun said it would start selling some servers based on Intel chips.

Technology companies focused on consumers also did well in the quarter, with eBay’s sales jumping 29% and Apple’s 25%. Surging iPod sales helped Apple book its first billion-dollar quarterly profit ever.

Google, which has become a sort of new-age technology bellwether, reports its results this Wednesday.

Tech firms ranked by sales growth
CompanyRevenue 3 Mo. to Dec. 30Change
Avocent$167,698,00057.0%
EBay$1,719,910,00029.4%
Apple$7,100,000,00024.6%
Cypress Semiconductor$286,973,00020.3%
Citrix$321,000,00019.5%
EMC$3,214,574,00018.6%
Motorola$11,792,000,00017.5%
Qualcomm$2,019,000,00016.0%
Yahoo$1,702,448,00013.4%
IBM$27,257,000,00011.6%
SAP$3,818,560,0007.2%
Sun Microsystems$3,566,000,0006.9%
Microsoft$12,540,000,0005.9%
Texas Instruments$3,463,000,0004.2%
Check Point Software$160,095,0002.6%
Advanced Micro Devices$1,773,000,000-3.5%
Intel$9,700,000,000-4.9%

All dollars U.S.

Tech firms Ranked by Profit Growth
CompanyNet Income 3 Mo. to Dec. 30Change
EMC$388,769,000162.2%
Apple$1,000,000,00077%
SAP$1,033,550,00029.1%
eBay$346,467,00024.1%
IBM$3,541,000,00011.1%
Qualcomm$648,000,0004.5%
Texas Instruments$668,000,0002.0%
Citrix$58,587,000-1.0%
Avocent$17,145,000-10.0%
Check Point Software$79,541,000-10.9%
Microsoft$2,626,000,000-28.1%
Intel$1,500,000,000-38.8%
Motorola$624,000,000-48.1%
Yahoo$268,673,00060.7%
Sun Microsystems$126,000,000NA
Cypress Semiconductor$15,840,000NA
Advanced Micro Devices($574,000,000)NA

NA — Sun and Cypress had losses in the fourth quarter of 2005.

All dollars U.S.