International Business Machines Corp (IBM) 2018 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Welcome, and thank you for standing by. (Operator Instructions) Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. Now I will turn the meeting over to Ms. Patricia Murphy with IBM. Ma'am, you may begin.

歡迎，感謝您的支持。（操作員說明）正在錄製今天的會議。如果您有異議，此時您可以斷開連接。現在我將會議轉交給 IBM 的 Patricia Murphy 女士。女士，您可以開始了。

Thank you. This is Patricia Murphy, Vice President of Investor Relations for IBM, and I'd like to welcome you to our second quarter earnings presentation. I'm here today with Jim Kavanaugh, IBM's Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Our prepared remarks will be available within a couple of hours, and a replay of the webcast will be posted by this time tomorrow.

謝謝。我是 IBM 投資者關係副總裁 Patricia Murphy，歡迎您參加我們的第二季度收益演示。今天，我和 IBM 高級副總裁兼首席財務官 Jim Kavanaugh 一起來到這裡。我們準備好的評論將在幾個小時內提供，網絡廣播的重播將在明天這個時候發布。

I'll also remind you that certain comments made in this presentation may be characterized as forward looking under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Those statements involve a number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially. Additional information concerning these factors is contained in the company's filings with the SEC. Copies are available from the SEC, from the IBM website or from us in Investor Relations.

我還要提醒您，根據 1995 年《私人證券訴訟改革法案》，本演示文稿中的某些評論可能具有前瞻性。這些陳述涉及許多可能導致實際結果大不相同的因素。有關這些因素的更多信息包含在公司提交給美國證券交易委員會的文件中。副本可從美國證券交易委員會、IBM 網站或我們的投資者關係部獲得。

Our presentation also includes certain non-GAAP financial measures in an effort to provide additional information to investors. All non-GAAP measures have been reconciled to the related GAAP measures in accordance with SEC rules. You'll find reconciliation charts at the end of the presentation and in the Form 8-K submitted to the SEC.

我們的演示文稿還包括某些非 GAAP 財務指標，旨在為投資者提供更多信息。所有非 GAAP 措施均已根據 SEC 規則與相關的 GAAP 措施進行了核對。您將在演示文稿末尾和提交給美國證券交易委員會的 8-K 表格中找到調節圖表。

So with that, I'll turn the call over to Jim.

因此，我會把電話轉給吉姆。

Thanks, Patricia, and thanks to all of you for joining us. In the second quarter, we delivered $20 billion of revenue, $3.4 billion of operating pretax income and $3.08 of operating earnings per share. Overall, it was a good quarter. We grew revenue, operating gross profit, pretax income and earnings per share with strong pretax margin performance. Our revenue was up 4% as reported with growth in all 4 of our major segments. And our constant currency revenue growth was 2%. This is our best constant currency growth in 7 years, and our pretax income was up 11%, reflecting good operating leverage on net revenue growth.

謝謝，Patricia，也感謝大家加入我們。第二季度，我們實現了 200 億美元的收入、34 億美元的稅前營業收入和 3.08 美元的每股營業收益。總的來說，這是一個不錯的季度。我們的收入、營業毛利、稅前收入和每股收益均有所增長，稅前利潤率表現強勁。據報導，我們的收入增長了 4%，我們所有 4 個主要部門都實現了增長。我們的固定貨幣收入增長率為 2%。這是我們 7 年來最好的持續貨幣增長，我們的稅前收入增長了 11%，反映出良好的經營槓桿對淨收入增長的影響。

Looking at our performance at constant currency. The revenue trajectory improved in both services segments, and both returned to modest growth. This is important to our overall revenue growth profile as services represents about 60% of our revenue on an annual basis.

看看我們以固定匯率計算的表現。兩個服務部門的收入軌跡都有所改善，並且都恢復了適度增長。這對我們的整體收入增長狀況很重要，因為服務每年約占我們收入的 60%。

In cognitive, we had good performance in analytics and in our industry verticals driven by financial services and IoT. Growth was mitigated by the same 3 areas I told you about on our last call as we continue to focus on repositioning these offerings. And we had strong performance and gained share in our Systems business, which was up over 20% with growth across all 3 hardware platforms.

在認知方面，我們在分析以及由金融服務和物聯網驅動的垂直行業中表現良好。隨著我們繼續專注於重新定位這些產品，我在上次電話會議上告訴您的三個領域減緩了增長。我們的系統業務表現強勁，並獲得了份額，隨著所有 3 個硬件平台的增長，該業務增長了 20% 以上。

Across our segments, we had continued momentum in our Strategic Imperatives revenue. Over the last 12 months, our strategic imperatives revenue has grown to $39 billion, which represents 48% of IBM's revenue, and within that, cloud is now $18.5 billion. Our strategic imperatives revenue in the quarter was up 15% and accelerated to 13% at constant currency. Revenue performance this quarter was led by security and cloud.

在我們的細分市場中，我們的戰略要務收入持續增長。在過去的 12 個月裡，我們的戰略需求收入已經增長到 390 億美元，佔 IBM 收入的 48%，其中，雲業務現​​在為 185 億美元。我們本季度的戰略需求收入增長了 15%，並以固定匯率計算加速至 13%。本季度的收入表現由安全和雲引領。

Security was up about 80% this quarter, driven by strong demand for the pervasive encryption of IBM Z and growth in our integrated software and services business. Cloud revenue was up 20% or 18% at constant currency, driven by our as-a-service offerings. We're exiting the second quarter with an as-a-service annual run rate of over $11 billion, which is up about 25%. This reflects our success in helping enterprise clients with their journey to the cloud, and we're becoming the destination for mission-critical workloads in hybrid environments. We're capturing this high-value growth with our unique differentiation of innovative technology, combined with deep industry expertise, underpinned with trust and security, all through our integrated model.

在對 IBM Z 普遍加密的強勁需求以及我們集成軟件和服務業務的增長的推動下，本季度安全性增長了約 80%。在我們的即服務產品的推動下，雲收入按固定匯率計算增長了 20% 或 18%。我們以超過 110 億美元的即服務年運行率結束了第二季度，增長了約 25%。這反映了我們在幫助企業客戶踏上雲之旅方面取得的成功，並且我們正在成為混合環境中任務關鍵型工作負載的目的地。我們通過獨特的創新技術差異化，結合深厚的行業專業知識，以信任和安全為基礎，通過我們的集成模型來捕捉這種高價值增長。

You saw that this quarter in a long-term partnership with the Australian government valued at about $740 million to automate and digitize government services, leveraging IBM Systems, Software and Cloud-based solutions. We expanded our work at Crédit Mutuel, who is using the IBM Cloud, Security, IBM Z and Watson to drive its next wave of transformation across its business lines. We delivered the world's most powerful supercomputer to the U.S. Department of Energy. We had competitive cloud wins at leading companies like ExxonMobil, Amtrak and Telefónica de España. We signed a deal with Anthem, where we'll help them drive their digital transformation to deliver an enhanced digital experience for millions of health plan consumers. And in total, we signed 13 services deals over $100 million this quarter. These are just a few of the new client engagements that will play out over the coming quarters and years, and putting this together with our first half performance, we continue to expect to deliver at least $13.80 of operating earnings per share for the year.

您看到本季度與澳大利亞政府建立了價值約 7.4 億美元的長期合作夥伴關係，以利用 IBM 系統、軟件和基於雲的解決方案實現政府服務的自動化和數字化。我們擴大了在 Crédit Mutuel 的工作，該公司正在使用 IBM Cloud、Security、IBM Z 和 Watson 來推動其業務線的下一波轉型。我們向美國能源部交付了世界上最強大的超級計算機。我們在 ExxonMobil、Amtrak 和 Telefónica de España 等領先公司贏得了具有競爭力的雲服務。我們與 Anthem 簽署了一項協議，我們將幫助他們推動數字化轉型，為數百萬健康計劃消費者提供增強的數字體驗。本季度，我們總共簽署了 13 筆超過 1 億美元的服務交易。這些只是將在未來幾個季度和幾年內發揮作用的新客戶參與的一部分，將其與我們上半年的業績結合起來，我們繼續預計今年的每股營業收入至少為 13.80 美元。

Before getting into the detailed financial metrics, I want to provide a perspective on the drivers of our operating earnings per share growth for the quarter. What it shows is we delivered 5% growth despite a significant tax headwind. So let me break it down. Our 4% revenue growth contributed $0.10 of earnings per share growth at constant margin. We realized good pretax operating leverage on that revenue growth with 11% growth in pretax income, and we expanded our pretax margin by 110 basis points. About 2/3 of that pretax income growth came from gross profit dollars, which were up 2%, driven by profit growth in Global Business Services and Systems. Gross margin was down 60 basis points year-to-year. About half was due to mix and half from the continued investments we've been making to build out our IBM Cloud. Productivity was fairly neutral to the year-to-year gross margin dynamics in the quarter, and as we discussed last quarter, the benefit from actions we took earlier in the year will ramp up in the second half. The remaining third of the pretax income growth came from efficiencies we've been driving in our expense structure. And then, as I said, tax was a significant headwind, driven primarily by a discrete tax benefit last year. Finally, a lower share count contributed to growth. Putting it all together, we delivered the 5% growth with good contribution from revenue, pretax margin expansion and to a lesser extent, share repurchases.

在進入詳細的財務指標之前，我想提供一個關於本季度每股營業收入增長驅動因素的觀點。它表明，儘管稅收逆風很大，但我們實現了 5% 的增長。所以讓我分解一下。我們 4% 的收入增長貢獻了 0.10 美元的每股收益增長（按固定利潤計算）。我們實現了收入增長的良好稅前運營槓桿，稅前收入增長了 11%，我們的稅前利潤率提高了 110 個基點。大約 2/3 的稅前收入增長來自毛利潤美元，毛利潤增長了 2%，受全球商業服務和系統利潤增長的推動。毛利率同比下降 60 個基點。大約一半是由於混合，一半是由於我們為構建 IBM 雲而進行的持續投資。生產率對本季度的同比毛利率動態相當中性，正如我們上個季度所討論的那樣，我們今年早些時候採取的行動帶來的好處將在下半年增加。稅前收入增長的其餘三分之一來自我們一直在提高支出結構的效率。然後，正如我所說，稅收是一個重大的逆風，主要是由去年的離散稅收優惠驅動的。最後，較低的份額數量有助於增長。綜上所述，我們實現了 5% 的增長，收入、稅前利潤率擴張以及較小程度上的股票回購都做出了良好貢獻。

Looking at our key financial metrics. As I said, revenue is up 4%. Currency contributed 2 points, which is about half the contribution based on the spot rates at the time of our first quarter earnings call. And I'll remind you, the significant volatility in currencies has implications across the income statement, not just revenue. Constant currency revenue was up 2%, which is essentially all organic. I'll talk to revenue on a constant currency basis going forward.

查看我們的關鍵財務指標。正如我所說，收入增長了 4%。貨幣貢獻了 2 個百分點，大約是我們第一季度財報電話會議時基於即期匯率的貢獻的一半。我會提醒你，貨幣的大幅波動會對損益表產生影響，而不僅僅是收入。不變貨幣收入增長了 2%，這基本上都是有機的。我將在未來以固定貨幣為基礎談論收入。

Our revenue growth was broad based across geographies and sectors. We had growth in more than 60 countries, representing over 80% of IBM's revenue. EMEA growth accelerated to 4%, led by Germany, the U.K., France and Spain with pervasive growth across business areas.

我們的收入增長廣泛分佈於各個地區和行業。我們在 60 多個國家/地區實現了增長，佔 IBM 收入的 80% 以上。在德國、英國、法國和西班牙的帶動下，歐洲、中東和非洲地區增長加速至 4%，各業務領域普遍增長。

Looking at our operating pretax income growth of 11%. I said that about 1/3 of that was from operating expense, which was better by 2%. This includes a 2 point impact from currency, which is significantly less than the first quarter impact due to the dollar strengthening. And so our base expense was better by 4%.

看看我們 11% 的稅前營業收入增長。我說其中大約 1/3 來自運營費用，好於 2%。這包括來自貨幣的 2 點影響，由於美元走強，這明顯低於第一季度的影響。因此，我們的基本費用減少了 4%。

As we continue to invest to build our innovation pipeline in areas like AI, in security and blockchain, we're also realizing acquisition synergies and driving operational efficiencies by streamlining our management system, scaling agile and implementing new ways of working. I talked about some of these in our webcast back in March, and we're seeing the benefit not only in improved speed and responsiveness but also in a more efficient structure.

隨著我們繼續在 AI、安全和區塊鍊等領域投資建立我們的創新管道，我們還通過簡化我們的管理系統、擴展敏捷性和實施新的工作方式來實現收購協同效應並提高運營效率。我在 3 月份的網絡廣播中談到了其中的一些，我們不僅看到了提高速度和響應能力的好處，而且還看到了更高效的結構。

Within expense, we also absorbed a lower level of IP income, which was down $115 million year-to-year in the quarter and about $240 million in the first half. Our operating tax rate of 16% was up nearly 7 points with just over 1 point from the underlying rate and the balance from last year's discrete tax benefits of $170 million.

在支出中，我們還吸收了較低水平的知識產權收入，本季度同比下降 1.15 億美元，上半年下降約 2.4 億美元。我們 16% 的營業稅率上升了近 7 個百分點，與基礎稅率和去年 1.7 億美元的離散稅收優惠的餘額相比略高於 1 個百分點。

Looking at the cash metrics. We generated $1.9 billion of free cash flow in the quarter and $3.2 billion in the first half, which is down $400 million year-to-year. Our solid working capital performance was more than offset by a cash tax headwind and growth in capital investment, consistent with what we discussed earlier in the year. Remember, there's a lot of seasonality in our cash generation, and over the last 12 months, we generated $12.6 billion. That's 111% of GAAP net income.

查看現金指標。我們在本季度產生了 19 億美元的自由現金流，上半年產生了 32 億美元，同比下降 4 億美元。我們穩健的營運資本表現被現金稅逆風和資本投資增長所抵消，這與我們今年早些時候討論的內容一致。請記住，我們的現金產生有很多季節性，在過去的 12 個月裡，我們產生了 126 億美元。這是 GAAP 淨收入的 111%。

Now turning to our segments. Cognitive Solutions had $4.6 billion of revenue, which was down 1% at constant currency. We had continued growth in our as-a-service revenue, exiting the quarter with an annualized run rate of $2 billion. Within solutions software, we're scaling new platforms and solutions with growth in several key areas. I'll name a few. Growth in our underlying analytics platform was led by Db2 portfolio, our data science offerings and our new IBM Cloud Private for data offering, which makes data ready for AI across the clouds.

現在轉向我們的細分市場。Cognitive Solutions 的收入為 46 億美元，按固定匯率計算下降 1%。我們的即服務收入持續增長，以 20 億美元的年化運行率退出本季度。在解決方案軟件中，我們正在擴展新平台和解決方案，並在幾個關鍵領域取得增長。我舉幾個例子。我們的基礎分析平台的增長是由 Db2 產品組合、我們的數據科學產品和我們新的 IBM Cloud Private for data 產品引領的，它使數據為跨雲的 AI 做好準備。

In our Watson platform, the AI platform for business, growth reflects strong demand for our new virtual assistant offering with triple-digit growth in our Conversation service usage. Clients using Watson and System include Prodesco, Orange Bank, Autodesk, Royal Bank of Scotland, Vodafone and LivePerson to name a few. Watson is both a platform on its own and a driver of growth and differentiation in several of our industry verticals. Our industry verticals continue to scale, led by IoT and Watson for financial services. IoT growth was driven by Maximo, which is the #1 asset management solution; and TRIRIGA, the #1 facilities management solution.

在我們的 Watson 平台（商業人工智能平台）中，增長反映了對我們新的虛擬助理產品的強勁需求，我們的對話服務使用量增長了三位數。使用 Watson 和 System 的客戶包括 Prodesco、Orange Bank、Autodesk、蘇格蘭皇家銀行、Vodafone 和 LivePerson 等等。Watson 既是一個獨立的平台，也是我們幾個垂直行業的增長和差異化的驅動力。我們的垂直行業繼續擴展，以物聯網和 Watson 為首的金融服務。物聯網增長由排名第一的資產管理解決方案 Maximo 推動；和 TRIRIGA，排名第一的設施管理解決方案。

Financial services reflects strong performance in our risk and regulatory business and financial crimes portfolio, leveraging our Promontory skills and AI technologies. In Watson Health, we had good performance in areas like payer and life sciences. And in emerging areas like blockchain, we've now seeded the market with over 60 active blockchain networks. This quarter, we launched we.trade with 9 large banks, including Deutsche Bank, HSBC, KBC and Natixis. This is the first live blockchain-based bank-to-bank trading platform. Growth in these areas is offset by a transition in some areas I talked about in April, specifically talent, collaboration and commerce, which today are a combination of on-prem and SaaS offerings. We are modernizing our offerings and making investments to address the secular shifts in the market. Keep in mind, the time to value of these investments is longer in SaaS.

金融服務反映了我們在風險和監管業務以及金融犯罪組合方面的強勁表現，充分利用了我們的 Promontory 技能和人工智能技術。在 Watson Health 中，我們在支付方和生命科學等領域有很好的表現。在區塊鍊等新興領域，我們現在已經為市場播種了 60 多個活躍的區塊鍊網絡。本季度，我們與德意志銀行、匯豐銀行、KBC 和 Natixis 等 9 家大型銀行推出了 we.trade。這是第一個基於區塊鏈的實時銀行對銀行交易平台。這些領域的增長被我在 4 月份談到的某些領域的轉變所抵消，特別是人才、協作和商業，這些領域如今是本地和 SaaS 產品的組合。我們正在使我們的產品現代化並進行投資以應對市場的長期變化。請記住，在 SaaS 中，這些投資實現價值的時間更長。

Our transaction processing software was down 2%, driven by declines in storage software. Within TPS, we had growth in IBM Z middleware and Power middleware.

我們的交易處理軟件下降了 2%，這是受存儲軟件下降的推動。在 TPS 中，我們在 IBM Z 中間件和 Power 中間件方面取得了增長。

Looking at profit this quarter. We grew pretax income 9% and expanded pretax margin by over 2 points year-to-year, driven by operational efficiencies and acquisition synergies while continuing to invest at high levels in key strategic areas such as AI, security and blockchain.

看看本季度的利潤。在運營效率和收購協同效應的推動下，我們的稅前收入同比增長 9%，稅前利潤率同比增長超過 2 個百分點，同時繼續在人工智能、安全和區塊鍊等關鍵戰略領域進行高水平投資。

Before getting into Global Business Services, let me give you a perspective on our total services business across the 2 segments. We continue to make good progress. Our services signings grew. The year-to-year services backlog trajectory improved from last quarter. Services revenue returned to growth, and we had a modest improvement in the year-to-year services gross margin trajectory.

在進入全球商業服務之前，讓我向您介紹一下我們跨 2 個部門的總體服務業務。我們繼續取得良好進展。我們的服務簽約增加了。與上一季度相比，年度服務積壓軌蹟有所改善。服務收入恢復增長，我們的服務毛利率同比軌跡略有改善。

Our signings were up 6%, and within that, we had 13 deals over $100 million. So we're clearly winning in a competitive environment. We're addressing the fundamental shifts in the industry like helping clients implement hybrid cloud and manage security services. This is driving a shift in our backlog content with nearly 30% of our outsourcing backlog now in cloud.

我們的簽約增加了 6%，其中，我們有 13 筆交易超過 1 億美元。所以我們顯然在競爭激烈的環境中獲勝。我們正在應對行業的根本性轉變，例如幫助客戶實施混合雲和管理安全服務。這正在推動我們積壓內容的轉變，我們近 30% 的外包積壓現在都在雲端。

And then looking at the services gross margin. It was down just 25 basis points year-to-year. I'll remind you again that we have most of the benefits from the first quarter productivity actions still ahead of us.

然後看服務毛利率。同比僅下降 25 個基點。我會再次提醒您，我們仍然可以從第一季度的生產力行動中獲得大部分好處。

So now let's get into the 2 segments. Global Business Services returned to modest revenue growth, increased gross profit dollars and expanded gross margins. We're realizing the improved revenue trajectory from the runout of our opening backlog for the year. Our strategic imperatives grew 6% with strong performance in the as-a-service offerings, which were up 25%. We have talked about how we've realigned our practice model around 3 growth platforms: digital transformation, cloud application and cognitive processes. While all are progressing, we have particular strength in digital, which again grew strong double digits. This was driven by digital business strategy and by our mobile offerings.

現在讓我們進入 2 個部分。全球商業服務業務收入恢復適度增長，毛利潤增加，毛利率擴大。我們正在意識到，由於今年開盤積壓的用盡，收入軌蹟有所改善。我們的戰略需求增長了 6%，即服務產品的表現強勁，增長了 25%。我們已經討論了我們如何圍繞 3 個增長平台重新調整我們的實踐模型：數字化轉型、雲應用程序和認知流程。雖然一切都在進步，但我們在數字領域擁有特別的優勢，再次實現兩位數的強勁增長。這是由數字業務戰略和我們的移動產品驅動的。

Across these platforms, consulting revenue growth accelerated to 4% year-to-year, led by our offerings in digital and cloud. Our GBS consulting practice brings business expertise together with technology expertise to unlock value for our clients. For example, this quarter, IBM digital and Mediaocean launched a blockchain consortium comprised of leading advertisers and publishers, including Kellogg, Unilever, Kimberly-Clark and Pfizer, to set the new industry standard for the digital ad buying ecosystem. We're continuing to invest, recently announcing the acquisition of Oniqua Holdings, which adds technology and professional expertise and asset optimization. This strengthens our integrated IoT platform across Cognitive Solutions and GBS.

在這些平台上，在我們的數字和雲產品的帶動下，諮詢收入同比增長加速至 4%。我們的 GBS 諮詢實踐將業務專業知識與技術專業知識相結合，為我們的客戶釋放價值。例如，本季度，IBM Digital 和 Mediaocean 推出了一個由領先的廣告商和出版商組成的區塊鏈聯盟，包括 Kellogg、Unilever、Kimberly-Clark 和 Pfizer，為數字廣告購買生態系統設定新的行業標準。我們正在繼續投資，最近宣布收購 Oniqua Holdings，這增加了技術和專業知識以及資產優化。這加強了我們跨認知解決方案和 GBS 的集成物聯網平台。

Application management services revenue was down 3%, reflecting continued declines in traditional enterprise application managed services. We're growing in strategic offerings like Cloud Migration Factory and cloud application development. The increased demand in these areas has led to 2 consecutive quarters of double-digit signings growth in application management.

應用程序管理服務收入下降了 3%，反映了傳統企業應用程序託管服務的持續下滑。我們在 Cloud Migration Factory 和雲應用程序開發等戰略產品方面不斷發展。這些領域的需求增加導致應用管理領域的簽約數量連續兩個季度實現兩位數增長。

Turning to gross profit. GBS' gross margin grew 130 basis points year-to-year. We have done a lot of work to transform our portfolio and reposition our offerings to capture improved price for value. And we are also starting to see early contributions from our productivity actions around labor models and structure. In summary, GBS delivered a solid quarter, and we are starting to see the realization of our initiatives in our results.

轉向毛利。GBS 的毛利率同比增長 130 個基點。我們做了大量工作來轉變我們的產品組合併重新定位我們的產品以獲取更高的性價比。我們也開始看到我們圍繞勞動力模型和結構的生產力行動的早期貢獻。總而言之，GBS 交付了一個穩定的季度，我們開始在我們的結果中看到我們的舉措的實現。

In Technology Services & Cloud Platforms, revenue returned to growth. Similar to GBS, this performance was driven primarily by our improved opening backlog runout dynamics. The strategic imperatives revenue in this segment grew 24%. This was led by cloud, which grew 27%; and our as-a-service revenue grew 30%, which is up about 6 points sequentially and is now at an annualized run rate of $7.6 billion.

在技​​術服務和雲平台方面，收入恢復增長。與 GBS 類似，這種性能主要是由我們改進的打開積壓跳動動態驅動的。該細分市場的戰略需求收入增長了 24%。其中云計算增長了 27%；我們的即服務收入增長了 30%，環比增長了約 6 個百分點，目前年化運行率為 76 億美元。

Infrastructure services revenue growth improved to 1% this quarter as we continue to help clients on their journey to cloud. The IBM Cloud enables clients to migrate, modernize and build new cloud apps, is AI ready and secured to the core.

隨著我們繼續幫助客戶踏上雲之旅，本季度基礎設施服務收入增長提高至 1%。IBM Cloud 使客戶能夠遷移、現代化和構建新的雲應用程序，為 AI 做好準備並保護其核心。

This quarter, we completed the migration of Westpac's core banking applications to the IBM Cloud. It's just one example of how we're becoming the go-to destination for mission-critical workloads on the cloud.

本季度，我們完成了 Westpac 的核心銀行應用程序到 IBM Cloud 的遷移。這只是我們如何成為雲上關鍵任務工作負載的首選目的地的一個例子。

We're continuing to build capabilities, recently announcing an expansion to 18 availability zones for the IBM Cloud across the world. The expanded global footprint is important as clients look to maintain control of their data as they implement hybrid, especially given the increased data regulations.

我們正在繼續構建功能，最近宣布將 IBM Cloud 擴展到全球 18 個可用區。擴大全球足跡非常重要，因為客戶希望在實施混合時保持對數據的控制，尤其是考慮到數據法規的增加。

In Technical Support Services, revenue was down 4%. As is always the case with the Z launch, we're seeing a short-term impact in our maintenance stream, as IBM Z sales move clients from maintenance to warranty for the first year. The impact to maintenance is becoming more pronounced now with the higher adoption rates by existing clients in the strong current Z cycle. This impact was moderated by continued growth in our multi-vendor support offerings.

在技​​術支持服務方面，收入下降了 4%。與 Z 發布的一貫情況一樣，我們在維護流中看到了短期影響，因為 IBM Z 銷售將客戶從第一年的維護轉移到保修。隨著現有客戶在強勁的當前 Z 週期中採用率更高，對維護的影響現在變得更加明顯。我們的多供應商支持產品的持續增長緩和了這種影響。

Integration software grew 1%. We had good performance in offerings that modernize applications and enable cloud adoption. This includes offerings like IBM Cloud Private, which helps clients to develop cloud native applications behind their firewall. We've added 100 new clients in the second quarter and now have over 300 clients since the product was announced at the end of last year.

集成軟件增長了 1%。我們在使應用程序現代化和支持雲採用的產品方面表現出色。這包括 IBM Cloud Private 等產品，可幫助客戶在其防火牆後開發雲原生應用程序。我們在第二季度增加了 100 個新客戶，自去年年底發布該產品以來，現在已有 300 多個客戶。

Turning to gross profit. Margin for this segment was down 1 point from last year. The majority of this decline was driven by the revenue mix away from higher-margin TSS in the quarter with the remainder driven by continued scale-out of our cloud. We did have some productivity benefits, but as I said earlier, the actions we took in the first quarter will yield predominantly in the back half of the year.

轉向毛利。該細分市場的利潤率比去年下降了 1 個百分點。這一下降的主要原因是本季度收入組合遠離利潤率較高的 TSS，其餘部分是由我們的雲的持續擴展所推動的。我們確實獲得了一些生產力收益，但正如我之前所說，我們在第一季度採取的行動將主要在今年下半年產生效果。

In Systems, we grew revenue again as we continue to deliver innovative technologies that address today's most contemporary workloads. All 3 brands, IBM Z, Power and storage, grew, and we gained share overall. In the second quarter, IBM Z grew revenues by 112% year-to-year on nearly 200% MIPS growth, again driven by new workload MIPS. z14 adoption remained broad based and after 4 quarters, continues to track ahead of the prior program. The value prop benefits existing IBM Z clients who are growing and expanding workloads on z14 this quarter, whether it's e-commerce sales, mobile banking volumes, machine learning or emerging blockchain services. And we're adding new clients from all corners of the globe from a managed care provider in the U.S. to a university in Canada, to an electronics distributor in Italy, to a bank in Africa. We also had good acceptance of our new single-frame z14 designed specifically for cloud environments, which launched earlier in the quarter.

在系統方面，隨著我們繼續提供解決當今最現代工作負載的創新技術，我們的收入再次增長。IBM Z、Power 和存儲這 3 個品牌都在增長，我們獲得了整體份額。第二季度，IBM Z 的收入同比增長 112%，MIPS 增長近 200%，這再次受到新工作負載 MIPS 的推動。z14 的採用仍然具有廣泛的基礎，並且在 4 個季度之後，繼續領先於之前的計劃。該價值支柱有利於本季度在 z14 上增加和擴展工作負載的現有 IBM Z 客戶，無論是電子商務銷售、移動銀行業務量、機器學習還是新興的區塊鏈服務。我們正在增加來自全球各個角落的新客戶，從美國的管理式醫療服務提供商到加拿大的大學，到意大利的電子產品分銷商，再到非洲的銀行。我們還對本季度早些時候推出的專為雲環境設計的新型單幀 z14 獲得了好評。

Power revenue was up 4%, driven by adoption of our new POWER9 entry-level portfolio and continued growth in Linux. These cloud-ready systems provide leadership capabilities in advanced analytics, cloud environments and data-intensive workloads in AI, HANA and UNIX markets.

在採用我們新的 POWER9 入門級產品組合和 Linux 的持續增長的推動下，Power 收入增長了 4%。這些雲就緒系統在 AI、HANA 和 UNIX 市場的高級分析、雲環境和數據密集型工作負載方面提供領先能力。

We continue to roll out our supercomputers at the U.S. Department of Energy labs. As part of our deployment, the U.S. government recently unveiled POWER9-based Summit, the world's most powerful supercomputer, which is ranked #1 in the top 500 list of commercially available computers. This is the first time in over 5 years that a U.S. company topped the list.

我們繼續在美國能源部實驗室推出我們的超級計算機。作為我們部署的一部分，美國政府最近推出了基於 POWER9 的 Summit，這是世界上最強大的超級計算機，在商用計算機 500 強榜單中排名第一。這是 5 年多來美國公司首次榮登榜首。

Storage hardware returned to growth this quarter after facing some sales execution challenges in a competitive market last quarter. This growth was broad based geographically and led by strong growth in all-flash arrays. Flash grew double digits across the portfolio and took share. We are coming out with new offerings, including a new mid-range flat system announced last week with industry-leading performance technology.

存儲硬件在上個季度在競爭激烈的市場中面臨一些銷售執行挑戰後，本季度恢復增長。這種增長具有廣泛的地域基礎，並由全閃存陣列的強勁增長帶動。Flash 在整個產品組合中增長了兩位數並佔據了市場份額。我們即將推出新產品，包括上周宣布的採用行業領先性能技術的新型中檔平板系統。

Turning to profit. Systems pretax income was up about $275 million year-to-year, and pretax margin was up over 10 points, so solid performance.

轉為盈利。系統稅前收入同比增長約 2.75 億美元，稅前利潤率增長超過 10 個百分點，表現穩健。

Moving on to cash flow and balance sheet. In the second quarter, we generated $2.9 billion of cash from operations, excluding our financing receivables and $1.9 billion of free cash flow. And so in the first half, we generated $3.2 billion of free cash flow, which is down $400 million from last year. This reflects solid working capital performance offset by a $300 million increase in CapEx as we build out global cloud data centers and $700 million more of cash tax payments. We've now got the entire cash tax headwind that we expect for the year behind us.

轉向現金流量和資產負債表。第二季度，我們從運營中產生了 29 億美元的現金，其中不包括我們的融資應收賬款和 19 億美元的自由現金流。因此，在上半年，我們產生了 32 億美元的自由現金流，比去年減少了 4 億美元。這反映了穩健的營運資本績效被我們建立全球雲數據中心時資本支出增加 3 億美元和 7 億美元的現金稅款增加所抵消。我們現在已經了解了我們預計今年的全部現金稅逆風。

Looking at uses of cash for the half. We returned $4.6 billion to our shareholders. In April, we again raised our dividend, and with that, we now tripled our dividend per share over the last decade. In the first half, we bought back nearly 12 million shares, ending June with 913 million shares outstanding and $2 billion remaining in our buyback authorization.

查看一半的現金使用情況。我們向股東返還了 46 億美元。4 月，我們再次提高了股息，因此，我們現在的每股股息在過去十年中翻了三倍。上半年，我們回購了近 1200 萬股股票，截至 6 月，我們的回購授權剩餘 9.13 億股流通股和 20 億美元。

Looking at the balance sheet highlights. Our cash and total debt levels are pretty consistent with last June. About 2/3 of our debt supports our financing business, which is leveraged at 9:1. And the majority of our financing receivables, 54% are at investment grade, which is 2 points better than this time last year. So our balance sheet remains strong with plenty of flexibility to support our investments and shareholder returns over the longer term.

查看資產負債表亮點。我們的現金和總債務水平與去年 6 月相當一致。我們大約 2/3 的債務支持我們的融資業務，其槓桿率為 9:1。我們的大部分融資應收賬款，54% 處於投資級別，比去年同期高出 2 個百分點。因此，我們的資產負債表保持強勁，具有足夠的靈活性來支持我們的長期投資和股東回報。

In summary, our performance this quarter underscores the extent to which we have repositioned our business over the last several years. As I said, nearly half of our revenue is aligned with the strategic imperatives, which represent the emerging high-value, high-growth segments in our industry. This also reflects a major portfolio shift for IBM, driven, as we discussed at our investor webcast in March, by major shifts in our capital allocation and investment strategy. Those shifts reflect our vision of what clients would value in a rapidly reordering IT industry, driven by cloud, data and AI. And that is innovative technology in key emerging areas, the expertise to apply that technology in the industry-specific processes and workflows and the commitment that their enterprise data would be handled responsibly.

總而言之，我們本季度的表現凸顯了我們在過去幾年中重新定位業務的程度。正如我所說，我們近一半的收入與戰略要求一致，這代表了我們行業中新興的高價值、高增長領域。這也反映了 IBM 的重大投資組合轉變，正如我們在 3 月份的投資者網絡廣播中所討論的那樣，我們的資本配置和投資策略發生了重大轉變。這些轉變反映了我們對客戶在由雲、數據和人工智能驅動的快速重新排序的 IT 行業中看重什麼的願景。這就是關鍵新興領域的創新技術、在特定行業的流程和工作流程中應用該技術的專業知識，以及對以負責任的方式處理其企業數據的承諾。

This is IBM's differentiation, and we're seeing it come through in our revenue and profit performance. This quarter, we delivered 2% constant currency revenue growth, 11% operating pretax income growth and 5% earnings per share growth, capping off a first half where we also grew revenue, operating profit and earnings per share. As always, we have some tailwinds and headwinds as we move into the second half, but with this performance and our continued focus on driving consistent operational execution, we continue to expect to deliver at least $13.80 of operating earnings per share and free cash flow in the range of $12 billion.

這是 IBM 的差異化優勢，我們看到它體現在我們的收入和利潤表現中。本季度，我們實現了 2% 的固定貨幣收入增長、11% 的稅前營業收入增長和 5% 的每股收益增長，為上半年帶來了收入、營業利潤和每股收益的增長。與往常一樣，我們進入下半年時遇到了一些順風和逆風，但憑藉這種表現以及我們對推動一致運營執行的持續關注，我們繼續預計每股運營收益和自由現金流至少為 13.80 美元120億美元的範圍。

And with that, let me turn it back to Patricia for Q&A.

然後，讓我把它轉回給帕特里夏進行問答。

Thank you, Jim. Before we begin the Q&A, I'd like to mention a couple of items. First, we have supplemental charts at the end of the slide deck that provide additional information on the quarter. (Operator Instructions) So operator, let's please open it up for questions.

謝謝你，吉姆。在我們開始問答之前，我想提幾個問題。首先，我們在幻燈片的末尾有補充圖表，提供有關本季度的更多信息。（運營商說明）所以運營商，讓我們打開它提問。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Wamsi Mohan with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自美國銀行美林證券的 Wamsi Mohan。

Jim, you saw some constant currency deceleration in cognitive revenues, but BTI margins improved nicely. You alluded to a few factors in there. I was wondering if you could provide some more granularity on the drivers of that BTI margin expansion between the operational efficiencies, the acquisition synergies that you alluded to and the relative pace of investments. And secondarily, your base expense decline was quite significant in the quarter. Can you talk about the trajectory of that in the second half, especially given some of the cost actions that you said are yet to be reflected, the cost actions that you took at 1Q that are yet to be reflected in the back half?

吉姆，你看到認知收入的一些貨幣持續減速，但 BTI 利潤率有了很好的改善。你提到了其中的一些因素。我想知道你是否可以更詳細地說明 BTI 利潤率在運營效率、你提到的收購協同效應和投資的相對速度之間擴張的驅動因素。其次，本季度您的基本費用下降非常顯著。你能談談下半年的軌跡嗎，特別是考慮到你所說的一些成本行動尚未反映出來，你在第一季度採取的成本行動尚未反映在後半部分？

Sure, Wamsi. Thank you very much for the question. Our -- let me address the Cognitive Solutions segment first and talk about constant currency and then get to the operating leverage component. And then I'll address your expense question next. Cognitive Solutions, first of all, as you all know, our financial model for the Cognitive Solutions segment is to deliver growth and also deliver operating leverage consistent with that growth. And what we've been seeing over the last couple quarters, as we've been driving the acquisition integration synergies across our business, we've been seeing that operating leverage well in advance of our actual revenue growth within that segment. We've also been driving operational efficiencies and synergies around redefining how we do work, redefining development optimization, applying agile methodologies and getting better speed, responsiveness, cycle time and throughput and output within our organization. So we're getting more value for dollar spend overall. And you see that play out in operating leverage in that segment in the first quarter, and you've seen it play out in the second quarter with strong profit growth of 9% on that constant currency revenue growth. So we continue to expect that as we move forward, and we'll continue to leverage and get value out of that business overall. In terms of expense dynamics, you heard in the prepared remarks our operating expense was better by 2%, but there are many different components within that operating expense 2% better. First and foremost, currency had impacted our operating expense by 2 points. Now I will tell you that was about half of the impact or even a little bit less than half the impact than we expected 90 days ago just given the volatility of what's been happening in the FX markets, in particular, around the U.S. dollar appreciation. So the last couple quarters, currency is impacted by expense by 4 to 5 points. Now it was only a 2 point impact. So our base productivity was about 4% better, and that is being driven as we continue to drive the operating leverage through our enterprise productivity initiatives around reinventing IBM and how we actually do work, changing our management system, addressing our structure, attacking costs and complexity, aligning decision rights and driving accountability. So that 4% is a base level of productivity that we're driving, and we expect that going forward. And then I'll just add one other point, and that is on IP income. You see through the second quarter, our IP income was down by over $100 million, $115 million, I think, to be exact, and through the first half, it's down nearly $250 million overall. So we continue to leverage and monetize the value of our research and development spending, and we continue to invest in those areas. And we'll opportunistically optimize that through many monetization models, but IP right now is down $115 million. When you bring all that together, it's delivering substantial operating leverage to our business as you've seen here in the second quarter.

當然，Wamsi。非常感謝你的提問。我們的——讓我先談談認知解決方案部分，談談不變的貨幣，然後再談談運營槓桿部分。接下來我將解決您的費用問題。認知解決方案，首先，眾所周知，我們認知解決方案部門的財務模型是為了實現增長，並提供與該增長一致的運營槓桿。我們在過去幾個季度看到的情況是，隨著我們一直在推動整個業務的收購整合協同效應，我們已經看到運營槓桿率遠遠高於我們在該領域的實際收入增長。我們還一直在圍繞重新定義我們的工作方式、重新定義開發優化、應用敏捷方法以及在我們的組織內獲得更好的速度、響應能力、週期時間以及吞吐量和輸出來推動運營效率和協同效應。因此，我們總體上獲得了更多的美元支出價值。你看到第一季度該部門的經營槓桿發揮作用，你已經看到它在第二季度發揮作用，在貨幣收入持續增長的情況下，利潤強勁增長 9%。因此，隨著我們的前進，我們將繼續期待這一點，我們將繼續利用並從整體業務中獲取價值。就費用動態而言，您在準備好的評論中聽到我們的運營費用提高了 2%，但在該運營費用中有許多不同的組成部分提高了 2%。首先，貨幣對我們的運營費用產生了 2 個百分點的影響。現在我會告訴你，考慮到外匯市場正在發生的波動，特別是美元升值，這大約是我們 90 天前預期的影響的一半，甚至略低於一半。因此，在過去幾個季度，貨幣受費用影響 4 到 5 個百分點。現在只有2點影響。因此，我們的基本生產力提高了大約 4%，並且隨著我們通過企業生產力計劃圍繞重塑 IBM 以及我們實際工作方式、改變我們的管理系統、解決我們的結構、降低成本和複雜性、調整決策權和推動問責制。所以 4% 是我們正在推動的生產力的基本水平，我們預計會繼續前進。然後我再補充一點，那就是IP收入。你看整個第二季度，我們的 IP 收入下降了 1 億多美元，準確地說是 1.15 億美元，而在上半年，它總共下降了近 2.5 億美元。因此，我們繼續利用研發支出的價值並將其貨幣化，並繼續投資於這些領域。我們將通過許多貨幣化模型機會主義地優化它，但 IP 現在下降了 1.15 億美元。當你把所有這些結合在一起時，它就會為我們的業務帶來巨大的運營槓桿，正如你在第二季度在這裡看到的那樣。

The next question comes from Steve Milunovich of UBS.

下一個問題來自瑞銀集團的 Steve Milunovich。

A fair amount of your growth in revenue and even pretax profit came from the hardware area. What are you expecting in terms of second half mainframe compares? Are we going to be down year-over-year in the third and then down pretty severely in the fourth? And then just a follow-up on your currency comments. I assume you're losing about $2 billion of revenue in the second half relative to what you expected back in April. Have you taken actions to compensate for that to get to your $13.80 to get to your $12 billion of free cash flow?

您收入增長的相當一部分甚至稅前利潤都來自硬件領域。您對下半年的大型機比較有何期待？我們是否會在第三季度同比下降，然後在第四季度大幅下降？然後只是跟進您的貨幣評論。我假設與您在 4 月份的預期相比，下半年您將損失約 20 億美元的收入。您是否已採取行動來補償您的 13.80 美元以達到 120 億美元的自由現金流？

Yes. So thank you, Steve. Many questions there. So let me take each one individually. First of all, yes, we had a very strong systems quarter overall, both on revenue and on operating leverage where we grew pretax income over 10 points year-over-year. But let's put the quarter in perspective. We delivered 4% revenue overall, 2% at constant currency. It was our strongest constant currency revenue growth rate in over 7 years, and it was led by our continued acceleration in our strategic imperatives, which were up 15% at actual, 13% at constant currency. That was an acceleration from the first quarter, and within that, our cloud business, $18.5 billion, up 23%; our as-a-service annualized run rate now over $11 billion, that's up 24%. And our services businesses returned back to growth at constant currency, both GBS, which had a great quarter and TS&CP. But even if you take our Systems business, and to your question around mainframe, and if we take mainframe out, you would see those same dynamics in the quarter-to-quarter acceleration of our strategic imperative business. And as you all know, in our as-a-service acceleration of over $11 billion growing 24%, that doesn't have any Systems business within it. And the last point I'll bring up around top line, then I'll get to your other questions, we had broad-based geographic and sector growth across our business, probably the best breadth and growth across the number of countries that we've had in quite a period of time. 60-plus countries grew at constant currency, and that represented over 80% of IBM's revenue. And if you extract out the mainframe cycle, we still had over 60% of our -- or, excuse me, 60 countries that actually grew, and those are large countries like Japan, like U.K., like Germany, France, Spain, Australia, many which are not mainframe dominant. So we see continuing momentum. Now with regards to mainframe, I'm not going to apologize. This is the most enduring platform that you've seen out there, and we continue to capitalize on gaining new emerging workloads onto that platform. And we delivered substantial growth in the second quarter, over 100% growth, so -- and we tripled our installed MIPS inventory that we ship. And we're capturing over 60% of that MIPS shipped is in specialty workloads. So through the first 4 quarters -- now it's pertinent time to have the discussion. Through the first 4 quarters, we are well in advance of what the prior cycle was. And with regards to your question about second half, I would expect that to continue in the second half as we move forward. We know in the fourth quarter that we got a tremendous compare, and I talked about that 90 days ago. So we will have an impact, but we've got momentum in our services businesses returning to growth. And as you know, that's 60% of our business overall. Now with regards to currency, I'm glad you brought that up. We've seen dramatic volatility over the last 90 days since our last earnings call. And to put it in perspective, we had stated here 90 days ago that we expected about a 4 point tailwind in the second quarter coming off of a 5 point tailwind in the first quarter, and you see that, that only ended up being a little bit over 2 points of a tailwind in the second quarter as the U.S. dollar appreciated significantly against most currencies. Now when we look at the second half, the second half, we see about a 1 to 2 point headwind. Currency will flip, and that's about somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.5 billion, including second quarter's $400 million that I talked about. Now with that said, currency, you understand the top line dynamic of revenue. But currency also impacts margins, and they impact expense. From a margin perspective, if you look at -- we've got 2 different businesses. We got product-based businesses, and we got services-based businesses. On product-based businesses, you don't have a direct alignment of your sources of revenue and your sources of costs. So that translation revenue impact that you see in our product-based businesses of hardware, software and services, you will see a gross margin impact on that at the GP line. Services where you have a much more alignment of source of revenue and cost, we have basically a natural hedge, you won't see a gross profit impact on that revenue translation. But as you all know, we drive a hedging program to mitigate the foreign exchange volatility at a profit level. Why? Because it gives us time to address our pricing terms, our structure and our sourcing strategies. So at a PTI level, you see a very de minimis impact in period. Currency doesn't eliminate -- or excuse me, hedging doesn't eliminate. It only defers it, but in a -- at a profit level, it's a very de minimis impact, but it impacts the P&L differently as we move forward.

是的。所以謝謝你，史蒂夫。那裡有很多問題。因此，讓我逐一介紹。首先，是的，我們的系統季度整體表現非常強勁，無論是在收入還是在運營槓桿方面，我們的稅前收入同比增長超過 10 個百分點。但是，讓我們正確看待這個季度。我們交付了 4% 的總體收入，按固定匯率計算為 2%。這是我們 7 年來最強勁的固定貨幣收入增長率，這是由我們持續加速的戰略需求帶動的，實際增長 15%，按固定匯率計算增長 13%。這比第一季度有所加速，其中，我們的雲業務為 185 億美元，增長 23%；我們即服務的年化運行率現在超過 110 億美元，增長了 24%。我們的服務業務以固定匯率恢復增長，包括 GBS，它有一個很好的季度和 TS&CP。但是，即使您選擇我們的系統業務，並針對您關於大型機的問題，如果我們將大型機排除在外，您也會在我們戰略性業務的季度加速中看到同樣的動態。眾所周知，在我們超過 110 億美元的即服務加速增長 24% 中，其中沒有任何系統業務。最後一點我將圍繞頂線提出，然後我會回答你的其他問題，我們在我們的業務中有廣泛的地理和部門增長，可能是我們在多個國家/地區的最佳廣度和增長'已經有一段時間了。60 多個國家/地區以固定匯率增長，佔 IBM 收入的 80% 以上。如果你抽出大型機週期，我們仍然有超過 60% - 或者，對不起，60 個國家實際增長，這些是大國，如日本，英國，德國，法國，西班牙，澳大利亞，許多不是大型機主導的。因此，我們看到了持續的勢頭。現在關於大型機，我不會道歉。這是您所見過的最持久的平台，我們將繼續利用在該平台上獲得新興的工作負載。我們在第二季度實現了大幅增長，超過 100% 的增長，因此——我們已安裝的 MIPS 庫存增加了兩倍。我們發現超過 60% 的 MIPS 出貨是在專業工作負載中。所以在前 4 個季度 - 現在是進行討論的適當時間。在前 4 個季度，我們遠遠領先於上一個週期。關於你關於下半年的問題，我希望隨著我們的前進，這種情況會在下半年繼續。我們知道在第四季度我們進行了一次巨大的比較，我在 90 天前就談到了這一點。所以我們會產生影響，但我們的服務業務恢復增長勢頭強勁。如您所知，這占我們整體業務的 60%。現在關於貨幣，我很高興你提出來。自我們上次財報電話會議以來的過去 90 天裡，我們看到了劇烈的波動。換個角度來看，我們在 90 天前曾在這裡表示，我們預計第二季度將出現大約 4 點的順風，而不是第一季度的 5 點順風，你看，結果只是一點點由於美元兌大多數貨幣大幅升值，第二季度利好因素略多於 2 個百分點。現在，當我們看下半場，下半場，我們看到大約 1 到 2 分的逆風。貨幣將翻轉，大約在 15 億美元左右，包括我談到的第二季度的 4 億美元。話雖如此，您了解收入的頂線動態。但貨幣也會影響利潤率，並影響費用。從利潤的角度來看，如果你看——我們有兩個不同的業務。我們有基於產品的業務，也有基於服務的業務。在基於產品的業務中，您的收入來源和成本來源並不直接一致。因此，您在我們基於產品的硬件、軟件和服務業務中看到的翻譯收入影響，您將在 GP 生產線上看到毛利率影響。收入來源和成本更加一致的服務，我們基本上有一個自然的對沖，你不會看到收入轉換對毛利的影響。但眾所周知，我們推出了一項對沖計劃，以減輕利潤水平的外匯波動。為什麼？因為它讓我們有時間來解決我們的定價條款、我們的結構和我們的採購策略。因此，在 PTI 級別，您會看到期間的影響非常小。貨幣並不能消除——或者對不起，對沖並不能消除。它只會推遲它，但在利潤水平上，這是一個非常微不足道的影響，但隨著我們前進，它對損益的影響會有所不同。

The next question comes from Katy Huberty of Morgan Stanley.

下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的凱蒂休伯蒂。

Jim, as was mentioned in an earlier question, investors are certainly worried about the tougher comps in the back half of this year. And the 2% growth was a nice surprise this quarter, but you're not quite at consistent and meaningful growth across the businesses. And so my question is whether you and the rest of the management team would consider stepping up either M&A or divestitures to more meaningfully remix revenue and set the company on a path and a narrative around much more meaningful and sustainable growth.

吉姆，正如之前的一個問題中提到的，投資者肯定擔心今年下半年更艱難的競爭。本季度 2% 的增長率令人驚喜，但各業務的增長並不一致且有意義。所以我的問題是，您和管理團隊的其他成員是否會考慮加強併購或資產剝離，以更有意義地重新組合收入，並讓公司走上一條更有意義和可持續增長的道路和敘述。

Katy, thanks for the question overall. Yes. As you stated, we delivered a very solid quarter at 2% constant currency, and I would tell you, it's our third straight quarter of growth overall with an acceleration in terms of breadth and depth across geographies, across sectors and across countries around the world. But let's take a look at our portfolio. First and foremost, we are very confident in the portfolio lineup that we have here today around each of our segments. We talked about at our Investor Day the value differentiation of IBM, and that value differentiation is built around innovative technology, around deep industry expertise and around trust and security, all delivered through an integrated model. And if you take a look at it, we talked about the key value differentiators as we move forward. And the value of bringing that together, I think, you're seeing instantiated now here in the second quarter with very strong growth overall in our systems platform, in the importance they play to our infrastructure, in our integrated model. You see our services base of businesses continue that trajectory improvement that we talked about starting in January of this year. We improved in the first quarter, and now we got both businesses back to growth. And we delivered double-digit signings at actual rates in the first half, which positions us well as we move forward. But our model overall, we've done a lot of work around remixing our capital and investment to build out the portfolio that we have today, and we're very disciplined in our capital allocation strategy. We said 70% to 80% of that capital and investment is going to go back to our shareholders in the form of share buyback and dividend. And you saw us raise our dividend here in April this year, our 23rd straight year. But the remainder is for us to use internally to build out our differentiated capability around investments in R&D and capital to drive leadership in AI, leadership in blockchain, leadership in security and leadership now in quantum as we move forward. But acquisitions are an integral part, and we're going to continue to evaluate our portfolio and how we capitalize the value of those acquisitions in light of the integrated, differentiated strategy of the IBM company going forward.

凱蒂，謝謝你的提問。是的。正如您所說，我們以 2% 的固定匯率交付了一個非常穩健的季度，我會告訴您，這是我們連續第三個季度實現總體增長，在全球各個地區、各個行業和各個國家/地區的廣度和深度方面都在加速.但讓我們看看我們的投資組合。首先，我們對今天圍繞我們每個細分市場的投資組合陣容非常有信心。我們在投資者日談到了 IBM 的價值差異化，這種價值差異化是圍繞創新技術、深厚的行業專業知識以及信任和安全而建立的，所有這些都是通過集成模型提供的。而且，如果您看一下它，我們會在前進的過程中討論關鍵的價值差異化因素。我認為，將它們結合在一起的價值，你現在可以在第二季度看到實例化，我們的系統平台整體增長非常強勁，它們在我們的集成模型中對我們的基礎設施發揮著重要作用。你會看到我們的業務服務基礎繼續我們從今年 1 月開始討論的軌跡改進。我們在第一季度有所改善，現在我們的兩個業務都恢復了增長。我們在上半年以實際速度交付了兩位數的簽約，這讓我們在前進的過程中處於有利地位。但總的來說，我們的模型圍繞重新混合我們的資本和投資以構建我們今天擁有的投資組合做了很多工作，而且我們在資本配置策略上非常有紀律。我們說，70% 到 80% 的資本和投資將以股票回購和股息的形式返還給我們的股東。你看到我們今年 4 月在這裡提高了股息，這是我們連續第 23 年。但其餘部分供我們在內部使用，圍繞研發和資本投資建立我們的差異化能力，以在我們前進的過程中推動人工智能、區塊鏈、安全和量子領域的領導地位。但收購是不可或缺的一部分，我們將繼續評估我們的投資組合，以及我們如何根據 IBM 公司未來的整合、差異化戰略來利用這些收購的價值。

The next question is from Toni Sacconaghi of Bernstein.

下一個問題來自伯恩斯坦的 Toni Sacconaghi。

I'm wondering if you could comment a little bit more about the dynamics affecting Cognitive Solutions revenue growth. It was down at constant currency versus a pretty easy comparison. And it's the business that has the highest percentage of strategic initiatives in it, so it's obviously very important for you. Can you maybe comment specifically on what's happening with Watson Health? There were lots of press reports about a significant retrenchment in that business. And I know you said the acquisitions take time, but you've had them all for at least a year. And so maybe you can comment on why you think we haven't seen better revenue progress or what specifically happened this quarter. And then very quickly, if you could just confirm, you talked about flattish gross margins for the year. You're down in each of the first 2 quarters year-over-year. So should we be expecting gross margins to be up about 50 basis points year-over-year in the second half to sort of hit that bogey of flattish?

我想知道您是否可以多評論一下影響認知解決方案收入增長的動態。與一個非常簡單的比較相比，它以固定匯率計算下降。而且它是其中戰略計劃比例最高的業務，因此它顯然對您非常重要。您能否具體評論一下 Watson Health 發生的事情？有很多關於該業務大幅裁員的新聞報導。我知道你說過收購需要時間，但你已經擁有它們至少一年了。因此，也許您可以評論為什麼您認為我們沒有看到更好的收入進展或本季度具體發生了什麼。然後很快，如果你能確認的話，你談到了今年的毛利率持平。你在前兩個季度的每個季度都同比下降。那麼，我們是否應該預期下半年毛利率將同比增長約 50 個基點，以達到持平的目標？

All right, Toni. There's a lot you compacted in a multiple-part question, but let me try to address each piece. So we'll start with cognitive. In terms of our Cognitive Solutions, we have a strong portfolio in the key strategic areas around analytics, around industry verticals, around security and around IoT, and we continue to see good performance overall. But I'll remind you, this portfolio is a high annuity content. Over 80% of the business is annuity with strong renewal rates we continue to drive, but that SaaS has a longer time to value and longer time to realization. But let me unpack the segment because you got to understand the piece parts because they each fit different purposes within the overarching IBM strategy and purpose. One is around TPS. TPS declined 2% overall, and it's about what we would expect in this area. And you've even commented on this the last couple quarters. We've been riding the wave of the mainframe product cycle over the last 3 quarters and saw pretty good growth that was unusual. Now we're back to down 2%. This is high value, high profit, strategically important to our clients overall, but it's in stable to declining businesses, and it wasn't unexpected. And when you look at our software solution portfolio, we've got growth in analytics as we revamp that portfolio coming off of a pretty disappointing fourth quarter. We grew in first quarter. We grew again in second. And we got good double-digit growth in our industry verticals like financial services and IoT, and we're seeing good growth in Watson Health. We got growth in life sciences segment, imaging, payer, and we're seeing good SaaS signings in our government segments within that business. Yes, we are driving acquisition synergies, and you're seeing that play out. It's well in advance of a year, and you're seeing that operating leverage play out well in advance of our financial model around Cognitive Solutions. So transaction processing software, pretty much as expected, high-value-based market. Software solutions, the key strategic areas that we have are growing. The focus that we've got, and we talked about this 90 days ago, are around 3 key segments around talent, around collaboration and around commerce, where we are investing to modernize our portfolio to address the secular shifts that are happening in both client value and in consumption models. As you know, this business today in these 3 segments are both a mixture of on-prem and SaaS, and we are investing aggressively to revitalize this portfolio into a SaaS world around driving user interface improvements to make our offerings more digitally consumable and also about shifting in investing to embed AI to deliver differentiated value for our clients overall. So that's Cognitive Solutions. Now you asked about gross profit margins. So let me take a step back and give you my perspective now that I've been on the job 6 months as CFO of IBM. I spend a lot of time with our investors and also with many of you, the sell-side analysts, listening and also getting a perspective of our company, the sentiment and the strategic positioning and what you would like to see. And in each of those, inevitably, the discussion around margin comes up. Why? Because, yes, we are a value-based stock. Our investment thesis is around value, value driving profit growth at the end of the day that gives us the free cash flow flexibility to continue to return value to our shareholders and invest in our business. But the discussion around gross profit margins always inevitably get at services. Is services deflationary? And can you grow services margins? And I would tell you, I think that's at the heart of your question around gross profit. And I'll answer it in a couple ways: one, talking about our financial model; and two, talking about how we manage the business. But before I get into that, first and foremost, the net answer is, as I stated 90 days ago, we expect our services gross margins to expand in the second half, and we still feel confident coming off of the trajectory improvement of what we saw in the second quarter really led by strong margin expansion in our GBS business and the productivity actions we have in front of us. But when you look at this from an overall IBM perspective, our financial model, as we talked about, is low single-digit revenue growth, mid-single-digit profit growth and high single-digit EPS growth. And in 2Q, you saw the instantiation of delivering that model. We grew revenue. We had PTI margin expansion of 110 basis points, strongest we've had in years, and we drove operating leverage to deliver 11% profit growth well in excess of our model. So for a full year perspective, our view at an operating level in terms of profit growth has not changed. We're going to grow profit. We're going to grow PTI margins, and that supports our full year guidance. Now let's talk about how we manage the business because I think it's important for our investors, and it's important for each of you as analysts to understand this. Number one, we got 2 distinct different business models in our company. We got a product-based business model, and we got a services-based business model. In a product-based business model, hardware, software and solutions, value is instantiated in delivering return at a PTI level. Why? Because all the investment we make in a product-based business ends up below the gross profit margin line. And you see in our product-based businesses, Systems and Cognitive Solution were growing substantial operating leverage and were growing substantial return on investment. Now in services, as I said 90 days ago, in a human capital-based business, value is instantiated in gross profit margins. And we manage our services business to get a return on our human capital at the gross profit level. And as I said, at a gross profit level in services, we still expect to expand margins in the second half. The only thing that has changed in the last 90 days has been the extreme volatility in the FX world around the U.S. dollar appreciation. And as I stated earlier, we have a hedging policy that mitigates the volatility of currency in our I&E at a profit level, but it does impact gross margins, in particular, at a product level in our product-based businesses, does not impact profit in the near term. It allows you time to then go adjust your pricing terms, your cost structure and your sourcing strategies as we move forward. So that's the only thing that's changed in the last 90 days. We feel confident we're going to grow revenue for the year at current spot rates even in light of currency flip into a headwind in the second half. We feel confident we're going to expand pretax margins similar to what we did in the second quarter in the second half. And within that, we feel confident we're actually going to deliver services gross profit margin expansion in the second half of the year.

好的，托尼。您在一個由多個部分組成的問題中壓縮了很多內容，但讓我嘗試解決每一部分。所以我們將從認知開始。就我們的認知解決方案而言，我們在圍繞分析、垂直行業、安全和物聯網的關鍵戰略領域擁有強大的產品組合，並且我們繼續看到整體表現良好。但我要提醒你，這個投資組合是高年金內容。超過 80% 的業務是年金，我們繼續推動強勁的續訂率，但 SaaS 的價值實現時間和實現時間更長。但是讓我拆開這個部分，因為你必須了解各個部分，因為它們各自適合 IBM 總體戰略和目標中的不同目的。一個是圍繞 TPS。TPS 總體下降了 2%，這與我們對該領域的預期有關。你甚至在過去幾個季度對此發表了評論。在過去的 3 個季度中，我們一直處於大型機產品週期的浪潮中，並且看到了非常好的增長，這是不尋常的。現在我們又回到了下降 2% 的水平。這是高價值、高利潤，對我們的整體客戶具有戰略重要性，但它處於穩定到下降的業務中，這並不意外。當您查看我們的軟件解決方案組合時，我們在分析方面取得了增長，因為我們在第四季度非常令人失望的情況下改進了該組合。我們在第一季度實現了增長。我們在第二名再次成長。我們在金融服務和物聯網等垂直行業取得了兩位數的良好增長，而且我們看到 Watson Health 取得了良好的增長。我們在生命科學領域、成像領域、支付領域取得了增長，我們在該業務的政府領域看到了良好的 SaaS 簽約。是的，我們正在推動收購協同效應，您正在看到這種效應。已經提前一年了，你會看到運營槓桿在我們圍繞認知解決方案的財務模型之前發揮了很好的作用。所以交易處理軟件，很像預期的，高價值型的市場。軟件解決方案，我們擁有的關鍵戰略領域正在增長。90 天前，我們所關注的重點是圍繞人才、協作和商業的 3 個關鍵部分，我們正在投資這些部分以實現我們的投資組合現代化，以應對兩個客戶正在發生的長期變化價值和消費模式。如您所知，今天這 3 個領域的業務都是本地和 SaaS 的混合體，我們正在積極投資以重振這一產品組合，使其進入 SaaS 世界，圍繞推動用戶界面改進，使我們的產品更具數字化消費能力，並且關於轉向投資以嵌入人工智能，為我們的客戶提供差異化的整體價值。這就是認知解決方案。現在你問的是毛利率。因此，讓我退後一步，談談我的觀點，因為我已經擔任 IBM 首席財務官 6 個月了。我花了很多時間與我們的投資者以及你們中的許多人（賣方分析師）一起傾聽並了解我們公司的觀點、情緒和戰略定位以及你們希望看到的內容。在其中的每一個中，不可避免地都會出現關於保證金的討論。為什麼？因為，是的，我們是一隻基於價值的股票。我們的投資主題是圍繞價值，價值在一天結束時推動利潤增長，這使我們擁有自由現金流的靈活性，可以繼續為股東回報價值並投資於我們的業務。但圍繞毛利率的討論總是不可避免地談到服務。服務是通貨緊縮的嗎？您能否提高服務利潤率？我會告訴你，我認為這是你關於毛利的問題的核心。我會用幾種方式來回答：一，談論我們的財務模式；第二，談論我們如何管理業務。但在我開始之前，首先，正如我在 90 天前所說，最終答案是，我們預計我們的服務毛利率將在下半年擴大，我們仍然有信心擺脫我們的軌道改善在第二季度，我們的 GBS 業務的利潤率強勁增長以及我們面前的生產力行動確實引領了這一趨勢。但是當你從 IBM 的整體角度來看這個問題時，正如我們所說，我們的財務模型是低個位數的收入增長、中等個位數的利潤增長和高個位數的每股收益增長。在第二季度，您看到了交付該模型的實例化。我們增加了收入。我們的 PTI 利潤率增長了 110 個基點，這是我們多年來最強勁的增長，我們推動經營槓桿實現 11% 的利潤增長，遠遠超過我們的模型。因此，從全年的角度來看，我們對利潤增長的運營層面的看法沒有改變。我們要增加利潤。我們將提高 PTI 利潤率，這支持了我們的全年指導。現在讓我們談談我們如何管理業務，因為我認為這對我們的投資者很重要，對於你們每個分析師來說，理解這一點也很重要。第一，我們公司有兩種截然不同的商業模式。我們有一個基於產品的商業模式，我們有一個基於服務的商業模式。在基於產品的業務模型、硬件、軟件和解決方案中，價值體現在 PTI 級別的回報中。為什麼？因為我們在基於產品的業務中所做的所有投資最終都低於毛利率線。您會看到，在我們基於產品的業務中，系統和認知解決方案的運營槓桿不斷增加，投資回報也越來越可觀。現在在服務業，正如我 90 天前所說，在以人力資本為基礎的業務中，價值體現在毛利率中。我們管理我們的服務業務，以在毛利潤水平上獲得人力資本回報。正如我所說，在服務的毛利潤水平上，我們仍然希望在下半年擴大利潤率。過去 90 天唯一發生變化的是美元升值導致外匯市場的極端波動。正如我之前所說，我們有一項對沖政策，可以在利潤水平上減輕我們 I&E 中貨幣的波動性，但它確實會影響毛利率，特別是在我們基於產品的業務的產品水平上，不會影響利潤在短期內。它讓您有時間在我們前進的過程中調整您的定價條款、成本結構和採購策略。所以這是過去 90 天內唯一發生變化的事情。我們有信心，即使在下半年貨幣匯率逆風的情況下，我們今年的收入也會以目前的即期匯率增長。我們有信心我們將擴大稅前利潤率，類似於我們在下半年第二季度所做的那樣。在此範圍內，我們有信心我們實際上將在今年下半年實現服務毛利率的增長。

The next question comes from Tien-tsin Huang of JPMorgan.

下一個問題來自摩根大通的 Tien-tsin Huang。

Yes, so consulting accelerated, which is encouraging. I'm curious, is that starting to pull in some other services revenue around it or behind it? I saw -- or you mentioned the large [books] were good again. So again, is this enough to drive positive FX due to revenue growth in services in the second half? Just trying to piece all of those things together and think about FX neutral revenue growth for services overall in the second half.

是的，所以諮詢加速了，這是令人鼓舞的。我很好奇，這是否開始在它周圍或背後吸引一些其他服務收入？我看到了——或者你提到大 [書籍] 又好了。那麼，由於下半年服務收入的增長，這是否足以推動積極的外匯？只是試圖將所有這些事情拼湊在一起，並考慮下半年整體服務的外匯中性收入增長。

Yes. If you take a look at GBS in second quarter, first of all, we're very pleased with our performance. The work that Mark and the team have done tirelessly to transform our structure, our business models, our growth platforms, the set of initiatives around productivity, we're very pleased. And you saw that play out in continued trajectory improvement throughout the first half and returning to modest revenue growth and significant operating leverage and margin expansion, which we expect will be a big contributor in our second half services margin expansion that we talked about in the last question. Now with that said, if you look at that acceleration and what's been happening in the trajectory of our services business, first, as you all understand the dynamics of that business, you have to get signings that have to yield into backlog, which has to yield into revenue as we move forward. And we're seeing tremendous momentum in our consulting base of business. We delivered 4% revenue growth, as you stated, in the second quarter, and that's leveraging momentum around how we redesign our growth platforms and how we redesign our service lines and offerings and practices. And we're capturing higher value, value around the digital transformation offerings that enable clients to move their journey to the cloud as we move forward. We're doing great in our CRM practice, our Workday practice. And we're also capturing new emerging areas like blockchain, where we're seeing good growth in our services base of business at all. And as you know and we talked about extensively at our investor webcast in the beginning of the year, GBS has a very integral part in an integrated model strategy of the IBM company. They have the mission of bringing business and technology transformation together. So the long answer to your question around is consulting in GBS a key leading indicator of dragging the rest of IBM, the answer is definitely yes.

是的。如果你看一下第二季度的 GBS，首先，我們對我們的表現非常滿意。馬克和團隊為改變我們的結構、我們的商業模式、我們的增長平台、圍繞生產力的一系列舉措所做的不懈努力，我們感到非常高興。你看到了整個上半年持續改善的軌跡並恢復適度的收入增長和顯著的經營槓桿和利潤率擴張，我們預計這將成為我們上次談到的下半年服務利潤率擴張的重要貢獻者問題。話雖如此，如果你看看這種加速以及我們服務業務軌跡中發生的事情，首先，正如你們都了解該業務的動態一樣，你必須獲得必須屈服於積壓的簽約，這必須隨著我們前進，收益轉化為收入。我們在諮詢業務基礎上看到了巨大的發展勢頭。正如您所說，我們在第二季度實現了 4% 的收入增長，這利用了圍繞我們如何重新設計增長平台以及我們如何重新設計服務線、產品和實踐的勢頭。我們正在圍繞數字化轉型產品獲取更高的價值，這些價值使客戶能夠在我們前進的過程中將他們的旅程轉移到雲中。我們在 CRM 實踐和 Workday 實踐中做得很好。而且我們還在捕捉像區塊鏈這樣的新興領域，我們在這些領域看到了我們的業務服務基礎的良好增長。正如你所知，我們在今年年初的投資者網絡廣播中廣泛討論過，GBS 在 IBM 公司的集成模型戰略中扮演著不可或缺的角色。他們肩負著將業務和技術轉型結合在一起的使命。因此，對您的問題的長答案是 GBS 中的諮詢是拖累 IBM 其餘部分的關鍵領先指標，答案肯定是肯定的。

The next question comes from Jim Schneider of Goldman Sachs.

下一個問題來自高盛的吉姆施耐德。

I was wondering if you could maybe kind of follow up on that prior question, talk about the ability of the tech services and cloud platform segment to start to return to growth in the back half. And clearly, you were starting to get a little bit better signings performance, but I'm wondering if that's a real expectation for the back half for that segment and whether you can achieve it at the same time as you're expanding margins there.

我想知道你是否可以跟進之前的問題，談談技術服務和雲平台部分在下半年開始恢復增長的能力。很明顯，你開始獲得更好的簽約表現，但我想知道這是否是對該細分市場後半部分的真正期望，以及你是否可以在擴大利潤率的同時實現這一目標。

Sure, Jim, and good to talk to you again. Thanks for the question. Yes, on TS&CP, similar to our discussion around GBS, we're pleased with the trajectory improvement and the progress that we've been making within this business on the top line throughout the first half. We made sequential progress quarter-to-quarter. We have now returned to growth, delivering $8.6 billion of revenue. But let's talk about a couple of the key components. First, we are capitalizing on tremendous momentum around enterprise hybrid cloud strategy. We are becoming the destination of moving and enabling our clients' journey to the cloud, and our GTS business is an instrumental part of that strategy as we move forward. So we got a lot of momentum in our enterprise hybrid cloud. That, as you see, is delivering as-a-service annualized run rate of $7.6 billion. That's up 30% year-to-year, and that has tremendous value as we move forward to continue getting scale efficiencies and the like. But let's talk about then the core GTS business overall. Infrastructure services returned to growth, 1% in the quarter, and it's really been built off of a very strong first half where we delivered double-digit signings growth at the GTS and TS&CP segment level. And now you saw our backlog continues to improve. Our backlog now in total is $116 billion, and within that, 30% of that backlog now is cloud as we continue to capitalize on the secular shift and deliver more and more value overall. Our integration software business is growing 1% and continues to grow through the first half. And what we've got to work on, and this is a -- this is part of having an integrated portfolio and part of having success in other areas, our TSS business is down 4%, but that's a function of us significantly overachieving against our last program, our mainframe product cycle. And we see a deceleration in TSS, but we're seeing the offset in our Systems base of business going forward. So when you look at that trajectory improvement, we returned our backlog back to flat in the second quarter in TS&CP, and again, a lot of work ahead of us. We got to fuel second half signings. We got a good opportunity pipeline. But I see continued trajectory improvement, and then our focus on margins, as we move forward in the second half, to deliver second half services gross profit margin expansion are going to be critical to our guidance.

當然可以，吉姆，很高興再次與你交談。謝謝你的問題。是的，在 TS&CP 上，類似於我們圍繞 GBS 的討論，我們對整個上半年在該業務中取得的軌跡改進和進展感到滿意。我們每個季度都取得了連續的進展。我們現在已經恢復增長，實現了 86 億美元的收入。但讓我們談談幾個關鍵組件。首先，我們正在利用圍繞企業混合雲戰略的巨大勢頭。我們正在成為移動和支持客戶雲之旅的目的地，而我們的 GTS 業務是我們前進過程中該戰略的重要組成部分。因此，我們在企業混合雲中獲得了很大的動力。如您所見，這提供了 76 億美元的即服務年化運行率。同比增長 30%，隨著我們繼續獲得規模效率等，這具有巨大的價值。但讓我們來談談核心 GTS 業務。基礎設施服務恢復增長，本季度增長 1%，這實際上是建立在上半年非常強勁的基礎上的，我們在 GTS 和 TS&CP 細分市場實現了兩位數的簽約增長。現在你看到我們的積壓工作繼續改善。我們現在的積壓訂單總額為 1160 億美元，其中 30% 的積壓訂單現在是雲，因為我們繼續利用長期轉變並提供越來越多的整體價值。我們的集成軟件業務增長了 1%，並在上半年繼續增長。我們必須努力做的，這是 - 這是擁有集成產品組合的一部分，也是在其他領域取得成功的一部分，我們的 TSS 業務下降了 4%，但這是我們顯著超越對手的一個功能我們的最後一個項目，我們的大型機產品週期。我們看到了 TSS 的減速，但我們看到了我們系統業務基礎的抵消。因此，當您查看軌跡改進時，我們在 TS&CP 的第二季度將積壓的訂單恢復到持平，而且我們還有很多工作要做。我們必須為下半場的引援加油。我們有一個很好的機會管道。但我看到持續的軌跡改善，然後我們關注利潤率，因為我們在下半年向前推進，以實現下半年服務毛利率的增長，這對我們的指導至關重要。

The next question comes from David Grossman of Stifel Financial.

下一個問題來自 Stifel Financial 的 David Grossman。

Jim, this year, you're guiding to free cash flow roughly equal to net income, which is above your longer-term target. I know it's way too early to be providing 2019 insight. However, are there any factors that are driving the '18 free cash flow that may not reoccur next year or even potentially reverse that we should be factoring into our thinking for next year?

吉姆，今年，你指導自由現金流量大致等於淨收入，這高於你的長期目標。我知道現在提供 2019 年的見解還為時過早。但是，是否有任何因素推動 18 年的自由現金流可能不會在明年再次發生，甚至可能逆轉，我們應該在明年的思考中考慮這些因素？

Yes. David, thank you very much, and good to hear from you again. Before I get to the long-term view, I mean, I think you kind of nailed it. Let's talk about our free cash flow guidance here through the second quarter and more importantly, through the first half. First of all, we talked about entering the year that we expected $12 billion of free cash flow. That was down about $1 billion. If you remember, at that point in time, we talked about we were going to continue to invest in our business in terms of capital to build out our IBM Cloud architecture. And by the way, in the second quarter, I think you have seen the announcement where we expanded 18 new availability zones around the world. So we are committed to winning in the cloud space, and we're investing to go do that. But we also said we're going to have a significant cash tax headwind here in 2018. And then our GAAP profit, as we start turning this business and deliver on our at least $13.80, was going to pretty much offset our strong working capital efficiency that we exited last year on with our mainframe cycle. So through the first half, we delivered $3.2 billion of free cash flow. That's down $400 million. But it's important to understand the underpinnings behind that. Within that, we've invested $300 million year-to-year, up 20% on capital already through the first half, and we've had strong operational pretax -- or, excuse me, after-tax profit performance that's delivered a positive contribution of $600 million to support that investment in capital as we move forward. So when you do the net then, our entire year-to-year reduction through the first half is all driven by cash tax headwind. And that cash tax headwind is $700 million through the first half, and it's all behind us now. So our second half free cash flow, to your point, we've always said as a rule of thumb, free cash flow should follow our profit levels. And when you look at our realization, you see it playing out in our realization. We're well in excess of 100%. And our trailing 12 months is at $12.6 billion, and our attainment supports that $12 billion free cash flow level as we move forward. So it's too early to look at '19. We'll deliver that in January, but at least, hopefully, the answer gives you some of the dynamics of what's playing out within free cash flow.

是的。大衛，非常感謝你，很高興再次收到你的來信。在我進入長期觀點之前，我的意思是，我認為你有點成功了。讓我們在這裡討論整個第二季度，更重要的是整個上半年的自由現金流量指導。首先，我們談到進入我們預計自由現金流為 120 億美元的一年。這減少了大約 10 億美元。如果您還記得，在那個時候，我們談到我們將繼續在資本方面投資於我們的業務，以構建我們的 IBM Cloud 架構。順便說一下，在第二季度，我想你已經看到了我們在全球範圍內擴展了 18 個新可用性區域的公告。所以我們致力於在雲領域取勝，我們正在投資去做這件事。但我們也表示，2018 年我們將面臨重大的現金稅逆風。然後我們的 GAAP 利潤，當我們開始扭轉這項業務並交付至少 13.80 美元時，將幾乎抵消我們去年退出大型機週期的強勁營運資本效率。因此，整個上半年，我們交付了 32 億美元的自由現金流。這減少了 4 億美元。但重要的是要了解其背後的基礎。其中，我們每年投資 3 億美元，上半年資本已經增長 20%，而且我們的稅前運營強勁——或者，請原諒，稅後利潤表現良好在我們前進的過程中，捐助 6 億美元來支持資本投資。因此，當您進行淨計算時，我們整個上半年的同比減少都是由現金稅逆風推動的。上半年的現金稅不利因素為 7 億美元，現在都已經過去了。所以我們下半年的自由現金流，就你的觀點而言，我們一直說根據經驗，自由現金流應該跟隨我們的利潤水平。當您查看我們的實現時，您會看到它在我們的實現中發揮作用。我們遠遠超過 100%。我們過去 12 個月的收入為 126 億美元，隨著我們前進，我們的成就支持了 120 億美元的自由現金流水平。所以現在看'19還為時過早。我們將在 1 月份提供，但至少，希望答案能讓您了解自由現金流中正在發生的事情的一些動態。

The next question comes from Keith Bachman of Bank of Montréal.

下一個問題來自蒙特利爾銀行的 Keith Bachman。

Jim, I wanted to see if you could talk a little bit about the durability of services. You've talked about GBS and technology and cloud outsourcing growing constant currency in the second half of the year, yet backlog, total services backlog is down 1% in constant currency. So once you reach that growth, are you still calling for durable growth in those businesses even with backlog down? And then my follow-up -- well, let me ask my follow-up question after that.

吉姆，我想看看你是否可以談談服務的持久性。你談到了 GBS 和技術以及雲外包在今年下半年不斷增長的固定貨幣，但積壓，總服務積壓按固定貨幣計算下降了 1%。因此，一旦您實現了這種增長，即使積壓的訂單減少，您是否仍然呼籲這些業務實現持久增長？然後是我的後續行動——好吧，讓我在那之後問我的後續問題。

No, why don't you ask your follow-up question now?

不，你為什麼不現在問你的後續問題？

Well, just within GBS, something I wanted to come back to. Application management is still under pressure as it is for most of the providers. And is that going to continue within the context of GBS or you actually see application management within the confines of GBS improving?

好吧，就在 GBS 中，我想回到這裡。與大多數提供商一樣，應用程序管理仍然面臨壓力。這是否會在 GBS 的背景下繼續，或者您實際上看到 GBS 範圍內的應用程序管理有所改進？

Okay, Keith. So thank you very much for just getting it all. It gives me a better perspective of the entirety of your multiple-part question, so we can put this in perspective. So let's talk about -- I'll drive you back to 180 days ago when we were sitting here in January. We talked about the position where we were at. We talked about what's going on with the dynamics of our backlog overall, and we talked about the backlog realization runout that we saw over the 2018 period. And we said entering 2018 that we had a much stronger backlog realization or runout, I should say, than we -- that we're starting with than we did entering 2017. And you're seeing that play out as we go through the first half, where we made sequential year-to-year improvement over the first quarter and now returned both of our services businesses back to growth. Now within that, as we stated earlier, in a human-capital-based services business, you've got to continue fueling those signings that delivers backlog, and more importantly, you got to drive the right composition of backlog that drives your backlog realization and yield and also drives duration. And obviously, what you're seeing over time is you're seeing, I think, a secular shift with regards to what's happening to duration in long-term contracts. You're not seeing that anymore. So we're getting higher-yielding revenue. We're also -- the composition of our backlog with consulting, which accelerated to 4%, that composition is much more shorter term and higher value as we move forward. So over the long run, you're right. You got to continue to fuel signings to fuel that backlog. But I would tell you, outer years of 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 are very, in today's world, much less relevant than an in period, your first year, your second year, your third year in the composition. So we do feel confident with that trajectory improvement. We came off of first half delivering good growth, double digits, in signings in the first half. And the composition of those signings, as I said, we already have 30% of our backlog that's sitting in cloud. And by the way, over 40% of our backlog is now in key strategic imperative workloads overall. So that's kind of your first question. Your second question, AMS. We talked about AMS. Obviously, that's going through a secular shift in the industry, and you're seeing that play out against all the competitors that are in this space today. But I would tell you what differentiates IBM with regards AMS. One, it's our value of incumbency. The integrated play, the integrated model of IBM, the value of incumbency and the reason we're in the AMS business is we understand our clients' operating models, our clients' workloads and our clients' business processes. And we said entering this year that we were seeing success in us leveraging that value of incumbency to be the destination to help our clients with the journey to the cloud and move to the cloud. And we're seeing that play out in the first half, where not only in the first quarter but also in the second quarter we had double-digit signings growth in our AMS business over time. Again, backlog, yes, is still down overall. Our revenue was down 3%. But we see this inflection point as we move forward, and we continue to leverage and deliver that value for our clients as they move on their journey overall.

好的，基思。所以非常感謝你得到這一切。它讓我對你的多部分問題的整體有了更好的認識，所以我們可以正確看待這個問題。那麼讓我們來談談——我會把你帶回到 180 天前，當時我們在 1 月份坐在這裡。我們談到了我們所處的位置。我們討論了整體積壓的動態情況，我們討論了我們在 2018 年期間看到的積壓實現跳動。我們說，進入 2018 年，我們的積壓實現或用盡要多得多，我應該說，我們開始的時候比進入 2017 年時要多。你會在上半年看到這種情況的發生，我們在第一季度取得了連續的年度改進，現在我們的兩項服務業務都恢復了增長。現在，正如我們之前所說，在基於人力資本的服務業務中，你必須繼續推動那些交付積壓的簽約，更重要的是，你必須推動積壓的正確組合，從而推動你的積壓實現和產量，也推動持續時間。很明顯，隨著時間的推移，你看到的是，我認為，長期合同的期限正在發生長期變化。你再也看不到了。因此，我們獲得了更高收益的收入。我們也是——我們的積壓與諮詢的構成，加速到 4%，隨著我們前進，這種構成的期限更短，價值更高。所以從長遠來看，你是對的。你必須繼續推動引援來推動積壓。但我會告訴你，在當今世界，外年 6、7、8、9、10 的相關性遠不如句中的第一年、第二年、第三年。因此，我們確實對軌蹟的改進充滿信心。上半年我們在簽約方面實現了良好的增長，兩位數。正如我所說，這些簽約的構成，我們已經有 30% 的積壓工作在雲端。順便說一句，我們現在有超過 40% 的積壓工作屬於關鍵的戰略性必要工作量。所以這是你的第一個問題。你的第二個問題，AMS。我們談到了 AMS。顯然，這正在經歷行業的長期轉變，你會看到它與當今這個領域的所有競爭對手競爭。但我會告訴您 IBM 在 AMS 方面的與眾不同之處。第一，這是我們在職的價值觀。集成遊戲、IBM 的集成模型、在職價值以及我們從事 AMS 業務的原因是我們了解客戶的運營模式、客戶的工作量和客戶的業務流程。我們說進入今年，我們看到我們成功利用在職價值作為目的地，幫助我們的客戶踏上雲端之旅並遷移到雲端。我們在上半年看到了這種情況，不僅在第一季度而且在第二季度，我們的 AMS 業務隨著時間的推移都有兩位數的簽約增長。同樣，積壓，是的，總體上仍在下降。我們的收入下降了 3%。但隨著我們向前邁進，我們看到了這個轉折點，我們將繼續利用並為我們的客戶提供這一價值，因為他們在整個旅程中都在前進。

The next question comes from Jim Suva of Citibank.

下一個問題來自花旗銀行的吉姆蘇瓦。

Jim, I just have one question for you. As you sit there in the CFO seat and you're calling now for margins to accelerate or improve or expand year-over-year in the second half of the year, what are the milestones that are hitting that kind of make you call that out, the happiness behind it, the confidence? What's the milestones that we can look back and say, "Oh, that made a lot of sense, and it has long-term durability to it."?

吉姆，我只有一個問題要問你。當您坐在 CFO 席位上時，您現在呼籲利潤率在今年下半年同比加速或改善或擴大，達到這種里程碑的里程碑是什麼讓您大聲疾呼，背後的快樂，自信？我們可以回顧並說“哦，這很有意義，而且它具有長期耐用性”的里程碑是什麼？

Jim, thank you very much for the question. It's a good question overall. Let me take a look at it. I've said from January, as we look at -- we obviously have multiple scenarios. How do we make at least $13.80? And what I look at and the team and the entire management team looks at is the trajectory of our business, the operational indices and the drivers, as we see going forward, of headwinds and tailwinds on how we deliver that guidance for our shareholders of at least $13.80. But when you take a look at revenue growth, I said we would have revenue growth at current spot rates for the full year and that we would have pretax operating margin expansion and operating leverage in our business. So to your question, what do we look at and what are the trends that are driving that, so let's unpack it. And I've talked about this the last couple of calls. And the way I look at margin expansion really centers around 3 or 4 major areas. Number one, margin expansion is going to be delivered through us continuing to leverage the momentum in our enterprise cloud, in our as-a-service-based business. Why? Because it's going to generate scale efficiencies for us to deliver on what we've said at our Investor Day, which is margin accretion as we move through to the cloud. So scale efficiencies, we are seeing that improvement in the first quarter. We're seeing the improvement in the second quarter, and it's all being built off of the momentum around our cloud and our as-a-service-based business. Second, we talk about mix, mix being another lever. So you look at the mix of one within our -- each of our segments and how we're shifting to higher value, which we're making good progress. The best instantiation of that is GBS, where they're getting better price realization and better value around remixing their offerings to sell better value. But also across segments, we have a big mix headwind, as we talked about 90 days ago, with regards to the mainframe cycle. So we take that into account. But the third bucket is around productivity. This is around how you transform the way you work. It's predominantly led by our services base of business, but it's also about how we reinvent and how we run our company around our infrastructure and enterprise productivity. Both are giving us operating leverage as we move forward. We're seeing the latter play out in our expense efficiency structure here in the second quarter. And in our services base of business, we talked about the work we're doing around our workforce optimization, the significant actions we took in the first quarter. I said it's predominantly the yield on that is in the second half, and that should accelerate significantly. But we're also transforming the way we actually deliver service, redesigning it, applying agile methodologies, infusing AI and automation and driving a differentiated value to our clients to improve the quality in addition to the efficiency in margin. And then finally, the last point, which given services is 60% of our business, human-capital-based business, you have to generate revenue to generate operating leverage. It's tough generating operating leverage when revenue is down, and we're seeing, as that revenue trajectory improves, and we're seeing, as we play out here in the second quarter, returning services back to growth that we're going to get the operating leverage as we move forward. And that's what makes us confident in delivering at least $13.80.

吉姆，非常感謝你提出這個問題。總的來說這是個好問題。讓我看一下。我從一月份就說過，正如我們所看到的那樣——我們顯然有多種情況。我們怎樣才能至少賺到 13.80 美元？我和團隊以及整個管理團隊所關注的是我們的業務軌跡、運營指標和驅動因素，正如我們所看到的，我們如何為我們的股東提供指導的逆風和順風至少 13.80 美元。但是當你看一下收入增長時，我說過我們全年的收入將以當前的即期匯率增長，並且我們的業務將有稅前營業利潤率和經營槓桿。所以對於你的問題，我們看什麼以及推動它的趨勢是什麼，所以讓我們打開它。我在最近的幾個電話中談到了這個問題。我看待利潤率擴張的方式實際上集中在 3 或 4 個主要領域。第一，利潤率的增長將通過我們繼續利用我們的企業雲和基於服務的業務的勢頭來實現。為什麼？因為它將為我們帶來規模效率，以實現我們在投資者日所說的，即隨著我們遷移到雲計算而增加的利潤。所以規模效率，我們在第一季度看到了這種改善。我們在第二季度看到了改善，這一切都建立在圍繞我們的雲和基於服務的業務的勢頭之上。其次，我們談論混合，混合是另一個槓桿。所以你看看我們每個細分市場中的一個組合，以及我們如何轉向更高的價值，我們正在取得良好進展。最好的實例是 GBS，他們在重新混合產品以銷售更好的價值方面獲得更好的價格實現和更好的價值。但在各個細分市場中，正如我們在 90 天前談到的大型機週期一樣，我們也面臨著巨大的混合逆風。所以我們考慮到了這一點。但第三個桶是關於生產力的。這是圍繞著你如何改變你的工作方式。它主要由我們的業務服務基礎主導，但它也關乎我們如何重塑以及我們如何圍繞我們的基礎設施和企業生產力運營我們的公司。在我們前進的過程中，兩者都為我們提供了經營槓桿。我們看到後者在第二季度的費用效率結構中發揮作用。在我們的業務服務基地，我們談到了我們圍繞勞動力優化所做的工作，以及我們在第一季度採取的重大行動。我說過主要是下半年的收益率，這應該會顯著加速。但我們也在改變我們實際提供服務的方式，重新設計它，應用敏捷方法，注入人工智能和自動化，並為我們的客戶帶來差異化的價值，以提高質量和利潤效率。最後一點，鑑於服務占我們業務的 60%，基於人力資本的業務，您必須產生收入才能產生運營槓桿。當收入下降時很難產生運營槓桿，我們看到，隨著收入軌蹟的改善，我們看到，正如我們在第二季度在這裡發揮的那樣，服務恢復到我們將要獲得的增長我們前進時的經營槓桿。這就是讓我們有信心交付至少 13.80 美元的原因。

The last question comes from Amit Daryanani of RBC Capital Markets.

最後一個問題來自 RBC Capital Markets 的 Amit Daryanani。

Glad I made it under the line there. I guess, maybe to start, cognitive revenue, the down in constant currency in the quarter and really the sum amount of transactional businesses there, but just help me understand what tempered the growth there. And then do you think cognitive will actually grow in the back half of the year because your compares start to get fairly difficult in that business, I think, in the back half of the year? And then, Jim, just on gross margins, what's leading you to start talking about -- 90 days ago, it was aggregate total IBM gross margins will be flat to stable, and now it sounds like it's only in services. So what's the degradation in cognitive or Systems that's changing that statement on gross margins from a corporate level to only services now?

很高興我在那兒成功了。我想，也許首先是認知收入、本季度固定匯率的下降以及那裡交易業務的實際總量，但只是幫助我了解是什麼抑制了那裡的增長。然後你認為認知會在今年下半年真正增長，因為你的比較開始變得相當困難，我認為，在今年下半年？然後，吉姆，就毛利率而言，是什麼讓你開始談論 - 90 天前，IBM 的總毛利率將持平到穩定，現在聽起來好像只在服務領域。那麼，認知或系統的退化是什麼將毛利率聲明從公司層面改變為現在僅服務層面？

Okay. So on each of them, Amit -- first of all, thanks for getting into the queue. It's good to hear from you again. But on each of these, I think I answered them already, but let me just give the synopsis. On cognitive, we talked about the different dynamics within our portfolio around TPS, which had been growing, leveraging the mainframe cycle, now is more in line with what our expectations are. And in solutions software, we've got strength in key strategic areas of our portfolio, analytics industry verticals, both FSS, in health, in security, in IoT, but we've got work to do on modernizing those key 3 segment areas of talent, collaboration and commerce. And that -- as those secular shift move much more aggressively to SaaS, that time to value gets realized over a longer period of time. So we do see strength in certain components. We're making investments in others to transform, as I talked about, modernize those offerings, and that will play out over time. But with that said, we've done all the work and we are driving the acquisition integration synergies, the operational efficiency savings that we feel confident, even at this level of revenue, we can drive operating leverage within that business. And then finally, back to your question on margins. As I talked, first, I think, value -- the way we manage this business, value is instantiated in the services-based business in gross profit margin. Value is instantiated in the product-based business in pretax income because you got to recoup the return on investment of your go-to-market and your development. So why -- I would not say I'm changing. I would say our operating view of the year of our financial model, of revenue growth, of profit growth, of earnings per share is exactly the same. The only thing that's different within that is the FX change in the last 90 days with the significant U.S. dollar appreciation. Now we hedge. We hedge that mitigates that profit variability. But when you look at currency around the element of the I&E, you see how it plays out differently. And that transparency and credibility is what I feel is important for you and investors to understand, but it has no impact on our bottom line profit contribution and our delivery of our free cash flow and our at least $13.80 for the year.

好的。所以關於他們每個人，阿米特——首先，感謝你加入隊列。很高興再次收到你的來信。但是對於其中的每一個，我想我已經回答了它們，但讓我只給出概要。在認知方面，我們討論了圍繞 TPS 的投資組合中的不同動態，TPS 一直在增長，利用大型機週期，現在更符合我們的預期。在解決方案軟件方面，我們在我們產品組合的關鍵戰略領域、分析行業垂直領域、FSS、健康、安全、物聯網方面都有實力，但我們還需要努力實現這三個關鍵領域的現代化人才、協作和商業。而且——隨著這些長期轉變更加積極地轉向 SaaS，實現價值的時間會在更長的時間內實現。所以我們確實看到了某些組件的強度。正如我所說，我們正在對其他人進行投資，以實現這些產品的現代化改造，這將隨著時間的推移而發揮作用。但話雖如此，我們已經完成了所有工作，我們正在推動收購整合協同效應，我們有信心節省運營效率，即使在這個收入水平上，我們也可以推動該業務的運營槓桿。最後，回到你關於利潤率的問題。正如我所說，首先，我認為，價值——我們管理這項業務的方式，價值在基於服務的業務中體現為毛利率。基於產品的業務在稅前收入中體現了價值，因為您必須收回進入市場和開發的投資回報。那麼為什麼——我不會說我正在改變。我想說我們對我們的財務模型、收入增長、利潤增長和每股收益的年度經營觀點完全相同。唯一不同的是過去 90 天的匯率變化以及美元的大幅升值。現在我們對沖。我們對沖以減輕利潤的可變性。但是，當您查看 I&E 元素周圍的貨幣時，您會發現它的表現有何不同。我認為透明度和可信度對您和投資者來說很重要，但它對我們的底線利潤貢獻和我們交付的自由現金流以及我們今年至少 13.80 美元沒有影響。

With that said, let me wrap up the call where I started by saying this was a good quarter and we're pleased. We had solid revenue growth and profit performance. This reflects the work we've been doing to reposition our business in terms of our offerings, our people, the way we work in reinventing IBM. Now as always, there's more work to do, and I look forward to continuing the dialogue over the course of the year. Thank you all for joining us on the call here this evening.

話雖如此，讓我結束電話會議，我一開始就說這是一個很好的季度，我們很高興。我們的收入增長和利潤表現穩健。這反映了我們一直在努力根據我們的產品、我們的人員以及我們重塑 IBM 的工作方式來重新定位我們的業務。現在一如既往，還有更多工作要做，我期待著在這一年中繼續對話。感謝大家今晚參加我們的電話會議。

Okay, Anne, I'm going to turn it back over to you to close up the call.

好的，安妮，我會把它轉回給你來結束通話。

Thank you for participating on today's call. The conference has now ended. You may disconnect at this time.

感謝您參加今天的電話會議。會議現已結束。此時您可以斷開連接。