International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) is set to report its fourth-quarter 2025 financial results after the market closes on Wednesday, January 28, 2026. Wall Street analysts are anticipating earnings per share (EPS) of $4.33 on revenue of $19.23 billion. This follows a strong previous quarter where IBM beat estimates, posting EPS of $2.65 against a $2.45 consensus and revenue of $16.33 billion, a 9.1% year-over-year increase.
Despite a recent 4.8% pullback in share price, with the stock closing at $291.35 on January 20, analyst sentiment remains largely positive. Evercore ISI raised its price target on IBM to $330 from $315, reiterating an "Outperform" rating and adding the stock to its "Tactical Outperform list." Analyst Amit Daryanani cited a "favorable setup" heading into earnings, driven by multiple internal growth drivers.
Key growth drivers highlighted by analysts include: sustained momentum in the Infrastructure segment from the mainframe upgrade cycle, a gradual recovery in Consulting demand, and AI-fueled Software growth projected around 7% year-over-year, supported by enterprise adoption of IBM's watsonx platform. The company is also on track to deliver $4.5 billion in gross run-rate cost savings by the end of 2025, aiding margin expansion.
Institutional investors have been adjusting their stakes, with Amundi increasing its holdings by 17.9% in Q3 to 4.77 million shares and Raymond James Financial boosting its stake by 3.6% in Q2. Overall, institutional investors own 58.96% of IBM's stock.
On the business front, IBM recently launched "Enterprise Advantage," a new asset-based consulting service for scaling agentic AI platforms, and expanded its watsonx AI platform through partnerships, including one with telecom operator e& for enterprise-grade agentic AI deployments.
The consensus analyst rating for IBM stands at "Moderate Buy" with an average price target of $305.29. For the upcoming earnings, Evercore ISI expects in-line to slightly better-than-consensus results and anticipates the company will guide toward the lower end of its mid-single-digit growth target range for 2026, with free cash flow expected around $15 billion.
