International Business Machines (IBM) Earnings: Q3 2026 Results and Next Report Date

The quarter ended September 30, 2026 and IBM published the results on October 21, 2026. Revenue and diluted EPS are shown against Q3 2025, the same quarter a year earlier, which takes seasonal swings out of the comparison. IBM reports EPS two ways: GAAP, under the accounting rules every US filer follows, and operating (non-GAAP), which leaves out items the company considers outside its operating results. The release reconciles the two, and when they diverge, the reconciliation says why.

• EPS on this page is diluted EPS from continuing operations, the figure IBM leads its release with. Including a $0.01 loss from discontinued operations, total diluted EPS was $2.30.
• IBM completed its acquisition of Confluent on March 17, 2026, for a total purchase price of $11,602 million. Confluent contributes to Software revenue, mainly the Data line, and is included in this quarter but not the year-ago quarter.

Source: IBM third-quarter 2026 results, October 21, 2026. Also in the Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026. Figures as reported; checked against the release on November 10, 2026.

How IBM splits revenue in its own release, under its own labels, for Q3 2026 against Q3 2025. Indented lines are parts of the line above them.

• IBM's Software revenue was $7.8 billion in Q3 2026, up 8% from $7.2 billion in Q3 2025, 46% of total revenue.
• IBM's Consulting revenue was $5.3 billion in Q3 2026, flat on $5.3 billion in Q3 2025, 31% of total revenue.
• IBM's Infrastructure revenue was $3.7 billion in Q3 2026, up 4% from $3.6 billion in Q3 2025, 22% of total revenue.
• IBM's Financing revenue was $192 million in Q3 2026, down 4% from $200 million in Q3 2025, 1% of total revenue.
• IBM's Other revenue was $66.0 million in Q3 2026, up 74% from $38.0 million in Q3 2025, under 1% of total revenue.

Segment lines are the figures writers cite most often, because they show where the growth in a quarter came from. Companies redraw their segments from time to time and restate the prior year to match, so a year-ago figure here can differ from the one printed a year ago. When that has happened, the note above says so.

From the earnings release

In its Q3 2026 release, IBM said:

“The company continues to expect full-year constant currency revenue growth in the range of four-to-five percent.”

“At current foreign exchange rates, currency is expected to be neutral to growth for the year”

“The company now expects full-year free cash flow to increase by more than $1 billion year-over-year”

Source: IBM Q3 2026 release, Oct 21, 2026.

This is the company's own guidance as of Oct 21, 2026, quoted as given. Walnut does not make forecasts of its own. Analyst estimates for the coming quarters are on the IBM forecast page.

Revenue and diluted EPS for the last 5 quarters. Each date links to that quarter's release.

GAAP revenue and diluted EPS from continuing operations, each as first reported in that quarter's release.

IBM's next report is expected around January 27, 2027, a date estimated from its reporting history that the company has not yet confirmed. This page will show Q3 2026 until those results are out and have been checked against the release.

Each quarter keeps its own page with the figures as reported, so a link to one stays pointed at the same numbers after the next report.

• Q3 2026 (this page), reported Oct 21, 2026

IBM reported revenue of $17,103 million in Q3 2026, up 5% from $16,331 million (6% at constant currency). Software was the largest segment at $7,804 million, followed by Consulting at $5,335 million, Infrastructure at $3,707 million and Financing at $192 million. (IBM Q3 2026 release, Oct 21, 2026)

IBM's Software revenue rose 8.2%. IBM said about 80 percent of Software revenue is recurring and the rest is transactional, and it credited new business including Confluent and the closing of large deals that had slipped from the second quarter. By line of business, Hybrid Cloud (Red Hat) rose 10.6%, Data rose 19.1% on the performance of Confluent, Transaction Processing rose 9.3% and Automation fell 3.3%. (IBM Form 10-Q, Q3 2026, Oct 22, 2026)

IBM's Consulting revenue was essentially flat as reported and up 1.8% at constant currency. Strategy and Technology rose 2.1% and Intelligent Operations fell 2.0%. Consulting signings were $5,030 million, down 3.7%, and backlog stood at $30.2 billion at September 30, 2026. (IBM Form 10-Q, Q3 2026, Oct 22, 2026)

IBM's Infrastructure revenue rose 4.2%. Distributed Infrastructure revenue rose 31.3% on Storage and Power, while IBM Z fell 19.6%, which IBM attributed to product cycle dynamics after the z17 launch in the second quarter of 2025. Infrastructure Support fell 3.1%. (IBM Form 10-Q, Q3 2026, Oct 22, 2026)

IBM reported diluted EPS from continuing operations of $2.31 in Q3 2026, against $1.84, and operating (non-GAAP) EPS of $2.95, against $2.65. Operating EPS adds back acquisition-related charges, mostly amortization of acquired intangible assets ($0.57 a share this quarter), and non-operating retirement-related costs ($0.07). (IBM Q3 2026 release, Oct 21, 2026; IBM non-GAAP metrics, Exhibit 99.2, Q3 2026, Oct 21, 2026)

IBM's GAAP effective tax rate was 11.9%, against 28.2% a year earlier, when the quarter carried a U.S. tax reform charge that IBM treated as non-operating ($0.33 a share). The operating tax rate was 14.7%, against 17.0%. (IBM Q3 2026 release, Oct 21, 2026)

IBM's diluted weighted average shares were 953.5 million, up from 948.9 million. IBM paid $1,596 million in dividends in the quarter, recorded $535 million of stock-based compensation, and declared a quarterly dividend of $1.69 a share. (IBM Q3 2026 release, Oct 21, 2026)

Diluted EPS divides net income by the weighted average number of shares outstanding in the quarter, plus the shares that options and other equity awards could add. Buybacks shrink that count and lift EPS for the same profit; share issuance and stock awards enlarge it.

IBM gives full-year expectations in its release, not a quarterly forecast. For 2026 it continues to expect constant currency revenue growth of four-to-five percent, with currency neutral to growth at current exchange rates, and it raised its free cash flow outlook to an increase of more than $1 billion year over year. (IBM Q3 2026 release, Oct 21, 2026)

Through the first nine months of 2026, IBM reported revenue of $50,182 million, up from $47,849 million, and free cash flow of $7.8 billion, up $0.6 billion. (IBM Q3 2026 release, Oct 21, 2026)

A consensus figure is the average of the models published by the analysts who cover IBM, collected by a data provider and revised up to the day of the report. A quarter that lands above it says how expectations were set as much as how the business did, and the share price on the day also reflects the guidance and the lines no consensus covers.

The consensus figures on this page are Yahoo Finance's, as pulled on the date shown. Each comes with the number of analysts behind it; the smaller that number, the more one revised estimate can move the average.

The figures below are the ones IBM's own release and filings put weight on for Q3 2026, with the latest reported value for each.

What the quarter means for a holding is a separate question from what it reported. The case for and against owning IBM is on is IBM a buy or a sell?, what analysts expect next is on the IBM forecast, and what the company does is on the International Business Machines (IBM) stock page.

Every number on this page can be traced to a document IBM published. Checking one takes a couple of minutes, and it is worth doing before you quote a figure anywhere.

• The results release is the document linked in the source line above. Companies publish it on their investor relations site at the moment results go out, and it carries the headline tables: revenue, operating income, net income and EPS for the quarter and the year-ago quarter.
• The same release is filed with the SEC as Exhibit 99.1 to a Form 8-K under Item 2.02, usually on the day of the report. The SEC copy does not change after the fact, which makes it the safer thing to link when you cite a number.
• The quarterly report (Form 10-Q) follows within a few weeks and carries the full financial statements, the segment note and management's discussion of what changed. The fourth quarter is covered by the annual report (Form 10-K) instead.
• Restated comparisons are flagged in the notes on this page. When a company redraws its segments or changes how it adjusts EPS, it restates the year-ago column, so the year-ago figure in a new release can differ from the one printed a year ago. This page always uses the comparison in the newer release, because that is the like-for-like one.

A walk-through of every line in a release, with what each one tells you, is in how to read an earnings report.