IBM Announces Expansion Of Mobile Portfolio For Enterprises

International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) is expanding its portfolio of mobile apps dedicated for enterprises, which are based on Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS platform.

These iOS-based applications provide commercial customers with processed data and analytical information, which eventually help them to target consumers wisely and provide an enhanced experience.

We note that growing enterprise usage of Apple’s mobile devices is positive for IBM. Per Computerworld, which quoted latest Jamf data, “almost 99% of 300 IT professionals, managers and executives from commercial organizations of 50 to 10,000+ employees from around the world” used iPad and iPhone in 2016.

We expect the growing mobile apps portfolio to boost top-line going forward. These along with Blockchain initiatives and rapid proliferation of Watson will help IBM’s stock to rebound in the rest of 2017.

Notably, the company has underperformed the S&P 500 on a year-to-date basis. While the index gained 10.5%, the stock lost 5.7% over the same time period.

Mobile App Key Driver

Bullish projections also highlight IBM’s growth opportunities in the mobile apps market. Per Gartner, by 2017, mobile apps will be downloaded more than 268 billion times, generating more than $77 billion of revenues. Further, Allied Market Research stated in a recent report that the global mobile application market accounted for $108,440 million in 2016 and is expected to witness CAGR of 19.2% to reach $311,249 million by 2023.

Mobile solutions work as a bridge in the customer relationship management (CRM) process and significantly improve customer interactions. Thus, the prospects of this market are quite encouraging.

In the recently reported first-quarter fiscal 2017, IBM stated that mobile revenues increased 20% (up 35% at constant currency) from the year-ago quarter. We believe that the recent developments will have a positive impact on the company’s results in the long run.

Reportedly, the company’s new mobile client initiatives are underway to empower employees at Lufthansa Group, City Furniture, Singapore Airlines and Japan Airlines.

In order to offer clients greater access to its mobile capabilities, IBM is introducing new Garages dedicated to the quick design, integration and deployment of MobileFirst for iOS apps.

All these are anticipated to provide a competitive edge to the company against industry peers like Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) , VMWare (NYSE:VMW) and Oracle (NYSE:ORCL).

Zacks Rank

IBM currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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