The board of directors of International Business Machines approved an 18% or $0.20 increase in its regular quarterly dividend. IBM’s quarterly dividend is now $1.30 per share, up from $1.10 per share.
IBM said the dividend would be payable on June 10, 2015 to stockholders of record as of May 8, 2015. Over the past five years, the tech giant doubled its quarterly dividend. It has been distributing quarterly dividends to shareholders since 1916.
In a statement, IBM Chairman and CEO Ginni Rometty said, “Our success in driving growth in our strategic initiatives and our continuous shift to higher value enables us to continue investing in our business, while also returning value to shareholders.”
IBM had strong start this year
Last week, IBM delivered first quarter earnings that beat the expectations of Wall Street analysts. The tech giant posted adjusted earnings of $2.91 per share on $19.6 billion in revenue compared with the $2.81 per share on $19.67 billion in revenue estimated by analysts.
IBM achieved a 75% increase in cloud revenue year-over-year after adjusting for currencies and business divestitures. Rometty said the company had a strong start this year with an accelerated imperatives growth rate. According to her, IBM’s first quarter performance demonstrated the power of its offerings in new opportunities.
IBM recently announced that its share in application infrastructure and middleware market was 29.1% of total worldwide revenues last year based on data from Gartner.
The company continued to hold its leadership position in the application infrastructure and middleware market for the 14th consecutive year.
Marie Wieck, general manager of IBM Middleware said,”This market has changed dramatically over the past 14 years, and we feel that has increasingly played to IBM’s advantage given our technical expertise, investments, and restless reinvention.”
According to Gartner, the application infrastructure and middleware software market grew 8.8 percent to $23.8 billion globally.
Metlife increases dividend by 7%
Separately, the board of directors of Metlife increased the company’s quarterly dividend by 7% for the second quarter. Its quarterly dividend is now $0.375 per share, up from $0.35 per share in the first quarter.
Metlife said the quarterly dividend would be payable on June 12 to stockholders of record as of May 11, 2015.
Steven A. Kandarian, Chairman and CEO of MetLife said, “We’re pleased to announce an increase in the common stock dividend for the third year in a row. Today’s announcement demonstrates our continued commitment to maximizing long-term shareholder value.”
