IBM reports first-quarter 2026 results Wednesday, April 22 after the market closes, with a 5:00 p.m. ET call. [1] Analyst consensus is $1.81 EPS on $15.65 billion of revenue, per MarketBeat and the April 15 Barchart preview. [1] [2] The paper's Sunday corporate-earnings-week piece clustered IBM with Tesla, Intel, UnitedHealth, and Boeing as the week's consequential prints. Wednesday is the day that answers whether Arvind Krishna's 2026 guidance — more than 5% constant-currency revenue growth, roughly $1 billion more in free cash flow — still reads in the first-quarter print.

The GenAI book is the number to watch. IBM ended Q4 2025 with its generative-AI book of business at more than $12.5 billion inception-to-date, up from $10.5 billion at the end of Q3. [3] Q4 alone added more than $2 billion in bookings. A Q1 addition under $2 billion would be read as the first tell on whether Accenture's mid-March warning about enterprise consulting softness is a one-consulting-firm story or a category story. IBM's consulting segment is exposed to the same enterprise-IT slowdown narrative that Accenture named as structural. The Q1 number gives IBM the chance to separate its GenAI bookings from its consulting revenue on the call.

The stock closed Friday at $236.41, up 2.45% on the week. [1] The 52-week performance trails the S&P 500. The Confluent acquisition closed March 17 and will contribute a partial quarter. The Rule of 40 milestone Krishna named at Q4 — software growth plus operating margin above 40 — is a Q1 hurdle that software revenue growth has to clear at roughly 10% constant-currency to keep the narrative clean. The print is Wednesday. The call is 5 p.m. The GenAI book is what the buy-side will read first.

-- THEO KAPLAN, San Francisco