EMC Reports Record Q1 Sales, Sees Pent Up Demand In IT Spending

The giant data storage technology vendor Wednesday reported record sales, earnings and cash flow for the first quarter ended March 31.

"This quarter was the best first-quarter in EMC's history," chairman and CEO Joe Tucci in a conference call, adding that the company is seeing pent up demand from last year when many businesses curtailed IT spending. "We are growing significantly faster than the markets we serve. In other words, we are taking market share."

EMC reported revenue of $3.9 billion in the quarter, up 23 percent from $3.2 billion in the same period one year ago. Net income surged 92 percent to $373 million from $194 million last year.

Tucci said the company is shooting for revenue growth of 18 percent for all of 2010 with total sales reaching $16.5 billion.

Revenue generated by EMC's information infrastructure business, which includes information storage, RSA security, and content management and archiving products, increased 22 percent year-over-year to $3.3 billion.

Sales of information storage products reached $2.9 billion, up 24 percent year-over-year. The company reported "strong customer demand and double-digit revenue growth" for its high-end Symmetrix storage systems which increased first-quarter revenue by 28 percent.

Sales of EMC's mid-tier platform products increased 32 percent to $800 million. EMC said the channel accounted for 75% of its mid-tier product sales. Chief Financial Officer David Goulden said there was increased demand from small and mid-sized businesses for networked storage products. The company did not disclose specific sales numbers for its Clarion storage systems.

Within EMC's Backup and Recovery System Division, sales of Data Domain deduplication storage systems and Avamar backup and recovery systems each grew more than 100 percent year-over-year. EMC acquired Data Domain in July for $2.1 billion after a prolonged bidding war with rival NetApp.

Sales of content management and archiving products increased 2 percent to $178 million while sales of RSA security products grew 13 percent to $161 million. Services revenue, which Goulden described as a "good indicator of improved spending," was up 13 percent in the first quarter.

Revenue from VMware, of which EMC is a majority owner, was $632 million in the quarter.