“Consistent with our Investor Day model, we expect to sustain constant currency revenue growth of 5% plus in 2026. And free cash flow to be up about $1 billion year over year. Growing high single digits.”

In context

“head of expectations within the first full year in IBM. Our financial flexibility fuels innovation, and our disciplined capital allocation policy. Including our commitment to return capital to shareholders. We exited 2025 with a strong liquidity position and a solid investment-grade balance sheet. With cash of $14.5 billion. We invested $8.3 billion in acquisitions and returned $6.3 billion to shareholders in the form of dividends. Our debt balance ending the year was $61.3 billion. Including $15.1 billion of debt for a financing business. With the receivables portfolio that is almost 80% investment grade. Now let me discuss our expectations for 2026. Our strong performance in 2025 reflects the strength of our diversified portfolio and a multiyear execution of our strategic repositioning. Consistent with our Investor Day model, we expect to sustain constant currency revenue growth of 5% plus in 2026. And free cash flow to be up about $1 billion year over year. Growing high single digits. Our revenue expectations are underpinned by our durable and accelerating software business. Which we expect to grow 10% this year. This acceleration is led by organic growth. Driven by the strength of our recurring revenue base, our shift to higher growth end markets, GenAI traction, M&A growth synergies, and monetization of our record Z placement with an inflection in transaction processing. A tremendous source of profitability and free cash flow for IBM. And we continue to expect Confluent will close by 2026. In consulting, our backlog levels and momentum in GenAI with backlog penetration over 25% support an acceleration in revenue growth to low to mid-single digits for the year. The powerful combination of our integrated platforms services as a software model, and client zero experienc”