EMC Corporation (NYSE:EMC), the world leader in information infrastructure solutions, today reported all-time record revenue and strong profit growth for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2006. EMC's 14th consecutive quarter of double-digit year-over-year revenue growth was highlighted by better-than-expected revenue and profit performance.

Total consolidated revenue for the fourth quarter was a record $3.215 billion, 19% higher than the $2.710 billion for the fourth quarter of 2005 and $55 million more than the fourth-quarter revenue forecast provided by EMC in October 2006.

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Joe Tucci, EMC Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, said, "EMC had another record quarter and a solid finish to 2006. We have now delivered strong, double-digit revenue growth for four straight years and we are well positioned to do it again in 2007."

"EMC has clearly joined the short list of the world's elite information technology suppliers that organizations around the world choose to partner with to drive their business," Tucci continued. "We have focused our entire company on information infrastructure, enabling our customers to put their information to work and better leverage its value. We begin 2007 with the technology portfolio, the strategy and, most importantly, the trust of our customers to help them solve their most pressing issues and gain an even greater share of our $60 billion market opportunity."

During the fourth quarter, EMC achieved double-digit revenue growth across its systems, software and services offerings, and across all four of its major geographies. EMC systems revenue grew 12%; software license and maintenance revenue increased 27%; and professional services, systems maintenance and other services revenue increased 20% compared with the fourth quarter of 2005. Quarterly revenue from North America was up 18%; revenues from Europe, Middle East and Africa grew 22%; revenue from Latin America increased 14%; and revenue from the Asia Pacific and Japan region returned to double-digit growth, increasing 13% compared with the fourth quarter of 2005.

EMC completed the fourth quarter with $5.6 billion in cash and investments. In 2006 the company spent approximately $3.8 billion to purchase 302 million EMC shares and to redeem $125 million in convertible debt.

David Goulden, EMC Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, said, "Looking across our business, we are pleased with how well we performed in the quarter. We achieved solid top- and bottom-line growth, gained market share across each of our four business units, and delivered double-digit revenue growth across all four of our major geographies. We are poised for continued momentum in 2007 as we address our customers' most critical IT priorities."

Fourth-Quarter Highlights

EMC's Information Storage business, which comprises storage systems, information management, information protection and resource management software, and related customer and professional services, increased revenue 9% compared with the year-ago quarter to $2.67 billion on continued demand for the new EMC CLARiiON CX3 UltraScale and EMC Symmetrix DMX-3 networked storage systems. EMC Rainfinity File Virtualization software revenue more than doubled as more and more organizations turned to file virtualization to improve the management and utilization of files and global file systems. EMC Smarts and EMC Networker software continued to gain share on solid, double-digit license revenue growth, reflecting strong customer adoption of EMC's broad portfolio of resource management and backup and recovery software.

The EMC Content Management and Archiving business grew 43% compared with the year-ago quarter to a record $203 million. EMC continues to expand its lead in enterprise content management, as more organizations turn to EMC Documentum software to effectively manage their increasing volumes of unstructured information.

Information security revenues for the fourth quarter—the first full quarter of operations for RSA, the Security Division of EMC—grew 26% to $114 million compared with the results reported by the division's constituent companies (RSA Security and Network Intelligence) in the year-ago period. The division's strong performance reflected continued traction for RSA's consumer identity protection solutions as a result of federal guidelines for stronger authentication practices in online banking and concerns over credit card fraud and identity theft. It also demonstrates the early post-acquisition progress that has been made in integrating the division's operations and customers' enthusiastic response to EMC's information-centric approach to securing business information.

VMware, an EMC subsidiary, had its 31st consecutive record quarter and grew total revenues 101% year-over-year to $232 million. VMware has delivered accelerating year-over-year growth for the past five quarters. VMware's exceptional performance was fueled by rapid customer adoption of VMware Infrastructure 3, which began shipping in June 2006. VMware's fourth-quarter momentum and expanding customer base were driven in part by the release of 64-bit support for VMware Infrastructure 3, VMware Lab Manager – an automation suite designed to improve software development processes, and a new virtual appliance marketplace and certification program now delivering more than 380 virtual appliances.

2006 Highlights

EMC had double-digit revenue growth across its systems, software and services offerings in 2006 as organizations turned to EMC's portfolio to better store, protect, optimize and leverage their expanding volumes of information in increasingly complex IT environments.

Systems revenue grew 15% during the year to $5.14 billion, helped by the introduction of new models and enhancements to EMC's entire line of networked storage platforms. Software license and maintenance revenue grew 20% to a record $4.27 billion. Professional services, systems maintenance and other services revenue grew 10% in 2006, as more customers engaged EMC Global Services professionals to help plan, build, manage and support their information infrastructures.

EMC's Information Storage business annual revenue increased 9% in 2006 to $9.6 billion, driven in large part by EMC Symmetrix systems, which had their strongest growth in six years. Annual revenue for EMC's Content Management and Archiving business grew 42% compared to 2005. Had EMC owned RSA and Network Intelligence for all of 2005 and 2006, 2006 annual revenues for the RSA security division would have been up 26% year over year. VMware revenue also achieved accelerated revenue growth throughout the year, increasing revenues 83% to $709 million for 2006.

Thanks to Richard Cardona for sharing the news.