IBM CFO Mark Loughridge: Sales in Brazil, Russia, India and China to Continue Growing

In a recent interview, International Business Machines (IBM) Chief Financial Officer Mark Loughridge said he expects that sales in emerging markets like Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) will continue to grow at a healthy pace for a minimum of six months, even with the current economic conditions.

IBM, along with a number of companies and sectors has had the majority of company growth happen in the BRIC countries over the last several years, and they will continue to outperform sales in Western Europe and the United States for the foreseeable future.

This should be true as much of the global slowdown in growth shouldn't have too much of an impact on companies working with the infrastructure of emerging markets as IBM is. IBM is helping BRIC economies to modernize their banking, transportation and telecommunications systems, which have been the underpinning of company sales growth.

"If we look at the headlights, we have our strongest headlights extending about six months into the future. We see very strong opportunities here," Loughridge said. "There are big opportunities for the roll-out of these infrastructure projects."

While sales in China and other Asian countries was a decent 6 percent, Russia especially shined for IBM sales, with revenue increasng by 51 percent for the quarter ending September 30. Also enjoying solid growth was India sales, coming in at 28 percent sales increase, and Brazil, which was right behind them with 24 percent sales growth for IBM in the 3rd quarter.

Loughridge said China sales would have been better, but the Olympics temporarily slowed things down. Next quarter, expectations are China sales will significantly rebound for the company.