Wall Street analysts, on average, were expecting $17.9 billion. That revenue shortfall sent IBM's stock down as much as 26% in a single day. You have to go back to at least 1968 to find a bigger one-day drop for the company.
The company's CEO, Arvind Krishna, was blunt about what went wrong. "We did not adapt and move quickly enough, and numerous large deals failed to close on the timelines we expected, driving the majority of our shortfall," he wrote in a letter to investors. "These are not excuses, but they are realities."
IBM's bad news did not stay contained to one stock. Investors started worrying that the same thing could happen to other software and IT services companies. Microsoft's stock fell about 2%.
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Workday dropped 6.3%. Salesforce slipped 3.2%. Autodesk declined 2.4%. Shares of SAP SE traded in the US dropped 3.4%.
On the IT services side, Accenture PLC dropped 2.9%, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. declined 2.2%, and Infosys Ltd fell 2.8%. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF, which tracks these companies, fell as much as 2.7% before partially recovering. The reason for all the worry? Customers are spending their money on different things.
That shift hurt IBM directly, and it has investors wondering whether other software companies will face the same squeeze.
Adam Crisafulli, founder of Vital Knowledge, said IBM's results "will deliver a devastating blow to software/services stocks as investors will worry about the capex pivot negatively impacting the whole industry."
The shift in capital expenditure toward AI hardware is not new, but IBM's miss confirms that the transition is accelerating faster than many software companies anticipated. Enterprise clients are prioritizing investments that yield immediate AI capabilities, delaying or canceling non-essential software upgrades and consulting projects.
The numbers tell the story. The iShares software-focused ETF has fallen over 12% year-to-date in 2026. Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which tracks chip companies, is up more than 78% over the same period. Money is flowing out of one part of tech and into another.
This divergence highlights a fundamental reallocation of technology budgets. Companies are prioritizing investments in AI infrastructure - such as Nvidia's GPUs and data center equipment - over legacy software licenses and consulting services. IBM's CEO acknowledged the company's failure to close large deals quickly enough, a symptom of the broader industry pivot. Analysts warn that other software firms may face similar headwinds if they cannot demonstrate their own AI offerings or adapt to changing customer priorities.
IBM's 26% stock decline is the largest single-day drop since at least 1968, underscoring the severity of the market's reaction. The revenue miss reflects a broader shift in enterprise spending toward AI infrastructure, a trend that investors fear will continue to pressure legacy software and services firms in the coming quarters.
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