IBM stock prepares for 27th consecutive dividend hike ahead of Q1 earnings

Few things substance much to semipermanent investors than a institution that keeps paying (and growing) its dividend twelvemonth aft year.

A VanEck study states:

“Dividend investing tin supply dependable income and semipermanent maturation but requires cautious enactment to debar unsustainable payouts and dividend traps.”

As dividend payers thin to maintain coagulated equilibrium sheets and unchangeable currency flows, they marque bully antiaircraft investments.

That discourse matters close now, particularly for shareholders of International Business Machines , a Dividend Aristocrat and a Dow 30 member, that has 1 of the astir durable income way records successful each of tech.

International Business Machines (IBM) is expected to denote another dividend increase this month.

If it does, it volition people the company's 27th consecutive twelvemonth of dividend growth, a milestone that puts it successful elite company.

Related: Is IBM banal successful the dividend bargain bin?

The expected caller quarterly payout is $1.6875 per share. That would correspond a 0.45% increase from the existent $1.68 quarterly distribution. It's a humble raise, but consistency counts for income-focused investors.

IBM past declared a dividend of $1.68 per stock successful January 2026. It raised that payout past April by 0.6%, moving it from $1.67.

• Current quarterly dividend: $1.68 per share

• Expected caller quarterly dividend: $1.6875 per share

• Expected yearly dividend: $6.75 per share

• Annual dividend yield: astir 2.5%

• Five-year dividend maturation rate: 1.53%

• 20-year dividend maturation rate: 11.2%

• Annual dividend expense (NTM): $6.27 billion

• Free currency travel (2026E): $15.65 billion

• Dividend payout ratio: 40%

• Consecutive years of dividend growth: 26 (heading to 27)

The payout ratio of astir 40% means IBM is returning a meaningful stock of net to shareholders portion inactive keeping capable to put successful growth.

IBM's Q1 2026 net study is scheduled for Wednesday, April 22. The timing makes this a pivotal week for the dividend-paying tech stock.

• Analysts expect IBM to station earnings of $1.81 per stock and gross of $15.6 billion for the quarter.

• In the year-ago period, it reported EPS of $1.60 per share and revenue of $14.54 billion.

• IBM's astir caller quarterly net information showed the company reported $4.52 net per stock for Q4, beating the statement estimation of $4.29 by 5.30%.

Wall Street is forecasting current-year gross of $71.18 billion, with full-year normalized EPS of $12.35, up from $11.59 successful the anterior year.

Analysts broadly expect IBM to bushed Q1 estimates, with AI, hybrid cloud, automation, and cybersecurity highlighted arsenic the cardinal drivers to ticker successful the April 22 report.

Wedbush reiterated an "outperform" standing and maintained a $340 terms people connected IBM, signaling beardown expert condemnation that IBM's AI and hybrid-cloud strategy tin thrust upside.

Wedbush expert Dan Ives has besides noted helium sees astir 35% upside arsenic endeavor customers determination from AI pilots to large-scale deployments.

In caller years, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna has shifted the company's absorption toward software, artificial intelligence, and hybrid cloud.

• When Krishna took implicit successful 2020, bundle accounted for roughly 20% of full revenue. By the extremity of 2025, that fig had climbed to astir 45%.

• Its Red Hat business, acquired for $34 cardinal successful 2019, is present generating nearly$2 cardinal per 4th successful revenue, up dramatically from $3.4 cardinal annually astatine the clip of the deal.

• IBM's mainframe concern besides posted a grounds twelvemonth successful 2025.

And absorption has guided to revenue maturation exceeding 5% successful 2026, on with free currency travel of astir $15.7 billion, allowing it to rise dividend payouts and people accretive acquisitions.

• Costco softly bumps its quarterly dividend by 13%

• How overmuch to put successful Best Buy banal for $1,000 successful 2026 dividends

• Early SCHD ETF investors present gain a 12.5% dividend output connected cost

IBM generated approximately$14.7 cardinal successful escaped currency travel during 2025. This currency procreation supports continued concern successful probe and development, strategical acquisitions, and shareholder returns done dividends and stock repurchases.

Citigroup described IBM arsenic an AI subsister and enabler, a characterization that reflects the broader Wall Street presumption that IBM has successfully navigated the AI disruption communicative alternatively than falling unfortunate to it.

With net owed April 22 and a imaginable dividend hike apt to follow, income investors person bully crushed to support a adjacent oculus connected IBM this week.

Related: IBM CEO sends blunt connection connected AI and quantum computing

This communicative was primitively published by TheStreet connected Apr 21, 2026, wherever it archetypal appeared successful the Investing section. Add TheStreet arsenic a Preferred Source by clicking here.