International Business Machines Corp.’s quarterly revenue beat analysts’ expectations as the company’s shift to high-growth areas such as cloud-based services begins to yield results.

Revenue from “strategic imperatives,” which includes cloud and mobile computing, data analytics, social and security software, rose 12 per cent in the second quarter.

Cloud revenue jumped 30 per cent, compared with 34 per cent in the preceding quarter.

Total revenue dropped 2.8 per cent to $20.24-billion for the quarter ended June 30 from a year earlier.

The company’s 17th straight quarterly revenue decline was not as steep as expected. The average analyst estimate was $20.02-billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Net income fell to $2.50-billion, or $2.61 per share, from $3.45-billion, or $3.50 per share.

Excluding items, IBM earned $2.95 per share, beating average analyst estimate of $2.89.

IBM’s shares rose 2.8 per cent to $164.28 in extended trading on Monday.