EMC forecasts beat Wall Street view; shares jump

BOSTON (Reuters) - EMC Corp (EMC.N), the top maker of corporate data storage equipment, projected 2010 revenue and profit that topped Wall Street estimates, reinforcing hopes for healthy growth in technology spending.

The company, whose shares rose 3 percent, also reported on Tuesday higher-than-expected quarterly profit and revenue, citing a recovery from the economy's downturn and strong growth in its VMware Inc (VMW.N) software unit.

"EMC is coming out of the worst global recession we've seen in our best financial shape ever," Chief Financial Officer David Goulden said in a conference call.

EMC's results helped cement a view that industry spending is on the mend after positive earnings reports from hardware companies including Apple Inc (AAPL.O), Intel Corp (INTC.O), International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) and Western Digital Corp (WDC.N).

"Giving revenue guidance more than half a billion dollars above Street consensus in this kind of an economy is a very good indication for storage, and for tech in general," said Wedbush Securities analyst Kaushik Roy.

EMC forecast 2010 profit excluding items of $1.12 per share on revenue of $16 billion, which would beat the average forecasts for profit of $1.11 per share on revenue of $15.45 billion.

"Expectations were fairly high, but overall we got some positive news with the guidance," said Jefferies & Co analyst Bill Choi.

The Hopkinton, Massachusetts-based company posted a profit excluding items of 33 cents per share for the fourth quarter ended December 31, beating analysts' average forecast of 30 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Quarterly revenue at the company -- whose rivals include IBM, Hewlett-Packard Co(HPQ.N) and NetApp Inc (NTAP.O) -- rose 2 percent from a year earlier to $4.1 billion, beating the $4.025 billion average forecast of analysts.

Fourth-quarter net income rose to $426 million, or 20 cents per share, from $270 million, or 13 cents, a year earlier.

The quarterly results were helped by stronger-than-expected earnings from EMC's VMware software subsidiary, which released quarterly results and full-year projections far ahead of Wall Street projections late on Monday.

EMC shares were up 50 cents to $17.44 on the New York Stock Exchange

(Reporting by Jim Finkle, editing by Paul Thomasch and Derek Caney)