Finance chief James Kavanaugh said cloud spending by clients in retail, manufacturing and travel industries in the United States was picking up after the initial pandemic-driven slump.

Sales from its cloud computing services jumped 21 percent to $6.5 billion in the quarter.

Big Blue recorded a sales decline in global technology services, its largest unit, but that was largely offset by a rise in revenue in the remaining three units, including a surprise growth in the business that hosts mainframe computers.

Mainframe saw strong traction from the financial services industry, where its banking clients shopped for more capacity as trading volumes soared during the retail trading frenzy, Kavanaugh said.

Total revenue rose nearly a percent to $17.73 billion in the quarter, beating analysts average estimate of $17.35 billion.

Net income fell to $955 million in the quarter ended March 31, from $1.18 billion a year earlier.