IBM won back some investors’ trust after posting renewed sales growth and saying its cloud business is performing well.

Revenue gained 2 per cent, adjusted for currency fluctuations, to US$20 billion in the second quarter, International Business Machines Corp. said Wednesday in a statement. Analysts estimated US$19.9 billion. Profit, excluding some items, was US$3.08 a share, compared with analysts’ projections of US$3.04 a share. Shares gained about 1 per cent in extended trading after closing at US$144.52.

While revenue has declined for most of the past five years, the company showed signs of life in the quarter, with the cloud business growing 18 per cent, adjusting for currency changes, to US$4.7 billion. That’s an improvement from the disappointing 14 per cent IBM posted earlier this year. Strategic imperatives, a collection of the company’s newer business lines, generated US$10.1 billion in the period, bringing IBM closer to its goal of US$40 billion of revenue in the category by year-end.

In April, investors sent the stock tumbling the most in two years after first-quarter growth in IBM’s cloud business slowed and margins across the company narrowed. Revenue growth was at a stand-still compared with a year earlier when a tailwind from the weakening U.S. dollar was stripped out.