IBM 1st-Quarter Profit Off 18%

International Business Machines Corp. said today that its first-quarter profit fell 18% from a year earlier. It was the first quarterly earnings decline for the computer giant since the fourth quarter of 1981.

IBM said first-quarter net income dropped to $986 million, or $1.61 a share, from $1.202 billion, or $1.97 a share, a year earlier. The company said the drop reflected two main factors: the strong dollar and a brief hiatus in shipments caused by IBM’s Feb. 12 introduction of a new large-scale computer system and related data storage products.