By Chavi Mehta

(Reuters) -IBM stated Tuesday that it expected to reach the highest end of its revenue growth projections for 2022, even though it accounted only for a few hundred million dollars from its suspension in Russia.

IBM (NYSE): The Chief Financial Officer James Kavanaugh said that he expects Russia to have a less negative impact than “half a per cent” on total revenue for last year or just over $200m.

Russia is dominated by servers from IBM, Dell Technologies Inc (NYSE:) Inc, Hewlett Packard Enterprise LLC (NYSE:) Co). Kavanaugh claimed that IBM generated profit of “a couple hundred millions dollars” from the region in last year.

After surpassing its first quarter revenue estimates, the century-old firm said that it expected to reach higher revenue growth for this year. This is due in part to its increased global technology spending and its emphasis on cloud services.

Kavanaugh indicated that growth is anticipated from the company’s consulting business. This is where IBM sees a strong demand, as customers push to digitize, even in Europe, in spite of the Ukraine crisis.

IBM saw its revenue rise 3.9% between last year and 2021. The average analyst expects an annual revenue of $60.69 Billion, which would indicate a 5.8% increase over last year’s, according to IBES data by Refinitiv. Extended trading saw shares rise by 3 percent.

IBM has refocused its IT Managed Infrastructure business to be a high-growth consulting and software company. This is to end years of stagnant revenue growth.

IBM cloud revenue increased 14% to $5B during the March 31 quarter.

The quarter’s total revenue grew 8% to $14.20 Billion, surpassing estimates of $13.85 Billion. The adjusted profit beat all estimates by $1.38 per share.