IBM’s target of a brighter 2021 got off on a positive note as the computing and cloud giant posted managed to squeak out a slight increase in revenues for its first fiscal quarter of the year. Company management crowed about the results as positive proof of its push toward the hybrid cloud market.

Total revenues for the first quarter increased a barely perceptible $159 million year over year to $17.7 billion. That growth came from IBM’s Cloud and Cognitive Software, Global Business Services (GBS), and Systems businesses that countered down quarters from its Global Technology Services (GTS) and Global Financing businesses.

While exceedingly modest, the revenue increase was a ray of sunshine for the company that suffered sustained declines last year.

Despite the increased revenues, IBM’s bottom line was mixed. It did manage to post increased gross profits to $8.2 billion and gross profit margin to 46.1% for the quarter, but some smaller bites of expenses and taxes dropped net income from $1.2 billion last year to $955 million this time around.

As part of his prepared remarks, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said that the company’s momentum coming out of Q1 has it confident that it can meet its goal of continuing financial performance in 2021, and “sustainable mid-single digit revenue growth … and strong cash generation” as it pushes a broader company re-organization. That includes the spinoff of its Managed Infrastructure Services and GTS business units into their own separate public company recently dubbed Kyndryl.

IBM investors took the results and Krishna’s optimism to heart as the company’s stock was trading up nearly 3% in pre-market activity this morning.