BOSTON (AP) -- EMC Corp. on Tuesday said its second-quarter profit rose nearly 20 percent as the data storage vendor recorded double-digit sales gains at its biggest businesses and posted its largest revenue gain in more than two years.

Hopkinton-based EMC said net income rose to $334.4 million, or 16 cents per share, for the April-through-June period, up from a profit of $279.1 million, or 12 cents a share, in the same quarter a year ago.

Revenue rose 21 percent to $3.12 billion from $2.57 billion a year ago, the biggest quarterly gain since a 27 percent increase in 2004's fourth quarter.

The latest quarter's per-share profit matched the consensus estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial. EMC's revenue beat analysts' consensus forecast of $3.07 billion.

But its shares slipped more than 2 percent amid a broader market downturn Tuesday.

Unlike the previous quarter, when EMC's overseas operations posted far stronger sales gains than domestic operations, the company's North American business posted a 20 percent sales gain in the latest quarter, nearly matching 23 percent growth overseas. For the second straight quarter, EMC's fastest-growing area was a region encompassing, Asia, Japan and the Pacific, with a 32 percent gain.

EMC's second-quarter revenue from software licenses jumped 27 percent, outpacing the 18 percent growth in the storage systems business at EMC, whose rivals include IBM Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., and Network Appliance Inc. Revenue from professional services and systems maintenance grew by 18 percent.

VMware, a fast-growing EMC subsidiary whose ''virtualization'' software helps make computing more efficient, continued to show strong growth with an 89 percent increase in revenue to $298 million. EMC plans to sell a 10 percent stake of VMware in an initial public offering late this summer, and recently announced plans to sell another 2.5 percent stake to computer chip maker Intel Corp. for $218.5 million.

Joe Tucci, EMC's chairman, president and chief executive, told analysts on a conference call that he's optimistic information technology spending will remain strong through the year's end and drive further gains at EMC.

''We see a positive environment in all major geographies,'' Tucci said.

But EMC's shares fell 46 cents to $19.05.

Caris & Co. analyst Shebly Seyrafi said EMC's shares were hurt by Tuesday's market downturn, rising expenses at EMC, and a modest 5 percent quarterly sales gain at its content management and archiving business.

And EMC offered no specifics in updating its earnings expectations for the year, even though it gave a slightly more optimistic forecast compared with guidance it gave in January for 2007 revenue of at least $12.7 billion and a per-share profit of 64 cents. On Tuesday, EMC said it expects ''to exceed'' those targets, but offered no details.

''Probably, investors wanted more,'' Seyrafi said.

The latest quarter marked the 16th consecutive period in which EMC posted double-digit revenue growth.

EMC's stock had been stagnant in recent years, but has nearly doubled in value over the past year on rising demand for data storage and services and strong growth at many of EMC's recently acquired businesses.