Storage solutions vendor EMC reported positive results for the third quarter of 2011.  The company showed 18 percent year-over-year revenue growth reaching $4.98 billion, 54 percent ($2.7 billion) of which came from U.S. sales.

Its virtualization arm VMware saw 32 percent growth-year-over year, closely followed by EMC’s mid-tier storage products at 28 percent.  The company’s Information Storage unit has seen 16 percent growth compared to 3Q2010.

On top of revenue growth, net profit grew by an impressive 28 percent year over year to $606 million.

“With the strategy, products and momentum in our favour, EMC remains extremely well positioned to help customers accelerate their journey to the cloud, discover the value of Big Data and transform IT into a source of greater efficiency, agility and control,” said chief executive Joe Tucci.

The strategy Tucci is referring to includes a focus on cloud and big data, two of the biggest industry buzzwords, and a fast-growing trends in the IT world today.

EMC’s Tucci revealed some data about his company’s investments in a keynote last week, where he took the opportunity to lecture about how his company’s aggressive strategy is what have kept them in the lead.  A part of that strategy involves an annual R&D investment of 12 percent of the company’s revenue, which added up to over $10 billion between 2004 and 2010, according to the CEO.  EMC spent $14 billion on acquisitions in the same period.

Alongside the earnings call, EMC announced it’s giving four nonprofit organizations $25,000 as a part of the $200,000-worth 100 Ways of Giving program, which is celebrating the company’s 100^th anniversary and sponsored by a group of instance companies.

The four nonprofits are The Potosi Foundation, Special Olympics Iowa, The Vista School and Woodland Hospice.