Oracle Feels Benefit From Strong Cloud Growth

Oracle’s optimism over its cloud proposition looks to be well founded after the software giant reported mostly positive quarterly results.

The second quarter 2015 results beat Wall Street expectations, and it was the first time that Oracle has posted results since Larry Ellison stepped down as CEO of the company.

Cloud Growth

For the three months ending 30 November, Oracle posted a net profit of $2.5bn (£1.6bn), down slightly compared to $2.5bn (£1.6bn) in the same year ago quarter.

But total revenues rose 3.5 percent to $9.6bn (£6.1bn) from $9.3bn (£5.9bn) a year previously. That beat analysts expectations of $9.51bn (£6bn).

It seems that the cloud provided Oracle with one of its strongest performances in the quarter, as revenue from cloud services rose a staggering 45 percent to a total of $516m (£330m). Hardware Systems revenues meanwhile were up 1 percent to $1.3bn (£831m).

“We continue to deliver industry-leading operating margins and cash flow even after adding the thousands of specialised sales people and engineers necessary to accelerate the growth of our new cloud businesses,” said Oracle CEO, Safra Catz.

“Total Q2 new cloud bookings grew at a rate of more than 140 percent,” said Oracle CEO, Mark Hurd. “We now have over 600 ERP Fusion Cloud customers – that’s five-times more ERP customers than Workday.”

“By Q4 of this year we expect our new cloud bookings to exceed $250m (£160m),” said Oracle Chairman and Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison. “Next fiscal year our new cloud bookings will be well over the billion dollars mark.”

Oracle has pleased Wall Street with the performance of its Cloud divisions, especially in the face of growing competition from the likes of Salesforce.com and Microsoft.

Closely Watched

“Oracle has been going through a transition as it rationalises the hardware business and moves their software business to the cloud,” Pacific Crest Securities analyst Brendan Barnicle was quoted as saying by Reuters. “This good evidence that they’re making some progress there.”

This last quarter has been closely monitored by investors, as it is the first set of financial results delivered by the two CEOs now in charge of Oracle. In September, Larry Ellison announced he was stepping down as CEO of the software, ending a 37 year reign at the top.

Rather than retire, the 70 year-old took the position as Executive Chairman of the Board, and as Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

Ellison was replaced by two CEOs, namely Safra Catz and Mark Hurd. Catz is responsible for manufacturing, finance, and legal functions, whereas Hurd is in charge of all sales, service and vertical industry global business units. Larry Ellison meanwhile remains in charge of all software and hardware engineering functions.

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