Oracle Pre-Announces Profit Surge

In a rare earnings pre-announcement, Oracle on 18 June took its good news to Wall Street and its investors three days earlier than scheduled, reporting that its fiscal Q4 2012 net income increased 8 percent to $3.5 billion (£2.2bn), or 69 cents a share.

Thanks to the better-than-expected results, Oracle’s shares moved higher in online trading after the bell. The stock had closed down 2 percent at $27.12 prior to the news announcement, but afterward it zoomed up 84 cents, equating to a 3 percent increase in after-hours trading.

Revenue rise

Revenue rose 1 percent to $11 billion, compared to year-ago sales of $10.81 billion. New software licence revenues rose 7 percent to $4 billion, as software licence updates and support revenues rose 5 percent to $4.2 billion; hardware systems revenue fell 16 percent to $977 million.

Oracle had scheduled its earnings report for 21 June.

Thomson Reuters analysts had predicted earnings of 78 cents a share on revenue of $10.89 billion. The company pointed to the relevance of its new Oracle Cloud to the future growth and profitability of Oracle’s software division.

“Our Oracle Cloud SaaS business is nearly at a billion-dollar revenue run rate, the same size as our engineered systems hardware business,” Oracle chief executive officer and co-founder Larry Ellison said in a statement.

“The combination of engineered systems and the Oracle Cloud will drive Oracle’s growth in FY 2013.”

Oracle Cloud

Ellison had introduced the Oracle Cloud in a media event on the company’s Redwood City campus on 6 June.

The company’s board of directors also declared a quarterly cash dividend of 6 cents a share to be paid on 3 August, 2012. The board also authorised a share buy-back programme of up to $10 billion in common stock.

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