Salesforce Beats Expectations And Raises Forecast

Salesforce has posted strong second quarter 2013 results, as well as full-year estimates that are in line with Wall Street forecasts.

And the company added to the good news after it increased its forecast for the current quarter, and said it should crack the $1bn (£644) quarterly revenues ceiling.

Financial Performance

For the second quarter, the San Francisco-based company reported net income of $76.6 million (£49.8m), or 12 cents (£0.07) per share, compared with a loss of $9.8 million (£6.3m), or 2 cents (£0.1) a share in the same year-ago quarter.

There was equal good news on the sales side, after revenues rose a hefty 31 percent year-over-year. The cloud-based services provider posted revenues of $957 million (£617m), compared to $938.81 million (£605m) from the same quarter a year ago.

The results exceeded Wall Street expectations, as analysts had been expecting Salesforce to report second quarter earnings of seven cents (£0.04) a share, on revenue of $939.2 million (£605m).

“Salesforce.com continues to be the fastest growing software company of its size with year-over-year growth of more than 30 percent in revenue, deferred revenue, and operating cash flow,” CEO and Chairman Marc Benioff said in a statement.

Billion Dollars

“I’m delighted to announce that just four years after delivering our first $1 billion revenue year, we are now poised to deliver our first $1 billion revenue quarter in the third quarter of fiscal 2014,” said Benioff.

For the current quarter, Salesforce expects revenue in the range of $1.05 billion (£677m) to $1.06 billion (£683m). The company also expects adjusted profit in the range of 8 cents (£0.05) to 9 cents (£0.06) a share. Analysts had been expecting an adjusted profit of 7 cents (£0.04) a share, on revenue of $1.04 billion (£670m).

Salesforce’s stock price shot up about seven percent in after-hours trading following news of the report.

Benioff acknowledged that Salesforce received a big revenue boost this quarter due to its $2.5 billion (£1.6bn) acquisition of ExactTarget, a deal that closed last month.

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