Salesforce Results Disappoint But Revenue Still Climbing Towards $1bn

Salesforce revenue continues to grow, but its latest results still managed to disappoint investors, as shares dipped.

Its problem is that it repeatedly records losses, partly because of its focus on acquisitions and partly because of the massive support expenditure needed to back up a cloud service. The company remains focused on growth, pushing to become a $1 billion (£663 billion) a quarter company, rather than turning a profit.

Salesforce still happy

Salesforce revenue was $893 million in the first quarter, an increase of 28 percent on a year-over-year basis, but it recorded a net loss of $67.7 million, compared to $19.5 million from the previous quarter.

It recorded total operating expenses of $728.2 million, most of which came from marketing and sales.

CEO Marc Benioff was still delighted with the results. “Salesforce is now well on its way to its first billion dollar quarter,” he said over Facebook.

In his official statement, Benioff said Salesforce had delivered “another quarter of strong growth, with constant currency revenue, deferred revenue, and operating cash flow all growing 30 percent or more year over year”.

He was particularly pleased about Salesforce’s recent overtaking of SAP in CRM market share to become the number one player.

Salesforce is betting on making between $931 million and $936 million this quarter. For the full year, it predicted it will make between $3.835 billion and $3.875 billion.

The company doesn’t look like slowing down its acquisition work though. Various executives recently told TechWeekEurope it was planning something in the Big Data space soon, possibly through an acquisition.

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