Salesforce Sees Increase in Deferred Revenue -- Update
01 März 2017 - 1:06AM
Dow Jones News
By Rachel King and Jay Greene
Salesforce.com Inc. posted a 29% jump in deferred revenue for
its fiscal fourth quarter, a sign the business-software company
continues to rack up customers moving computing operations to the
cloud.
Because Salesforce relies on subscriptions of its web-based,
on-demand software, deferred revenue provides a strong picture of
the company's prospects.
The measure, which consists primarily of billings received in
advance for subscription services, rose to $5.54 billion. Nomura
Securities Co. analyst Frederick Grieb had forecast
deferred-revenue growth of 22%.
In an interview, Salesforce operating chief Keith Block said the
company continues to take away market share from the competition.
"That's outstanding execution," he said.
Despite the strong quarter, Salesforce shares fell 1.9% in
after-hours trading. Analysts said the results were tempered by the
company's guidance for deferred-revenue growth of 22% to 23% for
the current quarter, which they translated into lower growth in
billings.
Salesforce attributed that to seasonality, saying its fourth
quarter is generally its strongest. "Fundamentally, our demand
environment is very strong and as a result we raised our guidance
for the whole year," finance chief Mark Hawkins said on the
company's earnings call.
Revenue from Sales Cloud, the company's flagship sales-force
automation business, rose 14% to $804.9 million. That was the
highest growth since the quarter ended April 2016.
Salesforce benefited from marketing its products to specific
industries such as financial services and retail, Mr. Block
said.
Other businesses continued to grow, but at a slower rate.
Service Cloud, which helps companies run customer-service
operations, grew 24%, down from 40% in the quarter that ended in
July 2015.
Salesforce's acquisition of Demandware Inc. last July drove
revenue growth of 62% in the company's Marketing Cloud, used for
email and advertising campaigns.
For the quarter ended Jan. 31, Salesforce's loss widened to
$51.4 million, or 7 cents a share, from $25.5 million, or 4 cents a
share, in the comparable period a year ago.
Excluding the impact of items such as amortization and
stock-based compensation, adjusted per-share earnings rose to 28
cents from 19 cents a year earlier.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters had forecast adjusted
earnings of 25 cents a share.
Revenue rose 27% to $2.29 billion for the quarter, compared with
analysts forecasts of $2.28 billion.Annual revenue rose 26% to
$8.39 billion. Salesforce said it expects fiscal 2018 revenue of
between $10.15 billion and $10.20 billion, reaching a longstanding
goal of $10 billion in full-year revenue.
For the fiscal first quarter, Salesforce expects revenue of
between $2.34 billion and $2.35 billion and a loss of 2 cents to 3
cents a share, with adjusted per-share profit of 25 cents to 26
cents a share.
Write to Jay Greene at Jay.Greene@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 28, 2017 18:51 ET (23:51 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Salesforce (NYSE:CRM)
Historical Stock Chart
Von Mär 2024 bis Apr 2024
Salesforce (NYSE:CRM)
Historical Stock Chart
Von Apr 2023 bis Apr 2024