Salesforce.com, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) released its fiscal third-quarter results on Wednesday. The San Francisco-based company’s shares were down 2% during market hours trading, and fell another 4.79% to $58.10 in after-hours trading. That’s after the company crushed the Wall Street consensus estimates. International expansion helped the company register 29% growth in Q3, 2015 revenue.
Salesforce’s deferred revenue jumps 28%
Salesforce reported $1.383 billion in revenue and 14 cents a share in non-GAAP earnings. On GAAP basis, the cloud computing company incurred a loss of $38.92 million or 6 cents per share, down from $124.43 million or 21 cents in the same quarter last year. Analysts surveyed by FactSet were expecting $1.38 billion in revenue and 13 cents in non-GAAP earnings.
Deferred revenue, a closely monitored metric that measures future revenue from its subscription services, jumped 28% to $2.22 billion. Subscription services made up 93% of the company’s total revenue, unchanged from last year. Cash and cash equivalents decreased 11% from last year to $123 million. CFO Mark Hawkins said that the company’s margins were back on track. The company was inching closer to profitability.
Weak guidance disappoints investors
However, investors began to dump Salesforce shares largely due to weak guidance for the current quarter, which ends January 2015. For the current quarter, the company guided revenue between $1.436 billion and $1.441 billion, suggesting a 25% to 26% growth from last year. Salesforce expects per share non-GAAP EPS of 13-14 cents. Analysts were expecting 15 cents a share in Q4 earnings. For the full fiscal-year 2015, the company forecasts revenue of 51 to 52 cents per share and revenue between $5.365 billion and $5.37 billion.
The company also issued guidance for FY2016. Salesforce expects revenue growth to shrink further. The company forecasts FY2016 revenue between $6.45 billion and $6.5 billion, representing a 20-21% growth. By comparison, analysts expect 2016 revenue of $6.66 billion. Slowing growth didn’t enthuse investors. It was a busy third-quarter for Salesforce.
The San Francisco-based company announced analytics product Wave at its Dreamforce conference. Salesforce overhauled its mobile app development program, and extended its partnership with Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT).
