Oracle released the earnings results from its fourth fiscal quarter after closing bell tonight, posting adjusted earnings of 81 cents per share on $10.6 billion in revenue. Analysts had been expecting earnings of 82 cents per share on $10.47 billion in revenue. In last year’s fourth quarter, Oracle posted $10.71 billion in revenue.
GAAP earnings grew from 62 cents per share in the year-ago quarter to 66 cents per share in this year’s fourth quarter. GAAP net income was $2.8 billion, while on a non-GAAP basis, net income was $3.4 billion.
Oracle posts solid cloud results
Oracle said Cloud plus On-Premise Software revenues were flat year over year in U.S. dollars but grew 2% in constant currency to $8.4 billion. Cloud software-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service increased 66% in U.S. dollars or 68% in constant currency to $690 million, while total Cloud revenues, including infrastructure-as-a-service revenues amounted to $859 million, representing a 49% increase in U.S. dollars and 51% increase in constant currency.
The company’s operating income amounted to $4 billion, while its operating margin was 37%. The non-GAAP operating margin was 45%. Short-term deferred revenues grew 6% in U.S. dollars or 7% in constant currency to $7.7 billion. The gross margin for Oracle’s SaaS an PaaS offerings increased as the fiscal year went on, ending the year at 56.
The company added over 1,600 new SaaS customers and over 2,000 new PaaS customers during the quarter. It now has almost 2,600 Fusion ERP customers in its Public Cloud, which is ten times more than the number of cloud ERP customers Workday has.
Oracle raises cloud revenue growth outlook
The company also recorded strong bookings, which caused management to raise their guidance. Management now expects SaaS and PaaS revenue to be between 75% and 80% for the first quarter.
“We expect that the SaaS and PaaS hyper-growth we experienced in FY16 will continue on for the next few years,” Oracle Executive Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison said in a statement. “That gives us a fighting chance to be the first cloud company to reach $10 billion in SaaS and PaaS revenue. We’re also very excited about the availability of version 2 of Oracle’s Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) — which will enable us to speed up the growth of our IaaS business, which customers want to buy in conjunction with our SaaS and PaaS.”
Oracle shares climbed by about 3% in after-hours trading to as high as $39.79.
