Oracle Profit Trumps Wall Street Estimates On Strong Cloud Revenues

(RTTNews) - Business software giant Oracle Corp. (ORCL), Tuesday reported an increase in profit for the fourth quarter, as revenues grew 3 percent reflecting strong growth in cloud services revenues. Earnings for the quarter trumped Wall Street estimates, as did revenues.

Redwood Shores, California-based Oracle's fourth-quarter profit rose to $3.41 billion or $0.82 per share from $3.23 billion or $0.76 per share last year.

Adjusted earnings for the quarter increased to $0.99 per share from $0.89 per share last year. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $0.94 per share.

Revenues for the quarter rose 3 percent to $11.25 billion from $10.89 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $11.19 billion.

Oracle's cloud services and license support revenues climbed 8 percent to $6.77 billion, while On-Premise revenues declined 5 percent to $2.48 billion.

"We had a great fourth quarter with total revenues more than $200 million above our constant currency forecast," said Oracle CEO, Mark Hurd. "Our strategic Fusion ERP and HCM SaaS cloud applications suite revenues grew over 50% in the fourth quarter, and we expect continued strong growth from our Fusion SaaS suites throughout FY19."

"Looking ahead to FY19, I expect revenue growth will enable us to deliver double-digit non-GAAP earnings per share growth once again," said Oracle CEO Safra Catz.

Further, the company declared a quarterly dividend of $0.19 per share, payable stockholders of record as of July 17, with a payment date of July 31.

ORCL closed Tuesday's trading at $46.29, down $0.23 or 0.49%, on the Nasdaq. The stock, however, gained $1.02 or 2.20% in the after-hours trade.