Oracle Profit Tops View, Revenues In Line - Update

(RTTNews) - Business software giant Oracle Corp. (ORCL), Monday reported an increase in profit for the second quarter, reflecting strong growth in cloud services revenues. Earnings for the quarter trumped Wall Street estimates, while revenues came in line with expectations.

Redwood Shores, California-based Oracle's second-quarter profit rose to $2.33 billion or $0.61 per share from $2.21 billion or $0.52 per share last year.

Adjusted earnings for the quarter increased to $0.80 per share from $0.69 per share last year. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $0.78 per share.

Revenues for the quarter remained flat at $9.56 billion compared to last year's $9.59 billion. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $9.52 billion.

Oracle's cloud services and license support revenues climbed 3 percent to $6.64 billion, while cloud license and On-Premise license revenues gained 14 percent to $1.22 billion.

"In Q2, non-GAAP earnings per share grew 19% in constant currency," said Oracle CEO, Safra Catz. "In addition to our strong EPS growth, free cash flow grew 10% to $13.8 billion over the previous twelve months. I am confident that we will continue to record strong EPS and free cash flow growth during the second half of this fiscal year."

"Oracle's two cloud ERP businesses, Fusion ERP and NetSuite ERP, delivered a combined revenue growth rate of 32% in Q2," said Oracle CEO, Mark Hurd. "With nearly 6,000 Fusion ERP customers and over 16,000 NetSuite ERP customers, Oracle is the clear leader in cloud ERP. ERP has always been the largest segment of the enterprise applications business, so we have lots of room to grow as customers migrate from their traditional on-premise ERP to the Oracle Fusion ERP Cloud."

Further, the company declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.19 per share, payable on January 30 to shareholders as of January 16.

ORCL closed Monday's trading at $45.73, down $0.87 or 1.87%, on the Nasdaq. The stock, however, gained $1.97 or 4.31% in the after-hours trade.