Salesforce Announces Record First Quarter Fiscal 2019 Results

SAN FRANCISCO, May 29, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), the global leader in CRM, today announced results for its fiscal first quarter ended April 30, 2018. The company adopted ASC 606¹, ASC 340-40² and ASU 2016-01³ in the first quarter, and these results reflect the impact of these standards. The company also provided re-casted financial results under ASC 606 and ASC 340-40.

"Salesforce delivered more than $3 billion in revenue in the first quarter, surpassing a $12 billion annual revenue run rate," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, Salesforce. "Our relentless focus on customer success is yielding incredible results, including delivering nearly two billion AI predictions per day with Einstein."

Salesforce delivered the following results for its fiscal first quarter:

Revenue: Total first quarter revenue was $3.01 billion, an increase of 25% year-over-year, and 22% in constant currency. Subscription and support revenues were $2.81 billion, an increase of 27% year-over-year. Professional services and other revenues were $196 million, an increase of 4% year-over-year.

Earnings per Share: First quarter GAAP diluted earnings per share was $0.46, and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share was $0.74. Mark-to-market accounting of the company's strategic investments, required by ASU 2016-01, benefitted GAAP diluted earnings per share by $0.25 and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share by $0.22.

Cash: Cash generated from operations for the first quarter was $1.47 billion, an increase of 19% year-over-year. Total cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities finished the first quarter at $7.16 billion.

Unearned Revenue: Unearned revenue, representing ASC 605 deferred revenue less the cumulative timing differences of recognized revenue from ASC 606 adoption, on the balance sheet as of April 30, 2018 was $6.20 billion, an increase of 25% year-over-year, and 23% in constant currency.

Remaining Transaction Price: Remaining transaction price, representing future revenues that are under contract but have not yet been recognized, ended the first quarter at approximately $20.4 billion, an increase of 36% year-over-year. Current remaining transaction price, which represents the future revenues under contract expected to be recognized over the next 12 months, ended the first quarter at approximately $9.6 billion, an increase of 26% year-over-year.

As of May 29, 2018, the company is initiating revenue, earnings per share, and unearned revenue guidance for its second quarter of fiscal year 2019. In addition, the company is raising its full fiscal year 2019 revenue guidance and non-GAAP earnings per share guidance, and updating its GAAP earnings per share guidance and operating cash flow guidance for its full fiscal year 2019, previously provided on April 2, 2018. The guidance below does not reflect the future impact of ASU 2016-01 and is based on estimated GAAP tax rates that reflect the company's currently available information, including the anticipated impact of the new Tax Act and interpretations thereof, as well as other factors and assumptions. The GAAP tax rates may fluctuate due to recent acquisitions.

The following is a per share reconciliation of GAAP earnings per share to non-GAAP diluted earnings per share guidance for the next quarter and the full year:

For additional information regarding non-GAAP financial measures see the reconciliation of results and related explanations below.

Quarterly Conference Call
Salesforce will host a conference call at 2:00 p.m. (PT) / 5:00 p.m. (ET) today to discuss its financial results with the investment community.  A live web broadcast of the event will be available on the Salesforce Investor Relations website at www.salesforce.com/investor.  A live dial-in is available domestically at 866-901-SFDC or 866-901-7332 and internationally at 706-902-1764, passcode 9492699.  A replay will be available at (800) 585-8367 or (855) 859-2056 until midnight (ET) June 28, 2018.

About Salesforce
Salesforce, the global leader in CRM, empowers companies to connect with their customers in a whole new way. Salesforce has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "CRM." For more information about Salesforce, visit: www.salesforce.com.

"Safe harbor" statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995:  This press release contains forward-looking statements about our financial results, which may include expected GAAP and non-GAAP financial and other operating and non-operating results, including revenue, net income, diluted earnings per share, operating cash flow growth, operating margin improvement, unearned revenue (previously referred to as deferred revenue) growth, expected revenue growth, expected tax rates, stock-based compensation expenses, amortization of purchased intangibles, amortization of debt discount and shares outstanding.  The achievement or success of the matters covered by such forward-looking statements involves risks, uncertainties and assumptions.  If any such risks or uncertainties materialize or if any of the assumptions prove incorrect, the company's results could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements we make.

The risks and uncertainties referred to above include -- but are not limited to -- risks associated with the effect of general economic and market conditions; the impact of foreign currency exchange rate and interest rate fluctuations on our results; our business strategy and our plan to build our business, including our strategy to be the leading provider of enterprise cloud computing applications and platforms; the pace of change and innovation in enterprise cloud computing services; the competitive nature of the market in which we participate; our international expansion strategy; our service performance and security, including the resources and costs required to prevent, detect and remediate potential security breaches; the expenses associated with new data centers and third-party infrastructure providers; additional data center capacity; real estate and office facilities space; our operating results and cash flows; new services and product features; our strategy of acquiring or making investments in complementary businesses, joint ventures, services, technologies and intellectual property rights; the performance and fair value of our investments in complementary businesses through our strategic investment portfolio; our ability to realize the benefits from strategic partnerships and investments; our ability to successfully integrate acquired businesses and technologies, including the operations of MuleSoft, Inc.; our ability to continue to grow and maintain unearned revenue and remaining transaction price (previously referred to as deferred revenue and unbilled deferred revenue); our ability to protect our intellectual property rights; our ability to develop our brands; our reliance on third-party hardware, software and platform providers; our dependency on the development and maintenance of the infrastructure of the Internet; the effect of evolving domestic and foreign government regulations, including those related to the provision of services on the Internet, those related to accessing the Internet, and those addressing data privacy and import and export controls; the valuation of our deferred tax assets; the potential availability of additional tax assets in the future; the impact of new accounting pronouncements and tax laws, including the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and interpretations thereof; uncertainties affecting our ability to estimate our non-GAAP tax rate; the impact of expensing stock options and other equity awards; the sufficiency of our capital resources; factors related to our outstanding debt, revolving credit facility, term loan and loan associated with 50 Fremont; compliance with our debt covenants and capital lease obligations; current and potential litigation involving us; and the impact of climate change.

Further information on these and other factors that could affect the company's financial results is included in the reports on Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K and in other filings we make with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time.  These documents are available on the SEC Filings section of the Investor Information section of the company's website at www.salesforce.com/investor.

Salesforce.com, inc. assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

© 2018 salesforce.com, inc.  All rights reserved.  Salesforce and other marks are trademarks of salesforce.com, inc.  Other brands featured herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures:  This press release includes information about non-GAAP diluted earnings per share, non-GAAP tax rates, non-GAAP free cash flow, and constant currency revenue and constant currency unearned revenue growth rates (collectively the "non-GAAP financial measures"). These non-GAAP financial measures are measurements of financial performance that are not prepared in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles and computational methods may differ from those used by other companies. Non-GAAP financial measures are not meant to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for comparable GAAP measures and should be read only in conjunction with the company's consolidated financial statements prepared in accordance with GAAP. Management uses both GAAP and non-GAAP measures when planning, monitoring, and evaluating the company's performance.

The primary purpose of using non-GAAP measures is to provide supplemental information that may prove useful to investors and to enable investors to evaluate the company's results in the same way management does. Management believes that supplementing GAAP disclosure with non-GAAP disclosure provides investors with a more complete view of the company's operational performance and allows for meaningful period-to-period comparisons and analysis of trends in the company's business. Further, to the extent that other companies use similar methods in calculating non-GAAP measures, the provision of supplemental non-GAAP information can allow for a comparison of the company's relative performance against other companies that also report non-GAAP operating results.

Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share excludes, to the extent applicable, the impact of the following items:  stock-based compensation, amortization of acquisition-related intangibles, and the net amortization of debt discount on the company's convertible senior notes, as well as income tax adjustments.  These items are excluded because the decisions that give rise to them are not made to increase revenue in a particular period, but instead for the company's long-term benefit over multiple periods. 

Specifically, management is excluding the following items from its non-GAAP earnings per share, as applicable, for the periods presented in the Q1 FY19 financial statements and for its non-GAAP estimates for Q2 and FY19:

• Stock-Based Expenses: The company's compensation strategy includes the use of stock-based compensation to attract and retain employees and executives. It is principally aimed at aligning their interests with those of our stockholders and at long-term employee retention, rather than to motivate or reward operational performance for any particular period. Thus, stock-based compensation expense varies for reasons that are generally unrelated to operational decisions and performance in any particular period.
• Amortization of Purchased Intangibles and Acquired Leases: The company views amortization of acquisition- and building-related intangible assets, such as the amortization of the cost associated with an acquired company's research and development efforts, trade names, customer lists and customer relationships, and acquired lease intangibles, as items arising from pre-acquisition activities determined at the time of an acquisition. While these intangible assets are continually evaluated for impairment, amortization of the cost of purchased intangibles is a static expense, one that is not typically affected by operations during any particular period.
• Amortization of Debt Discount: Under GAAP, certain convertible debt instruments that may be settled in cash (or other assets) on conversion are required to be separately accounted for as liability (debt) and equity (conversion option) components of the instrument in a manner that reflects the issuer's non-convertible debt borrowing rate. Accordingly, for GAAP purposes we are required to recognize imputed interest expense on the company's $1.15 billion of convertible senior notes due in April 2018 that were issued in a private placement in March 2013. The imputed interest rate was approximately 2.5% for the convertible notes due 2018, while the actual coupon interest rate of the notes was 0.25%. The difference between the imputed interest expense and the coupon interest expense, net of the interest amount capitalized, is excluded from management's assessment of the company's operating performance because management believes that this non-cash expense is not indicative of ongoing operating performance.
• Gains on Strategic Investments, net: Upon adoption of 2016-01, the company is required to record all fair value adjustments to its equity securities held within the strategic investment portfolio through the statement of operations. As a result of potential and unknown market volatility, the company excludes any potential future gains or losses on its strategic investment portfolio from its GAAP and non-GAAP estimates for future periods.
• Income Tax Effects and Adjustments: The company utilizes a fixed long-term projected non-GAAP tax rate in order to provide better consistency across the interim reporting periods by eliminating the effects of items such as changes in the tax valuation allowance and tax effects of acquisitions-related costs, since each of these can vary in size and frequency. When projecting this long-term rate, the company evaluated a three-year financial projection that excludes the direct impact of the following non-cash items: stock-based expenses, amortization of purchased intangibles, and amortization of debt discount. The projected rate also assumes no new acquisitions in the three-year period, and considers other factors including the company's expected tax structure, its tax positions in various jurisdictions and key legislation in major jurisdictions where the company operates. For fiscal 2019, the company uses a projected non-GAAP tax rate of 21.5 percent, which reflects currently available information, including the anticipated impact of the Tax Act and interpretations thereof, as well as other factors and assumptions. The non-GAAP tax rate could be subject to change for a variety of reasons, including the company's ongoing analysis of the Tax Act over the measurement period, the rapidly evolving global tax environment, significant changes in the company's geographic earnings mix including due to acquisition activity, or other changes to the company's strategy or business operations. The company will re-evaluate its long-term rate as appropriate.

The company defines the non-GAAP measure free cash flow as GAAP net cash provided by operating activities, less capital expenditures.  For this purpose, capital expenditures does not include our strategic investments, nor does it include any costs or activities related to our purchase of 50 Fremont land and building, and building - leased facilities.

Supplemental Revenue Analysis

Remaining Transaction Price

Topic 606 introduced remaining transaction price, which is different than unbilled deferred revenue under previous accounting guidance. Transaction price allocated to the remaining performance obligations represents contracted revenue that has not yet been recognized, which includes unearned revenue and unbilled amounts that will be recognized as revenue in future periods. Transaction price allocated to the remaining performance obligation is influenced by several factors, including seasonality, the timing of renewals, average contract terms and foreign currency exchange rates. Unbilled portions of the remaining transaction price denominated in foreign currencies are revalued each period based on the period end exchange rates.

As with unbilled deferred revenue under previous accounting guidance, the portion of the remaining transaction price that is unbilled is not recorded on the balance sheet. Remaining transaction price consisted of the following (in billions):

Constant Currency Growth Rates

The Company presents constant currency information to provide a framework for assessing how the Company's underlying business performed excluding the effect of foreign currency rate fluctuations. To present this information, current and comparative prior period results for entities reporting in currencies other than United States dollars are converted into United States dollars at the weighted average exchange rate for the quarter being compared to for growth rate calculations presented, rather than the actual exchange rates in effect during that period.

Revenue constant currency growth rates (as compared to the comparable prior periods as adjusted for Topic 606) were as follows:

The Company presents constant currency information for unearned revenue to provide a framework for assessing how the Company's underlying business performed excluding the effects of foreign currency rate fluctuations.  To present the information, the Company converted the unearned revenue balances in local currencies in previous comparable periods using the United States dollar currency exchange rate as of the most recent balance sheet date.

Unearned revenue constant currency growth rates (as compared to the comparable prior periods as adjusted for Topic 606) were as follows:

salesforce.com, inc.
Select Adjusted Financial Information

Adoption of New Accounting Pronouncement

In May 2014, the Financial Accounting Standards Board ("FASB") issued Accounting Standards Update No. 2014-09, "Revenue from Contracts with Customers (Topic 606)" ("ASU 2014-09"), which amended the existing FASB Accounting Standards Codification, replaces existing revenue recognition guidance with a comprehensive revenue measurement and recognition standard and expanded disclosure requirements. The standard also provides guidance on the recognition of costs related to obtaining customer contracts. ASU 2014-09, as amended, was effective for the beginning of fiscal 2019, including interim periods within that reporting period.

The Company adopted the requirements of the new standard as of February 1, 2018, utilizing the full retrospective method of transition. Adoption of the new standard resulted in changes to the Company's accounting policies for revenue recognition and costs capitalized to obtain revenue contracts, net. The Company applied the new standard using a practical expedient where the consideration allocated to the remaining performance obligations or an explanation of when it expects to recognize that amount as revenue for all reporting periods presented before the date of the initial application is not disclosed.

Refer to the Company's Form 10-K filed with the SEC on March 9, 2018 for additional information.

The following select financial information is on a basis consistent with the new standard for fiscal year 2018 and 2017 and the first, second, third and fourth fiscal quarters of 2018.

The following table reflects GAAP results reconciled to non-GAAP results: