Salesforce Announces Record Third Quarter Fiscal 2020 Results

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), the global leader in CRM, today announced results for its fiscal third quarter ended October 31, 2019.

"We're now on track to double our revenue in five years," said Marc Benioff, Chairman and co-CEO, Salesforce. "With Customer 360, only Salesforce is providing companies with a single source of truth, bringing them even closer to their customers across every touchpoint."

"We had strong growth across our clouds and regions in the quarter as more companies turn to Salesforce as a trusted advisor in their digital transformations," said Keith Block, co-CEO, Salesforce. "With these trusted customer relationships, continuous innovation and our phenomenal Trailblazer ecosystem, we have never been better positioned for the future."

Salesforce delivered the following results for its fiscal third quarter:

Revenue: Total third quarter revenue was $4.5 billion, an increase of 33% year-over-year, and 34% in constant currency. Subscription and support revenues were $4.24 billion, an increase of 34% year-over-year. Professional services and other revenues were $274 million, an increase of 22% year-over-year.

Earnings per Share: Third quarter GAAP loss per share was $0.12, and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share was $0.75. Mark-to-market accounting of the company's strategic investments, required by ASU 2016-01, benefited GAAP loss per share by $0.01 based on a U.S. tax rate of 25% and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share by $0.01 based on a non-GAAP tax rate of 22.5%.

Cash: Cash generated from operations for the third quarter was $298 million, an increase of 108% year-over-year. Total cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities ended the third quarter at $6.53 billion.

Remaining Performance Obligation: Remaining performance obligation ended the third quarter at approximately $25.9 billion, an increase of 22% year-over-year. Current remaining performance obligation ended the third quarter at approximately $12.8 billion, an increase of 28% year-over-year, 28% in constant currency.

As of December 3, 2019, the company is initiating revenue, earnings per share and current remaining performance obligation growth guidance for its fourth quarter of fiscal year 2020. The company is maintaining its revenue guidance previously provided on November 20, 2019, and raising its GAAP earnings per share guidance, non-GAAP earnings per share guidance, and operating cash flow guidance previously provided on August 22, 2019 for the full fiscal year 2020. The company is initiating revenue guidance for its first quarter of fiscal year 2021. The company is maintaining its revenue guidance previously provided on November 20, 2019 for full fiscal year 2021.

This guidance assumes no change to the value of the company's strategic investment portfolio resulting from ASU 2016-01 as it is not possible to forecast future gains and losses. In addition, the guidance below is based on estimated GAAP tax rates that reflect the company's currently available information, and excludes forecasted discrete tax items such as excess tax benefits from stock-based compensation. The GAAP tax rates may fluctuate due to future acquisitions or other transactions.

The following is a per share reconciliation of GAAP diluted (loss) 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 webcast 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 5494828.  A replay will be available at (800) 585-8367 or (855) 859-2056 until midnight (ET) Jan. 2, 2020.

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 the company's financial and operating 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, expected revenue growth, expected current remaining performance obligation growth, expected tax rates, the one-time accounting non-cash charge that was incurred in connection with the Salesforce.org combination; stock-based compensation expenses, amortization of purchased intangibles, shares outstanding, market growth and sustainability goals.  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 it makes.

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 geopolitical events; 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 seasonal nature of our sales cycles; the competitive nature of the market in which we participate; our international expansion strategy; the demands on our personnel and infrastructure resulting from significant growth in our customer base and operations, including as a result of acquisitions; our service performance and security, including the resources and costs required to avoid unanticipated downtime and prevent, detect and remediate potential security breaches; the expenses associated with our 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, including any efforts to expand our services beyond the CRM market; 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, joint ventures and investments; the impact of future gains or losses from our strategic investment portfolio, including gains or losses from overall market conditions that may affect the publicly traded companies within our strategic investment portfolio; our ability to execute our business plans; our ability to successfully integrate acquired businesses and technologies; our ability to continue to grow unearned revenue and remaining performance obligation; 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, cross-border data transfers and import and export controls; the valuation of our deferred tax assets and the release of related valuation allowances; the potential availability of additional tax assets in the future; the impact of new accounting pronouncements and tax laws; uncertainties affecting our ability to estimate our tax rate; uncertainties regarding our tax obligations in connection with potential jurisdictional transfers of intellectual property, including the tax rate, the timing of the transfer and the value of such transferred intellectual property; 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 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 it makes 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.

© 2019 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.

Supplemental Revenue Analysis

Remaining Performance Obligation

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.

The portion of the remaining performance obligation that is unbilled is not recorded on the balance sheet. Remaining performance obligation consisted of the following (in billions):

Unearned Revenue

Unearned revenue represents amounts that have been invoiced in advance of revenue recognition and is recognized as revenue when transfer of control to customers has occurred or services have been provided. The change in unearned revenue was as follows (in millions):

Disaggregation of Revenue
Subscription and Support Revenue by the Company's service offerings
Subscription and support revenues consisted of the following (in millions):

The above subscription and support revenue includes approximately $308 million of revenue contributed from the acquisition of Tableau for the period, reflected in Salesforce Platform and Other.

Total Revenue by Geographic Locations

Revenues by geographical region consisted of the following (in millions):

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 were as follows:

The Company presents constant currency information for current remaining performance obligation 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 current remaining performance obligation balances in local currencies in previous comparable periods using the United States dollar currency exchange rate as of the most recent balance sheet date.

Current remaining performance obligation constant currency growth rates were as follows:

Supplemental Strategic Investment Information
Gains on strategic investments, net

All fair value adjustments of the Company's publicly traded and privately held equity investments are recorded through the statement of operations. Therefore, the Company anticipates additional volatility to the Company's statements of operations in future periods, due to changes in market prices of the Company's investments in publicly held equity investments and the valuation and timing of observable price changes and impairments of the Company's investments in privately held securities. These changes could be material based on market conditions and events. The results for the current fiscal period are not indicative of the results to be expected for any subsequent quarter or fiscal year.

Gains and losses recognized on strategic investments were as follows (in millions):

Supplemental Debt Information

The carrying values of the Company's borrowings were as follows (in millions):

Reported GAAP loss per share was calculated using the basic share count. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share was calculated using the diluted share count which includes approximately 19 million shares of dilutive securities related to employee stock awards.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures:  This press release includes information about non-GAAP diluted earnings per share, non-GAAP tax rates and constant currency revenue and constant currency current remaining performance obligation 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 previously 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 Q3 FY20 financial statements and for its non-GAAP estimates for Q4 and FY20:

• 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: The company views amortization of acquisition-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 in some cases, 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, which is not typically affected by operations during any particular period. Although we exclude the amortization of purchased intangibles from these non-GAAP measures, management believes that it is important for investors to understand that such intangible assets were recorded as part of purchase accounting and contribute to revenue generation.
• Gains on Strategic Investments, net: Upon the adoption of Accounting Standards Update 2016-01 on February 1, 2018, 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 it is not possible to forecast future gains and losses, the company assumes no change to the value of its strategic investment portfolio in 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 acquisition-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 and the amortization of purchased intangibles. 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 2020, the company uses a projected non-GAAP tax rate of 22.5%, which reflects currently available information, as well as other factors and assumptions. The non-GAAP tax rate could be subject to change for a variety of reasons, including the rapidly evolving global tax environment, significant changes in the company's geographic earnings mix 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.  

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SOURCE Salesforce