Oracle results top estimates on cloud boom
Cloud and enterprise software firm Oracle Corp topped Wall Street estimates for quarterly profit and revenue on Monday, as more businesses increased spending on cloud services while transitioning to a hybrid work environment.
Shares in the Austin, Texas-based company, which have declined about 27 per cent so far this year, rose nearly 9 per cent in extended trade.
Oracle's total cloud revenue, which includes its infrastructure-as-a-service and software-as-a-service businesses, rose 3 per cent to US$7.61 billion.
"We believe that this revenue growth spike indicates that our infrastructure business has now entered a hyper-growth phase," Oracle Chief Executive Officer Safra Catz said in a statement.
Catz attributed the jump in revenue to the company's Fusion and NetSuite cloud applications and high demand for its infrastructure cloud business.
The company has been expanding its data centre operations across the world as it seeks to capture the rise in demand for cloud computing and enterprise software. Oracle is striving to increase its cloud regions, or geographical areas that allow customers to get faster access from a local data centre, to better compete with firms such as Microsoft, Amazon.com and Alphabet's Google.
Revenue for the fourth quarter ended May 31 grew 5 per cent to US$11.84 billion, above analysts' average estimate of US$11.66 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Excluding items, the company earned US$1.54 per share, beating estimates of US$1.37 per share.
