Despite reporting stronger guidance than expected by analysts, Salesforce highlighted that market uncertainty continues to pressure its future growth prospects.
Salesforce Inc (NYSE: CRM), a leading American cloud-based software company, announced several announcements on Wednesday, including fiscal Q2 2024 ended July 31, 2023. According to the announcement, Salesforce recorded an adjusted earnings per share of $2.12 during the second quarter compared to $1.90 expected by analysts surveyed by Refinitiv. During the three months that preceded the end of July, Salesforce recorded a revenue of $8.60 billion, compared to $8.53 billion forecasted by analysts.
As a result, Salesforce shares closed Wednesday trading at $215.04, up 1.45 percent from the day’s opening price. The CRM gains on Wednesday continued during the after-hours trading session with a jump of about 5.61 percent. Worth noting that CRM shares have gained about 62 percent YTD to a market capitalization of approximately $206.45 billion.
Closer Look at Salesforce Fiscal Q2 2024 Results
According to the Salesforce quarterly report, the Q2 revenue jumped approximately 11 percent YoY. In a bid to strengthen its shareholders, the company conducted a share repurchase program of about $1.9 billion. Notably, the company’s subscription and support sectors reported the highest revenues of about $8.01 billion, an increase of 12 percent YoY.
The professional services and other revenues came in at about $0.60 billion, an increase of 3 percent YoY. Notably, the company reported a net income of about $1.27 billion during the second quarter, thus representing $1.28 per share, from $68 million, or 7 cents per share, during the same quarter last year.
Amid the artificial intelligence (AI) hype, Salesforce has allocated significant resources to ensure customer satisfaction.
“As the #1 AI CRM, with industry-leading clouds, Einstein, Data Cloud, MuleSoft, Slack, and Tableau, all integrated on one trusted, unified platform, we’re leading our customers into the new AI era,” Marc Benioff, Chair and CEO of Salesforce, noted.
Forward, the company highlighted that the economic uncertainty has presented increased pressure on its performance. Speaking with analysts during a conference call, Salesforce finance chief Amy Weaver, highlighted that the company’s future growth prospects are under pressure from market uncertainty.
“We are still seeing elongated sales cycles, additional deal approval layers, and deal compression in our subscription and support and professional-services businesses,” Weaver stated.
For the third quarter, the company expects to report adjusted earnings per share of between $2.05 to $2.06 on revenue of about $8.7 billion to $8.72 billion. The company’s forecast outshined analysts’ expectations of adjusted earnings per share of $1.83 on revenue of approximately $8.66 billion, according to a survey conducted by Refinitiv.
For the full year, the company expects to report an adjusted earnings per share of between $8.04 and $8.06 on a revenue of between $34.7 billion to $34.8 billion, according to a survey conducted by Refinitiv.
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