Salesforce Stock (NYSE:CRM)
In the premarket trading session on Thursday, shares of Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) fell, despite the fact that the company reported results for its fiscal first quarter that ended on April 30 that was better than expected.
Investors are dissatisfied because the provider of cloud-based software did not raise its outlook for full-year revenue despite the fact that the first quarter exceeded expectations. During a conference call following the release of the company’s quarterly earnings, CEO Marc Benioff stated that “while the economy is not under our control, our margins are.”
Benioff also devoted a considerable amount of time during the call to discussing the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) software offerings; however, it is not clear how these developments will affect growth or when they will take place.
In premarket trading the morning after the earnings report and conference call, Salesforce stock (NYSE:CRM) was trading 7.2% lower than it had been the previous day.
In an interview with Barron’s, the Chief Financial Officer of Salesforce, Amy Weaver, stated that the company had a “solid quarter,” which was characterized by a significant improvement in operating margins. She points out that the non-GAAP operating margin of 27.6% was approximately two points ahead of the consensus, and it was 10 percentage points better than the same quarter a year earlier.
However, Weaver also stated that there are a few reasons why she is taking a conservative approach to providing guidance for full-year revenue. In particular, she draws attention to the fact that the company is still facing challenging macro conditions. She stated that the April quarter was comparable to the January quarter in this regard; however, Salesforce experienced some additional tightening on professional services revenue as a result of customers shifting their focus to projects that can generate returns more quickly.
Weaver also mentioned that the Mulesoft division of the company was a “standout” in terms of performance during the April quarter, whereas the Commerce, Marketing, and Slack divisions had weaker results. She claims that the result does not come as a surprise, as she anticipated that customers would spend less money in areas where they had more leeway to cut costs.
Salesforce reported revenue of $8.25 billion for the quarter, an increase of 11% from the previous year or 13% when measured in constant currency. That is slightly higher than the upper end of the company’s guidance range, which was $8.18 billion, as well as the consensus estimate on Wall Street, which was $8.14 billion.
The company earned $1.69 per share after adjusting for certain factors, which is better than the top end of the guidance range by 8 cents and better than the consensus estimate on the market by 10 cents. According to the rules of generally accepted accounting, the business made a profit of 20 cents per share during the quarter. The total amount of current remaining performance obligations was $24.1 billion, representing a 12% increase.
Salesforce anticipates revenue for the July quarter in the range of $8.51 billion to $8.53 billion, which is an increase of 10% and is in line with the estimate of $8.49 billion provided by Wall Street. The company reaffirmed its full-year revenue guidance, which is in the range of $34.5 billion to $34.7 billion, but raised its expectations for the operating margins for the full year.
Weaver notes that the company repurchased stock worth $2.1 billion during the quarter, bringing the total amount it has spent on stock repurchases to $6 billion since it began a program to do so in August of last year.
The January quarter was a record-breaking one for Salesforce, with results that were superior to those anticipated and guidance that was increased.
In addition, Salesforce, a market leader in cloud-based enterprise software, announced the expansion of its stock repurchase program. After five activist investors purchased shares of the company, the board of directors also established a “business transformation committee” at the board level. The board of directors later decided to dissolve a committee that was focused on mergers and acquisitions. When you factor in the company’s recent announcements regarding its plans for artificial intelligence, the groundwork was laid for a significant shift.
Following the release of those earnings on March 1, the share price of Salesforce has increased by 32%.
Featured Image: Megapixl
