Oracle Profit Beats Expectations, But Revenue Comes Up Short

Oracle Corp. released quarterly earnings Wednesday that beat profit expectations but were light on revenue. The Silicon Valley software giant reported net income of $1.75 billion, or 40 cents a share, on sales of $8.45 billion; after adjustments, Oracle claimed profit of 53 cents a share. Analysts expected adjusted profit of 52 cents a share on sales of $8.53 billion, according to a FactSet survey. The company's cloud revenue was disappointing, as Oracle looks to catch up to Salesforce and other software-as-a-service rivals: Oracle reported total cloud revenues of $611 million, while analysts expected $630 million on average. The company's cloud business accounted for 7% of Oracle's total sales, after being 5% in the same quarter last year. Shares bounced around in late trading immediately after the report, vacillating between gains and losses after closing with a 0.7% gain at $38.27.