Oracle Corp. (NYSE:ORCL) reported strong quarterly results that topped analysts’ estimates as demand soared for its cloud-computing services.
Oracle said fiscal first-quarter sales rose 1.6% to $9.37 billion U.S. Analysts had estimated $9.19 billion U.S., according to data from Bloomberg. Oracle’s revenue had declined 6% year-over-year in the previous three-month period.
Executive Chairman Larry Ellison and Chief Executive Officer Safra Catz have tried to revamp Oracle’s business model for a new era of computing in which software is delivered through the internet rather than shipped in boxes.
Oracle’s latest bet is to try to acquire the U.S. assets of video-sharing platform TikTok, owned by China’s Bytedance. The deal could give the world’s second-biggest software maker another anchor for its public cloud services that rival Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT), as well as provide a huge amount of consumer data that Oracle could sell to advertisers.
After years of largely going it alone, Oracle has signed more partnerships with other software makers in an effort to make its cloud services more appealing and useful to corporate customers. While it lost a bid to supply cloud services to the U.S. Defense Department, the company’s partnership with Microsoft, which is also in the running to buy TikTok, means that it could one day supply cloud software to the Pentagon.
Oracle’s quarterly profit was 93 cents a share in the quarter that ended August 31, compared with analysts’ average estimate of 86 cents. The company’s shares gained more than 3% in extended trading after the results were announced on Thursday. Earlier, the stock closed at $57.33 U.S. in New York trading, and have risen a total of 8.2% this year.
