On Monday, Oracle met Wall Street’s revenue targets for the first quarter as demand for its cloud services drove segment revenue by 45 per cent to US$3.6 billion and the healthcare acquisition of IT company Cerner began to pay off.
It reported adjusted earnings of $1.03 per share, compared with a Refinitiv IBES estimate of US$1.07, but said the figure would have been 8 cents higher if the strong dollar had not had a “significant impact.” Total revenue increased 17.7 per cent to US$11.45 billion, as expected.
Cerner contributed US$1.4 billion in the quarter, just months after Oracle acquired the company in a deal that unlocked data volumes from one of the largest healthcare IT companies in the U.S.
The company was able to attract more customers to its cloud platform, helping to mitigate the impact of a decline in corporate spending as companies become more frugal in the face of high inflation and a strong U.S. dollar.
Given the growing popularity of hybrid work around the world, Oracle has sought to expand its cloud offering and close the gap with rivals Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services.
Oracle expects revenue growth of between 21 per cent and 23 per cent on a currency-adjusted basis for the second quarter.
“Oracle’s advantage is its reliability, and I see opportunities for Oracle to maintain its customer base as they move processes to the cloud,” said CFRA Research vice president of equity research John Freeman.
The sources for this piece include an article in Reuters.