Shares of Oracle Corp. rose after hours Monday after the IT and cloud infrastructure provider reported fiscal fourth-quarter results that topped expectations, helped by a jump in cloud revenue that executives said positioned the company well for the year to come.
The company reported fourth-quarter net income of $3.32 billion, or $1.19 a share, compared with $3.19 billion, or $1.16 a share, in the same quarter last year. Revenue rose 17% to $13.84 billion, compared with $11.84 billion in the prior-year quarter.
Excluding stock-based compensation, amortization and other charges, Oracle earned $1.67 a share, compared with $1.54 a year ago.
Analysts polled by FactSet expected Oracle to report adjusted earnings per share of $1.58, on revenue of $13.74 billion.
Oracle also declared a quarterly cash dividend of 40 cents a share. Revenue from Oracle’s cloud software and infrastructure services rose 54% during the quarter.
“So, both of our two strategic cloud businesses are getting bigger — and growing faster,” Chief Executive Safra Catz said in a statement. “That bodes well for another strong year in FY24.”
Oracle shares
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were up 4.8% after hours on Monday. The stock closed regular trading up 5.8% to $116.43, putting it at a record high.
Prior to the results, analysts were focused on Oracle’s cloud business — which has faced concerns about tighter tech budgets in IT departments as inflation raises concerns about the economy — as well as its AI potential, which has catapulted shares of other tech companies higher. More executives inside and outside of tech, hoping for a similar pop from investors, have been talking about AI on earnings calls more this year.
Earlier on Monday, Wolfe Research upgraded Oracle, saying its cloud business could double its market share by 2025 “on the backs of architectural advantages, partnerships” and generative AI.
UBS analysts also said they expected Oracle to highlight its cloud-AI partnership with chip maker Nvidia Corp.
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which analysts say is set to benefit from more AI development. Those expectations were confirmed on Monday, when Oracle management name-checked Nvidia in its earnings release.
“Nvidia themselves are using our clusters, including one with more than 4,000 GPUs, for their AI infrastructure,” Larry Ellison, Oracle’s co-founder and chief technology officer, said in the release.
Shares of Oracle have marched 81.7% higher over the past 12 months. The S&P 500 Index
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has risen 15.7% over that period.