Salesforce.com had plenty of good news to tell the markets Feb. 28 when it reported its fourth-quarter and fiscal-year earnings numbers and became a $3 billion company.
The giant cloud-service provider revealed that sales for its fiscal 2013 fourth quarter reached $834.68 million, up from $631.91 million a year earlier. The 32 percent jump is one of the highest top-line growth rates in all of U.S enterprises.
This financial performance easily cruised past Wall Street sales estimates of $831 million and helped send the stock up nearly 5 percent after the market close. Shares of Salesforce.com ended the regular session Feb. 28 at $169.22 before rising to $177 in after-hours trading.
For its fiscal 2013, the company reported revenue of $3.05 billion, an increase of 35 percent from the previous year.
Excluding items such as a one-time tax charge, Salesforce reported a fourth-quarter per-share profit of 51 cents, 11 cents better than what analysts had expected. The San Francisco-based cloud CRM and Web services provider reported a per-share profit of 43 cents a year earlier.
Salesforce projected revenue for the company’s first fiscal quarter of 2014 will range from $882 million to $887 million, an increase of 27 percent to 28 percent year-over-year. Revenue for the company’s full fiscal year is expected to be in the range of $3.82 billion to $3.87 billion, an increase of 25 percent to 27 percent year-over-year.
“During this fiscal year, we absolutely have that $4 billion revenue run rate in sight, and are very excited about that and definitely our short-term goal on the way to our $10 billion dream,” Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff said on a conference call to analysts.
Benioff said that in the fourth quarter, Salesforce signed more than 150 new deals worth at least $1 million apiece. Nine transactions were in the eight-figure range, he said.