Last updated: March 9th, 2023 at 6:27pm ET
Initial publication: March 9, 2023 at 4:14 p.m. ET
Oracle Corp.’s stock recouped some of their losses in Thursday’s extended session after the forecast sales range posted the Wall Street consensus as the software company’s largest business beat forecasts but the others did not.
Oracle ORCL shares are down about 3.5% hours after the forecast. Prior to the forecast, shares were down more than 5% and hovering around that level when an analyst conference call began. Oracle shares fell 1.8% in the regular session to close at $86.87.
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Oracle Corp.’s stock recouped some of their losses in Thursday’s extended session after the forecast sales range posted the Wall Street consensus as the software company’s largest business beat forecasts but the others did not.
Oracle ORCL shares are down about 3.5% hours after the forecast. Prior to the forecast, shares were down more than 5% and hovering around that level when an analyst conference call began. Oracle shares fell 1.8% in the regular session to close at $86.87.
Speaking to analysts, Oracle Chief Executive Safra Catz forecast fourth-quarter earnings of $1.56 to $1.60 per share on revenue growth of 15% to 17%, or $13.62 to $13.85 billion . Analysts polled by FactSet had estimated $1.47 per share on revenue of $13.75 billion.
This followed third-quarter results in which Oracle reported net income of $1.9 billion, or 68 cents a share, compared to $2.32 billion, or 84 cents a share, a year ago.
Adjusted earnings, which exclude stock-based compensation expense and other items, were $1.22 per share compared to $1.13 per share in the prior year period.
Revenue increased to $12.4 billion from $10.51 billion in the year-ago quarter.
Analysts had estimated earnings of $1.20 per share and revenue of $12.43 billion for the third quarter.
Oracle’s largest segment, cloud services and license support, rose 17% to $8.92 billion. Revenue from cloud licenses and on-premise licenses was flat at $1.29 billion year over year, while hardware revenue was up 2% to $811 million and services revenue was up 74% to 1.38 billion dollars increased.
Analysts had cloud services and license support revenue of $8.83 billion, cloud license and on-premise license revenue of $1.39 billion, hardware revenue of $815.5 million, and services revenue forecast of $1.43 billion.
“Since June of last year, when we acquired Cerner, this company has increased its healthcare contract base by approximately $5 billion,” Oracle chairman Larry Ellison said in a statement. “While we are pleased with this early success of the Cerner business, we expect new healthcare contract signings to accelerate over the next few quarters.”
Oracle’s board of directors also increased its quarterly dividend by 25% to 40 cents a share. The dividend will be paid on April 24 to shareholders of record on April 11.
Oracle shares are up 14% over the last 12 months, against a 14% decline in the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF IGV, while the S&P 500 index SPX is down 8% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index COMP is down 14% has fallen in this period.