Following the bell, Oracle announced the results of its fiscal third quarter, including revenue of $9.3 billion and earnings per share of $0.68. Investors expected the software company to earn $0.68 per share on revenue of $9.46 billion.
The company stressed the impact that a quickly changing currency market had on its earnings: Using stable currency exchange rates, Oracle noted that would have posted a 6 percent increase in revenue, and a 9 percent increase in profit. Oracle is not alone among large companies blaming forex for short term-EPS and revenue tightening.
The company’s $9.3 billion is flat from its year-ago period. Down just over a percent in regular trading, Oracle is down a fraction following its mixed earnings.
The street expects the company to earn $2.95 per share on full fiscal-year revenue of $39.09 billion. Investors also expect Oracle to ring up $0.94 in fourth quarter profit on revenue of $11.43 billion.
Key to Oracle are its cloud incomes. In its preceding quarter, the second of the company’s fiscal 2015, Oracle reported that its “Cloud software-as-a-service (SaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) revenue was up 45% to $516 million.” In the current quarter, Oracle reported a slower growth rate for the category, 29 percent on a year-over-year basis, but more total revenue: $527 million.
Oracle has $13.7 billion in cash, and just over $30 billion in marketable securities. The company, therefore, with its fresh co-CEOs, is very well-capitalized.
Investors seem content with Oracle’s quarter, even if its raw figures on the top line were below expectations. Given that, the firm would have had a strong quarter, beating expectations on both profit and revenue. Of course, analysts likely anticipated at least part of the forex issues Oracle encountered, but the delta remains interesting.