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Oracle's profit looks fine, but sales? Not so much

Oracle met analysts' estimates of $0.53 per share but fell short of expected revenues by $210 million. Software sales were up six percent.

Andrew Nusca Special to CNET News
Andrew Nusca is the editor of SmartPlanet and an associate editor at ZDNet. He has written for New York, Men's Vogue, Popular Mechanics, and Money. He is based in New York.
Andrew Nusca
2 min read

Enterprise technology giant Oracle announced on Thursday first quarter earnings of 53 cents per share and revenues of $8.21 billion, matching analysts' estimates for share price but falling short of revenue expectations of $8.42 billion.

Despite the drop in sales, the company's net profits on a GAAP basis are up for the quarter ended in August. Shares fell by about 2 percent in after hours trading.

Here's a look at the numbers:

  • New software licenses & cloud software subscriptions revenues (GAAP) up 5 percent to $1.6 billion
  • Software license updates and product support revenues (GAAP) up 3 percent to $4.1 billion
  • Hardware systems products revenues (GAAP) down 24 [ercemt to $779 million
  • Operating income (GAAP) up 7 percent to $2.9 billion
  • Operating margin (GAAP) was 35 percent
  • Net income (GAAP) up 11 percent to $2.0 billion
  • Earnings per share (GAAP) were $0.41, up 15 percent year over year
  • Operating cash flow on a trailing twelve-month basis (GAAP) was $14.0 billion, up 9 percent year over year

The company said its earnings would have been a touch higher if the U.S. dollar hadn't strengthened relative to foreign currencies.

"Q1 operating cash flow increased to a record high of $5.7 billion," CFO Safra Catz said. "We're off to a good start in the new year."

President Mark Hurd added, "Exadata, Exalogic, Exalytics and our other engineered systems grew more than 100 percent in the quarter. For the full year, we expect to double engineered systems sales to well over $1 billion. Oracle's new cloud business is also approaching a $1 billion annual run rate. These two businesses will drive Oracle's growth for years to come."

The company said it plans to announce enhancements to its cloud offerings during its OpenWorld conference, to be held in just over a week's time. Those include CRM, ERP and HCM applications-as-a-service as well as additional database, Java and social network platform services. 

Finally, the company's board declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.06 per share of outstanding common stock, to be paid at close of business on October 12.

This item first appeared on ZDNet's Between the Lines blog under the headline "Oracle Q1 earnings: profit up, sales down to $8.21 billion."