Oracle Looks to Cruise Ahead After Solid Q2 Earnings

By Chris Lange Updated Jan 11, 1:34PM EST · Published Dec 18, 10:10AM EST

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Oracle Looks to Cruise Ahead After Solid Q2 Earnings — © peterkaminski / Flickr

Oracle Corp. (NYSE: ORCL) reported its most recent quarterly results after the markets closed on Monday and, overall, this software company did fairly well, considering market headwinds. Although the analyst sentiment after the fact has been mixed, investors pushed this stock even higher Tuesday morning.

The firm posted a solid beat, with $0.80 in earnings per share (EPS) and $9.56 billion in revenue, while consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters had called for $0.78 in EPS and $9.52 billion in revenue. The same period of last year reportedly had EPS of $0.70 on revenue of $9.63 billion.

Short-term deferred revenues were up 3% to $8.2 billion, compared to a year ago. Operating cash flow was up 5% to $15.2 billion over the trailing 12 months.

In terms of its segments, the company reported as follows:

Cloud Services and License Support revenues increased 5% year over year to $6.64 billion in constant currency.
Cloud License and On-Premise License revenues decreased 6% to $1.22 billion.
Hardware revenues decreased 3% to $891 million.
Services revenues decreased 2% to $817 million.

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Safra Catz, Oracle co-CEO, commented:

In Q2, non-GAAP earnings per share grew 19% in constant currency. In addition to our strong EPS growth, free cash flow grew 10% to $13.8 billion over the previous twelve months. I am confident that we will continue to record strong EPS and free cash flow growth during the second half of this fiscal year.

Mark Hurd, Oracle’s other CEO, added:

Oracle’s two cloud ERP businesses, Fusion ERP and NetSuite ERP, delivered a combined revenue growth rate of 32% in Q2. With nearly 6,000 Fusion ERP customers and over 16,000 NetSuite ERP customers, Oracle is the clear leader in cloud ERP. ERP has always been the largest segment of the enterprise applications business, so we have lots of room to grow as customers migrate from their traditional on-premise ERP to the Oracle Fusion ERP Cloud.

Shares of Oracle were up about 4% at $47.50 early Tuesday. The 52-week range of $42.57 to $53.48, and the consensus analyst price target is $52.90.

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About the Author Chris Lange →

Chris Lange is a writer for 24/7 Wall St., based in Houston. He has covered financial markets over the past decade with an emphasis on healthcare, tech, and IPOs. During this time, he has published thousands of articles with insightful analysis across these complex fields. Currently, Lange's focus is on military and geopolitical topics.

Lange's work has been quoted or mentioned in Forbes, The New York Times, Business Insider, USA Today, MSN, Yahoo, The Verge, Vice, The Intelligencer, Quartz, Nasdaq, The Motley Fool, Fox Business, International Business Times, The Street, Seeking Alpha, Barron’s, Benzinga, and many other major publications.

A graduate of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, Lange majored in business with a particular focus on investments. He has previous experience in the banking industry and startups.