On Aug. 29, salesforce.com (CRM +2.36%) reported fiscal 2019 second-quarter results. The enterprise software giant is enjoying a strong growth in revenue and profits, boosted by recent acquisitions.
Salesforce.com results: The raw numbers
|
Metric |
Q2 2019 |
Q2 2018 |
Year-Over-Year Change |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Revenue |
$3.281 billion |
$2.577 billion |
27% |
|
Operating cash flow |
$458 million |
$331 million |
38% |
|
Earnings per share |
$0.39 |
$0.06 |
512% |
Data source: Salesforce.com Q2 2019 earnings release.
What happened with Salesforce.com this quarter?
Even as a $150 billion company, Salesforce shows no signs of slowing down. Revenue jumped 27% year over year to $3.3 billion, fueled by robust growth across Salesforce's business lines and geographic segments.
Sales cloud revenue rose 13% to $1 billion, while service cloud revenue leapt 27% to $0.9 billion. Marketing and commerce cloud revenue climbed 37% to $0.5 billion, while platform and other revenue surged 54% to $0.7 billion. Moreover, revenue in Salesforce's Americas, EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa), and APAC (Asia Pacific) segments increased 25%, 35%, and 29%, respectively.
Better still, Salesforce growth should remain robust in the quarters ahead. Unearned revenue -- essentially business that's been booked but not yet fulfilled -- rose 24% to $5.9 billion. And remaining performance obligation, which represents future revenue that's under contract but not yet recognized, increased 36% to $21 billion.
Salesforce's results are being boosted by its recent acquisition of leading application integration platform MuleSoft. Co-CEO Keith Block had this to say regarding MuleSoft's impact during a conference call with analysts:
This is our first full quarter with MuleSoft, which is off to a fast start. The MuleSoft Anypoint Platform has become people's favorite for digital transformation. It's in every conversation we have with senior executives.
Chairman and co-CEO Marc Benioff added:
And as more and more companies connect everything and everyone, they're realizing that integration is vital to their success and to their digital transformation, and now they're turning to Salesforce MuleSoft, the No. 1 integration cloud, to do it.
In all, MuleSoft contributed $122 million in revenue in the second quarter.
Businesses are increasingly turning to Salesforce for their cloud data integration needs. Image source: Getty Images.
Salesforce is also growing more profitable as its revenue base expands. Non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) operating margins improved by almost 1.8 percentage points year over year to 17.8%, as non-GAAP operating income -- which excludes stock-based compensation expense -- rose 41% to $585 million.
All told, non-GAAP earnings per share soared 98% to $0.71.
Looking forward
Salesforce once again raised its full-year financial forecast, which now includes:
- Revenue of $13.125 billion to $13.175 billion, up from a previous estimate of $13.075 billion to $13.125 billion, and signifying year-over-year growth of 25%
- Non-GAAP EPS of $2.50 to $2.52, up from $2.29 to $2.31
For the third quarter, Salesforce expects revenue to rise 25%, to between $3.355 billion and $3.365 billion. The company is also guiding for third-quarter non-GAAP EPS of $0.49 to $0.50. Unearned revenue, meanwhile, is projected to increase by about 20%.
"With this strong quarter, we're well on our way to our next milestone of $23 billion in revenue in FY22," added Block.
