What happened
Shares of customer-relationship-platform company salesforce.com (CRM +0.41%) soared on Wednesday. Shares were up 10.3% by the end of the trading day.
While Salesforce likely benefited from an overall bullish day for tech stocks, the major catalyst propelling the stock higher on Wednesday was the company's fiscal 2019 third-quarter earnings release. Results for the period were ahead of expectations.
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So what
Salesforce reported third-quarter revenue of $3.39 billion, up 26% compared to the year-ago quarter. On average, analysts were expecting revenue of $3.37 billion. Adjusted earnings per share for the period came in at $0.61, beating a consensus forecast for $0.50.
"As you can see from our results, we had another great quarter as we continue to deliver strong growth, customer success, and execution at scale," said Salesforce co-CEO Keith Block about the quarter during the company's earnings call. Salesforce's momentum comes as companies continue to digitally transform their businesses, with many turning to Salesforce for help.
What now
Block is optimistic about the company's recent performance and its continued growth potential. "Given the strength of this quarter's results and the incredible customer demand we are seeing," Block said, "we are again raising our FY19 revenue guidance and initiating our full year fiscal 2020 revenue guidance at $16 billion at the high end of the range."
Specifically, management guided for fiscal 2020 revenue to be between $15.9 billion and $16 billion, representing 20% to 21% year-over-year growth over the $13.23 to $13.24 billion in revenue that management expects for fiscal 2019.
