Shares of enterprise software giant Oracle (ORCL 0.22%) are going through choppy trading in after-hours action following the release of Oracle's second-quarter results.
Non-GAAP earnings increased 7% year over year to $0.69 per share, ahead of Wall Street's $0.67 target. Revenue increased 2% to $9.3 billion, edging out analysts' $9.2 billion estimate. Both earnings and sales were held back by currency exchange effects as the dollar strengthened against other major currencies in the last year.
Falling hardware sales were canceled out by rising hardware support contracts. Sales of new software licenses came in flat but Oracle notched a 6% increase in license renewals.
Oracle shares jumped as much as 3.5% higher on this release, but also plunged as much as 2.7%. This jumpy action follows on a 2.9% gain in Wednesday's regular session. Oracle shares have seen a rocky ride in 2013, bouncing between $30 and $36 in several sharp reversals.
The earnings release did not provide any forward guidance. Management did say that hardware products should show revenue growth next quarter, thanks to a new line of SPARC-branded big-data appliances and strong demand for Exadata storage products.
