Investing.com — Shares in Oracle (NYSE:) rose sharply in premarket trading in the US after the group reported better-than-expected first-quarter fiscal results, driven by strong demand for its cloud business.
The Texas-based cloud services company also said it has signed a strategic partnership with Amazon (NASDAQ:) Web Services that will give customers access to Oracle Autonomous Database and Oracle Exadata Database Service within AWS.
The announcement comes after Oracle previously said it had entered into new partnerships with Microsoft-backed ChatGPT maker OpenAI and Google (NASDAQ:) Cloud in an effort to expand the reach of its artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Oracle, which has already spent heavily on chips from AI darling Nvidia (NASDAQ:), is banking on ramping up its cloud business to counter stiff competition from rivals such as Microsoft (NASDAQ:)’s Azure unit and AWS.
Speaking after the earnings results, Chief Executive Officer Safra Catz said Oracle’s database is “thriving,” adding that the cloud agreements it has signed “with Microsoft, Google and AWS make it easier for our customers to run their Oracle databases in the to make the future tick. cloud.”
Analysts at Bernstein praised the partnerships, predicting they will lead to “nice cloud revenue growth and growth acceleration” for Oracle. They added that Oracle remains a “defensive name to own” at a time of broader economic uncertainty.
Oracle posted adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $1.39 on revenue of $13.3 billion in the three months ended August 31. Analysts polled by Investing.com expected earnings of $1.33 per share on revenue of $13.23 billion.
Total remaining performance obligation, a key measure of booked revenue, reached $99 billion, an increase of 53% compared to the same period last year. Analysts at Barclays also noted that the figure rose from the previous quarter, saying this “usually doesn’t happen” in a typically “smaller” first quarter.
For the second quarter, the company expected revenue growth of 8% to 10%, beating analyst estimates of 8.72% at the midpoint, according to LSEG data cited by Reuters.
Catz, meanwhile, reiterated Oracle’s previously stated goal of achieving full-year revenue growth in the “double digits” and growing total cloud infrastructure revenue faster than the previous year.
Yasin Ebrahim contributed to this report.
