Salesforce’s third-quarter revenue beats on strong cloud demand

SALESFORCE beat Wall Street estimates for third-quarter revenue on Tuesday (Dec 3) and raised the lower end of its annual revenue forecast, helped by robust spending on its enterprise cloud portfolio, sending its shares up 7 per cent in extended trading.

Client spending on Salesforce’s software products and data cloud has remained healthy as companies seek to streamline and enhance their corporate workflows and process large quantities of data while integrating artificial intelligence (AI).

The company’s revenue for the third quarter rose 8 per cent to US$9.44 billion, beating the average analyst estimate of US$9.35 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.

Salesforce has been betting big on its new Agentforce product to help reinvigorate growth rates, joining other tech companies such as Microsoft in developing AI agents that can autonomously complete tasks.

The Agentforce platform is underpinned by the company’s data cloud which continues to perform strongly and is the fastest-growing organic product in its history, the company said in August.

Rivals such as data analytics provider Snowflake and software firm ServiceNow gave upbeat revenue forecasts, reflecting the burgeoning demand for AI software services and growing client budgets.

Salesforce now expects revenue between US$37.8 billion and US$38 billion, compared with its prior forecast range of US$37.7 billion to US$38 billion.

It also nudged up its forecast for full-year operating margin to 19.8 per cent from 19.7 per cent.

On an adjusted basis, Salesforce earned US$2.41 per share, beating estimates of US$2.44. REUTERS

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