{"id":216867,"date":"2017-12-15T07:30:17","date_gmt":"2017-12-15T05:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=216867"},"modified":"2017-12-15T07:30:17","modified_gmt":"2017-12-15T05:30:17","slug":"oracle-shares-drop-after-cloud-sales-miss-analysts-estimates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/it-services\/216867\/oracle-shares-drop-after-cloud-sales-miss-analysts-estimates\/","title":{"rendered":"Oracle shares drop after cloud sales miss analysts\u2019 estimates"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Oracle Corp reported quarterly cloud-computing sales that missed some analysts\u2019 estimates, a setback in the\u00a0company\u2019s effort to remake itself around internet-based products.<\/p>\n

Shares fell in extended trading.<\/p>\n

Cloud revenue in the period ended Nov. 30 gained 44% to $1.52 billion, Oracle said Thursday in a statement.<\/p>\n

John DiFucci, an analyst at Jefferies, was among those who projected stronger growth in Oracle\u2019s cloud sales, with his estimate of $1.55 billion. The company also gave a disappointing forecast for profit and cloud growth in the current period.<\/p>\n

Oracle, a mainstay of traditional corporate computing software, is fighting to catch up in the newer cloud market with established leaders including Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp.<\/p>\n

The company has been hiring engineers to build products that let customers rent software and computing power from Oracle, and adding sales reps to transition businesses to the new offerings.<\/p>\n

The Redwood City, California-based company has also been making acquisitions like last year\u2019s $9 billion purchase of NetSuite Inc. to add cloud clients and programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re late to that whole cloud battle,\u201d\u00a0said Patrick Walravens, an analyst at JMP Securities. \u201cA lot of people already have a solution they are happy with. The question is what does Oracle bring the table?\u201d<\/p>\n

Oracle shares declined as much as 7.3% in extended trading after the report. Investors had been encouraged by the company\u2019s move to cloud-based software this year, sending the shares up 31%.<\/p>\n

They closed at $50.19 Thursday in New York.<\/p>\n

The company projected revenue growth from the internet-based products and services to be 21 percent to 25 percent in the fiscal third quarter.<\/p>\n

Profit, excluding some costs, will be 68 cents to 70 cents a share, below the average analyst estimate of 72 cents, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.<\/p>\n

The forecast doesn\u2019t take into account currency fluctuations that could boost profit as much as 3 cents a share, Co-chief executive officer Safra Catz said on a call with analysts.<\/p>\n

As Oracle tries to gain more customers in the rapidly growing cloud market, Amazon is adding products and services directly aimed at luring Oracle\u2019s traditional database customers to switch.<\/p>\n

At Amazon\u2019s annual cloud conference late last month, the market leader unveiled several new offerings for parsing and storing data and poked fun at Oracle\u2019s price increases.<\/p>\n

Oracle, meanwhile, offered conference attendees free Tesla rides, during which a sales representative regaled the rider with the benefits of Oracle\u2019s software.<\/p>\n

\u201cInvestors are thinking this is the next cloud transition story – look what happened with Microsoft, look what happened with Adobe.<\/p>\n

That should happen with Oracle,\u201d Walravens said. The challenge for Oracle is that a lot of its business is in infrastructure, where Amazon and Microsoft already dominate the cloud market, he said.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Oracle continues to sell traditional database and corporate programs that customers run on site. Revenue generated by new software licenses, a measure that\u2019s tied to those products, was little changed in the fiscal second quarter from a year earlier.<\/p>\n

That compares with a drop of 6.2% in the prior period.<\/p>\n

The company reported adjusted revenue rose 6.5% to $9.62 billion in the quarter. Profit, excluding some items, was 70 cents a share.<\/p>\n

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Read: Asher Bohbot makes EOH return<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oracle Corp reported quarterly cloud-computing sales that missed some analysts\u2019 estimates, a setback in the company\u2019s effort to remake itself around internet-based products.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":5552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1250],"class_list":["post-216867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-it-services","tag-oracle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216867"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216871,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216867\/revisions\/216871"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}