Oracle's Earnings Fall; Revenues Light
Tue Sep 17, 4:36 PM ET
REDWOOD SHORES, Calif. (Reuters) - Oracle Corp. , the world's second-biggest software company, on Tuesday posted a lower first-quarter profit as declining new software sales contributed to lighter-than-expected revenue.
The results sent Oracle shares, which closed on Tuesday at $9.03 on Nasdaq, to just under $8.40 in after-hours trade on Instinet.
Redwood Shores, California-based Oracle said earnings -- excluding a charge related to its investment in company spin-off Liberate Technologies -- fell to $386 million, or 7 cents a share, for its fiscal quarter ended Aug. 31.
The company's net income was $343 million, or 6 cents a share, compared with its net profit of $511 million, or 9 cents a share, a year ago.
Total revenue fell to $2.03 billion from $2.27 billion, missing analysts average forecast of $2.06 billion, as compiled by Wall Street tracking firm Thomson First Call.
New software license sales, a key measure of performance, fell 23 percent to $549 million.
Oracle in June forecast quarterly earnings of about 7 cents a share, and said year-on-year software sales could be down 15 percent to 25 percent.
Nearly three dozen analysts had expected the company to post a profit of 6 cents to 8 cents a share, with an average forecast of 7 cents, according to First Call. |
