Here’s something interesting: Salesforce—which has never seemed overly concerned with posting profits—just posted a first-quarter profit, albeit a thin one.
On the earnings call, CEO Marc Benioff crowed that the company has already achieved a $6 billion revenue run rate and could hit $7 billion this year. That puts Salesforce “on track to $10 billion which is our dream,” he said. In the press release earlier in the day Benioff said the company is set on being the software company that is “the fastest to reach $10 billion in annual revenue.”
He also upped the company’s guidance for the next fiscal year to $6.55 billion and non-GAAP earnings per share target at the high end to 71 cents per share.
From the earnings release: For the quarter ending April 30, 2015, the company posted net income of just over $4 million or $0.01 per share, compared to a loss of $97 million or $0.17 per share for the corresponding quarter last year. These are the GAAP numbers.
The non-GAAP earnings per share for the period was $0.16. This number does not include the impact of a $143 million expense related to stock-based compensation.
Total revenue for the quarter was $1.51 billion, just beating expectations, and up about 23% from the year-ago quarter.
Salesforce (CRM) and its co-founder and CEO Marc Benioff have been much in the news of late, after reports that the company was an acquisition target, potentially by Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle(ORCL) or SAP (SAP). Execs from Oracle and SAP subsequently denied interest. Microsoft and Salesforce have been silent.
This story will be updated throughout the company’s earnings call.