Oracle guidance misses expectations, stock drops

Oracle shares fell 3% in extended trading on Tuesday, even though the enterprise software maker issued earnings that came in better than analysts had expected and showed accelerated revenue growth as the pandemic receded.

Here’s how the company did:

• Earnings: $1.54 per share, adjusted, vs. $1.31 per share as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.
• Revenue: $11.23 billion, vs. $11.04 billion as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.

Revenue rose 8% year over year in Oracle’s fiscal fourth quarter, which ended on May 31, according to a statement. In the prior quarter revenue grew 3%. The accelerating growth benefited from a comparison against the quarter last year when the coronavirus arrived in the U.S., and Oracle’s revenue fell some 6%.

Oracle’s top segment by revenue, cloud services and license support, generated $7.39 billion in revenue, which was up 8% and above the FactSet consensus estimate of $7.32 billion. The company said revenue from its second-generation cloud infrastructure doubled in the quarter but did not provide the figure in dollars.

The cloud license and on-premises license segment contributed $2.14 billion in revenue, up 9% and more than the $2.05 billion consensus.

The company’s hardware revenue, at $882 million, was exactly in line with analysts’ estimates, declining 2%.

In the quarter Oracle announced new public-cloud computing options that draw on Arm-based chips, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a longstanding case between Oracle and Google, declaring that Google’s copying of Java code was fair use.

With respect to guidance, analysts polled by Refinitiv are expecting fiscal first-quarter adjusted earnings of $1.03 per share and the equivalent of 3% revenue growth. Last year, with the coronavirus pandemic impacting businesses globally, the company opted not to issue guidance for the fiscal year.

Notwithstanding the after-hours move, Oracle stock is up 26% since the start of the year, while the S&P 500 index is up 13% over the same period. In May, Barclays analysts lowered their rating on the stock to the equivalent of hold from the equivalent of buy after the price had moved upward as investors rotated out of growth and into value. “To see further relative outperformance a growth acceleration at Oracle is needed, and we don’t have enough tangible data points for this yet,” the analysts wrote.

Executives will discuss the results with analysts and issue guidance on a conference call starting at 5 p.m. ET.

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