Salesforce.com Boosts Top-Line Estimate

The software provider beats first-quarter estimates.
By Ivy Lessner ,

SAN FRANCISCO - Salesforce.com (CRM) - Get Report raised full-year guidance Wednesday on the strength of continuing fast-paced revenue growth in its first quarter.

The San Francisco on-demand software leader said first-quarter revenue grew 52% year over year to $247.6 million, from $162.4 million for the same quarter of last year. Analysts were expecting $235.8 million, according to Thomson Reuters.

Salesforce's top line grew 50.4% in the preceding fourth quarter.

Profit grew to $9.6 million, or 8 cents a share, from $730,000, or 1 cent a share, in the year-ago period. Analysts were expecting EPS of 7 cents.

The stock was up 50 cents, or 0.8%, to $63.16 in after-hours trading.

For the second quarter, Salesforce projected revenue of $258 million to $259 million and EPS of 7 cents or 8 cents. The consensus estimate of analysts was for revenue of $250.8 million and EPS of 8 cents.

The company raised full-year guidance for revenue ranging from $1.06 billion to $1.065 billion, from a previous projection of $1 billion to $1.02 billion. EPS will be 33 cents or 34 cents. Analysts were expecting a top line of $1.045 billion and EPS of 34 cents.

During the first quarter, the company picked up a net 2,600 new customers, bringing the total to 43,600.

Salesforce's hosted customer relationship management software seeks to take market share from both

SAP

(SAP) - Get Report

and

Oracle

(ORCL) - Get Report

. More recently,

Microsoft

(MSFT) - Get Report

has entered its space with on-demand CRM software sold by subscription.

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