CRM Salesforce Inc

By Aaron Tilley 

Salesforce.com Inc. posted a fiscal third-quarter net loss after closing its biggest ever acquisition even as its operating earnings remained on a growth track.

The company, a provider of subscription-based business software, said on Tuesday that it had a net loss of $109 million compared with a $105 million net profit a year earlier.

In August, Salesforce said it completed the purchase of Tableau Software Inc., a data-analytics platform, for more than $15 billion in stock. The addition, Salesforce has said, is expected to help the company build out a new business in data-analytics software, though it weighed on the last quarter's bottom line because of charges related to the deal.

Sales in the quarter ended Oct. 31 rose 33% to a record $4.51 billion, compared with $4.45 billion that analysts surveyed by FactSet had been expecting. Salesforce's closely watched anticipated billings for the coming months from its subscription-based revenue model rose 28% year-over-year. The company previously promised growth of 24% to 25%.

The San Francisco company raised last month the top end of its full-year sales guidance to $17 billion after boosting its outlook already once over the summer. Salesforce also said it would increase sales to as high as $35 billion in the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2024.

Revenue in the current quarter should reach $4.74 billion to $4.75 billion, Salesforce said. Analysts had forecast sales of $4.74 billion. The company also said sales in the first quarter of the coming financial year should rise as much as 29% to $4.84 billion compared with the prior-year period.

Shares fell 1.79% in after-hours trading.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 03, 2019 17:08 ET (22:08 GMT)

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