Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, speaks during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 18, 2024.
Halil Sagirkaya | Anatolia | Getty Images
Sales force Shares rose 9% Tuesday after the company's fiscal third-quarter earnings report showed revenue and fiscal fourth-quarter guidance beat analysts' expectations.
Here's how the company's performance compared to what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts conducted by LSEG:
Earnings per share: $2.41 adjusted vs. $2.44 expected Revenue: $9.44 billion vs. $9.34 billion expected
The company's revenue grew 8% year over year during its fiscal third quarter, which ended October 31. Its net income was $1.5 billion in the quarter, up 25% from $1.2 billion last year.
Salesforce said it expects fiscal fourth-quarter sales to range between $9.90 billion and $10.10 billion. Analysts had expected $10.05 billion in fourth-quarter sales.
The company said it expects earnings per share to range between $2.57 and $2.62 in the fourth quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $2.65.
Salesforce also raised its bottom-end revenue guidance, expecting it to range from $37.8 billion to $38 billion for fiscal 2025. This is up slightly from $37.7 billion to $38 billion previously. The new range puts the midpoint of Salesforce's fiscal 2025 revenue guidance at $37.9 billion, beating analysts' expectations of $37.86 billion.
“We delivered another quarter of exceptional financial performance across revenue, margin, cash flow and cRPO,” Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said in a statement. “Agentforce, our complete enterprise AI platform built into the Salesforce platform, is at the heart of groundbreaking transformation.”
On a call with analysts, Benioff boasted about Salesforce's latest AI push, including the company's AI-powered chatbots called Agentforce, which investors are closely watching for growth. Salesforce's Agentforce product is an example of so-called AI agent technology. Several companies said they believe these advanced chatbots represent the next logical step from ChatGPT and other related tools powered by large language models.
“We offer these great Agentforce capabilities as well,” Benioff said. “This is a bold leap into the future of work, where AI agents allow humans to come together to transform all of our interactions with customers.”
Benioff also revealed that he tore his Achilles tendon during a recent birthday diving trip to Fakarava, an atoll in French Polynesia. Benioff expressed disappointment that the hospital that treated him was unable to schedule his follow-up appointments using AI agents.
“That's the message to our clients, is how are you going to give some of your employees a break, allow them to get back to their strategic work, allow them to focus on what really matters,” Benioff said.
The company announced in August that Amy Weaver would step down as CFO but will remain in that position until the company appoints a successor, after which she will become an advisor. That same month, activist investor Starboard Value revealed that it had boosted its position in Salesforce by nearly 40% in the second quarter after the company issued a letter earlier in the year saying Salesforce continues to move “in the right direction” in terms of improving its profit margin.
Starboard Value released a presentation in October noting that Salesforce “can continue to become more efficient and more profitable.”
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