Shares in Oracle soar on bullish cloud outlook.


Shares in Oracle Corporation soared on Wednesday, after the US tech giant said it was on track to secure contracts in its core cloud business worth in excess of $500bn.

Source: Sharecast

The enterprise software specialist said it had won four multi-billion dollar contracts with three customers in the first quarter.

As a result, its remaining performance obligations (RPO) - a key measure of booked revenues - increased 359% to $455bn.

Safra Catz, chief executive, called it an "astonishing quarter".

But she continued: "Demand for Oracle cloud infrastructure continues to build. Over the next few months, we expect to sign up several additional multi-billion dollar customers, and RPO is likely to exceed half a trillion dollars."

In total, cloud infrastructure revenue is expected to rise 77% this year to $18bn, before reaching to $144bn over the subsequent four years. Last year, cloud infrastructure revenue totalled $10.3bn.

As at 1230 BST, the stock had surged 34% in pre-market trading.

Oracle is benefiting from the boom in artificial intelligence, which requires large-scale cloud infrastructure and access to graphic processing units.

Other notable contracts secured during the quarter included a deal with OpenAI to develop 4.5 gigawatts of US data centre capacity.

Larry Ellison, co-founder and chief technology officer, said: "Multi-cloud database revenue from Amazon, Google and Microsoft grew at an incredible rate of 1,529% in the first quarter.

"We expect multi-cloud revenue to grown substantially ever quarter for several years, as we deliver another 37 data centres to our three hyper-scaler partners, for a total of 71.

"AI changes everything."

The update was included in Oracle’s first-quarter results, published on Tuesday evening.

Total revenues for the three months rose 11% on a constant currency basis to $14.9bn, while earnings per share rose 6% to $1.47. The numbers were marginally below consensus.

Joshua Mahony, chief market analyst at Scope Markets, called the backlog of contracted sales "staggering".

He continued: "While top-line numbers were mixed, investors are energised by a huge uplift in Oracle’s cloud infrastructure outlook.

"Partnerships with the likes the Nvidia, Meta and OpenAI, combined with a 1,500% jump in multi-cloud revenue and aggressive data centre expansion, have reinforced Oracle’s positioning at the heart of the AI infrastructure boom.

"The market reaction underlines how investors are prioritising forward-looking growth prospects over short-term earnings misses."


ISIN: US68389X1054
Exchange: New York Stock Exchange
Sell:
$ 291.65
Buy:
$ 291.75
Change: -15.68 ( -5.09 %)
Date:
Prices delayed by at least 15 minutes

Compare our accounts

If you're looking to grow your money over the longer term (5+ years), we have a range of investment choices to help.

Halifax is not responsible for the content and accuracy of the Markets News articles. We may not share the views of the author. Understand the risks, please remember the value of your investment can go down as well as up and you may not get back the full amount you invest. We don't provide advice so if you are in any doubt about buying and selling shares or making your own investment decisions we recommend you seek advice from a suitably qualified Financial Advisor. Past performance is not a guide to future performance.