SALESFORCE.com Inc reported better-than-expected quarterly revenue and profit, helped by an increase in demand for its Web-based sales and marketing software, and raised its revenue forecast for the full year for the third time.
The company’s shares rose about 4 per cent in extended trading after the world’s biggest maker of online sales software also forecast current-quarter revenue and adjusted profit above the average analyst estimates.
“… We’ll go from being the sixth largest software company in the world to the fourth largest next year,” chief executive Marc Benioff said on a conference call, adding that the company would only lag Microsoft Corp, Oracle Corp and SAP.
Salesforce raised its revenue forecast for the year ending January 2016 to $US6.60b-$US6.63b ($F14.07b-$F14.13b) from $US6.52b-$US6.55b ($F13.85b-$F13.96b).
San Francisco-based Salesforce has been gaining market share from Oracle and SAP in customer relationship management software that helps companies organise and track sales calls and leads.
Salesforce, which provides its services online, with no software directly installed on PCs, leads the global customer relationship management market, which is valued at $23 billion annually, according to tech research firm Gartner.
