Salesforce Stocks in Wednesday's expansion trading are prone to liquidity in expansion trading after sales and customer service software manufacturers reported optimistic first-quarter results and guidance.
This is the company's performance relative to LSEG consensus:
Salesforce's revenue grew 7.6% year-on-year in the quarter, ending April 30, a statement said. Net income was $1.54 billion, or $1.59 per share, which was basically flat, compared with $1.53 billion, or $1.56 per share a year ago.
President Donald Trump announced tariffs on goods imported to the United States in early April. In any case, co-founder and CEO Marc Benioff was on the company's performance in the quarter, pointing to its plans to announce Tuesday that it would buy a data management company Informatica $8 billion.
Salesforce has the highest price since the $27.1 billion Slack deal in 2021. Slack marks the highest point of Salesforce's acquisition under Benioff. Apart from slowing revenue growth, activist investors expressed concerns about all spending.
Salesforce acted quickly, cutting 10% of its employees. Benioff announced that the merger and acquisition committee of the board of directors had been dissolved. The company's financial director at the time said it would reach its profit margin target two years ahead of schedule. Salesforce begins paying dividends to shareholders.
Initial reception for Informatica announcements is usually beneficial. "In our opinion, Salesforce pays a reasonable multiple for assets, and investors should be more easily digested by investors (i.e. Slack) than some of the past big deals," J. Parker Lane wrote in a comment to clients. Investment banks have a buy rating on Salesforce stock.
He said on a call with analysts that Benioff spent about 20 years talking about how to bring Informatica and Salesforce together. He said last year, the two companies walked away after a trading speech.
Informatica was founded in 1993 and was published in 1999. It was purchased by the Permira Fund and the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Commission in 2015, at the time Microsoft Salesforce purchased the bet. It returns to the public market in 2021. Earlier this month, Informatica said its revenue of $403.9 million was up 3.9%, while cloud subscriptions had annual revenue of $848 million, up 30%.
Those who want to deploy AI agents with large amounts of data will clean up the data first, and Informatica can help with other Salesforce tools, Benioff said.
"Look, Informatica is a small company," he said. "They don't have the distribution scale we have. I'm not going to tell you the size of their distribution organization because it might be covered under my NDA, but...it's an order of magnitude less than Salesforce, and I'll tell you. So the idea is that we have the ability to really sell the product and start selling it to all companies around the world and really show them that ability, which makes them that motivation, and I'm not happy about it.''
In the first quarter, Salesforce launched the agent market for artificial intelligence agents. Salesforce has been profiting from internal use of its agents. Robin Washington, the company's president and chief operating and finance officer, said it was able to redistribute 500 customer support workers and bring in $50 million in savings.
Management earnings per share were $2.76 to $2.78, and the fiscal revenue in the second quarter was $10.11 billion to $10.16 billion. Analysts who voted for LSEG expect adjusted revenue per share of $2.73, with revenue of $10.01 billion.
Salesforce encountered a full-year forecast. It requires adjusted revenue per share of $11.27 to $11.33 and revenue from $41 billion to $41.3 billion, meaning revenue growth is between 8% and 9%. The LSEG consensus includes net income of $11.6 per share and $40.82 billion in revenue. The February guide was $11.09 to $11.17, with adjusted revenue per share of $11.17 and revenue of $40.5 billion to $40.9 billion.
Washington said the company reiterated guidance for ordering and support revenue growth of 9% given some of the agents’ contributions. Meanwhile, she expects weak points in marketing and business software revenues and reduces customer growth from clients to end contracts, Washington said.
As of Wednesday's end, the stock has so far declined by about 18% in 2025, while the S&P has not changed.
watch: Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff: Data centers and chips are "commodities"