Oracle shares jump after profits beat expectations

NEW YORK: United States software-maker Oracle’s shares jump more than two per cent after it reported better-than-expected earnings in the last three months of the year.

The company reported a 37 per cent jump in revenues to $8.8bn (£5.5bn), with net income rising 78 per cent, British Broadcasting Corporation reported on Friday.

Oracle also set out a forecast for the current quarter ahead of most estimates and raised its dividend payment to shareholders by 20 per cent.

Oracle is closely watched by analysts for trends in the technology industry.

New software license sales, which are a good gauge of future profits, jumped 29 per cent to $2.2bn in the third quarter.

Oracle made net income for the quarter of $2.1bn up from $1.2bn a year earlier.

The company is in a battle with rivals IBM, Cisco Systems and HP to provide infrastructure for companies to move to “cloud computing” – the remote storage and handling of data.

Last year, Oracle diversified into server hardware with the purchase of Sun Microsystems.

Japan provides five per cent of the company’s revenues but Oracle executives told analysts they saw no material impact from the disruptions to production caused by the earthquake and tsunami.

Source : Punch