By Katherine Hamilton
Salesforce raised its full-year sales outlook after first-quarter earnings and revenue rose, as artificial intelligence continues to boost its business.
The customer-relationship management platform on Wednesday raised its full-year sales outlook to $41.0 billion to $41.3 billion, up from previous guidance of $40.5 billion to $40.9 billion.
Salesforce said its investments in artificial intelligence are building momentum, with subscription growth in that business more than doubling. Small- and medium-market businesses both had double-digit growth in new bookings. Salesforce guided higher numbers than Wall Street had been anticipating for the current second quarter.
“It really surprised us,” Chief Executive Marc Benioff said. “Sometimes you have a quarter when everything is going right for you.”
Shares rose 1.8% to $280.90 in after-hours trading Wednesday.
The San Francisco company expects sales in the second quarter to be $10.11 billion to $10.16 billion, ahead of the $10.02 billion analysts were expecting. Earnings per share are anticipated to be $1.80 to $1.82, beating Wall Street’s estimate of $1.72 a share.
Revenue in the first quarter rose 8% to $9.83 billion, ahead of both Wall Street and company expectations. Analysts surveyed by FactSet forecast revenue of $9.75 billion, and Salesforce had guided for up to $9.76 billion.
The bump in sales was partly driven by its data cloud and AI business, where annual recurring revenue more than doubled to $1 billion. The company has now closed 8,000 deals with its AI chatbox platform Agentforce, up by about 3,000 from the prior quarter.
Salesforce is investing heavily in AI as it works to further develop Agentforce, which debuted in October. The company said Tuesday it would acquire data-management software provider Informatica in an $8 billion deal.
The acquisition isn’t anticipated to affect Salesforce’s full-year guidance since it is scheduled to close in early fiscal 2027, the company said Wednesday.
“We’ve pivoted the entire company around our vision of AI,” Benioff said.
The deal is Salesforce’s largest since it bought Slack Technologies in 2021 and is expected to help improve its artificial-intelligence product Agentforce. Salesforce launched Agentforce in October as an AI agent that automates tasks from a prompt and is designed for use in human resources, information technology and financial reporting.
Salesforce posted a profit of $1.54 billion, or $1.59 a share, in the quarter ended April 30, compared with $1.53 billion, or $1.56 a share, a year earlier.
Stripping out certain one-time items, adjusted per-share earnings were $2.58, ahead of the $2.55 forecast by analysts, according to FactSet.
Write to Katherine Hamilton at [email protected]
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
05-28-25 1755ET
