Oracle said Thursday that its second-quarter earnings rose 46 percent, beating Wall Street expectations handily, on strong database software sales and gains in its applications businesses.
Net income for the quarter ending 30 November shot up 46 percent to US$274 million, or 28 cents a share, compared to net income of $187 million, or 19 cents a share last year.
Analysts on Wall Street were expecting net income of 24 cents a share, according to Zacks Investment Research.
Oracle's revenues for the second quarter increased 27 percent to $2.1 billion from $1.6 billion in the same period last year.
Oracle (ORCL) said its database business grew 25 percent to $1.5 billion in revenues for the quarter and $5.8 billion for the last four quarters.
In the same quarter a year ago, Oracle disappointed Wall Street with slower-than-expected growth across all its businesses. It mostly blamed a glut of database software and weakening business from Asia. Its stock tanked. In the past 12 months, the world's largest database software company has been crawling back, bringing up its stock price with it.
Oracle's growth of its licensing business was "the highest we've seen in six quarters," said Jeffrey Henley, Oracle chief financial officer. Oracle's database business had "four solid quarters" in the Americas. He added that he hopes people will now agree the "database business is alive and well."
Licensing and other revenue -- closely watched in the software industry as a gauge of future profits -- rose 19 percent to $767.4 million from $645.4 million. Licensing and other revenue accounted for 37 percent of Oracle's total revenue.
But Oracle is still feeling the heat, particularly in its business software unit. Price cuts from competitors like SAP is hurting revenue.
"There is no question we are seeing pricing pressures," said Henley. "I've got to believe SAP is going to regret [the price cuts] a year from now."
The Redwood Shores, California, company released its results after the market closed. It shares were among the most actively traded on Thursday and closed down $1.68 at $34.93.
Reuters contributed to this report.
