SalesForce.com, Inc. (NDAQ:CRM) shares moved down $1.21, or 2.52% to $46.79 in choppy midday trading as investors attempt to digest the company's earnings announcement after the close yesterday. The company announced impressive numbers, but failed to wow some analysts who have extremely high expectations for the quickly growing company. Some of the most important factors to consider for companies like this are customer adoption and revenue ramp. CRM was able to surpass expectations in both of these areas after announcing impressive fourth quarter numbers. "The fourth quarter was remarkable for its strength across all business segments, products, and geographies, best demonstrated by our adding 90,000 net new subscribers, and 2,700 net new customers," said Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO of salesforce.com. "The fourth quarter also included our largest enterprise implementation, 25,000 subscribers—the largest on-demand CRM customer ever—demonstrating the enterprise-class scalability of our solution that is unrivaled in the industry today. In fact, we added more than a thousand net new subscribers a day during the quarter for a new grand total of approximately 646,000."
Many investors, however, were concerned with the company's guidance for next year. Specifically, they are concerned that there are no short term catalysts to drive revenue and subscriber growth in the near-term future. However, the company announced that it would be increasing its full year revenue outlook, expecting to take in approximately $720m - up from $710m reported in December. Meanwhile, some analysts have also expressed concern that the company may have to continue to increase their spending to remain competitive in the CRM marketplace, which may put a drag on profitability in the future. Regardless, this company is certainly one that is growing at a blistering pace, already up over 90% from its 2006 lows. This makes CRM a stock that is definitely
worth watching!
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