Oracle meets revenue targets on cloud strength, Cerner boost

(Reuters) -Oracle Corp met Wall Street targets for first-quarter revenue on Monday as demand for its cloud services stayed strong and its acquisition of healthcare IT firm Cerner started to pay off.

With hybrid work gaining traction worldwide, Oracle has been looking to bolster its cloud offerings and close the gap to rivals Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services.

Revenue from its cloud businesses jumped 45% to $3.6 billion.

Cerner contributed $1.4 billion in the quarter, months after Oracle bought it in a deal that unlocked troves of data from one of the biggest healthcare IT firms in the United States..

That helped cushion the impact from a slowdown in business spending, as companies turn thrifty in the face of high inflation and an advancing U.S. dollar.

The enterprise software maker said the strong greenback had a “significant impact” on its results in the quarter and without that, its adjusted earnings would have been 8 cents higher. It reported non-GAAP profit of $1.03 per share.

Oracle’s net income fell to $1.55 billion, or 56 cents per share, in the quarter ended Aug. 31, from $2.46 billion, or 86 cents per share, a year earlier.

Total revenue rose 17.7% to $11.45 billion, in line with analysts’ estimates, according to Refinitiv data.

(Reporting by Akash Sriram and Eva Mathews in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)