Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 20, 2026.
Krisztian Bocsi | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Salesforce shares tumbled 5% in extended trading on Wednesday after the customer service software maker reported healthy results, although its fiscal 2027 revenue view trailed Wall Street projections.
Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:
- Earnings per share: $3.81 adjusted vs. $3.04 expected
- Revenue: $11.20 billion vs. $11.18 billion expected
Salesforce’s revenue grew 12% year over year in its fiscal fourth quarter, which ended on Jan. 31, according to a statement. It’s the company’s fastest growth rate in two years.
The company has allocated $50 billion for new share buybacks, “because these are some low prices,” CEO Marc Benioff said on a conference call with analysts. As of Thursday’s close, Salesforce shares had fallen about 28% so far in 2026, while the S&P 500 index had gained 1%.
Net income of $1.94 billion, or $2.07 per share, increased from $1.71 billion, or $1.75 per share. Adjusted earnings per share excludes stock-based compensation expense, amortization of purchased intangible assets and restructuring costs.
Current remaining performance obligation, a sum of contracted but unrecognized revenue and unbilled amounts that will be recognized as revenue over the next year, came in at $35.1 billion. The figure was higher than StreetAccount’s $34.53 billion consensus.
Guidance for the fiscal first quarter included $3.11 to $3.13 in adjusted earnings per share on $11.03 billion to $11.08 billion in revenue. Analysts surveyed by LSEG were looking for $3.00 per share and $10.99 billion in revenue.
For the 2027 fiscal year, Salesforce called for $13.11 to $13.19 in adjusted earnings per share on $45.8 billion to $46.2 billion in revenue, which implies 10% to 11% growth. The LSEG consensus had $13.12 per share on $46.06 billion in revenue.
In recent weeks, investors have become increasingly worried that generative artificial intelligence models might dampen major software companies’ growth opportunities.
On Monday, IBM stock dropped 13% in its worst daily performance since 2000 after Anthropic published a blog post saying its Claude Code AI tool for developers can assist with modernizing code written in the Cobol programming language.
During the quarter, Salesforce released an AI-enabled Slackbot assistant in its Slack team communication app for paying clients. The company also completed its $8 billion Informatica acquisition and announced plans to buy marketing company Qualified. Informatica, a data management software company, contributed $399 million in revenue during the quarter.
The company now sees $63 billion in fiscal 2030 revenue, up from a target of over $60 billion it presented in October. Analysts polled by LSEG had been looking for $59.07 billion. The new number includes a contribution from Informatica.
Five customers of ServiceNow moved to Salesforce’s competing product for information technology service management during the quarter, Benioff said on the TBPN podcast on Wednesday.
Salesforce has been working to expand adoption of its Agentforce AI technology for automating customer service and other corporate functions.
The company said annualized Agentforce revenue exceeded $800 million in the quarter.
Morgan Stanley analysts, with the equivalent of a buy rating on Salesforce stock, said in a Monday note to clients that conversations with partners “continue to indicate we are in the early innings.”
Meanwhile, Salesforce is seeing a benefit from its stake in Anthropic, generating an $811 million gain on strategic investments in the quarter. That’s up from $96 million in the year-ago quarter.
“I think we just put another $100 million into the new round,” Benioff said. We’re [at] about $330 million into Anthropic invested. It’s almost about 1% of Anthropic. And believe me, I wish we had invested a lot more.”
Benioff said the company isn’t doing all that it can with debt.
“We’re just very under leveraged on our balance sheet,” he said.
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