Salesforce Beats Q1 Estimates, Lowers Fiscal 2021 Revenue Growth Forecast

Salesforce delivered better-than-expected first quarter financial results on Thursday but lowered its revenue growth outlook for the fiscal 2021 year. 

The CRM software giant reported non-GAAP earnings of 70 cents per share on revenue of $4.87 billion, up 30% year over year. Wall Street was looking for earnings of 69 cents per share with revenue of $4.85 billion. 

As for the outlook, Salesforce expects full-year earnings between $2.93 and $2.95 per share on revenue of $20 billion, down from its previous range of $21.0 billion to $21.1 billion.  

Analysts expect full-year earnings of $3.10 per share on revenue of $20.77 billion. Salesforce stock was down around 3% in late trading.

Elsewhere on the balance sheet, the company said subscription and support revenues increased 31% annually to $4.57 billion. Professional services and other revenues totaled $290 million, up 20% year over year.

Breaking subscription revenues down by segment, Sales Cloud revenue was $1.2 billion, Service Cloud revenue was $1.3 billion, Marketing and Commerce Cloud revenue was $700 million, and Salesforce platform and other revenue was $1.4 billion.

"Our results, amidst this global crisis, demonstrated our ability to execute at speed, innovate at scale and the strength of our business model," said Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. "The pandemic showed us that digital is an imperative for every company, and we're confident Salesforce will continue to accelerate as we bring our customers into the new normal."

For the current quarter, analysts are looking for earnings of 75 cents a share on revenue of $5.05 billion for the current quarter. Salesforce responded with a revenue range of $4.89 billion to $4.90 billion and earnings between 66 and 67 cents per share.

In other news, Salesforce announced that AT&T signed up as a customer of Salesforce's Customer 360 platform.