Oracle Q4 profits up 23pc


27 Jun 2007

Enterprise software maker Oracle has reported a 20pc increase in fourth quarter revenues to US$5.8bn while profits increased 23pc to US$1.6bn.

The company attributed the strong performance to a 17pc rise in new software licence revenues. Cash flow at the software giant jumped US$1bn to US$5.5bn.

For the full year 2007 revenue were up 18pc to US$18bn while profits rose 26pc to US$4.3bn.

“If you have the right strategy and the best technology it will show up in your results,” said Oracle CFO Safra Catz. “The numbers speak for themselves. Annual revenue increased US$3.6bn to US$18bn, operating income increased US$1.2bn to $6bn and cash flow from operations increased US$1bn to $5.5bn. It was a great year.”

Oracle president Charles Phillips said that over the past 12 months Oracle’s application new software licence revenues grew at a rate of 32pc while rival software player SAP’s growth slowed to 10pc by comparison.

“Our strategy of combining innovation with acquisitions is clearly beating SAP’s strategy of trying to build everything themselves using a 1970s-era proprietary programming language.”

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison joined the bullish mood by also taking a shot at rival IBM. “Oracle’s unique database grid architecture has enabled us to take market share from IBM,” he said.

“Gartner’s just-published database research report confirms that Oracle’s database market share has now increased to 47pc while IBM’s share declined to 21pc. IBM has been unable to match the performance and reliability of Oracle database grids,” Ellison said.

By John Kennedy