The Zhitong Finance App learned that after the US stock market on Wednesday, the stock price of CRM.US (CRM.US) rose nearly 13%. Previously, the company announced better-than-expected results and guidelines for the second fiscal quarter, and announced deepening cooperation with AI company Anthropic PBC to prove to investors that it is capable of taking a place in the AI wave.
Performance and guidelines exceed expectations
Financial reports show that in the second fiscal quarter ending July 31, SAFTSE's revenue increased 11% year over year to US$11.3 billion, in line with market expectations; adjusted earnings per share were US$5.90, higher than the market's general expectation of US$3.27. An indicator that measures future sales, the current remaining performance obligation (CrPO) is US$33.5 billion, up 14% year over year; remaining performance obligation is US$66.3 billion, up 11% year over year.
Safez expects revenue for the third fiscal quarter ending October to be around US$11.5 billion, slightly higher than analysts' average expectations; current remaining performance obligations are expected to increase by about 14%, higher than analysts' average expectations of 13%. The company also raised its fiscal year 2027 revenue guidance to US$46.1 billion to US$46.4 billion, an increase of 11% to 12% over the previous year.
Robin Washington, chief financial and operating officer of Saftex, said in a statement that even without considering the impact of mergers and acquisitions, the company still expects revenue growth to accelerate in the second half of the year. She also said that the net order volume has reached its highest level in four years.
SAFTSE maintains double-digit year-over-year revenue growth in Europe
Agentforce's annualized revenue points to 1.5 billion dollars to expand cooperation with Anthropic
This leader in customer management software is under constant pressure to prove that it can stay ahead of the competition between AI companies and products. Saifushi said on Wednesday that its AI tool AgentForce is designed to handle tasks without human intervention and is expected to contribute around $1.5 billion in revenue this year, up from the $1.2 billion reported in the previous quarter.
Data shows that in the second quarter, the combined annual recurring revenue (ARR) of SAFTSE's core AI products AgentForce and Data 360 was close to US$3.9 billion, an increase of more than 210% over the previous year.
Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO of Safez, said in the earnings report: “We have just delivered one of our best quarterly results ever, and performed well on all key metrics. AI is creating value at every level of our platform. Demand for our AI and data products is strong, and ARR is about to surpass $4 billion.”
The company also announced an expansion of collaboration with AI model Claude developer Anthropic. Safrus will integrate its products into Claude, enabling sales staff to access customer information and sales cycle data through the AI application.
Mike Spencer, head of finance at Seflex, said in an interview that when a customer accesses Saifushi data from Claude, both parties will generate consumer bills, and this integration should help push Safflex customers to upgrade to higher-level subscription packages.
Valoir analyst Rebecca Wettemann said the results were “encouraging.” “Safrus needed not only to beat expectations in terms of data, but also to break the narrative that AI is eating away at its business.”
CEO refutes “SaaS doomsday theory”
In a conference call after the earnings report was released, Benioff directly responded to the so-called SaaS doomsday theory. He countered the skeptics' view that AI would cause loss of customers or demand drastic price cuts. He pointed out that SAFTSE's customer churn rate is close to its lowest level in history, and contract terms are constantly improving.
“I think it's time to stop this ridiculous statement about the end of SaaS,” Benioff said. Earlier this year, software stocks, including SAFTSE, experienced a wave of sell-off due to market concerns about the impact of AI on traditional software businesses.
It is worth noting that Benioff is not the only recent software industry executive to actively counter negative market sentiment at performance meetings. Companies from ServiceNow to Oracle are also adopting increasingly aggressive strategies to try to reshape the market narrative.
To enhance AI customer service capabilities, Safrus announced the acquisition of AI startup Fin for 3.6 billion US dollars in June this year. The deal is seen as a key step for the company to resist competition from startups such as Sierra, founded by Bret Taylor, Chairman of OpenAI and former Co-CEO of SAFTSE.