Skip to main content

Oracle Corp. headquarters.Paul Sakuma/The Associated Press

Oracle Corp. beat Wall Street forecasts and raised its dividend 20 per cent Thursday, as the business software maker capitalized on resurgent spending on technology.

Its shares initially rose, then fell slightly in after hours trading.

The company run by Silicon Valley billionaire Larry Ellison, which last year branched into server hardware through the purchase of Sun Microsystems, reported sales of $8.8-billion (U.S.) for the fiscal third quarter, up 37 per cent from $6.4-billion a year ago. That beat Wall Street forecasts of $8.7-billion.

New software license sales, which generate high-margin, long-term maintenance contracts and are a good gauge of the company's future profits, rose 29 per cent to $2.2-billion, ahead of what many analysts had expected.

Excluding one-time items, it made a profit of $2.8-billion, or 54 cents per share, compared with $1.9-billion, or 38 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter. Wall Street had expected 50 cents, on average.

The company boosted its quarterly dividend to 6 cents per share from 5 cents. The 20 per cent raise matched that of rival SAP's recent increase.

Interact with The Globe