Oracle reports strong profit growth

Oracle reported an 8% increase in profits on a 1% increase in sales for the fourth quarter of its 2012 financial year.

The business software maker reported sales of $10.9bn for the three-month period to 31 May, which was 1% higher than the same period a year ago. 

Profits grew to $3.45bn, some 8% higher than the same period last year.

During the quarter, software sales of $8.14bn accounted for 75% of Oracle’s total sales, services fell 4% to $1.2bn, which was 11% of the total, and hardware-related sales were down 14% to $1.57bn.

Oracle had originally planned to report the results on Thursday 21 June, but this was brought forward with no reason given.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said engineered systems and cloud computing would drive growth over the next 12 months.

“The development of Oracle Cloud is strategic to increasing the size and profitability of Oracle’s software business,” he said. "Cloud software-as-a-service (SaaS) business is nearly at $1bn revenue run rate – the same size as our engineered systems hardware business.”