What happened: Oracle (ORCL) trimmed gains after popping more than 2% on Friday.
What’s behind the move: The database software company posted strong revenue and earnings for its first quarter of fiscal year 2027.
The company, which has been building out data centers for customers like OpenAI (OPENAI.PVT), said its total quarterly revenue grew 30% to $19.3 billion versus $19.13 billion expected by Wall Street. The top-line result was driven largely by a 121% jump in cloud infrastructure sales of $7.4 billion.
Adjusted earnings per share also rose 30% to $1.92 versus $1.75 expected by Wall Street.
“Customer demand for AI Cloud Training and Inferencing Services continues to grow faster than supply,” said the company in its earnings release.
Oracle booked more than $30 billion of additional AI cloud contracts in the first quarter, increasing its remaining performance obligations, which include its backlog, to $664 billion.
“The numbers look really strong; it’s far exceeding their guidance,” said Epistrophy Capital Research chief market strategist Cory Johnson, who is also an Oracle shareholder. “I think what you see is kind of out of nowhere, a dominant builder of data centers and a trusted partner to the biggest firms in AI,” he said.
“We’re getting to a point with Oracle where they’re turning the keys over to the users,” he added. “And when they turn the keys over to the users, then you’ll have a moment where the OpenAIs of the world then actually have to turn over billions of dollars to Oracle.”
What else you need to know: Oracle shares have struggled this year due to the cloud provider’s massive debt load taken on to build out artificial intelligence infrastructure.
The company’s quarterly release was expected to give Wall Street a read on the health of the AI trade as the company reports its earnings and free cash flow.
The stock hit a record high about a year ago but has since lost more than half its value due to concerns about its debt load.
The stock gain up early morning gains throughout the sesssion. Even though it has rallied more than 30% since hitting a yearly low in July, it was still down more than 20% year to date.
Ines Ferre is a senior business reporter for Yahoo Finance.
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