Investing.com -- Shares in Salesforce.com Inc (NYSE:CRM) soared nearly 7% in after-hours trading after the San Francisco-based cloud computing company narrowly beat analysts' forecasts with its first quarter earnings released on Wednesday.
Salesforce.com posted revenue of $1.51 billion on the quarter or 0.16 per share, representing a 23% spike on a year-over-year basis. The revenues for the quarter were slightly above forecasts of $1.5 billion or 0.14 per share. In the process, Salesforce.com became the first cloud computing company to reach a $6 billion run rate. Salesforce realized a 22% increase in subscription and support revenues, as well as a 33% gain in professional services.
"Salesforce has surpassed the $6 billion annual revenue run rate faster than any other enterprise software company, and our current outlook puts us on track to reach a $7 billion revenue run rate later this year," CEO Marc Benioff said in a statement. "Our goal is to be the fastest to reach $10 billion in annual revenue."
Salesforce also updated its forward guidance, forecasting an EPS of 0.17-0.18 over the second quarter along with a 0.69-0.71 EPS for the remainder of the year. The company also projects revenues of $6.52-$6.55 billion for the fiscal year, in line with analysts' forecasts.
In recent weeks, Salesforce has been the subject of rampant speculation that it is looking to form a multi-billion partnership with an industry heavyweight. On May 5, Salesforce trading was halted amid rumors that it engaged in talks with Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) on a potential acquisition. Salesforce has also been linked with other suitors such as Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ), International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM), Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) and SAP SE (XETRA:SAPG).
Shares in Salesforce on Wednesday rose 4.75 or 6.77% to 74.91.