The market liked Oracle Systems Corp’s lusty figures – which say it shoot through the two billion dollar barrier for the first time – see opposite – which were announced after close of play on Thursday, and the shares put on 37.5 cents at $35 in after-hours trading on those fourth-quarter earnings of $0.39, where the street mean forecast was $0.35, although one super-optimist had looked for $0.42. Oracle said that within the 41% increase in fourth quarter turnover to $668m, there was a 58% advance in the US, although even the benighted European market managed to put on 22% – and the European results includes a negative currency impact of four percentage points. The Oracle Intercontinental saw a 53% increase in fourth quarter sales, after a two percentage point negative currency impact. The split of business was $418.3m in licence sales, up 41%, and a 42% increase in those lovely service revenues, which are much more predictable: those came to $249.8m. Oracle for Unix and the desktop remained its strongest product lines in the fourth quarter. Unix licence revenues increased by 55% over the 1993 period and Desktop sales gained 100% – but then today’s desktop machine is the big minicomputer of only five years ago. Pre-tax margins improved to 25.6% for the quarter, compared with a 22.5% pre-tax margin a year ago.
