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Salesforce.com ‘s ( CRM ) growth in billing, a key sales metric, was a bright spot in Q1 earnings, analysts say. Salesforce.com late Wednesday reported Q1 earnings and revenue that topped expectations, while also raising its full-year revenue guidance. The business software provider’s stock was up 4.5% to 81.35 in early trading in the stock market today , blowing past a 77.92 point point and nearly hitting a record high. IBD’s Take: How healthy is Salesforce.com stock and how does it stack up vs. rivals? Find out at IBD Stock Checkup Billings rose at nearly twice the rate of the consensus estimate of 16% growth in Q1. “Billings grew to $1.63 billion, or 31% year over year, which was better than consensus of $1.45 billion and accelerated from 28% growth in Q4,” Brendan Barnicle, a Pacific Crest analyst, said in a research report. San Francisco-based Salesforce.com garners mainly subscription revenue from on-demand software delivered via the Internet and over the cloud. The company continues to move up-market, making bigger deals with bigger companies, says Jefferies analyst John DiFucci. “We believe something has changed on the margin for Salesforce — that is, the willingness of large enterprises to engage on a more strategic level with SaaS (software-as-a-service) solutions,” DiFucci wrote in a research note. Salesforce.com, the leading provider of customer relationship software, said Q1 profit jumped 50% to 24 cents per share minus items. Revenue in the three months ended April 30 rose 27% to $1.92 billion, the company said. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had modeled 23 cents and $1.89 billion. In the current quarter, Salesforce.com forecast earnings ex items of 24 cents to 25 cents per share, up from 19 cents in the year-earlier quarter, and revenue of $2.005 billion to $2.015 billion, up 23%. Analysts had estimated 25 cents and $1.98 billion, respectively. Salesforce.com increased its full-year revenue guidance to $8.2 billion from $8.16 billion. “Following a very strong fourth quarter, where the company signed a nine-figure transaction and saw its volume of seven-figure deals increase more than 60%, the company continued its momentum of large deal activity in the quarter — closing another nine-figure transaction and again increasing the volume and size of its large transactions as compared with the year-ago period,” Bhavan Suri, a William Blair analyst, said in a report. “Not only did this lead to another strong billings beat, but it also further supplements Salesforce’s position as the cloud platform of choice.” Scalper1 News
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