Oracle gives strong outlook, fuelling optimism on cloud business
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The company sees solid demand for its cloud infrastructure for generative AI and partnerships.
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NEW YORK – Oracle reported a surge in bookings and gave a revenue forecast for the fiscal year beginning in June that topped estimates, fuelling confidence that it is gaining large customers for its cloud infrastructure business.
“We have now signed cloud agreements with several world-leading technology companies including: OpenAI, xAI, Meta, Nvidia and AMD,” chief executive Safra Catz said in a statement on March 10.
“We expect that our huge US$130 billion (S$173 billion) sales backlog will help drive a 15 per cent increase in Oracle’s overall revenue in our next fiscal year beginning this June.”
Oracle’s efforts the past few years to become a major player in the competitive industry of renting out computing power and storage were validated recently when the company announced Stargate – a joint venture at the White House with OpenAI and Softbank Group to spend at least US$100 billion to build out data centres for the artificial intelligence start-up.
“Solid demand for its cloud infrastructure for generative AI and partnerships with the three largest cloud hyperscalers may catapult Oracle to become the fourth-largest cloud provider,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Anurag Rana wrote in a note before the results were released.
Heading into earnings, many investors expected a rise in cloud infrastructure bookings and capital expenditures due to Stargate.
The project’s first campus is taking shape in Abilene, Texas, where tens of thousands of powerful AI chips from Nvidia will be delivered in the coming months.
The shares gained about 5 per cent in extended trading after closing at US$148.79 in New York. The stock has declined 11 per cent in 2025, in line with a broader stock market rout.
Remaining performance obligations – a measure of bookings – were US$130 billion in the period ended Feb 28 compared with US$97.3 billion in the previous quarter.
Analysts, on average, estimated that Oracle’s sales would jump 13 per cent in the 2026 fiscal year.
Fiscal third-quarter revenue increased 6 per cent to US$14.1 billion, the company said.
Analysts, on average, projected US$14.4 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Sales from Oracle’s closely watched cloud infrastructure business jumped 49 per cent to US$2.7 billion. BLOOMBERG
