Oracle, which acquired cloud-based software provider NetSuite a year ago, says its cloud-technology business grew 58% in its fiscal fourth quarter. That strengthened its position against rivals like Salesforce.com and Microsoft.

Oracle Corp.’s push into cloud computing is picking up momentum, sparking a fourth straight quarter of revenue gains for the software maker.

Co-CEO Mark Hurd, on a conference call with stock analysts Wednesday, said Oracle was particularly pleased with the performance of NetSuite, the cloud-based provider of enterprise resource planning and e-commerce software. Oracle acquired NetSuite in July 2016, renaming it Oracle NetSuite Global Business Unit.

Mark Hurd, CEO, Oracle Corp.

How confident am I in more cloud bookings this year? Extremely, put quotes around ‘extremely.’
Mark Hurd, co-CEO
Oracle Inc.

The company, which set a record closing high Wednesday for its shares, reported total sales that easily topped analysts’ estimates. Oracle’s cloud businesses grew 58% in the fiscal fourth quarter ended May 31. Meanwhile, new software licenses, a measure that’s tied to the company’s traditional on-premise software offerings, declined 5% compared with a drop of 16% in the previous period.

Oracle’s long shift to the cloud, which lets customers access services without installing them on their own computers, is now producing more sturdy growth, indicating that the company can compete against rivals such as Salesforce.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. It benefited in particular with applications that help companies in areas such as human resources, customer relationship management and financials. Sales for that piece of Oracle’s business, which was detailed for the first time in the earnings report, jumped almost 70%.

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Providing a major boost in those software areas over the past year has been NetSuite, Hurd said. Oracle gained 1,575 new SaaS technology customers in the fiscal fourth quarter, bringing the total to 13,550 not including NetSuite, Hurd said on the conference call with stock analysts, according to a transcript from Seeking Alpha. Including NetSuite’s customers, Oracle’s number of SaaS clients nearly doubles, to 25,000, he said.

When asked during the conference call about how well NetSuite was performing in helping Oracle to increase its bookings of cloud software, he said: “They just did terrific. I think they are very stable. We have seen some acceleration in their growth rates from when they were a public company.” NetSuite is listed by 24 companies in the B2B E-Commerce 300 as an e-commerce platform provider, and by 11 companies as a provider of ERP software for such operations as managing financial records and customer activity.

In response to a question about how much more growth he expected this year in cloud software sales, he added: “I mean how confident am I in more cloud bookings this year? Extremely, put quotes around ‘extremely,’ underline it.”

Industry analysts say they don’t doubt that projection. “Everything looks very, very strong,” says Joel Fishbein, an analyst at BTIG. “Oracle is a legitimate and formidable cloud player.”

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Shares of Oracle rose as much as 12% in extended trading after the earnings were released. Investors have been optimistic this year with the company’s stock increasing 20% to a record $46.33 at the close in New York.

“We continue to experience rapid adoption of the Oracle Cloud,” co-CEO Safra Catz said in a statement. “This cloud hyper-growth is expanding our operating margins, and we expect earnings per share growth to accelerate in fiscal 2018.”

Adjusted revenue increased 3% to $10.9 billion in the period ended May 31, the company said Wednesday in a statement. On average, analysts had projected $10.5 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Profit, excluding some costs, was 89 cents a share, topping the estimate of 78 cents. Net income rose 15% to $3.2 billion.

During the call with analysts, Catz said she expects adjusted revenue in constant currency to rise 4% to 6% in the current quarter. She also projected adjusted earnings of 59 cents to 61 cents per share, adding that Oracle should see double-digit growth in earnings per share for the fiscal year.

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“Oracle’s finally turned the corner in terms of its cloud momentum,” said Josh Olson, an analyst at Edward Jones. “For years, it’s been kind of struggle. But they’ve, I think, found their footing.”

Oracle executives used the call to tout the interest of customers in its cloud business. Last month, the company said that AT&T Inc., the telecommunications giant, had signed a deal to move thousands of databases to Oracle’s new platforms.

“While it provided no revenue at all in Q4, it’s a very strategic win as a reference to all of our customers about the modernization of databases and the movement of them to the cloud,” Hurd said during the call.

Still, the better-than-anticipated performance in the traditional business helped deliver much of the positive news in the quarter, said Pat Walravens, an analyst at JMP Securities.

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“The real outperformance came in the part of the business that they’re moving away from,” Walravens said.

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