Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff attends the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on January 20, 2026.
Cristian Bosi | Bloomberg | Getty Images
sales force Shares fell 5% in after-hours trading Wednesday after the customer service software maker reported strong results, but its fiscal 2027 revenue outlook fell short of Wall Street expectations.
Here’s how the company performed compared to the LSEG consensus:
Earnings per share: $3.81 adjusted vs. $3.04 expected Revenue: $11.2 billion vs. $11.18 billion expected
Salesforce’s revenue increased 12% year over year in the fiscal fourth quarter ended Jan. 31, according to a statement. This is the company’s fastest growth rate in the past two years.
CEO Marc Benioff said on a conference call with analysts that the company has earmarked $50 billion for stock buybacks, “because this is a reasonably low price.” As of Wednesday’s close, Salesforce stock was down about 28% so far in 2026, while the S&P 500 index was up 1%.
Net income was $1.94 billion ($2.07 per share), up from $1.71 billion ($1.75 per share). Adjusted earnings per share excludes stock-based compensation expense, amortization of purchased intangible assets and restructuring costs.
Current remaining performance obligations totaled $35.1 billion, consisting of contracted but unrecognized revenue and unbilled amounts that will be recognized as revenue next year. This number beat the Street consensus of $34.53 billion.
Guidance for the fiscal first quarter includes adjusted earnings per share of $3.11 to $3.13 and revenue of $11.03 billion to $11.08 billion. Analysts surveyed by LSEG had expected earnings of $3.00 per share and revenue of $10.99 billion.
For fiscal 2027, Salesforce expects adjusted earnings per share to be between $13.11 and $13.19 on revenue between $45.8 billion and $46.2 billion, representing growth of 10% to 11%. The LSEG consensus was for $13.12 per share and revenue of $46.06 billion.
In recent weeks, investors have grown increasingly concerned that generative artificial intelligence models could hurt growth opportunities for big software companies.
on monday, IBM After Anthropic published a blog post saying its Claude Code AI tool for developers can help modernize code written in the Cobol programming language, the stock fell 13%, marking its worst daily performance since 2000.
During the quarter, Salesforce released the AI-enabled Slackbot assistant to the Slack team communication app for paid clients. The company also completed its $8 billion acquisition of Informatica and announced plans to acquire marketing company Qualified. Informatica, a data management software company, contributed revenue of $399 million during the quarter.
The company now expects fiscal 2030 sales to be $63 billion, surpassing its October goal of more than $60 billion. Analysts polled by LSEG had expected $59.07 billion. New numbers include contributions from Informatica.
5 customers ServiceNow Benioff said on Wednesday’s TBPN podcast that the company transitioned to Salesforce’s competing information technology service management product during the quarter.
Salesforce is working to expand adoption of Agentforce AI technology to automate customer service and other enterprise functions.
The company announced that Agentforce’s annual revenue exceeded $800 million in the quarter.
Analysts at Morgan Stanley rate Salesforce stock a “buy” but said in a note to clients Monday that conversations with partners “continue to indicate we are in the early stages.”
Meanwhile, Salesforce has benefited from Anthropic stock, generating $811 million in strategic investments in the quarter. This was up from $96 million in the same period last year.
“I think we just put another $100 million into a new round,” Benioff said. We have invested approximately $330 million in Anthropic. That’s about 1% of Anthropic. Trust me, I wish I had invested a lot more. ”
Mr. Benioff said the company was not doing as much as it could with its debt.
“There’s just a huge lack of leverage on the balance sheet,” he said.
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