Salesforce delivers strong second quarter, ups outlook

Salesforce.com delivered strong second quarter results and upped its financial targets for fiscal 2010.

The company on Thursday reported net income of $21.2 million, or 17 cents a share, on revenue of $316 million, up 20 percent from a year ago. Wall Street was expecting earnings of 15 cents a share on revenue of $312.7 million.

In a statement, Salesforce said that it added 3,900 net paying customers to hit a total of 63,200. Net paying customers are up 32 percent from a year ago.

In addition, Salesforce's financial targets were in line with estimates or better than expected. To wit:

• Salesforce is projecting third quarter earnings to be 15 cents a share to 16 cents a share on revenue of $323 million to $324 million. Wall Street was looking for earnings of 15 cents a share on revenue of $319 million.
• For the fiscal 2010, Salesforce sees revenue between $1.27 billion to $1.28 billion. Earnings will be 60 cents a share to 61 cents a share. Wall Street is expecting earnings of 60 cents a share on revenue of $1.265 billion.

By the numbers:

• Deferred revenue in the second quarter was $549 million, up 14 percent from a year ago.
• The company had $1.03 billion in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities as of July 31.
• Salesforce ended the second quarter with 3,653 employees, up from 3,607 in the prior quarter.