Salesforce.com's Q3: Beats estimates, raises outlook, promises $5B rev by 2015

SAN FRANCISCO---Salesforce.com is demonstrating its multi-tasking abilities on Monday, not just through its vast portfolio of cloud platforms, but also by balancing its annual Dreamforce expo with a third quarter earnings report.

The CRM giant reported a net loss just above $124 million, or 21 cents per share (statement). Non-GAAP earnings were nine cents per share on a revenue of $1.08 billion, up 36 percent year-over-year.

Wall Street was expecting Salesforce to publish earnings of nine cents per share on a revenue of $1.06 billion.

Nevertheless, that net loss appears to have thrown investors off a tad as shares were down by approximately three percent in after-hours trading. Salesforce also admitted that it got a bump in revenue thanks to the $2.5 billion acquisition of ExactTarget, which closed in July.

Subscription and support revenues accounted for roughly $1 billion, up 36 percent annually, while professional services and other revenues totaled $72 million, an increase of 50 percent year-over-year. 

Ahead of the shareholders conference call as well as an on-stage interview with Dropbox CEO Drew Houston, CEO Marc Benioff made initial remarks about the quarter in the report on Monday, pointing toward a very ambitious roadmap for the balance sheet:

Salesforce.com is the first enterprise cloud computing company to deliver a $1 billion quarter, with outstanding third quarter revenue growth at 36 percent. Given the strong customer response to our next generation social and mobile cloud technologies, I'm delighted to announce that we expect to deliver our first $5 billion year during our fiscal year 2015.

For the fourth quarter, Wall Street is expecting Salesforce to deliver earnings of at least seven cents per share on a revenue of $1.12 billion.

Salesforce responded with a revenue guidance range of $1.124 billion to $1.129 billion, which would translate to an increase of 35 percent year-over-year. However, non-GAAP earnings are projected to hover between five and six cents per share.

For the full year, the San Francisco-headquartered company asserted that it raised its revenue outlook, with a new range of $4.050 billion to $4.055 billion, up 33 percent year-over-year. Non-GAAP earnings are projected to fall between 33 and 34 cents per share.

But that's not all.

As the company chairman noted, Salesforce plans to rack up at least $5 billion in revenue for 2015, or more precisely, $5.15 billion to $5.20 billion. More 2015 projections, namely earnings per share, are promised to be attached to the Q4 and full fiscal 2014 report, scheduled to drop in February.