06:28 AM EDT, 03/11/2025 (MT Newswires) -- Oracle (ORCL) shares were down early Tuesday as the software maker's fiscal third-quarter results fell short of market estimates, while it issued an earnings outlook below expectations for the ongoing three-month period.

The company reported adjusted earnings of $1.47 a share for the quarter ended Feb.28, up from $1.41 the year before, it said late Monday, while the consensus on FactSet was for $1.49. Revenue improved 6% year over year to $14.13 billion, but missed the Street's view for $14.38 billion. The stock decreased 1.9% in premarket activity.

For the current quarter, Oracle anticipates adjusted EPS to be down 1% to up 1%, or in a range of $1.61 to $1.65, Chief Executive Safra Catz said during a conference call, according to a FactSet transcript. Revenue is pegged to grow between 8% and 10%. The Street is looking for non-GAAP EPS of $1.70 and sales of $15.71 billion.

"Assuming exchange rates remain the same as they are now, currency should have $0.01 to $0.02 negative effect on EPS and a 1% negative effect on revenue," according to Catz.

Revenue in the cloud services and licenses support segment climbed 10% to $11.01 billion in the third quarter, amid "record-level" artificial intelligence demand that drove the company's cloud infrastructure revenue up 51%, Catz said on the call. Cloud license and on-premise license division revenue fell 10% to $1.13 billion, while hardware and services sales logged declines of 7% and 1%, respectively.

Oracle signed sales contracts for more than $48 billion in the quarter, which helped push its remaining performance obligations, or RPO, up 63% (in constant currency) to over $130 billion, Catz said in a statement. "We expect that our huge $130 billion sales backlog will help drive a 15% increase in Oracle's overall revenue in our next fiscal year beginning this June," the CEO added.

The company remains "confident and committed" to its cloud infrastructure revenue for fiscal 2025 "growing faster" than the 50% reported in the previous fiscal year, Catz told analysts on the call. Oracle is still targeting $66 billion in revenue for fiscal 2026, representing annual growth of 15%, and now anticipates fiscal 2027 sales to increase around 20%, higher than previous expectations, Catz said.