Salesforce.com posts 43 percent revenue jump

Salesforce.com announced Thursday a 43 percent increase in third-quarter revenue, beating Wall Street's expectations.

Shares of Salesforce.com rose about 11 percent in after-hours trading to $25.30 a share. It closed the regular trading session at $22.83 a share, up nearly 4 percent.

In the period ending October 31, revenue reached $276 million, fueled by growth in the company's subscription and support business. Wall Street had been expecting Salesforce.com to generate $273.5 million, according to analysts' estimates compiled by Thomson Reuters.

The online customer relationship management (CRM) software developer posted net income of $10.1 million, or 8 cents a share, for the quarter, up from $6.5 million a year ago. That beat analysts' expectations of 7 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters.

"In the third quarter, we continued to add customers at the same record level we did last quarter, at a time when the traditional enterprise software world was retrenching," Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com CEO, said in a statement.

Indeed. Enterprise software applications giant SAP shook the industry to the core, when it issued its third-quarter results, posting a decline in profits and yanking its projections of how it would perform for the rest of the year.

Salesforce.com, however, issued its fiscal fourth-quarter 2009 guidance for Wall Street, as well as its expectations for fiscal year 2010. The online customer relationship management software developer projected its fourth-quarter revenue will fall short of analysts' current expectations.

The company expects to generate $284 million to $285 million in revenue for the quarter. That's below Wall Street's current forecast of $289.4 million, according to Thomson Reuters. And the CRM developer anticipates earning 6 cents to 7 cents a share.

The company anticipates it will post revenue of $1.35 billion to $1.36 billion for the full fiscal year of 2010.