Oracle posts strong Q4 earnings, chips away at SAP’s market share

The technology giant, Oracle Inc., today released earnings for the fourth quarter of 2010.

The company posted strong revenues and net earnings.

Revenue for Q4 ’10, ended May 31st, was up almost 40-percent from Q4 ’09 to $6.6-billion.

Oracle reported $2.4-billion ($0.46 per share) in net profits in the period, up significantly from $1.9-billion ($0.38 per share) in the same period last year.

 Revenue in the period was also boosted from Oracle’s recent Sun Microsystems acquisition, the same company that developed the Java computer language that is installed on more than 1-billion machines worldwide.

Oracle Inc. confirmed they would acquire Sun Microsystems on April 20, 2009, in a deal worth $7.4-billion ($9.50 per share), or $5.6-billion net of Sun’s debt.

Oracle said $1.8-billion from total revenue could be attributed directly from the Sun Microsystems acquisition.

Additionally, Oracle President Safra Catz also said in a statement, “Sun contributed over $400-million to non-GAAP operating income in Q4”.

Oracle says the company is continuing to perform well, even chipping away at market share from top rivals including SAP, and is on track of meeting the goal of generating $2-billion in revenue in fiscal 2011.

Oracle said President Charles Phillips, said today, “Oracle’s applications business has
grown 60% in the last four years while SAP’s business is 7% smaller than it was four years ago.”

The Oracle stock (NASDAQ:ORCL) is trading up about 2.86-percent to $22.85 per share at mid-day trading following the strong earnings that beat Wall Street analyst expectations.