Salesforce Jumps 23% After Beating Estimates and Raising Its Outlook

Salesforce closed Thursday at $252.05, up 22.6% from Wednesday’s $205.62. The jump followed a fiscal second-quarter report that cleared Wall Street estimates, a raised full-year forecast, and a new artificial-intelligence partnership with Anthropic announced the same evening. The buying was heavy.

Adjusted profit more than doubled

Salesforce reported the quarter ended July 31 after Wednesday’s close. Revenue came in at $11.3 billion, up 11% from a year earlier, a figure that included a $456 million contribution from Informatica, the data-management company Salesforce acquired. Adjusted earnings were $5.90 a share, up 103%. On a GAAP basis, profit was $4.29 a share, up 119%. The results topped what analysts had projected.

Booked business kept building. Current remaining performance obligation, a measure of contracted revenue expected to land over the next 12 months, rose 14% to $33.5 billion. Non-GAAP operating margin reached 34.1%. Operating cash flow climbed 71% to $1.3 billion, and free cash flow rose 81% to $1.1 billion.

Management lifted its outlook alongside the numbers. Salesforce now expects full-year revenue of $46.1 billion to $46.4 billion and adjusted earnings of $16.67 to $16.71 a share, both above its earlier targets. For the current quarter it guided to revenue of $11.42 billion to $11.5 billion.

Agentforce revenue crossed $1.5 billion

The pace of the company’s AI business drew the most attention. Annual recurring revenue from Agentforce, Salesforce’s platform of automated digital agents, passed $1.5 billion, up more than 240% from a year earlier. Combined with the Data 360 product, AI-related recurring revenue reached nearly $3.9 billion, up more than 210%. Growth there set the tone. The company said its agents and Slack completed 3.2 billion automated tasks during the quarter, up 97% from the prior three months.

That evening, Salesforce and Anthropic said they would expand their relationship under a program called Claudeforce. The first piece, “Salesforce in Claude,” lets sales staff act on live Salesforce records from inside Anthropic’s Claude assistant using 37 prebuilt tasks. It is in a customer pilot now, with an open beta the companies expect in September.

The stock closed at a fresh high

Thursday’s close put Salesforce about 20% above its highest point of the prior 90 days, $209.60, and 68% above the period’s low of $150.12. The shares had already gained 33.8% over the past 30 days heading into the print. Volume confirmed the conviction: 55.5 million shares changed hands, more than four and a half times the stock’s 20-day average of 11.9 million.

The rally did not happen in isolation. Technology led the wider market Thursday after Nvidia’s upbeat forecast a day earlier, and software names rose broadly. ServiceNow gained 10% and Palo Alto Networks added nearly 13% on the day. Salesforce was the group’s standout.

A September beta and a higher bar

Two dated items sit ahead. The Claudeforce open beta is expected in September. The third-quarter guidance also sets a public marker, with revenue of $11.42 billion to $11.5 billion and cRPO growth guided at about 14%, the figures the next report will be measured against.

This is a general-market summary for information only — not investment advice, and not a recommendation regarding any security.