Salesforce.com Inc. beat market analysts’ predictions for the second straight quarter, but disappointing guidance caused its stock price to drop slightly in after-hours trading.

For the quarter ended Oct. 31, Salesforce reported revenue of $4.5 billion, up 33% from the same quarter of 2018. Analysts had predicted a figure of $4.46 billion.

Subscription and support revenue, a key metric, rose 34%, to $4.24 billion, while professional services and other revenue rose 22%.

The company booked a net loss of $109 million, or 12 cents per share, but adjusted for costs such as stock compensation, it earned a profit of 75 cents per share. Analysts had been predicting a 66-cent adjusted profit.

Cash generated from operations in the third quarter was $298 million, more than doubled, taking Salesforce’s total cash, cash equivalents and market securities to $6.53 billion as of the end of October.

Although the headline figures ticked all the boxes, Salesforce’s guidance didn’t. The company forecast revenue of about $4.7 billion in the fourth quarter on a GAAP loss per share of 3 to 4 cents and an adjusted profit of 54 cents to 55 cents per share. Analysts had been predicting an adjusted profit of 61 cents.

“We had strong growth across our clouds and regions in the quarter as more companies turn to Salesforce as a trusted advisor in their digital transformations,” Keith Block, co-chief executive of Salesforce, said in a statement. “With these trusted customer relationships, continuous innovation and our phenomenal Trailblazer ecosystem, we have never been better positioned for the future.”

The quarter gone was a busy one for Salesforce, which closed its $15.3 billion acquisition of data visualization firm Tableau Software Inc. Salesforce was particularly upbeat on the deal, specifically calling it out in its earnings call.

As noted when the deal was first announced, Tableau sits well alongside enterprise software integration firm Mulesoft Inc. which Salesforce acquired in March 2018 for $6.5 billion.  “MuleSoft coming together with Tableau is a beautiful thing,” co-CEO Marc Benioff said at the time. “Tableau will have access to all these data sources. I can’t wait to see what they can do there.”

Salesforce stock fell a little under 1% in after-hours trading. Mizuho Bank software analyst Gregg Moskowitz said in a note to clients that the forecast likely factors in a “fair amount” of conservatism. “We also reiterate our view that CRM is perfectly situated to help its vast customer base manage revenue and process optimization via digital transformation, with its best-in-class cloud platform,” he wrote.

Image: Salesforce