Salesforce Inc. shares remained flat in after-hours trading today after the cloud-based software company reported an earnings beat in its fiscal fourth quarter.

For its fiscal fourth quarter ending Jan. 31, Salesforce reported adjusted earnings per share of $2.29, up from $1.69 per share in the same quarter of last year, on revenue of $9.29 billion, up 11% year-over-year. Analysts were expecting earnings per share of $2.27 on revenue of $9.22 billion.

For its full fiscal year 2024, Salesforce reported adjusted earnings per share of $8.22. up from $5.24 a year prior, on revenue of $34.86 billion, up 11% year-over-year.

The company also said it will start paying a dividend, the latest of a number of large tech firms to do so.

As of the end of January, Salesforce’s current remaining performance obligation — the total contracted revenue that it has not yet recognized from its customer contracts but is expected to be realized as revenue in future periods — sat at $27.6 billion, up 12% year-over-year.

Cash generated from operations in Salesforce’s fourth quarter rose 22% from a year ago, to $3.40 billion, and free cash flow rose 27%, to $3.26 billion. The company notes that restructuring hurt fourth-quarter operating cash flow growth by 200 basis points.

Cash generated from operations for the full fiscal year 2024 rose 44%, to $10.23 billion, and free cash flow rose 50%, to $9.50 billion.

“It’s been a phenomenal year of transformation for Salesforce with strong performance across all our key metrics, including record cash flow and margin growth,” Marc Benioff, chairman and chief executive officer of Salesforce, said in the company’s earnings release. “With our trusted, unified Einstein 1 Platform, we’re incredibly well positioned to build on our success and capitalize on the massive surge in tech spending expected over the coming years, delivering an unprecedented level of intelligence to our customers as AI transforms every company and industry.”

Salesforce launched an enhanced version of Einstein, its artificial intelligence assistant for all things customer relationship management, in last May. Called Einstein GPT for Salesforce Sales Cloud, the service delivers benefits to customers, including automatically generating personal and relevant prospect emails to contacts based on their customer relationship management data.

Looking forward, Salesforce said it expects to see adjusted earnings per share of $2.37 to $2.39 in its fiscal 2025 first quarter on revenue of $9.12 billion to $9.17 billion. Analysts were expecting $2.20 and $9.15 billion.

For the full year, Salesforce is forecasting adjusted earnings per share of $9.68 to $9.76 on revenue of $37.7 billion to $38 billion.

Photo: Salesforce