Defying the broad trend toward growth deceleration within the Cloud Wars Top 10, Oracle fiscal Q3 cloud revenue was up 45% to $4.1 billion as its cloud-applications business was up 42% and its infrastructure segment jumped 55%.
Last quarter, Oracle’s total cloud revenue was up 43%, meaning that its growth rate accelerated on a sequential basis from that 43% to fiscal Q3’s 45%, making it the only company in the Cloud Wars Top 10 to achieve that upward trajectory in today’s uncertain global economy.
I’ll have a more detailed look at Oracle’s numbers plus extensive commentary from CEO Safra Catz and CTO Larry Ellison next week, but in the short term here are some of the highlights from Oracle’s Q3-earnings press release:
- Cloud Infrastructure: revenue of $1.2 billion, up 55% (57% in constant currency)
- Cloud Applications: revenue of $2.9 billion, up 42% (44% cc)
- Within that, Fusion Cloud ERP revenue of $700 million, up 25% (28% cc)
- NetSuite Cloud ERP revenue of $700 million, up 23% (26% cc)
In the press release, Ellison focused on the big contributions and the huge potential of Cerner, the healthcare applications Oracle acquired about 9 months ago.
Over that 9-month period, Ellison said, Cerner’s contract base has grown by about $5 billion, including engagements with the US Department of Defense, the US Department of Veterans Affairs, hospital groups in the US and the UK, and the Australian Defense Forces.
And according to Ellison, the best from Cerner is yet to come.
“While we are pleased with this early success of the Cerner business, we expect the signing of new healthcare contracts to accelerate over the next few quarters,” he said in the press release.
Like Ellison, Catz was also bullish about Oracle’s ongoing prospects in the cloud, saying it now has 44,000 cloud ERP customers: 10,000 with Fusion ERP and 34,000 with NetSuite ERP, making it “the overwhelming market leader in Cloud ERP.”
Catz also gave a shout-out to Oracle’s Gen2 infrastructure business, which she said “continues to be in a hypergrowth phase — up 65% in Q3 in constant currency.”
Final Thought
With these impressive cloud numbers, Oracle has solidified its status as the world’s fastest-growing major cloud provider with an overall cloud growth rate of 45%. And no other Cloud Wars Top 10 company is close: SAP is next at 33% and then Google Cloud at 32%.
In addition, the company’s ability to accelerate its overall cloud business at a time when most other Cloud Wars Top 10 companies are posting declining growth rates is a huge differentiator for Oracle and a testament to the company’s unique status in the greatest growth market the world has ever known.
Again, more is coming on Monday from the always-lively commentary from Ellison and Catz on the Q3 earnings call.
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