Salesforce's earnings beat and a $60bn vision

Salesforce has spent most of 2025 trying to outrun a narrative that it has fallen behind the very AI wave it helped popularise. On Wednesday, it finally landed some leverage.

The company beat earnings expectations and issued a fourth-quarter revenue forecast ahead of Wall Street estimates. The shares rose 5.3% in extended trading, adding $12 billion to its value.

The numbers were solid. Adjusted earnings per share came in at $3.25 against expectations of $2.86. Revenue for the fiscal third quarter was $10.26 billion, just shy of consensus by a sliver.

Revenue grew 8.6% from a year earlier. Net income rose to $2.09 billion from $1.53 billion, supported by a $263 million gain from strategic investments.

Guidance was the bigger swing. Salesforce told investors to expect $11.13 billion to $11.23 billion in fourth quarter revenue, ahead of the $10.9 billion analysts forecast. The range implies revenue growth of 11% to 12%, with about three points coming from Informatica, the data management firm Salesforce bought for around $8 billion in November.

Salesforce’s stock has badly lagged the broader tech sector this year. As of Wednesday’s close, shares were down 29% for 2025, while the Nasdaq had gained roughly 21%. The concern has been existential, rooted in fears that new AI systems might cannibalise some of Salesforce’s own software.

The company tried to counter that anxiety by showing momentum in its AI product line.

Annualised revenue from Agentforce, its workflow automation assistant, has climbed more than 330% from a year earlier to over $500 million. Salesforce also highlighted acquisitions of the AI startups Regrello, which builds task-performing software, and Waii, which turns short prompts into code for data queries.

Free cash flow rose 22% to $2.18 billion, although that fell short of StreetAccount estimates. The company also reiterated its long-term ambition, pointing to a fiscal 2030 revenue target of $60 billion.