Salesforce reported fourth-quarter revenue of $10.7 billion, representing a 13% year-over-year increase. For the full fiscal year, the company posted revenue of $41.5 billion, up 10% from the previous year. These results were bolstered by Salesforce’s $8 billion acquisition of data management company Informatica, which closed in May last year. Net income for the quarter was $7.46 billion.
The company provided forward guidance for the current fiscal year, projecting revenue between $45.8 billion and $46.2 billion. This forecast represents a growth rate of 10% to 11% compared to the prior year. Salesforce also reported that its remaining performance obligation (RPO) exceeded $72 billion. RPO is a metric representing revenue under contract that has not yet been recognized.
Software-as-a-service stocks, including Salesforce, have faced pressure from investors concerned that AI agents will render per-employee-seat business models obsolete. This industry concern has been termed the “SaaSpocalypse.” During the earnings call, CEO Marc Benioff referenced the term at least six times.
“You’ve heard about the SaaSpocalypse? And it isn’t our first. We’ve had a few of them,” Benioff stated. He added, “If there is a SaaSpocalypse, it may be eaten by the Sasquatch because there are a lot of companies using a lot of SaaS because it just got better with agents.”
Salesforce announced a dividend increase of nearly 6% to $0.44 per share. The company also launched a new $50 billion share buyback program. These actions are intended to provide a sturdy buyer for shares and reduce the total number of shares in circulation.
The format of the earnings call was modified to include on-camera interviews with three Salesforce customers. Benioff interviewed the CEO of home appliance company SharkNinja, the CEO of Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, and the CEO of SaaStr, a software industry conference and media company. These executives endorsed Salesforce’s AI agent products during the call.
Salesforce introduced a new metric called “agentic work units” (AWU). The company stated that AWU is designed to measure whether an AI agent completed a task, rather than simply counting the volume of tokens processed. Salesforce reported processing 19 trillion tokens in the last quarter. Salesforce president and CMO Patrick Stokes explained that AWU aims to measure verifiable work, such as an agent writing to a record, rather than less valuable outputs like generating a poem.
Salesforce presented an architectural vision where SaaS providers own the top of the technology stack. In this vision, AI model makers function as commoditized engines at the bottom. This view directly contrasts with a vision released by OpenAI earlier this month regarding its enterprise agent, Frontier. OpenAI’s architectural vision places its systems at the top of the stack, with SaaS providers positioned at the bottom as data engines.
During the call, Benioff wore a black leather jacket, echoing the signature attire of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
