Salesforce Shares Soar 20% as Q2 Earnings Exceed Expectations

Salesforce Inc.'s (NYSE:CRM) stock price surged by as much as 20% on Thursday after the company posted a strong fiscal second-quarter earnings report. Revenue for the quarter climbed 11% year-over-year to $11.35 billion, exceeding analyst expectations of $11.32 billion. Adjusted earnings per share came in at $5.90, significantly higher than the estimated $3.27.

The company's investment portfolio played a significant role in this profit surge, with Salesforce booking a $2.6 billion gain on its stake in AI startup Anthropic. This gain was largely due to an expanded partnership between Salesforce and Anthropic, which includes the launch of a new tool called Claudeforce.

Claudeforce allows sales staff to access Salesforce data and complete tasks directly within Anthropic's Claude chatbot, with 37 pre-built skills covering emails and record updates. Despite earlier fears that AI agents like Claude would render traditional SaaS platforms obsolete, Salesforce's Q2 results and partnership with Anthropic have turned the 'SaaSpocalypse' narrative on its head.

With this partnership in place, Salesforce management has raised its full-year revenue guidance to a range of $46.1 billion to $46.4 billion, up from the previous estimate of $45.9 billion to $46.2 billion. Adjusted earnings guidance has also been increased to $16.67-$16.71 per share from $14.06-$14.12.