Salesforce investors hope for faster growth, AI progress in earnings

There was a moment, during the pandemic-fueled growth days of 2020, when Salesforce surpassed Oracle by market cap. Marc Benioff had finally toppled his mentor, Larry Ellison.

That moment is long gone.

Salesforce’s stock price has dropped 25% this year, the worst performance in large-cap tech and the second-steepest decline in the Dow, beating only UnitedHealth. Meanwhile, Oracle has jumped 34%, outperforming most of its peers and well outpacing the major indexes.

The two companies that were once about even by valuation are now separated by about $400 billion. Oracle is worth $630 billion, and Salesforce has dropped to $239 billion. Ellison now ranks second behind Elon Musk on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with a $278 billion net worth. Benioff sits in 318th place at $10.4 billion.

Investors are eager to hear how Benioff plans to right the ship when Salesforce reports quarterly results after the close on Wednesday.

Sales growth has been mired in the single digits for four straight quarters as the company reckons with the challenges of saturation in its key market of customer relationship management software. That streak is expected to continue, with analysts estimating revenue growth of 8.7% to $10.1 billion, according to LSEG.

During the April period, about a quarter of Salesforce’s $9.3 billion in subscription and support revenue came from products related to customer service, its biggest category. The company charges for its Service Cloud offering based on the number of agents who use the software.

With the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, some analysts predict more inquiries will be handled through automation, posing a risk to Salesforce.

Benioff is well aware of the challenge. He said in June that AI is already handling about 30% to 50% of the company’s work. It’s a big reason why Salesforce reportedly slashed 1,000 jobs earlier this year.

When it comes to customers, Salesforce now sells Agentforce, an AI system for answering customer support requests. After becoming available in October, Agentforce was delivering $100 million in annualized revenue, Benioff told analysts on a conference call in May.

“It’s not significant enough to move the needle on this business, given the scale,” said Michael Turrin, a Wells Fargo analyst who has a hold recommendation on Salesforce shares.

The hope is that customers end up paying more for Agentforce than for Service Cloud, Turrin said.

The big difference for Oracle is that it’s one of the early beneficiaries of the AI boom. Known primarily for its database software that sits inside big companies and government agencies, Oracle has notched cloud infrastructure commitments from OpenAI and Musk’s xAI.

Agentforce could be Salesforce’s window into AI business, if it gains traction.

“I think there’s been a lot of frustration with Salesforce’s share performance, so I think we’re at a point where investors are trying to figure out if there’s an opportunity for a bit of a rebound here,” Turrin said.

Investors also want to see improvement in current remaining performance obligations at constant currency, a measure of expected revenue over the next year. In May, operating chief Robin Washington said she was expecting that number to be 9% for the August quarter.

“The longer that metric stays above 10%, the more confident investors are that this business can sustain a 10% growth profile for at least the next year,” Turrin said.

Analysts expect revenue growth to pick up very slightly in the fiscal third quarter, with consensus estimates currently at 9%, according to LSEG.

Salesforce declined to comment.

Expansion could come from outside. In May, Salesforce agreed to buy data management company Informatica for $8 billion. That’s by far the largest deal for Salesforce since the $27.1 billion purchase of Slack in 2021. In the interim, Salesforce hadn’t spent more than $2.5 billion on M&A, which has been a major growth driver in years past.

In late 2022, activist investors started going after Salesforce, dissatisfied with Benioff’s high-cost acquisitions, the company’s underperforming stock and its expanding workforce. The activists began agitating for a more favorable mix of sales and profit, and Salesforce responded by expanding margins sooner than it had planned.

One of the main instigators, Starboard Value, is back for more. In the second quarter, the firm, which first bought Salesforce stock in 2022, boosted its holding by 47%, according to a filing. In October 2024, Starboard’s Jeff Smith complimented Salesforce’s profitability improvements but said he still believed “there’s a lot more to go.”

Vulcan Value Partners is a Salesforce shareholder that’s comfortable with the software company’s plans. After picking up a stake in 2020, Vulcan added 345,000 shares in the second quarter, increasing its total holdings to $300 million.

“The thing that we focus on is the value per share of the business,” said Stephen Simmons, a portfolio manager at the firm. “That is continuing to grow. There’s nothing we’re seeing that’s saying this company is going away anytime soon.”

Analysts expect earnings per share to increase to $2.78 for the latest quarter, up from $2.56 a year earlier, according to LSEG.

Vulcan sold its Oracle shares in 2020, missing out on a steep rally that followed. Simmons said he’d buy again if the stock becomes discounted.

“Funny how things go around and come around,” Simmons said. “Benioff starts Salesforce as a cloud-native enterprise company, and Larry’s over at Oracle trying to transition his on-prem customers to the cloud.”

Correction: In earlier days, Larry Ellison mentored Marc Benioff. A previous version of this article mischaracterized their professional relationship.