SEATTLE (Reuters) - Oracle Corp said on Thursday fiscal first-quarter profit rose a better-than-expected 20 percent, helped by strong sales of new business software and faster-than-expected growth of its new hardware business.
The world's No. 3 software maker, which sells business software, database systems and now server hardware through its recent purchase of Sun Microsystems, reported net profit of $1.35 billion, or 27 cents per share, compared with $1.12 billion, or 22 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter.
Excluding some items, it reported profit of 42 cents per share. That beat Wall Street's average estimate of 37 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Sales rose 50 percent to $7.6 billion, helped by the acquisition of Sun Microsystems earlier this year. Analysts were expecting $7.27 billion, on average.
New software sales -- which generate long-term maintenance contracts, signaling future profitability -- were up 25 percent to $1.3 billion. The company had forecast three months ago they would rise between 2 percent and 12 percent.
ORACLE (ORCL.NQ)s shares were up nearly 3 percent at $26.10 after closing at $25.36 on the Nasdaq.
The company is expected to make a forecast on sales of new software for the current quarter in a conference call later on Thursday.
Chief Executive Larry Ellison and new president Mark Hurd -- the former Hewlett-Packard Co
(Reporting by Bill Rigby, editing by Matthew Lewis)
