Oracle Corp (NYSE:ORCL) stock plunges 10.77% (As on December 12, 11:32:39 AM UTC-4, Source: Google Finance) after the company reported fiscal second-quarter revenue and quarterly revenue guidance that fell short of Wall Street expectations. Cloud services and license support revenues were up 12% in USD and up 11% in constant currency to $9.6 billion. Cloud license and on-premise license revenues were down 18% in USD and down 19% in constant currency to $1.2 billion, slightly lower than the $1.21 billion StreetAccount consensus. Non-GAAP operating income was $5.5 billion, up 9% in USD and up 7% in constant currency. The company delivered non-GAAP operating margin was 43%. Non-GAAP net income was $3.8 billion, up 14% in USD and up 11% in constant currency. Short-term deferred revenues were $8.9 billion. Over the last twelve months, operating cash flow was $17.0 billion and free cash flow was $10.1 billion.

Meanwhile, Oracle is in the process of expanding 66 of the existing cloud datacenters and building 100 new cloud datacenters in order to meet growing demand. The company can build th new datacenters very rapidly and operate them inexpensively because they are all highly automated with identical high-performance RDMA networks and the same set of autonomous services. In the next few months, the company is turning on 20 new Oracle cloud datacenters collocated with and connected to Microsoft Azure. Simultaneously the company is building dozens of new datacenters in countries all over the world. Demand is over the moon.

ORCL in the second quarter of FY 24 has reported the adjusted earnings per share of $1.34, beating the analysts’ estimates for the adjusted earnings per share of $1.32, according to consensus estimates from LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv. The company had reported the adjusted revenue growth of 5 percent to $12.94 billion in the second quarter of FY 24, missing the analysts’ estimates for revenue of $13.05 billion.

Additionally, the company has declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.40 per share of outstanding common stock. This dividend will be paid to stockholders of record as of the close of business on January 11, 2024, with a payment date of January 25, 2024.

With respect to guidance, Oracle called for adjusted net income for the fiscal third quarter of $1.35 to $1.39 per share and 6% to 8% revenue growth. Analysts polled by LSEG had predicted $1.37 in adjusted earnings per share and $13.34 billion in revenue, which implies 7.6% revenue growth.