Oracle shares rise as it expects to cross $100 billion in fiscal 2029 sales

(Reuters) - Oracle shares rose more than 6% in premarket trading on Friday after the company said it expects to cross $100 billion in revenue in fiscal 2029, as the popularity of AI drives demand for its cloud services.

Businesses are heavily reliant on cloud services provided by companies such as Oracle, Microsoft and Amazon to run their day-to-day operations and harness the power of AI.

"Even assuming this is aspirational, it sends yet another signal of increasing optimism from a veteran and proven leadership team," brokerage Piper Sandler said in a note about the company's "surprising" fiscal 2029 revenue forecast.

Oracle, which counts AT&T, Lyft and Cognizant among its clients, now expects fiscal 2026 revenue to be $66 billion, compared with its earlier forecast of $65 billion.

The Texas-based company beat analysts' estimates and reported $13.31 billion in first-quarter revenue on Monday.

It provided its fiscal 2029 forecast and raised its fiscal 2026 revenue forecast on Thursday at an annual briefing for financial analysts.

Its shares have risen more than 50% this year as of Thursday's close, far outpacing those of larger rival cloud providers Microsoft and Amazon.com, which are up about 14% and 23%, respectively.

Brokerage Bernstein said Oracle was "surprisingly well positioned" to capture cloud services market share.

Oracle trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 24.65, while Microsoft trades at 31.52 and Amazon at 33.73. At least six brokerages have raised their target prices on the company after it provided a robust fiscal 2029 forecast.

(Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai)