Weak cloud demand has mildly brought down Salesforce’s annual revenue

Salesforce laid off nearly 700 workers, or about 1% of its worldwide workforce, last month in response to warnings of a slowing economy

Salesforce introduced a new dividend and increased its buyback program by $10 billion, but its shares fell by 2% in after-hours trading due to its lower-than-expected annual revenue forecast. The negative outlook from the company points to a probable slowdown in cloud and tech investment as customers struggle with high borrowing rates and growing inflation, which forces them to control expenses. LSEG data shows that the company expects sales for the full year 2025 of $37.7 billion to $38 billion, compared with analysts' estimates of $38.62 billion. Salesforce laid off nearly 700 workers, or about 1% of its worldwide workforce, last month in response to warnings of a slowing economy. This was just one of many layoffs that occurred in the IT and media sectors.

Analytics for cloud data to make matters worse for cloud companies already facing uncertainties this year, Snowflake also predicted first-quarter revenue that was lower than expected. Salesforce, however, outperformed analysts' sales projections for the fourth quarter and profit as a result of increased cloud investment, joining the ranks of other cloud behemoths such as Microsoft and Amazon.com. For the quarter that concluded on January 31, the corporation posted sales of $9.29 billion, exceeding the $9.22 billion experts had predicted. In comparison to projections of $2.26 per share, the company earned $2.29 per share on an adjusted basis.