Salesforce posted fiscal Q2 revenue of $11.35 billion and net income up 87% year over year, fueled by a $2.6 billion gain on its Anthropic stake. Agentforce AI annualized revenue surpassed $1.5 billion, rising 240% from a year ago.
Salesforce reported fiscal second-quarter revenue of $11.35 billion on Wednesday, edging past analyst expectations and sending shares up 14% in extended trading, with a $2.6 billion gain from its stake in AI startup Anthropic driving a sharp jump in net income.
The cloud software company's revenue rose 11% from a year earlier in the quarter ending July 31. Net income reached $3.53 billion, or $4.29 per share, an 87% increase from $1.89 billion, or $1.96 per share, in the same period a year ago.
Adjusted earnings came in at $5.90 per share against the LSEG consensus, and revenue of $11.35 billion topped the $11.32 billion analysts had expected.
The Anthropic stake was the single largest contributor to the profit surge. Anthropic, in which Salesforce holds a strategic investment, was valued at $965 billion following an equity fundraise in May, the company said. Alphabet and Microsoft have also recently flagged investment gains tied to their own Anthropic positions.
Free cash flow climbed 81% to $1.10 billion, well above the $643.2 million consensus tracked by StreetAccount.
Salesforce's Agentforce AI product line continued to scale. Annualized revenue from Agentforce topped $1.5 billion, a 240% year-over-year increase, compared with growth of more than 200% the prior quarter. The company also announced Claudeforce, a plugin for Anthropic's Claude AI assistant that can compose emails, surface information for salespeople, and update records through chat.
During the quarter, Salesforce disclosed a $1.6 billion contract from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and announced plans to acquire customer service startup Fin for $3.6 billion.
Current remaining performance obligation — a measure of revenue expected to be recognized in the next 12 months — stood at $33.5 billion, above the $33.22 billion StreetAccount consensus.
For the fiscal third quarter, Salesforce guided for revenue between $11.42 billion and $11.50 billion, compared with the $11.41 billion analyst estimate from LSEG. Full-year revenue guidance was raised to a range of $46.1 billion to $46.4 billion, implying 11% growth at the midpoint and up from the prior outlook of $45.9 billion to $46.2 billion.
Despite the strong quarter, Salesforce shares had been down 22% year to date as of Wednesday's close, while the S&P 500 gained 12% over the same period, reflecting ongoing investor uncertainty about how generative AI models will affect established enterprise software vendors.
The stronger guidance and Agentforce growth trajectory signal that Salesforce is attempting to reposition itself as a direct beneficiary of enterprise AI adoption rather than a potential casualty of it — a case that will be tested in the quarters ahead as competition from both AI-native startups and large cloud rivals intensifies.
Jay Goldberg is a staff writer at TechEchelon covering technology, markets, and policy. He files the breaking news and deal coverage that move the publication's core desks.
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