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Salesforce Outperforms Expectations and Expands Ambitions

Salesforce has kicked off its fiscal year on a high note, beating Wall Street expectations and increasing its full-year guidance, while announcing its largest acquisition since Slack in 2021. The company reported robust financials for its fiscal Q1 and unveiled a bold move to acquire Informatica — a leading data management firm — in a deal valued at $8 billion.

This strategic acquisition, if finalized, will further strengthen Salesforce’s AI capabilities by improving how organizations clean and manage their data, a critical step before deploying advanced AI models.

Why Informatica? The AI and Data Playbook

In a call with analysts, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff emphasized how Informatica’s tools complement Salesforce’s existing offerings, particularly in AI deployment and automation.

“AI agents are only as good as the data they’re trained on,” said Benioff. “Informatica helps ensure that data is structured, cleaned, and usable — and that’s key for scaling intelligent applications globally.”

Benioff also highlighted Salesforce’s global distribution advantage, suggesting that Informatica’s reach can multiply exponentially under the Salesforce umbrella.

“They’re a smaller company — their distribution footprint is orders of magnitude smaller than ours,” he added. “We’re in a unique position to bring their product to enterprises worldwide.”

First Quarter Highlights: Cost Savings and AI Expansion

Salesforce introduced its new AgentExchange marketplace this quarter, focusing on AI-driven agents and automation tools. Internally, the company has already benefited from its Agentforce platform, which helped reassign 500 customer support employees, saving the company $50 million in operational costs.

Q2 and Full-Year Guidance: Stronger Than Expected

For fiscal Q2, Salesforce projects:

• Adjusted EPS: $2.76 to $2.78
• Revenue: $10.11 to $10.16 billion

Analysts surveyed by LSEG were expecting $2.73 per share on $10.01 billion in revenue — making Salesforce’s guidance a solid beat on both fronts.

For the full fiscal year, Salesforce now forecasts:

• Adjusted EPS: $11.27 to $11.33
• Revenue: $41.0 billion to $41.3 billion (8–9% year-over-year growth)

This marks an increase from February’s forecast of $11.09 to $11.17 in EPS and $40.5 to $40.9 billion in revenue. The new forecast is also above consensus, which stood at $11.16 per share and $40.82 billion in revenue.

Segment Outlook: AI Up, Marketing Flat

President and COO Robin Washington noted that subscription and support revenue — which makes up the bulk of Salesforce’s business — is expected to grow by 9% this year, aided in part by contributions from Agentforce. However, she also cautioned about weakness in the marketing and commerce software segment and slower growth from customers nearing the end of long-term contracts.

Market Reaction: Stock Down in 2025 Despite Strong Fundamentals

Despite the upbeat results and guidance, Salesforce stock has declined roughly 18% year-to-date in 2025, underperforming the broader S&P 500, which has remained largely flat. Some analysts point to concerns over acquisition spending, tightening enterprise budgets, and the overall market’s sensitivity to tech valuations as contributing factors.

Still, many investors remain bullish on Salesforce’s long-term positioning — especially as the company doubles down on AI, automation, and enterprise data management.

Industry Context: A New Chapter in Enterprise AI

Salesforce’s move comes amid a broader surge in enterprise AI investment. According to IDC, global spending on enterprise AI software and services is expected to exceed $300 billion by 2026. With competitors like Microsoft integrating OpenAI’s models into Azure and Google ramping up Gemini for business tools, Salesforce’s Informatica acquisition is both a defensive and offensive maneuver.

What’s Next?

With a stronger outlook, renewed AI focus, and an $8 billion bet on the future of data, Salesforce is making clear that it doesn’t just want to compete — it wants to lead.

As the company continues to integrate AI deeper into its suite and potentially scales Informatica’s tools to a global customer base, the second half of 2025 could prove transformative for the CRM leader.

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