Salesforce (CRM) shares rose in after-hours trading after the company reported mixed quarterly results, with revenue beating estimates while earnings per share (EPS) fell short of expectations. Angelo Zino, senior equity analyst at CFRA Research, joins Josh Lipton on Asking for a Trend to share his take on the earnings results.

“Overall the results were fairly consistent, I would say. (It was) a bit of a mixed bag overall, but look at the quarter here: In the October quarter, sales were up about 8%… a little better.” “The bottom line is that it was a small mistake,” Zino explains.

He adds: “What’s more important is what they were targeting in the January quarter, which is the fact that they’re targeting 8% revenue growth (which implies) that growth rates here are finally starting to stabilize.” Salesforce.”

“We absolutely believe in the name,” says the analyst, noting: “We’ve seen that software has really underperformed here over the last year, at least compared to other technology areas like semiconductors. We believe software will come back stronger by 2025, particularly in the Software as a Service (SaaS) space, which is one of the worst-performing areas of technology.”

When it comes to Salesforce specifically, he says the company’s recently unveiled artificial intelligence (AI) agent is “important” because it “actually gives investors an idea of ​​what this strategy is going to look like in terms of AI” and some “The headwind for Salesforce in terms of AI is that there’s sort of this subscription-based offering that’s getting pressured by companies out there.”

According to Zino, Salesforce’s AI strategy revolves around data across the entire ecosystem. “They give the division a real reason to go ahead and actually pay for the Salesforce platform,” with their subscription-based offerings as well as their consumption-based model, which we believe will help somehow improve the Salesforce story by 2025 go.”

For more expert insights and analysis on the latest market activity, check out the Asking for a Trend article here.

This post was written by Naomi Buchanan.