Oracle shares climbed more than 2 percent Friday after it reported strong quarterly revenue the day before.
The cloud software company on Thursday after the close announced fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of $10.6 billion, beating the Reuters consensus estimate for $10.47 billion. Earnings per share of 81 cents met expectations.
Oracle said the quarterly results were due to strong performance in its cloud business. The company's revenue in application services, cloud software as a service and platform as a service were up by 68 percent in constant currency.
"We expect that the SaaS and PaaS hyper-growth we experienced in FY16 will continue on for the next few years. That gives us a fighting chance to be the first cloud company to reach $10 billion in SaaS and PaaS revenue," Larry Ellison, Oracle's executive chairman and CTO, said in a release.
Despite this solid gain, the tech giant will have "trouble moving up significantly in the absence of better transparency in the cloud business," Wedbush Securities analysts said in a Friday note to clients.
The investment firm reiterated Oracle's neutral rating and edged the 12-month target price higher to $41 from $40.
Oracle's stock has risen more than 8 percent so far this year. It closed at $39.68 on Friday.
ORCL year to date
Disclosure: Wedbush makes a market in Oracle shares.