Oracle's (ORCL) Q4 Results Beat the Street, Shares Gain

In today's after-hours session, shares of Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) are trading modestly higher following the company's Q4 results. The stock most recently traded at $20.19, up about 1.6% from today's close.

The enterprise software giant reported Q4 non-GAAP earnings of $0.46, coming in 2 cents better than what analysts had been expecting, on sales of $6.9 billion. This level of earnings represents a 1% decline from the same quarter last year, while sales for the quarter fell 5% from Q408. Also, Oracle reported a non-GAAP operating margin of 51%, up 240 basis points from the same quarter last year.

With the quarterly results, Oracle's Board also declared a cash dividend of $0.05 per common share, payable on August 13, 2009 to shareholders of record on July 15, 2009.

UPDATE: On its conference call, Oracle also gave Q1 guidance. Click here to see the outlook.

Adding some color to the quarter, several execs commented:

"Adjusted for the substantial movement in the US dollar exchange rate this fiscal year, which is beyond our control, we grew non-GAAP earnings per share by 19 percent for the year," said Oracle President Safra Catz. "That's an amazing achievement given what's been happening in the global economy over the past twelve months."

"We grew faster and took market share from SAP in every region around the world," said Oracle President Charles Phillips. "In Europe our applications business grew 5 percent in constant currency versus negative 27 percent growth for SAP in their most recent quarter. Historically Europe has been an SAP stronghold, but these results prove that we can compete and beat them everywhere."

UPDATE: Click here to see some highlights from the company's Q4 conference call.

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