E-Business
Oracle’s Revenue, Others Hit Hard by Inconsistent Forex Market
From technology giant, Oracle Corporations, to pharmaceutical companies like Abbott Laboratories to manufacturers like Caterpillar and fast-food chain McDonald’s, a strong U.S. dollar against local currencies is exposing a painful side effect of their global expansion.
These companies had expanded aggressively to emerging markets over the past decade while the strategy seemed like a winner a few years back.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek had reported via its eNewsletter of December 1, 2014, when Dr. Umar Bindr, director general of the National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP) accused telecommunications operators of putting enormous pressure on the nation’s foreign exchange as they seek approvals to acquire foreign software to drive their networks.
Bindr had counted back to 12 months ago when the operators obtained approvals to spend about N20bn on foreign technology agreements sought by the operators.
But, Oracle Corporation on Friday, tearfully reported that its total revenues downed 5% to $10.7 billion which would have been up 3% in constant currency.
Pre-elections 2015, especially between October 2014 and March 2015, the Nigerian naira weakened against US dollars up to N300/dollar.
While announcing it fiscal 2015 Q4 results, Oracle said that the total fourth quarter (Q4) revenues were $10.7 billion, down 5% but would have been up 3% without the strengthening of the U.S. dollar.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered from the account that Oracle’s software and cloud revenues were $8.4 billion, down 6%, but up 2% in constant currency, while cloud software as a service (SaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) revenues were $416 million, growing 29%, and up 35% in constant currency.
Also, its cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS) revenues were $160 million, growing 25%, and up 31% in constant currency and the hardware Systems Revenues were $1.4 billion, down 4%, but up 5% in constant currency.
Q4 operating income was $4.0 billion, and the Operating Margin was 37%. Non-GAAP Operating Income was $5.0 billion, and the non-GAAP Operating Margin was 46%.
Net Income was $2.8 billion while non-GAAP Net Income was $3.5 billion. Earnings Per Share was $0.62, down 23%, and down 12% in constant currency, while non-GAAP Earnings Per Share was $0.78, down 14%, and down 5% in constant currency.
Short-term Deferred revenues were $7.2 billion, slightly down, but up 9% in constant currency compared with a year ago. Operating Cash Flow on a trailing twelve-month basis was $14.3 billion.
For fiscal year 2015, Total Revenues were $38.2 billion, essentially unchanged, but up 4% in constant currency.
Software and Cloud Revenues were $29.5 billion, up 1%, and up 5% in constant currency. Cloud SaaS and PaaS revenues were $1.5 billion, up 32%, and up 35% in constant currency. Cloud IaaS revenues were $608 million, up 33%, and up 36% in constant currency.
Total Hardware System Revenues were $5.2 billion, down 3%, but up 2% in constant currency. Operating Income was $13.9 billion, and the Operating Margin was 36%. Non-GAAP Operating Income was $17.4 billion, and non-GAAP Operating Margin was 45%.
Net Income was $9.9 billion, while non-GAAP Net Income was $12.5 billion. Earnings Per Share was $2.21, down 7%, but unchanged in constant currency. Non-GAAP Earnings Per Share was $2.77 down 3%, but up 2% in constant currency.
Speaking on the report, Safra Catz, Oracle CEO, said, “We sold an astonishing $426 million of new SaaS and PaaS annually recurring cloud subscription revenue in Q4. We expect our rapidly increasing cloud sales to quickly translate into significantly more revenue and profits for Oracle Corporation.
For example, SaaS and PaaS revenues grew at a 34% constant currency rate in our just completed Q4, but we expect that revenue growth rate to jump to around 60% in constant currency this new fiscal year.”
“Coming into Q4, we forecast selling $300 million of new SaaS and PaaS annual recurring revenue,” said Mark Hurd, Oracle CEO. “We dramatically beat that forecast by selling a cloud industry all-time-record amount of $426 million of new SaaS and PaaS business. That is a year-over-year bookings growth rate of over 200%. As our multi-billion dollar cloud business gets bigger, our SaaS and PaaS revenue growth rates are on their way up to 60% in constant currency. Compare this to our primary cloud competitors’ whose own revenue growth forecasts are on their way down to 44% and 22%.”
“We expect to book between $1.5 and $2.0 billion of new SaaS and PaaS business this fiscal year,” said Oracle Executive Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison. “That means Oracle would sell more new SaaS and PaaS business than salesforce.com plans to sell in their current fiscal year – the only remaining question is how much more. Oracle’s planned SaaS and PaaS revenue growth rate is around 60% in constant currency; salesforce.com has a planned growth rate of around 20%. When you contrast those growth rates it becomes clear that Oracle is on its way to becoming the world’s largest enterprise cloud company.”
The Board of Directors also declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.15 per share of outstanding common stock. This dividend will be paid to stockholders of record as of the close of business on July 8, 2015, with a payment date of July 29, 2015.
Transcorp Hotels Plc has delivered a stellar performance in the first half of 2025, recording a 60% year-on-year surge in revenue to ₦47.57 billion, up from ₦29.72 billion in H1 2024. Gross profit climbed 71% to ₦36.21 billion, maintaining a strong 76% margin despite inflation and operational headwinds.
The hospitality giant, a subsidiary of Transnational Corporation Plc, also announced an interim dividend payout of ₦1.024 billion — offering ₦0.10 per 50 kobo ordinary share to shareholders.
In a bold move, the company unveiled Nigeria’s largest corporate venue — the 5,000-seat Transcorp Centre — staking its claim as the new leader in event hospitality. Chairman Emmanuel Nnorom described the results as proof of Transcorp Hotels’ transformative strategies and unwavering investor commitment. MD/CEO Uzo Oshogwe attributed the success to relentless execution and a resilient business model.
Transcorp Hotels, renowned for iconic assets like Transcorp Hilton Abuja and its digital platform Aura, says it isn’t just leading Nigeria’s hospitality sector — it’s redefining excellence across Africa.
Chinese “threat actors” have hacked Microsoft’s SharePoint document software servers and targeted the data of the businesses using it, the firm has said.
China state-backed Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon as well as China-based Storm-2603 were said to have “exploited vulnerabilities” in on-premises SharePoint servers, the kind used by firms, but not in its cloud-based service.
The US tech giant has released security updates in response and has advised all on-premises SharePoint server customers to install them.
“Investigations into other actors also using these exploits are still ongoing,” Microsoft said in a statement.
The firm said it had “high confidence” the hackers would continue to target systems which have not installed its security updates.
It added that it would update its website blog with more information as its investigation continues.
Microsoft said it had observed attacks in which hackers had sent a request to a SharePoint server “enabling the theft of the key material by threat actors”.
Charles Carmakal, chief technology officer at Mandiant Consulting firm, a division of Google Cloud, told reporter, it was “aware of several victims in several different sectors across a number of global geographies”.
Carmakal said it appeared that governments and businesses that use SharePoint on their sites were the primary target.
A number of adversaries who stole material encoded by cryptography were then able to regain ongoing access to the victims’ SharePoint data, he said.
“This was exploited in a very broad way, very opportunistically before a patch was made available. That’s why this is significant,” Carmakal said.
Carmakal said the “China-nexus actor” was deploying techniques similar to previous campaigns associated with Beijing.
Microsoft said Linen Typhoon had “focused on stealing intellectual property, primarily targeting organizations related to government, defence, strategic planning, and human rights” for 13 years.
It added that Violet Typhoon had been “dedicated to espionage”, primarily targeting former government and military staff, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, higher education, the media, the financial sector and the health sector in the US, Europe, and East Asia.
Meanwhile, Storm-2603 was “assessed with medium confidence to be a China-based threat actor”.
National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has issued a public warning that it is not associated with NINcard.com.
According to the commission, the website has been circulating online to offer services for Nigerians seeking National Identification Number (NIN) services.
NIMC, in a post on its official X account on Wednesday, said, “NINcard.com is not in anyway affiliated to NIMC. Stay vigilant!”
The warning was accompanied by screenshots of fake payment receipts and OTP request pages from the website, both of which were boldly stamped “FAKE” by NIMC to alert the public.
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