Oracle President Safra Catz talks about weakness in Europe

On the Call: Oracle President Safra Catz

Oracle Corp. managed to meet Wall Street’s profit forecasts in the fiscal first quarter despite a drop in sales that was caused in large part by weakness in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, a region where revenue was down about 10 percent from last year to $1.64 billion.

Meanwhile, sales in the Americas were down less than 1 percent to $2.7 billion, while sales in Asia were down 9 percent to $741 million.

Safra Catz, Oracle’s president, addressed concerns about sales in Europe during a conference call with analysts following Oracle’s quarterly earnings report, which was released Wednesday after the market closed.

QUESTION: Can you talk about what you saw in Europe last quarter? The summer quarter is always tough, but did you see trends worsen as the quarter went on, or are you starting to see things improve a bit?

ANSWER: As you know, August, the summer in Europe, is always not great. The last year, we actually had a very, very good summer so it made the comparison tough. We did actually start to see some of the economies in Europe improve a little bit, in just our overall outlook and expectations, but we still have some very tough comparisons. But nothing is like the summer is in Europe, and especially after last year where we had an unusually robust summer, so this will be an improvement and we do actually see the economies little by little starting to lighten up, which is a good thing.