Salesforce.com sales rise 29% as profit drops in fiscal Q4 2010

Salesforce.com's subscription-based CRM has grown to over 92,000 users during 2010, an increase of over 27% compared to the previous year.

In its latest financial results, Salesforce.com reports a 29% year-on-year increase in sales to $457m (£284m) in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year 2010. Profit fell after increases in expenses and costs.

Sales for the full fiscal year were up 27% to $1.66bn.

But as operating costs jumped 40% in the quarter, profit for the period ending 31 January 2011 was down to $10.9m, compared to $20.4m in the same quarter the year before.

Marc Benioff, CEO at Salesforce.com, said the company is still on track to be the first enterprise cloud computing company to report more than $2bn in sales.

"While it took us a decade to achieve our first billion dollars, we anticipate reaching $2bn just three years later," said Marc Benioff.

Subscription and support sales grew 28% year-on-year to $1.55bn. Professional services sales rose 10% year-on-year to $106m.

Salesforce.com says its customer base grew 5,100 in the period ending 31 January 2011, up 27% on 2009 figures.

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