Salesforce, Inc. - CRM STOCK NEWS

Marc Benioff, Chair and CEO of Salesforce, has been honored with the Yale Legend in Leadership Award at the Yale CEO Summit, recognizing his visionary leadership and global commercial impact. This award is presented by the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute to CEOs who inspire across industries and nations. The virtual summit featured 250 CEOs, with notable figures such as Michael Dell of Dell Technologies and Bob Iger of The Walt Disney Company highlighting Benioff's dedication to using business as a platform for change. Benioff's leadership has driven Salesforce to become the world's leading AI CRM, pioneering technologies and transforming businesses globally.

Backstroke announces the launch of its generative AI messaging platform aimed at revolutionizing email, SMS, and mobile push marketing for B2C brands. With a $2M seed round led by High Alpha and Ground Game Ventures, Backstroke leverages a massive dataset from over 10,000 brands, tracking millions of messages to enhance marketing content. This technology aims to drive up to 64% more revenue per send compared to human copywriters. Early adopters include brands like Pearl iZUMi and Nathan Sports. Founded by R. J. Talyor and Allyson Talyor, Ph.D., Backstroke aims to simplify and personalize marketing tech. The company's launch event features Olympic swimmer Matt Biondi and will take place on June 21, 2024, in Indianapolis.

Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) announced its annual stockholders meeting will be held virtually on Thursday, June 27, 2024, at 11:00 a.m. (PT) / 2:00 p.m. (ET). The meeting will be webcast live on Salesforce's investor relations website. Stockholders as of May 1, 2024, are entitled to participate with a 16-digit control number included in the proxy materials. Non-stockholders can attend as guests. Additional details are available in Salesforce's proxy statement on their investor relations website.

Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) reported a strong first quarter for fiscal year 2025, with revenue hitting $9.13 billion, an 11% rise year-over-year. Subscription and support revenue grew 12% year-over-year to $8.59 billion. The company's GAAP operating margin was 18.7%, while the non-GAAP operating margin stood at 32.1%. Operating cash flow surged 39% year-over-year to $6.25 billion, and free cash flow rose by 43% to $6.08 billion. The company returned $2.2 billion to shareholders through share repurchases and paid $0.4 billion in dividends.

For FY25, Salesforce maintains its revenue guidance between $37.7 billion and $38.0 billion, reflecting an 8-9% increase year-over-year. However, it has lowered its subscription and support revenue growth guidance to slightly below 10%. The full-year GAAP operating margin guidance has also been reduced to 19.9%, while the non-GAAP operating margin guidance remains at 32.5%.

Salesforce has introduced new Einstein 1 marketing and commerce innovations, enhancing its AI assistant capabilities for marketers and merchants. The new features enable brands to generate personalized campaign briefs, content, and promotions automatically. Data Cloud for Commerce unifies business and customer data, providing smart insights to launch tailored promotions and enhance customer loyalty. Additionally, Einstein Personalization leverages unified data to trigger personalized customer interactions based on behavior and history. These innovations aim to help businesses of all sizes streamline marketing and commerce tasks with AI. The new features will be available starting summer 2024, with Einstein Copilot for Marketers and Data Cloud for Commerce available to B2B customers, while Copilot for Merchants and Einstein Personalization will follow in fall 2024.

IBM and Salesforce have expanded their partnership to enhance AI and data ecosystems. This collaboration integrates IBM's watsonx AI and Data Platform with Salesforce's Einstein 1 Platform. Customers will benefit from IBM Granite models for generative AI, zero copy data integration, and pre-built actions and prompts in CRM solutions. This alliance aims to provide enterprise-grade AI that is secure, trustable, and cost-effective. IBM and Salesforce are also committed to responsible AI development, as Salesforce joins the AI Alliance. The integration is expected to offer significant improvements in data-driven decision-making for various industries.

NTT DATA has been chosen by Salesforce to provide digital transformation services, standardizing and streamlining Salesforce's application environment. The partnership includes managing and developing applications across Salesforce's organization, spanning various clouds and platforms. NTT DATA's expertise and global reach were key factors in the selection. The collaboration aims to enhance customer insights and productivity through data and AI utilization.

Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) will release its first quarter fiscal year 2025 results on May 29, 2024, after the market closes. The company will host a conference call to discuss financial results with investors at 2:00 p.m. (PT) / 5:00 p.m. (ET). A webcast and replay will be available on the Salesforce Investor Relations website.

Launch: Equitable & Accelerated Pathways for All expands to 14 states with new investment from Salesforce, supporting the initiative through fall 2025. The partnership aims to create sustainable career pathways by fostering collaboration between education, government, and workforce sectors. The expansion includes Maryland, Massachusetts, and Virginia, with site teams focusing on key priority areas to ensure learners earn credentials for living wage jobs.