Oracle has soared over 60% this year, marking the best performance since the dot-com bubble, with founder Larry Ellison's net worth skyrocketing by $75 billion
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, which has become a "celebrity" in the AI field, is training some of the world's most important AI models, and it is faster and cheaper than other cloud platforms. Company executives predict that revenue will "easily" double and exceed $100 billion within five years. Some analysts are optimistic about the close relationship between Ellison and Musk benefiting the company's business, but skeptics are concerned that the doubling of capital expenditures in fiscal year 2025 is unsustainable
According to the latest ranking of billionaires by Forbes, due to Oracle's stock price soaring over 60% this year, its co-founder, chairman, chief technology officer, and largest shareholder Larry Ellison has become the third richest person in the world, with a net worth increase of approximately $75 billion.
Ellison's net worth currently exceeds $217 billion, ranking just behind his "close friend," Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Meta's Mark Zuckerberg follows closely, with a net worth also exceeding $200 billion.
Analysts point out that this is mainly due to the software giant Oracle, founded in 1979, entering the booming AI infrastructure wave, with its stock price performance this year reaching the best since the 1999 internet bubble.
From September to November this year, Ellison frequently competed with Bezos for the second position on the global billionaire list, whereas before 2000, Ellison was unable to consistently rank at the top of the billionaire list.
On Thursday, Oracle's stock rose 0.5% to a two-week high, with a cumulative increase of 63% this year, significantly outperforming the S&P 500's year-to-date increase of 27%.
Ellison: Oracle's cloud infrastructure trains the world's most important AI models, faster and cheaper than other cloud platforms
On one hand, Oracle is leveraging its cloud infrastructure technology to participate in the AI boom, making its database more accessible across various cloud platforms, while the company is also actively expanding cloud collaborations with several leading AI model development giants globally.
Two weeks ago, Oracle signed an AI training agreement with Meta, which will use Oracle Cloud to enhance the training and deployment of various AI projects, including the Llama large language model. In June, OpenAI also announced it would use Oracle's cloud infrastructure.
Last year, Ellison made his first visit to Microsoft's headquarters and announced a partnership that allows users to access Oracle's database through the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. This year, Oracle has reached similar agreements with Google and Amazon, and has also engaged in high-value AI transactions with Musk's X.ai.
Ellison has stated:
“Oracle's cloud infrastructure has trained some of the world's most important generative AI models because we are faster and cheaper than other cloud platforms. The AI models and AI agents trained by Oracle will accelerate global scientific discovery, economic development, and business growth, and the scale of opportunities is unimaginable.”
Paras Jain, CEO of AI video generation startup Genmo, praised Oracle's cloud hardware for its reliability, outstanding performance, and ease of startup, specifically mentioning that “Oracle's pricing is more competitive than other hyperscalers.” He noted that Oracle's products differ from those using GPU computing elsewhere, as the "bare metal" computers offered by the company can sometimes deliver better performance than architectures using server virtualization
Oracle executives predict revenue will double in five years and exceed $100 billion, solidifying its leading position in database software
Oracle executives are confident about revenue growth in the coming years, expecting the company's revenue to grow by about 10% year-on-year in the fiscal year ending May 2025, marking the second-fastest annual record of expansion since 2011.
In September this year, Oracle Executive Vice President Doug Kehring stated that the company will generate over $66 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2026 and exceed $104 billion in fiscal year 2029.
This indicates that growth will significantly accelerate, with a compound annual growth rate exceeding 16%, nearly doubling the current compound annual growth rate of 9%. Ellison also stated that the revenue target of over $100 billion is "easily achievable," with revenue for fiscal year 2024 at $53 billion, meaning the company believes its revenue will nearly double in five years.
Mizuho analyst Siti Panigrahi, who has a "buy" rating on the stock, believes that the multi-cloud strategy should help Oracle increase its market share in the database sector, and cloud transactions related to artificial intelligence will also help the company deliver on its promise of faster revenue growth:
"Oracle now has an end-to-end stack that can help enterprises build their AI strategies. Of Oracle's remaining $97 billion in performance obligations or unrecognized revenue, 40% to 50% is related to renting GPUs. As more and more enterprises begin to adopt artificial intelligence in the future, this will be a boon for Oracle, which has hundreds of thousands of large customers."
Currently, Oracle's leading position in database software is solid, with industry research firm Gartner estimating its market share in database management systems at 17% in 2023. However, Oracle still lags far behind its largest competitor in cloud infrastructure, with Amazon controlling 39% of the market in 2023, followed by Microsoft (23%) and Google (8.2%), while Oracle only holds 1.4%.
Optimistic analysts view Ellison's good relationship with Musk as beneficial for the company's business, while skeptics say capital expenditures are unsustainable
Additionally, Oracle Health, established after Oracle's $28.2 billion acquisition of electronic health record software provider Cerner in 2022, is also viewed positively, even being praised by Ellison as "another major pillar of growth that is not yet fully formed."
Evercore analysts recently expressed optimism that Ellison's friendly relationship with Musk could benefit Oracle Health, as Musk may push for the modernization of the existing U.S. healthcare system after overseeing the efficiency department under the Trump administration.
Two weeks ago, Oracle's Q2 fiscal year 2025 earnings report and guidance, released at the end of November, fell short of expectations, causing the stock price to experience its largest decline of the year. However, CEO Safra Catz praised the "record-breaking growth in cloud infrastructure," stating that AI demand drove a 52% increase in Oracle's cloud infrastructure revenue, "with growth rates far exceeding any other hyperscale cloud infrastructure competitor."However, the cost of this is that Oracle expects its capital expenditures for the fiscal year 2025 to double compared to the fiscal year 2024, potentially approaching $13.8 billion. In the second quarter of fiscal year 2025, its capital expenditures were $4 billion, exceeding analysts' expectations of $3.5 billion, which also resulted in negative free cash flow for the company.
Analyst Brian White from Monness, Crespi, Hardt downgraded Oracle's rating from neutral to "sell," with a target price of $130, representing over 20% downside potential. His main reason is that Oracle's continued plan to invest a large amount of capital expenditures in the fiercely competitive cloud computing sector "is unsustainable":
"Oracle's current price-to-earnings ratio is about twice its long-term historical average, and the latest quarterly report was unexpectedly lackluster.
In our view, the level of competition in the public cloud space is daunting, dominated by three large tech companies with innovative capabilities and deep pockets: Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.
Although Oracle has achieved early success in attracting customers pursuing AI wealth, its high valuation, intense industry competition, and weak macro environment make the plan to double capital expenditures in fiscal year 2025 concerning and unsustainable."