Surging demand for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and bold guidance for fiscal 2026 send stock to record highs
Oracle (ORCL) shares surged more than 13% on Thursday, hitting an intraday record high after the company reported robust fiscal fourth-quarter results and issued bold revenue guidance for fiscal 2026, fueled by growing demand for AI workloads and cloud infrastructure.
Revenue for Oracle’s May-ended fiscal Q4 rose 11% year-over-year to $15.9 billion, beating analyst expectations. But it was the outlook that truly energized investors. CEO Safra Catz forecast that total revenue growth would be “dramatically higher” in fiscal 2026, with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) growth expected to exceed 70%, up from 50% last year. Cloud-related revenue as a whole is projected to grow by 40%, compared to 24% previously.
“Oracle is benefiting from demand in all directions,” wrote Guggenheim analyst John DiFucci, noting the company’s strong growth trajectory and reiterating a “Buy” rating.
The company also reported a 41% year-over-year increase in remaining performance obligations (RPO) to $138 billion and expects the backlog to more than double next year — a bullish sign for sustained cloud revenue momentum. Catz said this backlog supports Oracle’s confidence in hitting its ambitious OCI targets.
Oracle is positioning itself as a premier provider of AI computing services, directly challenging giants like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. Although Oracle’s $3 billion in cloud infrastructure sales last quarter is a fraction of AWS’s revenue, its growth rate is outpacing the competition.
“Our cloud runs faster and has more capabilities than our competitors,” Catz said. “We are very much the destination of choice” for AI-related workloads.
The company is also investing heavily in infrastructure, with capital expenditures rising from $7 billion in fiscal 2024 to a projected $25 billion in 2026. Much of that investment is going toward new data centers and NVIDIA-powered chips to support AI demand.
Oracle’s ambitious Stargate project, a $100 billion public-private partnership to build AI-focused data centers across the U.S., remains “in formation.” Still, analysts like DiFucci see Oracle’s growth as sustainable even without major Stargate contributions.
Despite concerns over costs and capital intensity, analysts largely remain optimistic. Evercore ISI’s Kirk Materne upgraded his price target to $215, citing Oracle’s strategic edge in deploying compact, scalable cloud footprints.
Following Thursday’s surge, Oracle stock is now poised for its first record close since November 2023 and continues to build technical momentum, signaling renewed investor confidence in its AI-driven future.
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