US software company Oracle has reported a 46 per cent increase in second quarter net earnings to $274 million (£182 million) compared with the same period last year. Earnings per share in the quarter to November 30th came to 28 cents, up from 19 cents in second-quarter 1997.
Revenue from Oracle's two businesses, database technology and applications, rose 27 per cent to $2.1 billion from $1.6 billion.
The company, which employs 500 people at four separate locations in Dublin, reported continued strong growth in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa and significant improvement in the Asia-Pacific region.
Revenue was up 30 per cent in North America compared to the second quarter last year, 31 per cent in Europe, the Middle East and Africa and 7 per cent in Asia.
"Our database revenue growth accelerated as Oracle has become the database of choice for Internet commerce," said company chairman Mr Lawrence Ellison.
"Nine of the top 10 business-to-business e-commerce web sites use the Oracle database. Ten of the top 10 consumer e-commerce web sites use the Oracle database," he said.
"Virtually every big web site in the world uses Oracle because of Oracle's ability to handle large numbers of users and huge amounts of data reliably, securely and economically."
