Salesforce (CRM) Earnings Aug 26: Consensus Sits Above the Guide

TL;DR

• Salesforce reports fiscal Q2 2027 after the close on Wednesday, August 26, with the call at 2:00pm PT / 5:00pm ET. The company confirmed the date in June.
• Reported growth of 13% last quarter included $444m from Informatica. Back that out and the rest of Salesforce grew about 9%, against a year-ago quarter that carried none of it.
• Consensus revenue of $11.33bn sits near the top of the guided $11.27bn to $11.35bn, and consensus EPS of $3.28 sits a cent above the guided $3.25 to $3.27. Same shape as the Walmart setup this week.
• Cash is growing far slower than revenue. Operating cash flow rose 3% last quarter on 13% revenue growth, and the full-year guide asks for 4-5% cash growth on 11% revenue growth.
• CRM closed Friday at $196.21, roughly 13.9x the midpoint of its own FY27 non-GAAP EPS guide and 27% below its 52-week high.

The Board

Where the growth came from last quarter, and where the bar sits for this one.

When Does Salesforce Report Earnings?

Salesforce releases fiscal Q2 2027 results for the quarter ended July 31, 2026 after the US market closes on Wednesday, August 26, 2026, with a live broadcast at 2:00pm PT / 5:00pm ET. Both come from Salesforce's own scheduling announcement.

That is the same hour as CrowdStrike's call and the same afternoon Nvidia reports. Three of the most-watched software and semiconductor names in the market are releasing into one evening, and Nvidia will take most of the oxygen. The earnings calendar has the rest of it.

Strip Out Informatica and Growth Is About 9%

Salesforce's Q1 FY27 release led with revenue of $11,133m, up 13%. The same release discloses that $444m of it came from Informatica, which Salesforce acquired and which contributed nothing to the year-ago base.

Take the acquisition out and you are left with $10,689m against a year-ago quarter near $9.85bn. That is growth of roughly 9%. The subscription line tells the same story: $10,593m, up 14%, of which $428m was Informatica, leaving about 9.4%. Both of those figures are my arithmetic off Salesforce's own disclosures, not numbers the company published.

I am not calling this a trick. Salesforce disclosed the contribution plainly and acquisitions are a legitimate way to grow. But the difference between a 13% grower and a 9% grower is most of the argument about what this business is worth, and only one of those numbers is in the headline.

Management also flagged where the softness is: marketing and commerce, plus what it described as increased softness in Tableau bookings and renewals. Those are the parts nobody is buying the stock for, which is either reassuring or the beginning of a pattern.

Consensus Is Already Above the Guide

Here is the setup that decides the 26th. Salesforce guided Q2 revenue to $11.27bn to $11.35bn and non-GAAP EPS to $3.25 to $3.27. Street consensus, across 53 analysts, sits at $11.33bn and $3.28.

So the revenue bar is near the top of the range and the EPS bar is a cent above it. Salesforce has to beat its own guide just to meet expectations, and a print that lands mid-range reads as a miss even though the company will have done what it said.

This is the same structure the week-ahead flagged for Walmart, where consensus has parked at the top of the guide and the last occurrence produced a 4% drop. It is a recurring feature of names the market has stopped granting the benefit of the doubt.

The Cash Flow Nobody Is Discussing

Operating cash flow grew 3% last quarter. Free cash flow grew 4%. Revenue grew 13%.

For the full year Salesforce guides operating and free cash flow growth of about 4-5%, against revenue growth of 11% and a non-GAAP operating margin of 34.3%. A software company converting revenue growth into cash at less than half the rate is worth a question on the call, and I have not seen a satisfying answer to it yet. Some of the gap is Informatica integration and the cash cost of buying that revenue. How much is the thing to press on.

Meanwhile Agentforce, the product the entire bull and bear case turns on, reached $1.2bn of ARR, up 205%. Real growth, and against a $46bn full-year revenue guide it is about 2.6% of the company. A line that small cannot move consolidated revenue for years yet, however good the percentage looks.

What the Multiple Assumes

Salesforce is reported to be the worst-performing Dow component of 2026. Friday's $196.21 close is 27% below its 52-week high of $269.11 and 34% above the low.

On its own guidance that is about 13.9x forward non-GAAP EPS and 3.5x forward revenue. For a business compounding low double digits with a 34% operating margin, those are not the multiples of a company anyone expects to keep growing, and that is the whole opportunity if the fear about AI eating seat-based software is overdone.

My read: the valuation is doing the work here, and the quarter probably is not what breaks the deadlock. The number that would is cRPO, guided to about 14% growth. If that comes in at 14% with Informatica inside it and the organic figure keeps sliding toward 8%, cheap gets cheaper.

The One-Line Read

Salesforce is priced at 13.9x forward earnings because the market thinks 9% organic growth is heading lower. Consensus above the guide means a good quarter still gets sold. The cRPO line decides it.