Oracle profit beats Street on strong cloud-based software sales

(Reuters) - Business software maker Oracle Corp reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit, helped by strong sales from its cloud services.

The company's shares were up 2 percent at $39.70 in extended trading on Wednesday.

Oracle, like other established tech companies, has been moving its business to the cloud-based model, essentially providing services remotely via data centres rather than selling installed software.

Revenue from company's cloud-computing software and platform service rose 34 percent to $484 million in the second quarter ended Nov. 30.

Total revenue fell 6.3 percent to $8.99 billion, missing analysts average estimate of $9.06 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Oracle's net income fell to $2.2 billion, or 51 cents per share, from $2.5 billion, or 56 cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding items, it earned 63 cents per share, beating average analysts' estimate of 60 cents per share.

Up to Wednesday's close, Oracle's stock had fallen 13.5 percent this year.

(Reporting by Kshitiz Goliya in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)