Oracle suffers worst quarter for 10 years

Oracle's profits have dropped following what the company described as its toughest quarter for more than a decade.

Second-quarter net income dropped to £387m from £438.7m.

The company's total revenue fell to £1.69bn from £1.9bn, falling short of Wall Street's consensus estimate for revenue of £1.76bn.

Chief executive Larry Ellison said: "It was our toughest quarter in a decade. When the economy improves, we will earn a lot more.

"We think the business has hit bottom. Things have stabilised and things are getting better slowly."

Oracle has been hit by a slowing global economy and slackening demand for IT and computer-related products.

The slowdown was worsened by the US terror attacks.

Oracle also lowered its long-term growth outlook for its applications business to between 20% and 50% a year.

That was down from the 50% to 100% growth it had been predicting several quarters ago.