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Salesforce (Salesforce) Free Cash Flow : $9,498 Mil (TTM As of Jan. 2024)


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What is Salesforce Free Cash Flow?

Salesforce's total free cash flow for the months ended in Jan. 2024 was $3,256 Mil. Its total free cash flow for the trailing twelve months (TTM) ended in Jan. 2024 was $9,498 Mil.

Salesforce's Free Cash Flow per Share for the months ended in Jan. 2024 was $3.32. Its free cash flow per share for the trailing twelve months (TTM) ended in Jan. 2024 was $9.65.

During the past 12 months, the average Free Cash Flow per Share Growth Rate of Salesforce was 52.40% per year. During the past 3 years, the average Free Cash Flow per Share Growth Rate was 29.90% per year. During the past 5 years, the average Free Cash Flow per Share Growth Rate was 19.60% per year. During the past 10 years, the average Free Cash Flow per Share Growth Rate was 23.20% per year. Please click Growth Rate Calculation Example (GuruFocus) to see how GuruFocus calculates Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT)'s revenue growth rate. You can apply the same method to get the Free Cash Flow Growth Rate using Free Cash Flow per Share data.

During the past 13 years, Salesforce's highest 3-Year average Free Cash Flow per Share Growth Rate was 80.10% per year. The lowest was -20.50% per year. And the median was 30.00% per year.


Salesforce Free Cash Flow Historical Data

The historical data trend for Salesforce's Free Cash Flow can be seen below:

* For Operating Data section: All numbers are indicated by the unit behind each term and all currency related amount are in USD.
* For other sections: All numbers are in millions except for per share data, ratio, and percentage. All currency related amount are indicated in the company's associated stock exchange currency.

* Premium members only.

Salesforce Free Cash Flow Chart

Salesforce Annual Data
Trend Jan15 Jan16 Jan17 Jan18 Jan19 Jan20 Jan21 Jan22 Jan23 Jan24
Free Cash Flow
Get a 7-Day Free Trial Premium Member Only Premium Member Only 3,688.00 4,091.00 5,283.00 6,313.00 9,498.00

Salesforce Quarterly Data
Apr19 Jul19 Oct19 Jan20 Apr20 Jul20 Oct20 Jan21 Apr21 Jul21 Oct21 Jan22 Apr22 Jul22 Oct22 Jan23 Apr23 Jul23 Oct23 Jan24
Free Cash Flow Get a 7-Day Free Trial Premium Member Only Premium Member Only Premium Member Only Premium Member Only Premium Member Only Premium Member Only Premium Member Only Premium Member Only Premium Member Only Premium Member Only Premium Member Only Premium Member Only 2,570.00 4,248.00 628.00 1,366.00 3,256.00

Salesforce Free Cash Flow Calculation

Free Cash Flow is considered one of the most important parameters to measure a company's earnings power by value investors because it is not subject to estimates of Depreciation, Depletion and Amortization (DDA). However, when we look at the Free Cash Flow, we should look from a long term perspective, because any year's Free Cash Flow can be drastically affected by the spending on Property, Plant, & Equipment (PPE) of the business in that year. Over the long term, Free Cash Flow should give pretty good picture on the real earnings power of the company.

Salesforce's Free Cash Flow for the fiscal year that ended in Jan. 2024 is calculated as

Free Cash Flow (A: Jan. 2024 )=Cash Flow from Operations+Capital Expenditure
=10234+-736
=9,498

Salesforce's Free Cash Flow for the quarter that ended in Jan. 2024 is calculated as

Free Cash Flow (Q: Jan. 2024 )=Cash Flow from Operations+Capital Expenditure
=3403+-147
=3,256

Free Cash Flow for the trailing twelve months (TTM) ended in Jan. 2024 adds up the quarterly data reported by the company within the most recent 12 months, which was $9,498 Mil.

* For Operating Data section: All numbers are indicated by the unit behind each term and all currency related amount are in USD.
* For other sections: All numbers are in millions except for per share data, ratio, and percentage. All currency related amount are indicated in the company's associated stock exchange currency.


Salesforce  (NYSE:CRM) Free Cash Flow Explanation

Free Cash Flow is very close to Warren Buffett's definition of Owner's Earnings, except that in Warren Buffett's Owner's Earnings, the spending for Property, Plant, and Equipment is only for maintenance (replacement), while in the Free Cash Flow calculation, the cost of new Property, Plant, and Equipment due to business expansion is also deducted. There, Free Cash Flow is more conservative than Owner's Earnings.

In Don Yacktman's calculation of forward rate of return, he uses Free Cash Flow for the calculation. Yacktman explained the forward rate of return concept in detail in his interview with GuruFocus. Yacktman defines forward rate of return as the normalized free cash flow yield plus real growth plus inflation.

This is what Yacktman said in his March 2012 interview - when the S&P 500 was at 1400:

If the business is stable, this calculation is fairly straightforward. For instance, on the S&P 500 we would normalize earnings. We would then calculate what percentage of those earnings are not reinvested in the underlying businesses and are therefore free. Historically, for the S&P 500, this has been just under 50% of earnings. Currently, we expect the S&P to earn about 70 on a normalized basis, a number which is far below reported earnings due to our adjusting for record high profit margins. $70 X ½ / 1400 gives you a normalized free cash flow yield of approximately 2.5%.

The historical real growth rate of the S&P 500 (companies) is about 1.5%. Assuming an inflation rate of 2.5%, the forward rate of return on an investment in the S&P 500 is about 6.5% today (2.5% free cash flow yield plus 1.5% real growth plus 2.5% inflation).

For the growth part of the Forward Rate of Return calculation, GuruFocus uses the 5-year average growth rate of EBITDA per share as the growth rate, and the growth rate is always capped at 20%. For the Free Cash Flow we use per share data averaged over seven years. The reason we use seven years is because research shows that seven years is the length of the typical business cycle.

Therefore, as of Jan24, Salesforce's Forward Rate of Return (Yacktman) % is

Forward Rate of Return (Yacktman) % (Jan24)=Normalized Free Cash Flow/Price+5-Year EBITDA Growth Rate
=6.048/281.09+0.2
=22.15 %

* For Operating Data section: All numbers are indicated by the unit behind each term and all currency related amount are in USD.
* For other sections: All numbers are in millions except for per share data, ratio, and percentage. All currency related amount are indicated in the company's associated stock exchange currency.


Be Aware

Free Cash Flow within a report period can be affected by management's decisions of capital spending. Therefore, it is important to look at long term when it comes to Free Cash Flow.


Salesforce Free Cash Flow Related Terms

Thank you for viewing the detailed overview of Salesforce's Free Cash Flow provided by GuruFocus.com. Please click on the following links to see related term pages.


Salesforce (Salesforce) Business Description

Address
415 Mission Street, 3rd Floor, Salesforce Tower, San Francisco, CA, USA, 94105
Salesforce Inc provides enterprise cloud computing solutions. The company offers customer relationship management technology that brings companies and customers together. Its Customer 360 platform helps the group to deliver a single source of truth, connecting customer data across systems, apps, and devices to help companies sell, service, market, and conduct commerce. It also offers Service Cloud for customer support, Marketing Cloud for digital marketing campaigns, Commerce Cloud as an e-commerce engine, the Salesforce Platform, which allows enterprises to build applications, and other solutions, such as MuleSoft for data integration.
Executives
Brian Millham officer: President and COO 415 MISSION STREET, 3RD FLOOR, SAN FRANCISCO CA 90403
Sundeep G. Reddy officer: EVP & Chief Accounting Officer 6555 NORTH STATE HWY 161, IRVING TX 75039
Srinivas Tallapragada officer: President, Technology THE LANDMARK AT ONE MARKET STREET, #300, SAN FRANCISCO CA 94105
Amy E Weaver officer: EVP, General Counsel THE LANDMARK @ ONE MARKET STREET #300, SAN FRANCISCO CA 94105
Parker Harris director, officer: Co-Founder and CTO THE LANDMARK @ ONE MARKET, SUITE 300, SAN FRANCISCO CA 94105
Marc Benioff director, officer: Chairman of the Board & CEO 50 FREMONT STREET, SAN FRANCISCO CA 94105
Brent Hyder officer: President/Chief People Officer 415 MISSION STREET, 3RD FLOOR, SAN FRANCISCO CA 94105
Miguel Milano officer: President and CRO 415 MISSION ST, 3RD FLOOR, SAN FRANCISCO CA 94105
Sabastian Niles officer: President and CLO 415 MISSION ST, 3RD FLOOR, SAN FRANCISCO CA 94105
Neelie Kroes director VAN BRONCKHORSTLAAN, 2242 PZ WASSENAAR, NETHERLANDS P8 99999
Valueact Capital Management, Llc director, other: See Remarks ONE LETTERMAN DRIVE, BUILDING D, 4TH FLOOR, SAN FRANCISCO CA 94129
J. Mehra Sachin director HESS CORPORATION, 1185 AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS, NEW YORK NY 10036
Arnold W Donald director C/O CARNIVAL CORPORATION, 3655 N.W. 87TH AVENUE, MIAMI FL 33178
G Mason Morfit director, other: See Remarks ONE LETTERMAN DRIVE, BUILDING D, 4TH FLOOR, SAN FRANCISCO CA 94129
Valueact Holdings Ii, L.p. director, other: See Remarks ONE LETTERMAN DRIVE, BUILDING D, FOURTH FLOOR, SAN FRANCISCO CA 94129