Salesforce's $835 million quarterly revenue tops forecasts

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff gestures as he speaks during the Dreamforce event in San Francisco, California September 19, 2012.

(Reuters) - Salesforce.com Inc on Thursday reported better-than-expected quarterly sales of $835 million, backed by strong sales of its cloud-based services.

Shares in Salesforce gained 4.5 percent after hours to $176.79, after closing up 1.4 percent at $169.22 on the New York Stock Exchange.

The company, which provides sales and marketing software to companies like Coca-Cola and Ford Motor, has boasted one of the fastest rates of top-line growth in the technology industry, with its full-year revenue rising 35 percent from a year ago to $3.05 billion.

For its 2014 fiscal year, which began February 1, Salesforce expects sales of between $3.82 and $3.87 billion, in-line with Wall Street forecasts of $3.85 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The company reported a net loss in the fourth quarter of $20.8 million, or 14 cents a share, widening from a loss of $4.08 million or 3 cents a share a year earlier.

Excluding items such as a one-time tax charge, it earned 51 cents a share.

The company said its unbilled deferred revenue, a rough, forward-looking signal of the pace of growth, rose to $3.5 billion, up from $2.2 billion a year ago.

(Reporting by Gerry Shih; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)