Business software maker Salesforce. com reported an increase of 48 per cent in net profit for the fourth quarter on strong sales of online business software applications.

For the quarter ended January 31, the company's net profit increased to $20.4 million from $13.8 million for the same period a year earlier. Gross profit margin widened to 80.8 per cent against 79.7 per cent for the same period in previous financial year. Overall revenue of the company recorded an increase of 22 percent over the same quarter of previous financial year with regional revenue recording an increase of 69 per cent.

According to the CEO Marc Benioff, the company has done comparatively better than other software companies in the market and it has won a good number of customers from its rivals Oracle, Microsoft and SAP. Sale for the cloud computing model for the web-based sales management software is also holding up.

For the fiscal year 2010 the company expects a sales growth in the range of 16 per cent to 17 per cent and earnings in the range of $1.25 to $1.27 per share.