Shares of Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) climbed as much as 9.6% early Thursday, then settled to trade up 7.5% as of 2 p.m. ET after the customer relationship management (CRM) platform provider announced better-than-expected quarterly results and strong forward guidance.

On the former, Salesforce's quarterly revenue grew 11% year over year to $8.72 billion, translating to net income of $1.22 billion, or $1.25 per share, under generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). On an adjusted (non-GAAP) basis, which excludes one-time items like stock-based compensation and restructuring expenses -- Salesforce's earnings were $2.07 billion, or $2.11 per share. Most analysts were only modeling earnings of $2.06 per share on roughly the same revenue.

Remaining performance obligation (RPO) -- a key metric to help gauge future growth -- grew 21% year over year, ending the quarter at $48.3 billion. Salesforce also saw massive increases in cash-flow generation during the quarter; operating cash flow nearly quintupled on a year-over-year basis to $1.53 billion, while free cash flow skyrocketed by more than tenfold to $1.37 billion.

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Source Fool.com