Israel's Nice Q2 profit jumps, raises 2021 estimates

JERUSALEM, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Israeli enterprise software provider Nice Ltd reported a larger-than-expected increase in quarterly net profit, boosted by continued steep gains in revenue from its cloud platforms.

Nice said on Thursday it earned $1.57 per diluted share excluding one-time items in the first quarter, compared with $1.37 a year earlier. Revenue grew 16% to $459 million, with cloud revenue up 32% to $246 million.

Nice was expected to post adjusted EPS of $1.51 on revenue of $450 million, according to a forecast from I/B/E/S Refinitiv.

Chief executive officer Barak Eilam noted cloud revenue was growing rapidly and has topped 50% of total sales.

Nice is also investing on its digital products aimed at businesses improving customer service calls.

"Digital transformation is still in the very early stages, and ... we believe we will achieve the same outstanding success in digital as we have in cloud," Eilam said.

Nice raised its 2021 estimates, forecasting adjusted EPS of $6.26-$6.46, up from a prior $6.19-$6.39, and revenue of $1.835-$1.855 billion, up from $1.8-$1.82 billion. Analysts are expecting EPS of $6.28 and revenue of $1.82.

It estimated third-quarter revenue in the range of $460 million to $470 million and adjusted diluted EPS of $1.51 to $1.61.

(Reporting by Steven Scheer Editing by Ari Rabinovitch)