The software manufacturer SAP raises the outlook. The company is slightly above expectations in the second quarter.
Europe’s largest software manufacturer, SAP, has raised its forecasts for the full year slightly after an unexpectedly robust second quarter.
The business with software for use via the network (cloud) picked up again strongly and the conventional software licenses did not go down quite as much as experts thought. For earnings before interest and taxes adjusted for special effects, the management around boss Christian Klein is now assuming a currency-adjusted decline of up to four percent this year – in the best case, it should stagnate. So far, the Walldorfers expected a decline of one to six percent. Also with the revenue from the cloud and with the products as a whole, SAP is now a little more confident, as it was called by the Dax group.
In the second quarter, total sales of 6.7 billion euros were one percent below the previous year’s figure. Adjusted operating profit, with a decline of two percent to 1.92 billion euros, was slightly better than analysts had anticipated. Without the effect of the exchange rate, sales and operating profit would have increased by three percent. Klein also referred to strong growth in new contracts for the new “Rise with SAP” cloud offering, especially in the USA.
The bottom line was that SAP earned 1.45 billion euros, almost two thirds more than a year earlier. Once again, SAP’s investments in start-ups through the venture capital vehicle Sapphire Ventures, which according to CFO Luka Mucic contributed 900 million euros to the financial result in the second quarter alone, played a decisive role.
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
