SAP reported third-quarter results on October 21 that came in ahead of analyst expectations, driven by continued growth in its cloud business. Non-IFRS earnings were €1.89 per share on revenue of €10.27 billion, compared with analyst estimates of €1.83 and €10.10 billion.
Cloud revenue rose 26% to €6.67 billion. The company’s current cloud backlog, a closely watched measure of contracted cloud revenue expected over the next 12 months, grew 28% to €24.14 billion. SAP also updated its full-year outlook for cloud revenue and for cloud and software revenue.
Shares rose more than 4% in after-hours trading. SAP said it had repurchased about €4.2 billion of stock through the end of September under its €10 billion buyback program.
What to watch
SAP’s results open a busy stretch for enterprise technology earnings, with Alphabet, Microsoft, Fortinet and Cloudflare among the companies expected to report next week. Investors will be looking for evidence that AI features are turning into paid cloud contracts, not just bigger infrastructure bills.
Sources: Yahoo Finance, SAP Investor Relations.
Image: illustration created for AABEAT TV. It does not depict the people, places or products named in this story.
