SAP: revenue exceeds guidance, profit rises

(CercleFinance.com) - SAP on Friday confirmed that it has exceeded all of its revenue targets in 2020, having hit the high end of its operating profit outlook range.


Having preannounced, the German software maker said its business performance sequentially improved in the fourth quarter, even as the Covid-19 crisis dragged on.

Despite cloud sales rising 8%, total revenue for the last three months of 2020 was down 6% year-on-year to 7.54 billion euros (IFRS and non-IFRS) and down 2% (non-IFRS at constant currencies), the company said.

However, operating profit increased by 26% to 2.66 billion euros (IFRS) and was down 3% to 2.77 billion euros (non-IFRS) and up 3% (non-IFRS at constant currencies), it added.

SAP confirmed it expects non-IFRS cloud revenue to grow by between 13% and 18% at constant currencies this year.

This outlook assumes that the coronavirus crisis will begin to recede as vaccine programs are rolled out globally, leading to a gradual upturn in demand in the second half of 2021, it said.

After this insight, SAP shares were down 1.5%.

Note that its Qualtrics unit is now worth 18 billion dollars, more than double the original acquisition price, after the shares jumped over 50% yesterday on their first day of trading.

Copyright (c) 2021 CercleFinance.com. All rights reserved.