Strong cloud demand for SAP in Q2

SAP has reported its financial results for Q2 ended 30 June 2020, showing cloud revenue growth of 11 percent year-on-year.

Despite this, SAP saw a 1 percent year-on-year decline in total revenue at €6.7bn IFRS (approx £5.7bn), and a 23 percent dip in operating profit to €984m (approx £841m), with software licenses and support revenue down by five percent year-on-year.

SAP added more than 600 S/4HANA customers across the quarter, taking total adoption to more than 17,000 customers, up 16 percent year-on-year, of which more than 10,100 are live. In Q2, more than 50 percent of the additional S/4HANA customers were net new.

The company’s ‘RISE with SAP’ offering gained more traction in Q2 following a successful Q1 launch, with SAP closing deals with more than 250 customers in the second quarter.

Christian Klein, SAP CEO, said: “We’re seeing strong adoption of our cloud portfolio as customers select SAP for their business transformation. Our strategy is working; this is the third straight quarter of strong execution, and we continue to deliver unparalleled customer value through the strength of our platform and applications.”

Luka Mucic, SAP CFO, said: “This has been another strong quarter with accelerating growth for SAP’s cloud portfolio. We saw excellent customer momentum and adoption and are raising our outlook for revenue and profit.”

SAP has raised its full year 2021 outlook and expects to see a 15 to 18 percent year-on-year growth in cloud revenue. The company continues to expect a decline in software licenses revenue for the full year as more customers turn to RISE for their mission-critical core processes.