SAP topped €10 billion in quarterly sales for the first time. Its finance chief called the next quarter critical.
SAP reported €10.27 billion for the third quarter on Wednesday, up 13%.
Analysts had expected €10.10 billion, SiliconANGLE reported. Cloud revenue reached €6.67 billion, up 26%.
The current cloud backlog, cloud revenue customers have already contracted for, grew 26% at constant currencies to €24.1 billion. Analysts had forecast 24% to 25%.
CEO Christian Klein told analysts that AI was the main driver behind customers' move to the cloud in the quarter. He said hundreds of customers signed new subscriptions to get Joule, SAP's AI assistant.
CFO Dominik Asam was more cautious. He said the fourth quarter is critical for how the year lands, and described a gloomy backdrop of rising oil prices and US interest rates.
Asam expects 2026 subscription revenue at the upper end of its €25.8 billion to €26.2 billion range.
Our reading: the backlog is cloud demand customers have already signed. It does not answer Asam's question about how the fourth quarter will finish.
Sources
Our file on SAP
- 24 Oct
SAP now lets AI agents sort sales leads and handle service cases. Only select customers can switch them on so far.
- 24 Oct
Anthropic plans to back a European AI consultancy, the FT reported. Its engineers would sit inside clients, where SAP consultants bill days.
- 24 Oct
SAP deadlines and VMware squeeze IT budgets, CIO.com reported. A survey put vendor-pushed upgrades at about 28% of big firms' software budgets.
- 23 Oct
SAP puts about 80% of its product-development resources into AI, Handelsblatt reported. The paper says it has brought little revenue so far.
- 22 Oct
SAP's user group chief says AI costs are stacked on prices that are not falling. He doubts that can last.
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