Frankfurt — German software company SAP reported a 41% jump in cloud revenues in the third quarter as its business transformation gathers pace, enabling management to raise guidance for revenues and profits this year. However, its shares fell 3.5% in early Thursday trading, as traders expressed some disappointment about margins. At Wednesday's close, the stock was up 7.4% year-to-date. Europe's most valuable tech company is ramping up sales and installations of its cloud-based S/4HANA business suite, which is superseding its mainstay Business Suite enterprise software that is sold under licence and runs at on-site servers. New cloud bookings, an order entry metric, rose 37% in the third quarter at constant currencies. That underpinned the firm lifting its 2018 growth forecast for cloud revenues to 36.5%-39% from 34%-38% previously. "The future has never been brighter at SAP — we're fired up and ready to go," CEO Bill McDermott told journalists on a conference call, highlighting a fu...

Subscribe now to unlock this article.

Support BusinessLIVE’s award-winning journalism for R129 per month (digital access only).

There’s never been a more important time to support independent journalism in SA. Our subscription packages now offer an ad-free experience for readers.

Cancel anytime.

Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.

Speech Bubbles

Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.