The German business software group SAP has raised its outlook for the full year for the third time after more users moved their IT activities to the cloud in the third quarter.
For the full year, SAP forecasts cloud revenue growth of 16% to 19%, which should lead to overall cloud revenue growth of 2% to 4%.
Operating profit for the full year will fall to 2%, improving from the previous forecast of unchanged to 4%.
SAP, which is switching from software licenses with upfront fees to subscription-based cloud services, launched Rise with SAP, an all-in-one package for digital transformation, earlier this year.
SAP raised its cloud and software revenue outlook for 2021 by 200 million euros from 23.8 to 24.2 billion euros.
The cloud backlog for the flagship S/4HANA database grew by 58% in local currency and the current cloud backlog – a measure of incoming business – increased by 22% in the third quarter.
Adjusted revenue grew 5% to 6.68 billion euros in the fiscal third quarter ended September 30, the company said in a preliminary earnings statement.
For more information, read the original story in Reuters.