Frankfurt : SAP, the biggest maker of business management software, reported a 10 per cent jump in first-quarter profit on record sales in Asia and as demand for mobile applications and software to process large amounts of data picked up.
Net income was €444 million (Dh2.14 billion), compared with €403 million a year earlier, Walldorf, Germany-based SAP said in a statement yesterday. Analysts had predicted a profit of €476 million, according to the average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
SAP said this month that a "robust pipeline" will speed growth in the second-quarter after a geography-based sales strategy in North America and initially weak business in some European countries trimmed new software sales at the start of the year.
SAP is betting on revenue from mobile applications, on-demand software and the real-time processing platform Hana to lift revenue to more than €20 billion by 2015.
Outlook
In the current quarter, revenue from software and software-related services will increase 14 per cent to 16 per cent, based on non-IFRS accounting standards and at constant currencies, after a 10 per cent gain last quarter, SAP reiterated yesterday. Software revenue is set to grow by 15 per cent to 20 per cent, also excluding currency swings, following an increase of just 1 per cent.
"We see strong momentum for our flagship in-memory platform SAP Hana, our cloud and mobile solutions, and our core applications and analytics products," co-chief executive officers Jim Hagemann Snabe and Bill McDermott said in the statement.
First-quarter revenue from new software licences rose 16 per cent in Asia at constant currencies, beating growth in any other region. SAP pre-released revenue and operating profit on April 13.
