SAP reports profit and revenue growth

The German software giant has posted its 11th consecutive quarter of growth and its chief executive has said its service-orientated architecture road map is on track along with new software releases this year.

SAP has posted an 11 per cent year-on-year rise in turnover for the third quarter of 2006, the German software giant's eleventh consecutive quarter of double-digit revenue growth.

Turnover for the quarter was €2.2bn compared with €2bn in the third quarter of 2005. Net profit for the third quarter was €388m, compared with €334 in the same period of 2005. In EMEA software turnover increased 14 per cent to €301m.

Henning Kagermann, chief executive of SAP, said: “We reported a strong third quarter with an impressive win rate and double-digit software revenue growth in all regions. At constant currencies, we have now reported 11 consecutive quarters of double-digit software revenue growth. This long track record of outstanding performance can be largely attributed to our successful strategy of growing SAP organically.

"This disproves our major competitor’s claim. SAP’s strategy has worked very well for our customers and our company, resulting in an exceptional customer satisfaction rate and a considerable gain in SAP’s worldwide share among Core Enterprise Applications vendors, which increased from 16.5 per cent to 22.6 per cent over the past three years,” he said.

Kagermann added: “We provided a roadmap describing a planned 2007 completion of our enterprise service-oriented architecture. I am pleased to say that we remain on target and on schedule with all deliverables to complete this roadmap. Moreover, with the delivery of mySAP ERP 2005, we have provided our customers and partners the first services enabled suite in the industry, well ahead of the competition. Due to the flexible nature of an enterprise services-oriented architecture, mySAP ERP 2005 gives us the unique position to offer our customers accelerated continuous innovation without upgrades by providing optional Enhancement Packages for many years.”