According to the international financial reporting standards (IFRS), SAP’s revenue in Q4 2012 grew by 12%, which was helped by strong growth in the market for its cloud applications, its HANA in-memory database and mobile applications.
Revenue in the fourth quarter was euro 5 billion, up 12% from the same quarter a year earlier, said SAP. Software and software-related service revenue for the quarter was euro 4.2 billion, up 14% from a year earlier.
On Wednesday, the business software vendor also forecast non-IFRS software and software-related service revenue growth of 11% to 13% at constant currencies this year, with software and cloud subscriptions revenue to increase in a range of 14% to 20%.
While revenue from software grew 9% to euro 1.9 billion in the quarter, cloud subscriptions and support revenue grew by a whopping 2,000% to euro 126 million from euro 6 million a year earlier. Revenue from HANA was nearly euro 200 million in software revenue in the fourth quarter, totalling almost euro 400 million for the full year, while the mobile business contributed more than euro 220 million to software revenue, SAP said.
SAP’s operating profit was, however, down by 5% in the fourth quarter to €1.6 billion because of expenses on share-based compensation and acquisition-related charges, and net profit dropped by 8% in the quarter from a year earlier. The company acquired cloud-based human capital management tools company SuccessFactors in February, and cloud-based e-commerce vendor Ariba in October.
For the full year, total revenue was euro 16 billion, up by 14% from the previous year. Software and cloud subscription revenue of close to euro 5 billion was up 19%, while support revenue was euro 8 billion, an increase of 14%. Operating profit was down 17% to euro 4 billion, also impacted by the costs of acquisitions and share-based compensation. Net profit was down 18% to euro 2.8 billion. The number of employees has gone up by 8,700 FTE (full-time equivalents) in the year, of which more than 4,800 came from acquisitions.
The company has said that its profits were also lower in 2012 because of a large reduction in the provision for the TomorrowNow litigation with Oracle in the previous year.
SAP expects full-year 2013 non-IFRS software and cloud subscriptions revenue to increase in the range of 14% to 20% at constant currencies. The full-year 2013 non-IFRS cloud subscription and support revenue contributing to this growth is expected to be around euro 750 million at constant currencies, it said. SAP also expects full-year non-IFRS operating profit in 2013 of up to euro 5.95 billion at constant currencies, from euro 5.21 billion in 2012.
