SAP Software Sales Spike 28 Percent In Q3

October 17, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

German application software giant SAP is rolling in it again, just like rival Oracle has been since the Great Recession ended.

The “it” I am referring to is not legal issues, but rather money. And SAP has so much of it now it decided to release preliminary results for the third quarter ended in September.

In the quarter, SAP posted at 28 percent increase in software sales, to €841 million, and software and software-related services sales (is that a German language construct or what?) posted a 16 percent increase to €2.69 billion. Total revenues rose by 14 percent to €3.41 billion.

And because SAP was able to knock back its provisions for the settlement in the long-running TomorrowNow lawsuit and settlement with Oracle by €723 million, the company’s operating profit in the third quarter went through the roof, up 145 percent to €1.76 billion. The judge in the TomorrowNow lawsuit told Oracle to take a settlement of $272 million, not the $1.3 billion a jury awarded, or seek a new trial.

Systemanalyse und Programmentwicklung didn’t say much else about its quarter, but co-CEOs Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe said the following in a statement: “The record quarter was driven by strong results across all regions. Customers recognize the value that they get from the global leader in enterprise software. Innovation in our core products combined with breakthrough solutions such as HANA and mobility are allowing our customers to run their businesses better and to grow in uncertain times. Innovative software matters more than ever and we are at the forefront of this trend.”

I wonder if they chanted it together to the public relations person who was transcribing it? Or maybe the PR people just made the whole thing up. . . .