by Mike Wheatley
Shares of the European enterprise software maker SAP SE registered solid gains in late trading today after the company delivered earnings results that beat expectations.
The company’s American depository receipts gained more than 6% in the after-hours trading session, reversing a decline of just over 6% that occurred in regular trading, prior to the results coming out. SAP was one of a number of software stocks that took a beating earlier today, following unspectacular earnings results from major players IBM Corp. and ServiceNow Inc.
The German enterprise resource planning software giant reported first-quarter earnings of €1.72 ($2.01) per share on revenue of €9.55 billion, up 6% from the same period one year earlier. Those numbers do not adhere to International Financing Reporting Standards, however, so they exclude one-off items such as amortization and restructuring costs. The results were solid, though, with analysts expecting the company to report earnings of just €1.65 per share on similar revenue.
SAP’s gains during the quarter were driven by its cloud business, which has benefitted from the artificial intelligence boom that some analysts fear will ultimately kill all software companies. The unit generated sales of €5.96 billion, up 19% from a year earlier and above the Street’s forecast of €5.89 billion. Meanwhile, the company ended the quarter with a backlog of €21.9 billion worth of cloud orders, up 20% from one year earlier.
