Germany's SAP today announced forecast-beating results and raised its outlook as growth in its cloud business accelerated.
SAP's chief executive Bill McDermott expressed confidence in the company's push into the sales software market.
SAP, Europe's biggest technology company by market capitalisation, also raised its mid-term forecast for its cloud operations after segment revenues grew by 40%, at constant currency, in the second quarter.
"We are increasing guidance as a signal that a new wave of growth has been unleashed," McDermott told reporters on a conference call.
SAP has been undertaking a fundamental shift to subscription-based business software services hosted on remote servers, away from its traditional on-premise model that generated hefty up-front licence fees.
SAP reported a 12% gain in operating profit in the second quarter, at constant currency, on revenues that grew by 10% - both ahead of expectations in a Reuters poll of 14 analysts.
It raised the lower end of its forecast ranges for full year growth in revenues and operating profit by half a percentage point to 6-7.5% and 9-11%, respectively.
Cloud subscriptions and support were now seen growing by 34-38%, compared to 31-36.5% previously.
For 2020, SAP now expects cloud subscriptions and support revenue to be in the range of €8.2-8.7 billion - up from earlier guidance of €8-8.5 billion euros.
The company left other mid-term guidance unchanged.
