German business software group SAP has raised its full-year outlook for a third time on the back of a strong showing in the third quarter as more customers shift their IT operations to the cloud.
SAP now expects cloud revenue to grow by 16%-19% in the year as a whole, helping its overall cloud and software revenue to gain by 2%-4%, it said in a statement.
Operating profit is expected to be flat to down 2% for the year, an improvement from its earlier forecast of unchanged to down 4%.
SAP, which is moving to subscription-based cloud services from software licences with up-front fees, launched Rise with SAP, an all-in-one digital transformation package in January.
"We see record adoption of our applications and our platform," chief executive Officer Christian Klein said in a statement. "This has resulted in strong acceleration of our cloud growth."
SAP raised its forecast for cloud and software revenue for the full year by €200m to €23.8-24.2 billion.
The cloud backlog for flagship database S/4HANA was up 58% at constant currencies and current cloud backlog - a measure of incoming business - reported a 22% growth during the third quarter.
Adjusted revenue rose 5% to €6.68 billion for the third quarter ended September 30, the company reported in a preliminary earnings statement. SAP is expected to release full results on October 21.
Adjusted earnings per share rose 2% to €1.74, backed again by its profitable venture capital investments, Sapphire Ventures.
