SAP SE falls on soft cloud results, mixed guidance

investing.com:

SAP SE (ETR:SAPG) (NYSE:SAP) saw its shares drop over 5% in Frankfurt after the company reported mixed Q2 results and guidance.

SAP said it made a profit of €0.62 (€1 = $1.1128) per share on revenue of €7.55 billion, which compares to the consensus for earnings of €0.54 per share on revenue of €7.2B.

Cloud and software revenue was reported at €6.51B while cloud-only revenue came in at €3.32B, both below the average analyst expectations. At the constant currency, cloud revenue rose 22% year-over-year.

«This has been another strong quarter. We see significant opportunities ahead, in particular through the transformative power of AI. We are focused on delivering SAP Business AI that's relevant, reliable, and responsible and we see significant possibilities for market expansion through these technologies and new premium offerings,» Christian Klein, CEO of SAP, said.

SAP modestly hiked its full-year operating profit outlook to a range of €8.65-8.95B, up from the prior forecast for €8.6-8.9B. However, the cloud revenue forecast was slashed to €14.1B, down from the prior forecast of €14.2B.

Stifel analysts said the results were “solid given the macro” environment. Oppenheimer analysts added:

“With respect to the broader SaaS/Applications group, we don’t believe SAP’s 2Q results are a harbinger of bad things to come, but rather idiosyncratic. For example, a slowing economy and shift to hybrid work is delaying and/or reducing in scope large transformational deals and T&E and procurement spending/volumes for SAP. Maintain Perform.”