SAP Q1 2017 results: cloud revenue €906m, 5,800 customers for S/4

SAP has announced €5.29bn in first quarter 2017 revenue, of which €906m was for cloud subscription and support, or 17% of the total.

This compares with €4.73bn top-line revenue in the same quarter last year, an increase of 12% – and an increase in cloud revenue of €228m, up by 34% on the Q1 2016 figure of €678m.

The supplier’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system S/4 Hana, based on its own in-memory columnar database, has been taken up by more customers. It now has 5,800 customers, up from 5,400 in the closing quarter of 2016.

In a statement, the supplier said almost 50% of the new customers were net new to SAP, and cited German energy company Innogy as a new customer. It also said Citrix has chosen the cloud version of S/4.

In the same statement, CEO Bill McDermott said: “Our first quarter results are a decisive follow-on to our record-setting 2016. Led by S/4 Hana, we are seeing mass customer adoption of our solutions globally.”

Luka Mucic, chief financial officer, said: “We continued our rapid expansion in cloud, accelerating to 49% growth in new cloud bookings.”

Operating profit was almost €1.2bn, compared with €1.1bn in Q1 2016, which saw an increase of 9%, and the same operating margin, 23% as in Q1 2016.

In the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, cloud and software revenue was reported to have increased by 10% to €1.8bn, while cloud subscriptions and support revenue grew 43% to €229m. The supplier said its performance was an “especially strong quarter in Germany, France and Italy”.

In the Americas, the company reported cloud and software revenue growing by 12% to €1.7bn, less than EMEA, while cloud subscriptions and support revenue was up 27% to €561m, ahead of EMEA.

In Asia Pacific and Japan, cloud and software revenue was reported up 21% with cloud subscriptions and support revenue growing by 65%. Japan and India were said to be “highlights in the quarter with strong results in both cloud subscriptions and software revenue.