SAP shares at all-time high after adjusted profit beats market view

By Ludwig Burger

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Shares in SAP rose as much as 7% to reach an all-time high on Tuesday after Europe's largest software maker reported better-than-expected quarterly operating income, buoyed by revenue growth and intensified cost-cutting.

The German company, whose software is used to run operations from accounting to supply chain management, said late on Monday that second-quarter operating profit adjusted for special items jumped 33% to 1.94 billion euros ($2.1 billion), beating a median analyst estimate of 1.81 billion posted on SAP's website.

SAP shares were up 6% at 0725 GMT, with Stifel analysts calling it a "strong operational quarter".

The software maker also ramped up its restructuring efforts, saying that about 9,000 to 10,000 positions would be affected, up from 8,000 announced in January.

It said most employees affected would be retrained with artificial intelligence (AI) skills or would receive voluntary buy-out packages.

"We continue to invest into our transformation to be the leader in Business AI. Given our progress and strong pipeline, we are confident to achieve accelerating topline growth through 2027," CEO Christian Klein said in statement.

The company's total quarterly revenue rose 10% to 8.29 billion euros, edging past analysts' consensus of 8.25 billion euros, helped by demand for its business planning software.

Cloud revenue of 4.15 billion euros was in line with the analyst consensus.

The firm also increased its 2025 adjusted operating profit expectation to 10.2 billion euros from 10 billion euros previously, reflecting anticipated efficiency gains from its transformation programme.

($1 = 0.9185 euros)

(Reporting by Ludwig Burger and Gursimran Kaur; writing by Miranda Murray; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Louise Heavens)