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WALLDORF - October 28, 2009 - SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced its preliminary financial results for the third quarter and nine months ended September 30, 2009.
View the Detailed Results (PDF)
Presentation (PDF)
Listen to the Webcast replay
2) Revenue line items are adjusted for the Business Objects support revenue that Business Objects would have recognized had it remained a standalone entity but that SAP is not permitted to recognize as revenue under U.S. GAAP as a result of business combination accounting rules. Adjustments in the operating expense line items are for acquisition-related charges. See Explanation of Non-GAAP measures at the end of the financial section of the press release for explanations of the Non-GAAP measures used in this press release and for related reconciliations to U.S. GAAP.
3) Constant currency Non-GAAP revenue and operating income figures are calculated by translating Non-GAAP revenue and Non-GAAP operating income of the current period using the average exchange rates from the previous year's respective period instead of the current period. Constant currency period-over-period changes are calculated by comparing the current year's Non-GAAP constant currency numbers with the Non-GAAP number of the previous year's respective period. See Explanation of Non-GAAP measures at the end of the financial section of the press release for details.
Third quarter 2009 Non-GAAP operating income excludes acquisition-related charges totaling €67 million (2008: €76 million), and third quarter 2009 Non-GAAP income from continuing operations and Non-GAAP earnings per share from continuing operations exclude acquisition-related charges totaling €52 million (2008: €87 million, which included a deferred revenue write-down).
“We are pleased to report another quarter of increasing margins despite a decline in revenues. This demonstrates our continued success in maintaining tight cost controls,” said Werner Brandt, CFO of SAP. “While we are seeing signs of stabilization in the general environment, the market remains difficult. Third quarter software and software-related service revenues came in lower than we expected mainly because of a particularly challenging environment in the emerging markets and Japan.”
“Despite the continued tough spending environment, we are pleased to see further progress in the evolution of our volume business as a result of smaller deals,” said Léo Apotheker, CEO of SAP. “In addition, we are driving more multi-year agreements, where customers buy and consume software over many periods, which we believe is a positive transition for both SAP and our customers. We have the benefit of many years of experience in facilitating the purchase of our software in this manner, including the success we had in signing multi-year, Global Enterprise Agreements with our largest customers. We have now started to leverage this approach with a bigger group of customers. And, most importantly, our solutions are built on a highly flexible and modular architecture allowing us to easily adopt this model.”
Nine Months 2009 Non-GAAP revenue figures exclude a non-recurring deferred support revenue write-down from the acquisition of Business Objects of €11 million (2008:€140 million).
Nine Months 2009 Non-GAAP operating income excludes a non-recurring deferred support revenue write-down from the acquisition of Business Objects and acquisition-related charges totaling €211 million (2008: €365 million), and Nine Months 2009 Non-GAAP income from continuing operations and Non-GAAP earnings per share from continuing operations exclude a non-recurring deferred support revenue write-down from the acquisition of Business Objects and acquisition-related charges totaling €161 million (2008: €271 million).
Operating cash flow from continuing operations was €2.38 billion (2008: €1.97 billion), an increase of 21%. Free cash flow was €2.21 billion (2008: €1.73 billion), an increase of 28%. Free cash flow was 29% of total revenues (2008: 21%). At September 30, 2009, SAP had a total group liquidity of €3.04 billion (December 31, 2008: €1.66 billion), which includes cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash and short term investments. At September 30, 2009, net liquidity, defined as total group liquidity less bank liabilities, was €925 million.
Previously, SAP announced that in order to enable the Company to adapt its size to today’s market conditions and the broader impact of the global recession, it implemented a global reduction of positions to 48,500 by year-end 2009, taking full advantage of attrition in reaching this goal, and that it expected the reduction of positions to trigger one-time restructuring charges of approximately €200 million for 2009. For the first nine months of 2009, the Company recorded in operating income a restructuring charge of €186 million, and reduced approximately 2,900 positions.
SAP is providing the following outlook for the full-year 2009:
The Company continues to expect its full-year 2009 Non-GAAP operating margin, which excludes a non-recurring deferred support revenue write-down from the acquisition of Business Objects and acquisition-related charges, to be in the range of 25.5% – 27.0% at constant currencies. This includes one-time restructuring charges of €200 million expected to result from the reduction of positions, which negatively impact the Non-GAAP operating margin outlook by approximately 2 percentage points. The 2009 Non-GAAP operating margin outlook is now based on the assumption that 2009 Non-GAAP software and software-related service revenues, which exclude a non-recurring deferred support revenue write-down from the acquisition of Business Objects, will decline in a range of 6% – 8% at constant currencies (2008: €8.623 billion).
SAP updated its outlook for the 2009 tax rate to 27.0% - 28.0% from the previously expected 2009 tax rate of 29.5% - 30.5% (based on U.S. GAAP income from continuing operations) for 2009 (2008: 30.0%).
SAP will discontinue its U.S. GAAP reporting and will only report financial data under IFRS from fiscal 2010 onwards. To prepare the capital markets for this change, IFRS financial data are provided in the financial section of this press release.
This press release contains certain financial measures such as Non-GAAP revenues, Non-GAAP operating income, Non-GAAP operating margin, free cash flow, constant currency revenue and operating income measures, as well as U.S. Dollar based Non-GAAP revenue numbers. These measures are not prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP and therefore are considered non-GAAP financial measures. SAP’s non-GAAP financial measures may not correspond to non-GAAP financial measures that other companies report. The non-GAAP financial measures that SAP reports should be considered in addition to, and not as a substitute for or superior to, revenue, operating margin or SAP’s other measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP. See the financial section of this press release for additional information regarding the Non-GAAP measures included in this press release and for the reconciliations to the corresponding U.S. GAAP measures.
SAP senior management will host a conference call today at 3:00 PM (CET) / 2:00 PM (UK) / 10:00 AM (Eastern). The conference call will be webcast live (and for replay purposes) on the Company’s website at http://www.sap.com/investor along with supplementary financial information.
SAP will post two interviews with SAP CEO Léo Apotheker in both English and German, in which he will discuss the Company’s Q3 2009 financial results. You can find these interviews on the SAP stock footage platform www.sap.com/stockfootage at approximately 11:00 a.m. CET on Wednesday, October 28, 2009. The interview in English will be conducted by a reporter from Bloomberg TV, and the German language interview will be conducted by a reporter from “Deutsche Welle”. Both interviews will also be available at http://www.youtube.com/saptv.
These interviews will be published in their entirety and without any edits, as well as for your unrestricted use free of charge (also for parts of it). In addition, these clips are not branded, are clean feed, and will be available as high resolution video files, as well as mp3 files for radio journalists. SAP will also broadcast these clips via satellite at approximately 10:30 am CET. If you are interested in recording this feed, please contact us via broadcast@sap.com for the necessary satellite and technical information.
About SAP SAP is the world’s leading provider of business software(*), offering applications and services that enable companies of all sizes and in more than 25 industries to become best-run businesses. With more than 92,000 customers in over 120 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE, under the symbol “SAP.” For more information, visit www.sap.com)
(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource planning, business intelligence, and related applications.
Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.
Copyright © 2009 SAP AG. All rights reserved. SAP, R/3, mySAP, mySAP.com, xApps, xApp, SAP NetWeaver and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Data contained in this document serve informational purposes only. National product specifications may vary.
For more information, press only: Christoph Liedtke, +49 (6227) 7-50383, christoph.liedtke@sap.com, CET Guenter Gaugler +49 (6227) 7-65416, guenter.gaugler@sap.com, CET Jim Dever +1 (610) 661-2161, james.dever@sap.com, ET
For more information, financial community only: Stefan Gruber, +49 (6227) 7-44872, investor@sap.com, CET Martin Cohen, +1 (212) 653-9619, investor@sap.com, ET
Appendix – Financial Information to Follow
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