Group results at a glance – First Quarter 2022
1 For a breakdown of the individual adjustments see table “Non-IFRS Adjustments by Functional Areas” in this Quarterly Statement.
Due to rounding, numbers may not add up precisely.
Cloud Performance
1 For a breakdown of the individual adjustments see table „Non-IFRS Adjustments by Funcional Areas” in this Quarterly Statement
2 As this is an order entry metric, there is no IFRS equivalent
Due to rounding, numbers may not add up precisely
Impact of War in Ukraine
In the first quarter, SAP’s business was impacted by the war in Ukraine. At the beginning of March, SAP stopped all new sales in Russia and Belarus. In addition, SAP started to shut down its cloud operations and intends to stop the support and maintenance of its on-premise products in Russia. Current cloud backlog was lowered by approximately €60 million due to the termination of existing cloud engagements, and operating profit by approximately €70 million due to reduced on-premise revenues, accelerated depreciation of data center assets and capitalized sales commissions.
For the fiscal year, we expect a total negative revenue impact of approximately €300 million from lack of new business and discontinuation of existing business, in particular software and support and services. For non-IFRS operating profit we expect an impact of approximately €350 million from the revenue gaps mentioned above and other expense items.
In addition to the above, the company expects to incur restructuring expenses of approximately €80-100 million for the fiscal year which will not affect non-IFRS results.
Despite these headwinds, the cloud performance allows SAP to reaffirm its cloud revenue, cloud and software revenue as well as non-IFRS operating profit and free cash flow outlook. The reiteration of the non-IFRS operating profit outlook reflects the benefits of a continued strong cloud revenue growth, operational discipline and portfolio streamlining measures.
Other impacts due to this rapidly evolving situation are currently unknown and could potentially subject our business to materially adverse consequences should the situation escalate beyond its current scope.
Financial Highlights
Current cloud backlog was up 28% to €9.73 billion and up 23% at constant currencies. The war in Ukraine reduced current cloud backlog growth at constant currencies by 0.8 percentage points.
Supported by double-digit growth across the solution portfolio, cloud revenue growth continued to accelerate for the fourth consecutive quarter and was up 31% to €2.82 billion, up 25% at constant currencies.
Amidst continuing investments into our next generation cloud delivery program our cloud gross margin was up 1.0 percentage points year over year to 68.2% (IFRS) and up 0.5 percentage points year over year to 70.0% (non-IFRS). Revenue growth, alongside cloud gross margin expansion, drove strong cloud gross profit growth of 33% (IFRS), 32% (non-IFRS) and 26% (non-IFRS at constant currencies).
IFRS operating profit increased 10% to €1.05 billion, primarily driven by lower restructuring expenses. Non-IFRS operating profit decreased 4% to €1.68 billion and decreased 7% at constant currencies. This decrease against a very strong prior year comparable was mainly driven by expenses related to the war in Ukraine, as well as accelerated investments into research & development and sales & marketing to capture current and future growth opportunities.
IFRS earnings per share (basic and diluted) decreased 29% to €0.63 and non-IFRS earnings per share (basic) decreased 28% to €1.00. The year over year decline of earnings per share reflects a contribution to financial income by Sapphire Ventures that was lower than over the same period last year based on current market conditions.
Free cash flow was down 24% to €2.16 billion, mainly attributable to the development of profitability in the quarter and impacts from working capital due to SAP’s continuous move to the cloud, and lower software licenses sales in the fourth quarter 2021. The ongoing business transformation provides more balance of cash inflows throughout the year, and we are reiterating our full year free cash flow outlook.
On January 13, SAP announced a new share repurchase program to support the transition of SAP’s share-based compensation programs to equity settlement. By March 31, SAP had repurchased 5,680,250 shares at an average price of €102.26 with a purchased value of approximately €581 million.