The corona pandemic puts Europe’s largest software manufacturer SAP in greater distress than expected. The recovery in demand was also more restrained than expected due to new restrictions, as the Dax group surprisingly announced on Sunday evening in Walldorf.

Switch to cloud products Management around CEO Christian Klein is now expecting less sales and operating income than before. Because the crisis will have a negative impact on business at least until the middle of next year and the exchange rates have recently developed negatively, the targets for 2023 in sales and earnings are likely to rise by one or two Move years. In addition, the faster changeover by customers to the cloud versions of SAP software means a four to five percentage point lower margin. Pandemic even with a generous home office regulation. It was extended to the middle 2021.

Long-term forecasts SAP had previously promised to increase the adjusted operating margin (adjusted EBIT) of 2018 to 2023 by around 5 percentage points to then around 34 Wanting to increase percent – this goal came from Klein’s predecessor Bill McDermott. This year, SAP is now expecting total sales of 26, 2 to 27, 8 billion euros based on constant exchange rates, i.e. at exchange rates from last year. Before it was 27, 8 to 28, 5 billion . The operating result should now land between 8.1 and 8.5 billion euros instead of between 8.1 and 8.7 billion.

In a conference call on Monday, SAP boss Christian Klein defended his shift in strategy towards more growth investments as a necessary step. “I do not sacrifice the success of our customers to optimize our margin in the short term”. Customers increasingly asked for software from the cloud for use over the Internet. In this respect, maintaining the old medium-term goals with a focus on one’s own profitability would have been against their wishes. CFO Luka Mucic added that the management does not steer the company according to the operating margin. “We want to remain a growth company,” said the manager.

The share of the most valuable German company lost around on the trading platform Tradegate in the morning. percent.

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