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Walldorf (dpa) - Europe's largest software manufacturer SAP is preparing for further difficult times despite a reasonably decent final quarter in the past year.
After a slight decline in sales in 2020, the largest German DAX group in terms of market value is expecting a minus in operating profit adjusted for special and currency effects in 2021 - in extreme cases by up to 6 percent, but at least by 1 percent.
The company from the Rhein-Neckar district announced a corresponding forecast on Friday night based on preliminary figures.
There were no targets for further sales development or the net result for 2021.
For the past year, SAP reported adjusted operating earnings before interest and taxes of 8.28 billion euros - a little more than last year.
If you ignore the special effects, SAP was even able to report an increase of 48 percent to 6.62 billion euros in operating profit.
However, this development is primarily due to the share price that has since plummeted, which required significantly lower expenses for share-based payments than in 2019.
In terms of sales, the bottom line for 2020 is a decline of 1 percent to 27.34 billion euros, the net result will not be available until January 29.
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In the fourth quarter, SAP performed better than analysts assumed, because license sales in particular did not fall as sharply as feared.
The original annual targets were significantly higher - but the effects of the corona pandemic and internal restructuring made it difficult for SAP to do business.
After the tech group surprisingly again cashed in its financial targets for 2020 and a profitability promise that had been made in the previous year, SAP also crashed on the stock exchange - and is now far from previous highs.
Dozens of billion euros in market capitalization have since vanished into thin air, plus ongoing criticism from customers: Many companies criticize the continued poor interlinking of the numerous SAP applications.
A lot of work for the CEO Christian Klein (40), who is under pressure and has headed the company since October 2019 - until April in a dual leadership, since then alone.
The management had already warned of the consequences of the pandemic in autumn, which should weigh on demand until at least half of 2021.
The group now expects that the revenues from the sale of software subscriptions and licenses will stagnate in 2020 or will increase by a maximum of 2 percent after adjusting for currency effects.
Among them, however, SAP believes the rapidly growing software for use over the Internet will grow by 13 to 18 percent.
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According to a survey by the influential user association DSAG, in which thousands of SAP customers have come together, almost three quarters of all companies surveyed complained about declining sales in the fall.
DSAG boss Jens Hungershausen said that this also had an impact on the IT budget of SAP customers.
“There is a large proportion who say: We are now accelerating our IT projects.
But there is almost as many people who say: We are now slowing down our projects a bit, delaying them.
It should stay that way until the middle of next year. "
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210115-99-38983 / 2