The logo of SAP is seen on their offices in Reston, Virginia.
BERLIN Reuters - SAP said on Thursday that demand for its cloud business database was growing as the German business software group confirmed its preliminary third quarter results and full year guidance which it raised last week.
The company forecast cloud revenue to grow by 16% - 19% in the year as a whole, helping its overall cloud and software revenue to increase by 2% - 4%.
Cloud backlog for flagship database S 4 HANA was up 58% at current currencies and constant cloud backlog - a measure of incoming business - grew 22% in the third quarter.
Our cloud revenue now represents 35% of our total revenue and that's driving up our share of more predictable revenue, which rose by three percentage points year over year to 77%, Chief Financial Officer Luka Mucic said on a call with journalists.
SAP raised its forecast for cloud and software revenue for the full year by 200 million euros to 23.8 billion - 24.2 billion euros.
Adjusted revenue rose 5% to 7.70 billion euros for the third quarter ended Sept. 30, and adjusted earnings per share rose 2% to 1.74 euros, backed again by its profitable venture capital investments Sapphire Ventures.