SAP SE reported a 14.7% year-over-year increase in preliminary third-quarter adjusted profit and said CEO Bill McDermott is stepping down.
The German software giant said its third-quarter non-IFRS profit after tax totaled €1.56 billion, up from €1.36 billion in the year-earlier period. Basic EPS came in at €1.30, up 14.0% year over year and beating the S&P Global Market Intelligence consensus estimate for normalized EPS of €1.19.
Non-IFRS cloud revenue increased 38.2% year over year to €1.81 billion from €1.31 billion, and software licenses and support revenue climbed on an annual basis to €3.84 billion from €3.70 billion.
IFRS profit grew 29.9% on an annual basis to €1.26 billion, or €1.04 per share, from €970.0 million, or 81 euro cents per share. New cloud bookings rose 38%, with a three-year deal with a major partner contributing 17 percentage points to growth.
In reporting results, SAP said it expects non-IFRS cloud and software revenue in the range of €22.40 billion to €22.70 billion at constant currencies for 2019. The company also expects operating profit in the range of €7.85 billion to €8.05 billion for the full year.
SAP announced in a separate release that McDermott will not renew his contract and is stepping down as CEO, effective immediately, but will remain in an advisory capacity until 2019-end. Executive board members Jennifer Morgan and Christian Klein will take over as co-CEOs.
McDermott joined SAP in 2002 and has been the company's CEO for the past decade. Morgan joined SAP in 2004 and most recently was president of its cloud business group, while Klein started at the company two decades ago and had been COO prior to his new appointment.
SAP will report its complete third-quarter results Oct. 21.
