SAP sales rise, company boosts outlook

Net profit came in at €618 million ($804 million), down 51 percent from €1.25 billion a year ago. The year-ago figure was boosted by an unusual €723 million gain that came about when a judge reduced damages against the company in a lawsuit brought by competitor Oracle Corp.

Revenue in the third quarter grew 16 percent to €3.95 billion, while operating earnings — which exclude the court decision — rose 10 percent to €1.23 billion.

The Walldorf, Germany-based company said Wednesday its business was developing strongly, with increased sales in North America and China outweighing flat revenue in crisis-hit Europe.

SAP's core business for years has been software installed at customer companies' offices that helps them manage back-office functions such as keeping track of personnel. But it is making a big push in cloud computing, where the software is hosted on remote servers and companies purchase only as much computing services as they need.

SAP bought U.S.-based cloud company Ariba earlier this year and says the cloud business will be one of the company's main pillars. Ariba, which is based in Sunnyvale, California has 2,700 employees and will operate as a separate division.

Co-CEO Bill McDermott said on a conference call that the company's mobile, cloud and high-speed data analysis business "are all growing in triple digits. We have tremendous momentum in the cloud."