SAP sees 97 per cent profit gain

SAP has reported a 97 per cent increase in profit after tax in the first quarter of 2010.

The firm achieved a 387 million (336 million) gain, almost double the 196 million that the software giant posted in the first quarter of last year.

SAP also reported double-digit growth in software and software-associated service revenues, in addition to an operating profit rise of 81 per cent.

During the period, the business software giant closed some big-time contracts with firms including Boots, Daimler and Gazprom. Now, SAP expects its full-year 2010 non-International Financial Reporting Standards software and software-related service revenue to rise between four and eight per cent.

"As the environment improves and customers begin to invest for growth again, SAP is extremely well-positioned because of our broad and consistently integrated portfolio of products supporting business processes and enabling business insight through analytics," said Bill McDermott, co-chief executive of SAP, in a statement.

In further good news for SAP, it has been ranked by a Gartner report as the market share leader in business intelligence, analytics and performance management software.

Despite these achievements, it was just last month that rival Oracle claimed to be taking significant chunks out of SAP's market share.

SAP UK's managing director Tim Noble believes his firm is far ahead of its competitors. He told IT PRO: "Let there be no doubt: we are by far the market leader in business software.

"We are about twice the size of our next competitor despite the $16 billion they have spent on acquisitions. We win eight out of 10 deals against Oracle just last quarter we achieved 70 competitive wins against Oracle."