SAP SE shares in Europe plunged the most since late 2020, as Wall Street analysts told clients the enterprise software company’s 2026 guidance appeared underwhelming relative to elevated expectations.
The 25% growth in the current cloud backlog on a constant-currency basis was not enough to spark investor enthusiasm.
As a result, shares in Frankfurt plunged 11% to 174.88 – the largest intraday decline since Oct. 26, 2020.
Shares are now at their lowest level since mid-2024.
Klein told investors during third-quarter earnings in October that 25% growth would be viewed as a “disappointment.”
He has shifted SAP away from traditional on-premise software licenses toward cloud-based subscription offerings. The move was initially applauded by investors and helped propel the stock to a record high last year. More recently, however, the rise of AI-powered programming tools has sparked new concerns about what this new competitive space could mean for enterprise software vendors.
Here is Goldman analyst Sean Johnstone’s first take on SAP’s earnings and outlook.
SAP (not good enough and not sure call will have done enough to quell CCB debate esp. give ServiceNow NOW was down despite a beat & raise): The debate will be on the topline despite the Q been largely inline with the operating beat driven by lower SBC helped by a low stock price. The CCB number was at best inline but includes adjustments – it needed to be 27% esp. given hype that SAP had closed a whole load of large deals and yet its 26% adjusted for “Large transformational deals with high cloud revenue ramps in outer years and termination for convenience clauses required by law negatively impacted fourth quarter constant currency current cloud backlog growth by approximately 1 percentage point.” So CCB was included the adjustment was 26%. On call CFO saying that CCB decel in 2026 will be less than they saw in 2025 that was 400bps but on call not clear in quantum of this years decline. As a function of what they reported in 4Q, current consensus is 100bps decel. TCB – at 30% vs. last years 40% and gap to CCB has shrunk from DD to MSD.
Q4 broadly in-line, small miss Cloud Gross profit missed at 74.6% vs, street 75.2%, Opex is inline with street, SBC is below (driven by low stock price) and drives an operating income & EPS beat and FCF beats by 2%
Guidance: On CCB – no number but said to “slightly decelerate”. Street has is circa 24% for 2026 so 100bps decel and debate will be in this enough esp as Cloud revenue guide is 23-25% vs. street at 25% and most expected 24-26%. Cloud and software guide 12-13% street as 13%. on EBIT 11.9-12.3 (street is inline). EBIT growth 14-18% street ai 17%. FCF of circ 10bn vs. street at 9.5bn. Plus E10bn buyback. Net/net the debate is all on the revenue outlook & CCB while EBIT and FCF are broadly unchanged. Given the reaction to ServiceNow that beat would expect SAP to be under pressure. At what level does this get defended /trough 160-170 at 5x recurring…
Commentary from others on Wall Street (courtsey of Bloomberg):
JPMorgan (overweight)
Given investors’ negative sentiment around software sector, growth numbers are ultimately what investors are zoomed in on, “and purely off this we would expect a negative share price reaction,” says analyst Toby Ogg
Guidance for the current cloud backlog to “slightly decelerate in 2026” from the 4Q exit rate implies expectations may drift lower on this metric
Still, 2026 free cash flow guidance of ~€10b was above expectations
Jefferies (buy)
The company had implied before that a 25% current cloud backlog growth would be disappointing, and “investors are likely to come to the same conclusion,” says analyst Charles Brennan
One detail worth noting is SAP’s customer NPS score declined 3 y/y to 9 versus guidance for a slight increase; while the firm attributes the decline to on-premise clients, for SAP to succeed over medium term it needs to bring customers along the journey
FX is guided to be a 3.5 percentage point of headwind to FY26 Ebit growth, likely bigger than what consensus is modeling
SAP’s miss on current cloud backlog expectations suggests a forward-looking growth problem this year.
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