KUALA LUMPUR, 18 FEBRUARY 2009 – Business analytics firm SAP Asia Pacific Japan (APJ) said that it continued to outperform the business software market across the region in 2008, with revenue growth of 23 per cent.
SAP Malaysia managing director Krish Datta said that on a full year basis, SAP Asia Pacific Japan remained SAP AG’s fastest growing region with 23 per cent software revenue growth, to €594 million. “Software and software related services grew at 24 per cent for the year, to €1.192 billion. All revenue figures in this release are expressed in non-GAAP constant currency terms and all growth is measured against the previous comparable period.”
Steady growth in Malaysia
Datta added that SAP software revenue grew by 20 per cent in South East Asia for the full year of 2008. “Software and software related services revenue also grew by 19 per cent in South East Asia in the year. In Malaysia, software revenue for grew by 24 per cent, while software and software Related Services revenue increased by 18 per cent in for year ended 2008.”
“The steady growth shown by SAP across the region and in Malaysia demonstrates the pull of our products, especially in such trying economic conditions,” said Datta. “In Malaysia for example, the high number of customer wins from the SME (small and medium enterprise) sector demonstrates the fact that we in SAP are attuned to the needs of local industries and organisations, regardless of size or deployment scale.”
Large strategic deals
“In spite of the circumstances, we secured a number of large strategic deals across the region, running contrary to the trend we are seeing for the industry as a whole,” said Datta.
“In quarter four, 2008, we secured major deals, including Sony in Japan, proving that a sound business case and the capacity to quantify and deliver business value continue to be of interest to SAP customers across the region, notwithstanding the economic climate,” he said.
As part of its 2008 full-year earnings announcement, SAP AG announced cost saving measures which included an estimated reduction of SAP’s global workforce by about 3,000 people during 2009. Datta said, “We always talk to our customers about helping them to become ‘best-run businesses’ and obviously we need to lead by example. We are continually looking for ways to drive productivity and reduce our cost-base across the region. We expect that a combination of additional travel restrictions, natural attrition and further reductions in non-staff variable expenses will help SAP Asia Pacific Japan manage its margin targets in 2009.”
