SAP


SAP SE is a German multinational software company based in Walldorf, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is the world's largest vendor of enterprise resource planning software.
SAP GbR became, in 1981, fully Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung, abbreviated SAP GmbH after a five-year transition period beginning in 1976. In the late 1980s, it further restructured itself as SAP AG. Since 7 July 2014, its corporate structure is that of a pan-European societas Europaea ; as such, its former German corporate identity is now a subsidiary, SAP Deutschland SE & Co. KG. It has regional offices in 180 countries and 109,973 employees.
SAP is a component of the DAX and Euro Stoxx 50 stock market indices. The company is the largest non-American software company by revenue and the world's fifth-largest publicly traded software company by revenue. In June 2025, it was the largest European company by market capitalization, as well as one of the 30 most valuable publicly traded companies in the world.

History

20th century

When Xerox exited the computer hardware manufacturing industry in 1971, it asked IBM to migrate its business systems to IBM technology. As part of IBM's compensation for the migration, IBM was given the rights to the Scientific Data Systems /SAPE software repository. Five IBM engineers from the AI department were working on an enterprise-wide system based on this software, only to be told that it would no longer be necessary. Rather than abandoning the project, they decided to leave IBM Tech and start another company. In June 1972 they founded the SAP Systemanalyse und Programmentwicklung company, as a private partnership under the German Civil Code.
Their first client was the German branch of Imperial Chemical Industries in Östringen, where they developed mainframe programs for payroll and accounting. Instead of storing the data on punch cards mechanically, as IBM did, they stored it locally in the Electronic System while using a common Logical database for all activities of Organization. Therefore, they called their software a real-time system, since there was no need to process the punch cards overnight. This first version was also a standalone software that could be offered to other interested parties.
In 1973, SAP launched its first commercial product, the RF financial accounting system. This system served as the cornerstone in the ongoing development of other software modules of the system that eventually bore the name SAP R/1. This offered a common system for multiple tasks. This permitted the use of a centralized data storage, improving the maintenance of data. From a technical point of view, therefore, a database was necessary.
In 1976 SAP GmbH Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung was founded as a sales and support subsidiary. Five years later, the private partnership was dissolved and its rights were passed on to SAP GmbH.The headquarters moved the following year to Walldorf, Germany.
In 1979, SAP launched SAP R/2, expanding the capabilities of the system to other areas, such as materials management and production planning.
In 1981, SAP brought a re-designed product to market. However, SAP R/2 did not improve until between 1985 and 1990.
In 1992, SAP released SAP R/3. SAP developed and released several versions of R/3 through 1995.
In August 1988, SAP GmbH became SAP AG, and public trading started on 4 November 1988. Shares were listed on the Frankfurt and Stuttgart stock exchanges. In 1995, SAP was included in the German stock index DAX and, on 22 September 2003, SAP was included in the STOXX Europe 50.
In the mid-1990s, SAP transitioned from mainframe computing to a client–server architecture. In 1996 it began its alliance with the Spanish technology consulting firm Seidor, initiating the expansion of SAP solutions throughout Latin America.

21st century

In 2004, R/3 was replaced with SAP ERP Central Component 5.0. Architectural changes were also made to transition customers to a service-oriented architecture.
The company's official name became SAP AG after the 2005 annual general meeting.
In 2006, SAP ERP 6.0 was released. SAP ERP 6.0 is the latest version has since been updated through SAP enhancement packs, the most recent being enhancement package 8 for SAP ERP 6.0 in 2016.
Since 2012 SAP has acquired several companies that sell cloud-based products, with several multi-billion-dollar acquisitions seen by analysts as an attempt to challenge competitor Oracle. In 2014 SAP bought Concur Technologies, a provider of cloud-based travel and expense management software, for $8.3 billion, SAP's most expensive purchase to that date. Analysts' reactions to the purchase were mixed, with Thomas Becker of Commerzbank questioning whether Concur was the right choice for SAP, while Credit Suisse called the acquisition an "aggressive" move.
On 21 May 2014, SAP AG announced during the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders that 99% of the shareholder votes approved the conversion of legal form to a European stock corporation and at the same time, elected the first supervisory board of SAP SE. The conversion of the company's legal form would take place upon entry in the commercial register, expected to be in July 2014.
On 7 July 2014, SAP announced it had changed its legal form to a European Company. As a result, its German subsidiary was renamed to SAP Deutschland SE & Co. KG. The conversion cost the company approximately €4 million. In 2014 IBM and SAP began a partnership to sell cloud-based services. Likewise, in 2015, SAP also partnered with HPE to provide secure hybrid cloud-based services running the SAP platform. Both HPE and IBM provide infrastructure services to SAP, and SAP runs its SAP HANA cloud solution on top. SAP has announced additional partnerships with Microsoft in order to give customers tools for data visualization, as well as improved mobile applications.
In 2015, SAP exceeded its revenue projections due to the expansion in its cloud business and the success of SAP HANA. The growth can also be partially attributed to the acquisitions of Concur and Fieldglass. Since 2017, SAP is a founding member of the EU Cloud Code of Conduct. Since May 2021 SAP has listed selected Cloud Service adherent to the EU Cloud Code of Conduct as one of the first Cloud Service Providers.
The company announced plans in 2016 to invest heavily into technology relating to the Internet of things as part of a strategy to capitalize on the growth in that market. For that purpose, €2 billion is planned for investment in relevant sectors by the end of 2020. SAP will also launch a new product line called SAP IoT, which "will combine large amounts of data from things connected to the Internet with machine learning and SAP's real-time database S/4 HANA."
On 29 January 2019, SAP announced plans to cut approximately 4,000 positions at the company in a strategic plan to shift to more modern cloud-based technologies such as blockchain, quantum computing, machine learning, Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence.
On 13 April 2021, SAP announced the formation of the joint venture SAP Fioneer, a dedicated Financial Services Industry Unit between SAP and investment company Dediq GmbH. Dediq GmbH invested over €500 million in the newly formed unit and received an 80 percent share in return. brought its products, organizational units and the sales network into the business and holds 20 percent of the shares.
In June 2025, it was reported that the company had reached €320bn in value and that 4 out of 5 of SAP's client operations were now managed through its cloud business at hyperscale level. In September 2025, the European Commission opened an investigation into SAP for anti-competitive practices.

Acquisitions

Since 1991, SAP has acquired more than 70 companies. The SAP Group comprised 226 companies as of December 31, 2024. SAP prioritizes organic investments in technologies for long-term product portfolio growth and relevance, while also making targeted acquisitions to complement existing solutions and enhance penetration into key strategic markets.
SAP supports external company formations and organic growth by investing in risk funds managed by Sapphire Ventures; these funds manage over $10 billion in assets and have committed over $1 billion to invest in startups developing cutting-edge, AI-powered enterprise technologies to foster their global growth.

Products

As well as its main ERP products, the company also sells database software and technology and cloud-engineered systems. It sells other ERP software products such as:
With regard to its global market share, SAP was ranked as a leader in the following areas: Enterprise Software, Enterprise Resource Management Applications, Supply Chain Management Applications, Procurement Software, Travel and Expense Management Software, and Enterprise Resource Planning Software. 98 of the 100 largest companies in the world are SAP
customers. Approximately 80% of SAP’s customers are SMEs.

Finances

For the fiscal year 2017 SAP reported earnings of €4 billion, with an annual revenue of €23.5 billion, an increase of 6.3% over the previous fiscal cycle. SAP's shares traded at over US$154 per share, and its market capitalization was valued at US$180 billion in December 2023, making it the largest German company by market capitalization.
The key trends for SAP are :
YearRevenue
Net income
Total assets
EmployeesSources
201316.83.327.066,572
201417.53.238.574,406
201520.73.041.376,986
201622.03.644.284,183
201723.44.042.488,543
201824.74.051.596,498
201927.53.360.2100,330
202027.35.158.4103,876
202127.85.271.1107,415
202230.82.272.1109,973
202331.26.168.2106,043
202434.23.174.1107,155
202536.87.370.4109,211