SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Dominik Asam: Yeah, yeah. So the stock-based compensation, I mean, yes, given that we have a higher share of equity settled stock-based compensation, the volatility induced by the share price movements in that expense will go down. That’s the one thing I can say. The other thing we clearly said is that we really want to kind of keep that number steady to dilute it somewhat as a percent of revenues over the coming years. And there is no change to that guidance that we really try to make it more stable. And then as a consequence, indeed, it would be easier to absorb it kind of in the non-IFRS operating results. We are clearly seeing the stock-based compensation not as funny money, but a real expense. It’s real value transferred from shareholders to employees, basically. And that’s why anything to embark it in all our steering is really a priority of the company. But again, in terms of 2024, we will let you know how we deal with this in more detail in January.

Michael J. Briest: Okay. Thank you.

Anthony Coletta: Thank you, Michael. Next question, please.

Operator: The next question is from the line of Chandramouli Sriraman with Stifel Nicolaus Europe Ltd. Please go ahead.

Chandramouli Sriraman: Yeah, thanks for taking my question and congrats from my side as well. Just one on the amortization period change. I’m just wondering from a business sense, what it means for the end of support of R3 and how does this fit in with the license strength that you have seen in ’23? Thanks.

Dominik Asam: [So I’ll have to say that] (ph) again. Okay. So it’s an accounting policy, which is applied steadily, and it’s driven actually by forward-looking assumptions as to the kind of lifetime of the support revenues. Now you should understand it’s not a very linear calculation. So there are some factors that can make it somewhat volatile. And when we did the kind of, I’d say, first sneak preview of our planning here, we felt it’s not prudent to keep the long nine-year period. By the way, there are some assumptions about renewals in there embarked. So I wouldn’t read too much into it, except for that we felt that at this point in time on that commission, given that we want to clearly push from on-prem into the cloud, and that we see the bigger uptake in RISE, there is probably a shorter amortization period required, and this is what we’ve reflected.

I also want to highlight, if you may ask that this will not have a material impact on 2025 because by then, we will also benefit of having kind of taken less capitalization and it kind of then should be breakeven, so to speak. So worries on that front, I think, for 2025. It does weigh, as I mentioned already, on Q3 and will weigh also on Q4.

Christian Klein: And with regard to the software momentum. Look, the end of maintenance is coming for us, for our ECC customers. And also for the older releases of S/4HANA on prem. Nevertheless, there is a maintenance commitment out there until 2040 for our mainstream S/4HANA customers and this will stay, but we will definitely not move further the end of maintenance for the other releases as we have to, of course, also focus on the innovation in the cloud and deliver this to our customers in a natural way. And when you look at the softer number, of course, it can fluctuate quarter-by-quarter. It’s one-time license revenue but you can also see the deals we are doing, probably majority comes out of the regulated industries where customers are also still growing and they need more licenses, and this is the type of business which we are still closing. Scott, did I say it right?

Scott Russell: Yeah, you did, Christian. And it’s actually a really important point. You’re not seeing a decline on the cloud and our RISE performance despite the software, and that is a good sign. That’s partly because of the segments that are — and you mentioned that on the regulated industries. And also companies that are topping up their existing license where they’re growing or expanding. So the outlook doesn’t have a bearing or a weighting on the cloud side other than to Dominik’s point that we continue to drive and build the future on a cloud as a part of our strategic priority and our customers will continue to do that at scale whilst managing their software estate in the short term.

Anthony Coletta: All right. Thank you. We will take the next question please.

Operator: The next question is from the line of Johannes Schaller with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Johannes Schaller: Yeah. Thanks. Good evening. Thanks for taking my question. Christian, thank you for providing a bit of detail on the AI side from a technical and functionality perspective. I wanted to ask a bit on pricing. I mean, you said on the last call, you talked about a 30% pricing uplift potentially with AI features or maybe, call it, a 30% higher revenue opportunity. Now three months later, can you talk a little bit about this feedback you’re getting on this pricing strategy from your customers? And also, just in terms of how we should think about these AI revenues coming in, I take that the R&D is pretty much in the run rate. But what we see in the field with some other AI offerings, maybe an initial phase of some customization, some training with proprietary data of your customers, some costs that are coming in initially.