Less than a week after Microsoft reported its first revenue drop since going public in 1986, enterprise software bellweather SAP AG today posted results which showed software license revenues fell by a third to €418 million ($553 million) in the first calendar quarter, well below market expectations.
For the first quarter of the year, net profits fell to €204 million.
Operating margin in the first quarter declined to around 14%, and the company has said it will set aside €300 million for its intended restructuring, and to cover the cost of cutting 2,200 heads from the payroll.
Léo Apotheker, co-CEO of SAP said, “The cost containment measures that we initiated in October of last year and carried into the first quarter of 2009 have really taken hold, and we are pleased with the resulting margin performance.”
Europe’s biggest applications software maker said revenue for the first three months fell to €2.40 billion from €2.46 billion a year earlier.
At the end of March the company said it had liquidity of €2.95 billion, compared with €1.66 billion it had in December 31, 2008.