SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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And even beyond, together with the recurring revenue share, I mean, the business is super resilient. And I mean, for the year to come, I mean, Scott, we look into Q1 already. Luka already mentioned, there will be a reacceleration in the cloud, no matter if it’s now on customers like BMW, where we are driving automation in manufacturing, in finance where we are working on analytics, or if we’re working on the supply chains of this world to make them more resilient, or last but not least, if we are helping customers like Exxon and others to measure ESG in a standardized way and act on circular and other sustainability capabilities. The pipeline is actually very strong, and we are as confident as we have been last quarter. And Luka mentioned the one-timers we had in Q4, especially in the cloud revenue.

Scott?

Scott Russell: Yeah. Look, I’ll probably only add two comments to add to what you and Luka mentioned, Christian. So Adam, the first is, you would see in Q4 that we not only continued to grow and RISE is the enabler in the flywheel that Christian mentioned at the beginning in the total cloud backlog. The proportion of large customers continues to expand. That gives health to our broader portfolio. So we mentioned many of them today, but you think about Fujitsu, Natuzzi, Tech Mahindra, Sumitomo, Renault, the list goes on. So large organizations, which will have that ramp that Christian mentioned. And the reason why they’re choosing SAP and RISE with SAP is because the market today needs companies they trust. More than ever, trust in the technology, trust in the partnership, trust in the capability that delivers scale, resilience, outstanding capabilities that helps them navigate whether it be supply chain or sustainability or other aspects.

And the other thing that we saw in Q4 was consistent performance across the world. We’re a business that we see momentum in all of the regions. We — obviously, Luka mentioned some of the countries, but that gives a level of confidence but also strengthen as we move forward. We have a consistent portfolio. We have a consistent business. And no matter where a customer is based and they’re headquartered, they’re trusting SAP to move forward. So, I guess, we look ahead with relative confidence not despite the factors that are outside of our control.

Adam Wood: Appreciate the time. Thank you.

Anthony Coletta: Thank you, Adam. We’ll take next question, please.

Operator: The next question is from the line of Amit Harchandani from Citi. Please go ahead.

Amit Harchandani: Thank you. Hello, everyone. Amit Harchandani from Citi. And before I ask my questions, thank you, Luka, for the partnership over the years, it’s been a pleasure over the past decade. Moving on to my question, my question is really with respect to the free cash flow trajectory in 2023 and if you look at it relative to what played out in 2022, quite a few moving parts, right? You had the sale of receivables, there’s the dynamic around pre-payments to hyperscalers, potentially deferred revenue. There’s obviously restructuring next year. So if you could kindly help us build a bridge towards how we arrive at the free cash flow for 2023? And more importantly, how should we get confident that you’re on track to get to €8 billion or potentially higher by 2025? Thank you.

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