That compared to a profit of 1.93 billion euros in the same quarter in 2020.

The firm noted that it had a strong backlog of order requests and predicted a strong 2022. “The magnitude of our cloud strength is evident,” said chief executive Christian Klein.

International financial reporting standards (IFRS) per share for the quarter decreased 23 per cent year-over-year to 1.24 euros, while non-IFRS earnings per share increased 10 per cent to 1.86 euros.

IFRS operating profit decreased 45 per cent year-over-year to 1.47 billion euros and IFRS operating margin decreased by 16.9 percentage points to 18.4 per cent mainly due to higher share-based compensation expenses, primarily related to Qualtrics.

Prior year IFRS operating profit included a disposal gain of 194 million euros and non-IFRS operating profit of 128 million euros related to the sale of the SAP Digital Interconnect business.

Non-IFRS operating profit decreased 11 per cent to 2.47 billion euros and decreased 12 per cent at constant currencies. Total revenue for the fourth quarter was up 6 per cent year over year to 7.98 billion euros and up 3 per cent at constant currencies.

SAP said it confident that its positive momentum will continue throughout 2022, and expects accelerating cloud revenue growth, supported by strong traction of SAP S/4HANA Cloud.