UPDATE 2-SAP aims to hit key margin target by 2014-document

Mon Jun 29, 2009 5:59am EDT
 
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* SAP eyes 35 pct operating margin within 5 yrs

* Says document internal, should not be seen as guidance

* Shares rise 0.5 percent, tracking German market

(Adds analyst comment, updates share price)

FRANKFURT, June 29 (Reuters) - Germany's SAP (SAPG.DE) has pencilled in 2014 as the year it aims to meet its long-standing target for an operating margin of 35 percent, according to an internal strategy document.

The world's biggest maker of business management software also hopes to double software and software-related sales over the same five-year timeframe, the document showed.

An SAP spokesman said the strategy paper was still being discussed, adding: "This is not guidance".

The Financial Times Deutschland earlier described the document as outlining the firm's mid-term strategy to 2014.

SAP, based in southwestern town of Walldorf, has repeatedly said it was targeting a 35 percent operating margin but had so far declined to give a concrete date.

"This is mostly a reiteration of the existing goals," Merck Finck analyst Theo Kitz said in a note to clients.

SAP shares rose 0.5 percent to 28.31 euro at 0942 GMT, in line with the German blue-chip DAX index .GDAXI.

SAP has not given a target for software and software-related sales this year, but has said it expected to reach a 2009 operating margin, excluding one-off items, of between 24.5 and 25.5 percent at constant currencies.

It has based its margin forecasts on the assumption that core sales would be flat or 1 percent lower than the 2008 figure of 8.6 billion euros. [ID:nLS722275]

SAP's main competitors are U.S. companies Oracle (ORCL.O) and Microsoft (MSFT.O).

(Reporting by Eva Kuehnen and Nicola Leske; editing by John Stonestreet)

 

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