SAP SE (; ), is a German multinational software company based in Walldorf, Baden-Württemberg, that is the world's largest vendor of enterprise software. In June 2025, it was the largest European company by market capitalization, as well as one of the 30 most valuable publicly traded companies in the world.
Founded in 1972 by five former IBM engineers it now has offices in 78 countries and 110,000 employees. It ranks in the top 10 of publicly traded software companies and is the largest in Europe.
SAP is a component of the DAX and Euro Stoxx 50 stock market indices.
History 20th century When Xerox exited the computer hardware manufacturing industry in 1971, it asked IBM to migrate its business systems to IBM technology. As part of IBM's compensation for the migration, IBM was given the rights to the Scientific Data Systems (SDS)/SAPE software repository. Five IBM engineers from the AI departmentInternational Directory of Company Histories, Vol. 16. St James Press, 1997. (Dietmar Hopp, Klaus Tschira, Hans-Werner Hector, Hasso Plattner, and Claus Wellenreuther, all from Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg) were working on an enterprise-wide system based on this software, only to be told that it would no longer be necessary. Rather than abandoning the project, they decided to leave IBM Tech and start another company. In June 1972 they founded the SAP ("System Analysis and Program Development" / "SAPD") company, as a private partnership under the German Civil Code.
Their first client was the German branch of Imperial Chemical Industries in Östringen,SAP UK – ICI Success Story , Sap.com (1 January 1999). Retrieved 24 April 2011. where they developed mainframe programs for payroll and accounting. Instead of storing the data on punch cards mechanically, as IBM did, they stored it locally in the Electronic System while using a common Logical database for all activities of Organization. Therefore, they called their software a real-time system, since there was no need to process the punch cards overnight (for this reason their flagship product carried an R in its name until the late 1990s). This first version was also a standalone software that could be offered to other interested parties.
In 1973, SAP launched its first commercial product, the RF financial accounting system. This system served as the cornerstone in the ongoing development of other software modules of the system that eventually bore the name SAP R/1. This offered a common system for multiple tasks. This permitted the use of a centralized data storage, improving the maintenance of data. From a technical point of view, therefore, a database was necessary.
In 1976 SAP GmbH Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung ("Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing") was founded as a sales and support subsidiary. Five years later, the private partnership was dissolved and its rights were passed on to SAP GmbH.The headquarters moved the following year to Walldorf, Germany.
In 1979, SAP launched SAP R/2, expanding the capabilities of the system to other areas, such as materials management and production planning.
In 1981, SAP brought a re-designed product to market. However, SAP R/2 did not improve until between 1985 and 1990.
In 1992, SAP released SAP R/3. SAP developed and released several versions of R/3 through 1995.
In August 1988, SAP GmbH became SAP AG, and public trading started on 4 November 1988. Shares were listed on the Frankfurt and Stuttgart stock exchanges. In 1995, SAP was included in the German stock index DAX and, on 22 September 2003, SAP was included in the STOXX Europe 50.
In the mid-1990s, SAP transitioned from mainframe computing to a client–server architecture. In 1996 it began its alliance with the Spanish technology consulting firm Seidor, initiating the expansion of SAP solutions throughout Latin America.
21st century In 2002 after the acquisition of Israeli software company TopManage, SAP launched SAP Business One, specifically designed for smaller companies (SME), which was sold and serviced by a global indirect network. In 2004, R/3 was replaced with SAP ERP Central Component (ECC) 5.0. Architectural changes were also made to transition customers to a service-oriented architecture.
The company's official name became SAP AG (a public limited company) after the 2005 annual general meeting.
In 2006, SAP ERP 6.0 (commonly called SAP ECC) was released. This version was updated through SAP enhancement packs, the most recent being enhancement package 8 for SAP ERP 6.0 in 2016. It was eventually succeeded by S/4HANA following its introduction in 2015.
In the period 2012-2014, SAP acquired several major cloud companies seen by analysts at the time as an attempt to challenge competitor Oracle. The largest acquisitions were SuccessFactors (HR, $3.4B), Ariba (Procurement, $4.3B), Fieldglass (contingent labour), Hybris (eCommerce, $1.5B) and Concur (Travel & Expense, 8.3B). (For a full history see the List of mergers and acquisitions by SAP)
In July 2014, SAP completed the conversion of its legal form to a European Company (Societas Europaea, SE) , following overwhelming shareholder approval at the previous AGM.. As a result, the company name changed from SAP AG to SAP SE and its German subsidiary was renamed to SAP Deutschland SE & Co. KG. This change led to the first supervisory board being elected at this time.
On 29 January 2019, SAP announced plans to cut approximately 4,000 positions at the company in a strategic plan to shift to more modern technologies. This was followed by larger cuts of 3000 jobs in 2023 and 8000 in 2024.
On 13 April 2021, SAP announced the formation of the joint venture SAP Fioneer, a dedicated Financial Services Industry (FSI) Unit between SAP and investment company Dediq GmbH. Dediq GmbH invested over €500 million in the newly formed unit and received an 80 percent share in return. SAP brought its products, organizational units and the sales network into the business and holds 20 percent of the shares.
Acquisitions
Since 1991, SAP has acquired more than 70 companies. The SAP Group comprised 226 companies as of 31 December 2024. SAP prioritizes organic investments in technologies for long-term product portfolio growth and relevance, while also making targeted acquisitions to complement existing solutions and enhance penetration into key strategic markets.
SAP supports external company formations and organic growth by investing in risk funds managed by Sapphire Ventures; these funds manage over $10 billion (€9 billion) in assets and have committed over $1 billion to invest in startups developing cutting-edge, AI-powered enterprise technologies to foster their global growth.
Products
As well as its main ERP products, the company also sells database software and technology (particularly its own brand, SAP HANA) and cloud-engineered systems.SAP's strategy is to leverage its leading position in Enterprise Applications and the Business Technology Platform to drive customer agility and sustainability, with the goal of becoming the #1 Enterprise Application and Business AI company globally. See "SAP: The World's Largest Provider of Enterprise Application Software" It sells other ERP software products such as: Human capital management (HCM) software Customer relationship management (CRM) software Enterprise performance management (EPM) software Product lifecycle management (PLM) software Supplier relationship management (SRM) software Supply chain management (SCM) software Business technology platform (BTP) software The SAP AppGyver programming environment
SAP also offers SAP Cloud Infrastructure, its infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) cloud platform for running SAP and non-SAP workloads, alongside SAP offerings available on hyperscaler clouds. SAP also operates SAP National Security Services (SAP NS2), a U.S.-based subsidiary that delivers SAP solutions for U.S. government and other regulated customers.
With regard to its global market share, SAP was ranked as a leader in the following areas: Enterprise Software, Enterprise Resource Management Applications, Supply Chain Management Applications, Procurement Software, Travel and Expense Management Software, and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Software. 98 of the 100 largest companies in the world are SAP customers. Approximately 80% of SAP’s customers are SMEs.
Finances +Sales by region (2023)RegionshareUnited States32.7%EMEA (without Germany)29.1%Germany15.8%Asia Pacific (without Japan)10.8%Americas (without US)8.2%Japan4.0% For the fiscal year 2017 SAP reported earnings of €4 billion, with an annual revenue of €23.5 billion, an increase of 6.3% over the previous fiscal cycle. SAP's shares traded at over US$154 per share, and its market capitalization was valued at US$180 billion in December 2023, making it the largest German company by market capitalization.
The key trends for SAP are (as at the financial year ending 31 March): YearRevenue(€ bn)Net income(€ bn)Total assets(€ bn)EmployeesSources201316.83.327.066,572201417.53.238.574,406201520.7 3.041.376,986201622.03.644.284,183201723.44.042.488,543201824.74.051.596,498201927.53.360.2100,330202027.35.158.4103,876202127.85.271.1107,415202230.82.272.1109,973202331.26.168.2106,043202434.23.174.1107,155202536.87.370.4109,211
Corporate structure and ownership
SAP had the following ownership structure in early 2024: Shareholder namePercentageHasso Plattner6.60%BlackRock5.53%Dietmar Hopp5.04%SAP SE5.01%Capital Group Companies3.27%Klaus Tschira Foundation3.63%Goldman Sachs0.39%Free float70.53%
SAP uses a two-tier structure of boards with an executive board and a supervisory board. In October 2019 Jennifer Morgan and Christian Klein were appointed as co-CEOs of SAP. In April 2020 it was announced that Jennifer Morgan will leave SAP and Christian Klein will continue to operate as the sole CEO, citing that the current environment of the COVID-19 recession requires "companies to take swift, determined action which is best supported by a very clear leadership structure".
The majority of the company's employees are in Germany and United States. About 20,000 employees are based in Germany and about 19,311 employees are based in the United States.
45 employee representatives were elected in 2022 to the SAP SE Works Council, including 15 candidates from the Ver.di and IG Metall trade union lists. They represent 17,000 employees of Germany.
Headquarters is responsible for overall management as well as core engineering activities related to product development. Worldwide customer support is not provided by the field organizations but by a unified organization called Active Global Support (AGS).
The company also encourages employees to volunteer through social sabbaticals, sending teams of people to different countries to aid non-profits. SAP employees have volunteered in China, India, Brazil, and South Africa.
Research and development SAP Labs Network consists of all major global Research & Development Hubs of SAP, across more than 20 countries and representing more than 80% of SAP's global engineering workforce. For the first nine months of 2025 (9M/2025), SAP dedicated 18.2% of its total revenue to Research & Development (R&D) on a non-IFRS basis, utilizing 37,909 Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) R&D personnel (34.2% of total headcount) across more than 100 development locations globally, including 19 SAP Labs development centers.
Major Hubs of SAP are Germany, India, USA and China, and growing Hubs in East Asia, Eastern Europe, Canada and Latin America.
User Group Executive Network There are 12 member organizations of the SAP User Group Executive Network (SUGEN). The American Users' Group is one of them.
Americas' SAP Users' Group