SAP, the multinational business software group, recorded a 28% revenue increase for its cloud computing operations in 2021’s fourth quarter.

Cloud revenue reached €2.6 billion (£2.17bn) in this period, the company revealed in its preliminary financial results.

SAP believes its main cloud offering, RISE with SAP, has been a large contributor to growth. Unveiled in January 2021, RISE is a subscription-based “intelligent enterprise” as a service package for migrating business processes to the cloud.

Christian Klein, CEO at SAP, commented: “The magnitude of our cloud strength is evident. More and more companies are choosing SAP to help them transform their businesses, build resilient supply chains, and become sustainable enterprises as they move to the cloud.

“This momentum is reflected in the tremendous success of ‘RISE with SAP’, our signature cloud offering, as well as excellent growth across our entire portfolio. Our growth acceleration points to even greater potential ahead.”

SAP saw a 6% increase in total revenue from 2020’s final quarter to 2021, up to €7.98 billion (£6.67bn).

Luka Mucic, SAP CFO, said: “After three quarters of home runs with our cloud momentum, we hit it out of the park this quarter. We are confident that we will continue our Q4 current cloud backlog growth in 2022. This is reflected in our accelerated cloud guidance for 2022 as we make great progress towards our mid-term ambition.”

The company is targeting cloud revenue growth of 26% for 2022, facilitating a 4-6% increase in cloud software revenue.

Full financial results are expected to be released on January 27.

Looking to learn how to establish a strategic hybrid cloud? Learn more about the virtual Hybrid Cloud Congress, taking place on 18 January and explore how to optimise and unleash the power of your hybrid cloud.

Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.