Welcome from SAP headquarters in Walldorf, Germany to the SAP's annual general meeting 2026. Dear shareholders, in today's meeting, I will speak in English, as I did last year, and we provide simultaneous translation in German. Dr. Friederike Rotsch has kindly agreed to chair annual general meeting in German, as permitted by our articles incorporation, of corporation. After my opening remarks, she will discuss further procedures of this meeting and lead the general debate. Thank you, Friederike, for this continued support. Before moving to the formal agenda, I would like to briefly outline what is essential for SAP at this point of time and highlight a few key topics we will address in addition to the items on today's agenda. The geopolitical and economic situation has continued to present challenges for companies worldwide. In addition, technological advances in Artificial Intelligence have been focus of capital markets.
SAP is not immune from the impacts of these developments. In these fast-moving times, we believe we have the right strategy to transform our company further to continue to bring the most value to our customers. CEO Christian Klein will discuss this in detail as well as provide a review of 2025 in his address shortly. The current times are very demanding and require everyone to give her and his best. On behalf of the supervisory board, I would like to sincerely thank our dedicated employees for their hard work, commitment, and innovative spirit. Equally to the executive board under Christian's leadership for their forward-thinking, relentless focus on SAP success. I will share more details of our work in the supervisory board in my address later in this meeting. For now, back to Friederike Rotsch.
Thank you, Pekka. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, I also would like to warmly welcome you to our virtual annual general meeting, which I hereby formally declare open for the record. As Pekka Ala-Pietilä has already explained, I will chair this meeting. I will explain the necessary formalities and also lead the general debate. I am pleased to be able to contribute to the success of today's annual general meeting. With that, I will begin with the necessary explanations. Ladies and gentlemen, as customary at this point, I would like to familiarize you with the formalities of our virtual annual general meeting. We'll start by the presence of the executive board and the supervisory board. All members of the executive board are here with me on stage at the SAP campus, and I'd like to extend a warm welcome to everyone.
I would also like to welcome the members of the Supervisory Board. Besides the Chairman, Pekka Ala-Pietilä, we also have the Deputy Chairman, Lars Lamadé, here on stage with me. The other members of the Supervisory Board are gathered in an adjoining room where they are following the Annual General Meeting. Supervisory Board members Aicha Evans and Qi Lu are participating in the AGM via video conference. We can show you the adjoining room and the members of the Supervisory Board who are gathered there, as well as Aicha Evans and Qi Lu. Jennifer Li has other commitments and therefore apologizes for her absence. The minutes of the General Meeting will be taken by Ms. Anna Ehrich, a notary public, and I would also like to extend a warm welcome to her. Today's Annual General Meeting has been duly convened in accordance with the law and the articles of incorporation.
The notice was published in the Federal Gazette on March 25th, 2026. A copy of the notice is attached to the minutes of the annual general meeting. I may therefore assume that the agenda announced in the notice of convening and the proposed resolution submitted in connection therewith are known to you. The company has not received any countermotions or nominations from shareholders. Shareholders had the opportunity to submit comments on items on the agenda prior to the annual general meeting. We have received such a comment from Martin Rosa, Michael Haupt, Bernd Wiedemann, Michael Kurzenberger, Christian Rausch, Lukas Knierim, Rolf Rozinski, as well as Gerhard Degenhardt. These statements have been published on our shareholder portal, where they are available to all duly registered shareholders. We naturally also maintain a list of attendees for our annual general meeting.
This list includes the company's proxies present here at the meeting venue and the shareholdings they represent, as well as the shareholders and shareholder representatives who are participating electronically via our shareholder portal today. The list of attendees is available here in the meeting room and can also be viewed by participating, joining electronically via our shareholder portal. It is updated regularly. I will inform you of the attendance later in the course of the meeting. Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders who registered in due form and time were able to exercise their voting rights in advance of the annual general meeting, either by electronic vote or by instructing and authorizing the company's proxy holders. Both options remain available electronically via our shareholder portal, even during our virtual annual general meeting. You can contact our proxy representatives via the shareholder portal until voting begins.
Electronic absentee votings via the shareholder portal will remain available for a few more minutes, specifically until I, as the chair of the meeting, close the voting. When we get to the voting, I will explicitly remind you of the relevant deadlines. Ladies and gentlemen, today you have the opportunity to request to speak by clicking a button on the shareholder portal. I will now explain the key points regarding both the contents of your remarks and the formal procedure we will follow to conduct and manage today's discussion. First, regarding the content. Please structure your remarks as you would in an in-person meeting. Please limit your comments on the agenda to the agenda and, if necessary, the rules of procedure, and avoid digressing into unrelated topics.
I would also ask you to keep your remarks reasonably brief in the interest of all your fellow shareholders who would also like to have their say. Please use 10 minutes as a guideline. I would like to clarify that this is not a formal restriction on speaking time, but merely a non-binding request. Nevertheless, I would appreciate it if you would adhere to the aforementioned guidelines of 10 minutes in the interest of all participants. To assist you, a clock will be displayed showing how long someone has been speaking. We will conduct today's discussion as a general debate. This means you have the opportunity to speak on all agenda items and do not need to register separately for each one. As the chair of the meeting, I also determine how you may address your questions to us today.
As already indicated in the notice of meeting, I hereby stipulate that questions may be asked exclusively via video transmission. If you would like to ask questions, please register to speak via our shareholder portal and then use your speaking time as you see fit, whether to speak, to ask questions, or to do both. Similarly, you must register to speak if you wish to submit a motion during today's annual general meeting, whether on the matter at hand or regarding the rules of procedure, or if you wish to propose a candidate for election. When registering your speaking slot on the shareholder portal, you have the option to indicate that you wish to submit a motion. If you intend to do so, I would appreciate if you would make use of this option.
A few notes on the technical procedures for requesting the floor and the conduct of the discussion. Speakers who have requested the floor will be asked by our technical team to participate in a technical test by the shareholder portal. This will ensure that your video and audio transmission are working properly, and that we can all see and hear you clearly during your presentation later on. I will call on the registered speakers one by one and give them the floor. You will then be connected to the meeting live via video transmission, one after another for your respective remarks, and will be visible and audible to your fellow shareholders, as well as to everyone else following our AGM.
We will collect the questions from your contributions and prepare them for response. After a few contributions, we will hold an initial rounds of answers. After that, I will call on the next speakers. We will repeat this procedure until all speakers have had the floor, all questions have been asked, and all answers have been provided. Ladies and gentlemen, finally, I would like to remind you that you may object to any resolutions from the start of today's annual general meeting until its conclusion, should you see fit to do so. You will find a button for this purpose on our shareholder portal. The notary will receive any objections via our system and record them in the minutes. So much for the formalities. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now move on to the agenda, and I will now turn to item one on the agenda.
I note that the following documents have been available at SAP's website since the annual general meeting was convened: The adopted annual financial statements, the approved consolidated financial statements, the combined management report and group management report, including the Executive Board's explanations regarding the disclosures pursuant to Sections 289a and 315a of the German Commercial Code, the Supervisory Board's report, and the Executive Board's proposal for the appropriation of retained earnings. These documents will also be available on our website during today's annual general meeting. The auditor, BDO AG Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft, has audited the annual financial statements, the consolidated financial statements, and the combined management report and consolidated management report of SAP SE for the 2025 fiscal year and issued unqualified audit opinions.
The Supervisory Board reviewed the aforementioned documents and approved them at its financial statements meeting on February 18th, 2026. With this approval, the 2025 annual financial statements are hereby adopted. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now move on to the Supervisory Board's report. I will now once again hand the floor to our Supervisory Board Chairman, Pekka Ala-Pietilä. He will deliver his report as he did his opening remarks in English, and it will then be simultaneously translated into German. Pekka, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Frederike. Dear shareholders, in 2025, SAP delivered strong results despite economic volatility and geopolitical uncertainty. We achieved significant milestones across our key financial metrics during the year. At the same time, our share price reflected broader market dynamics, including uncertainty around the impact of AI on the software industry, with a notable drop in the course of the year and further falling in 2026. In these turbulent times, we hold firm on our strategy, and our focus on delivering long-term value to our stakeholders remain unchanged. We, like you, are not happy with the shareholder development, but we are confident that we are competitively positioned in the age of AI. I would like to now share with you some of the most relevant topics the Supervisory Board has been covering over the past year. You can find our detailed report in the SAP integrated report.
You have likely heard a great deal about artificial intelligence and how it is reshaping enterprise software. AI enhances how applications, data, and governance systems work together. It delivers stronger business outcomes. It moves away from fragmented solutions that don't interact smoothly with each other, favoring integrated platforms. Things are moving towards connected system that contain context of the data. Here, SAP is well-positioned because we understand how businesses work. We have well-organized data and follow strict processes to ensure reliability and auditability of the data. SAP's AI delivers context-driven insights that large language models cannot do on their own. These strengths form a solid foundation to lead this transformation. As SAP increases its focus on AI, we are enabling customers to adopt these capabilities with confidence, and we do so in a responsible manner as maintaining data privacy and other ethical standards is our duty.
These fast-developing and disruptive changes in technology have been, are, and will be a clear focus in the work of the Supervisory Board. In our role of challenging, supporting, and supervising the Executive Board, we have closely examined the impact of AI on the market and on our strategy. We fully support Executive Board's focus on AI. At the same time, we challenge them on key strategic risk and governance considerations. This ensures that SAP is positioned for sustained long-term value creation. Our ongoing dialogue with the Executive Board over the past year has strengthened our confidence in the company's ability to lead in this evolving landscape. Shortly, Christian will discuss how we are ensuring SAP is a winner in the AI space. I would like to address some changes in the Executive Board.
Earlier this year, Muhammad Alam informed the supervisory board of his decision not to renew his contract when it expires in 2027. While we would have preferred him to stay, we respect his decision, which he has made for personal reasons. Muhammad has been a valued member of the executive board, and we are grateful for his significant contribution to SAP's transformation. In close collaboration with Muhammad and the broader leadership team, Christian Klein will have an even stronger focus on SAP's AI initiatives, and they get greater responsibility for ensuring that SAP helps define the AI revolution. We're also bringing our sales and support organization closer together into the new customer value group led by Thomas Saueressig as Chief Customer Officer.
These steps reflects our co-commitment to delivering measurable customer outcomes throughout the entire customer journey, and at the same time, it gives Christian Klein as the Chief Executive Officer the room to focus on SAP's AI initiatives. In April, the supervisory board extended Gina Vargiu-Breuer's contract as the Chief People Officer. Gina has laid an important foundation for SAP's continued success by strengthening how we attract, develop, and lead our people. We recognize her energy and dedication as an asset to the company and are convinced she will further drive SAP's transformation in the age of AI. Let's turn to the supervisory board. Last year, I shared our plans for the future leadership of the supervisory board. Today, I'm pleased to give you an update. René Obermann has agreed to stand for election this year. Our plan is for him to take over the chair in 2027.
He brings extensive experience in technology, deep market knowledge, and a strong understanding of corporate governance in Germany. From his current role at Airbus to his time as CEO of Deutsche Telekom, he has had an exceptional, distinguished international career. We are confident that his experience and perspective will be a strong asset for SAP. René will introduce himself to you, dear shareholders, shortly. To ensure a smooth transition, the Supervisory Board has recommended extending my mandate by one year. I'm committed to facilitating this orderly handover of the chairman role. As I am deeply convinced that with René we have found the right successor, I would appreciate your support for this plan. This succession plan for the chair role is not the only change we are proposing. We have also nominated Mike Gregoire for election to the Supervisory Board.
Mike Gregoire is highly experienced leader in the software and technology industry. He brings a strong track record in transformation, leadership, and investment, all key skills that will be critical and valuable in the Supervisory Board. Mike Gregoire will also introduce himself shortly to you. We are asking you to approve the extension of Dr. Rouven Westphal's mandate. His deep knowledge of SAP, including extensive knowledge of our product portfolio, business model, and competitive landscape, combined with his expertise in technology and finance, continues to be highly relevant. Dr. Gunnar Wiedenfels informed us he's not available to stand for re-election and will step down at the end of this annual general meeting.
Since joining in 2019, he has been a valued, highly valued member, having served as Chair of the Audit Committee between 2019 and 2022, and the Chair of the Nomination Committee from 2022 until 2025. More importantly, Gunnar Wiedenfels has brought his long and rich executive experience and deep-rooted business judgment to critically important decision when it mattered most. We sincerely thank him for his many and varied contributions. Gerd Oswald will also be leaving the Supervisory Board at the conclusion of today's meeting. I would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to Gerd. His connection to SAP goes back more than four decades. He helped the founders to build this company and served 20 years on the Executive Board and seven years on the Supervisory Board. His deep understanding of our customers have played an important role in SAP's success.
We are very grateful for his long-standing commitment and dedication. There has also been change on the employee representative side of the board. Margret Klein-Magar has recently retired. A longtime employee of SAP, she has been a member of the Supervisory Board since 2012, and between 2015 and 2021, she was Deputy Chairperson of the Supervisory Board. I would like to thank Margret for her contribution and passion for SAP. Her successor, Marielle Ehrmann, who joined the board at the beginning of the year. Welcome to the board, Marielle. Dear ladies and gentlemen, let me turn to another matter, executive compensation. That remains an important topic for investors, and it is equally in the focus of Supervisory Board. We continue to follow the clear principles, pay for performance and fairness. Based on these principles, we have made adjustments during the year.
This includes neutralizing the impact of the SmartRecruiters acquisition, replacing women in executive roles, KPI with the Business Health Culture Index in our long-term incentives to comply with U.S. regulations, and applying the updated non-IFRS definition to the existing LTI plans. We also have targeted adjustments to pay salaries where appropriate. This applies in particular to Christian Klein and Thomas Saueressig, reflecting their strong performance, expertise, and increased responsibilities. These adjustments ensure that compensation remains competitive in a global market for top technology talent while reinforcing leadership continuity during SAP's ongoing transformation. They are firmly anchored in our pay-for-performance philosophy and aligned with long-term shareholders' interest. While we have been successful in attracting top executive talent, competition for this talent is highly and increasingly intense.
To ensure SAP continues to have the tools it needs, we intend to review and refine our executive compensation system and will put any proposed changes to a vote at the AGM 2027. Dear shareholders, the AGM format remains an important aspect for many shareholders. We received a number of statements on this topic from which can be reviewed on the shareholder portal. I would like to address this briefly. Today we are meeting in a virtual format. The supervisory board and executive board remain convinced that this format fully protects shareholders' rights and improves accessibility. It also allows for open and direct dialogue with you. We recognize the need to hold the meeting physically from time to time.
As announced in my open letter to shareholders published in March, the executive board and supervisory board have decided to hold the 2027 annual general meeting as a physical event at the SAP Arena exactly one year from now. With this decision, we believe we can address shareholders' concerns and can show that we achieve a balance between different formats. In closing, I would like to thank my fellow members of the supervisory board for strong collaboration, the open and honest exchange, and the trust we have built as a team. Together, we have addressed many important and even tough decisions, always with a clear focus on what is best for the company. I firmly believe what I said last year, SAP is a strong company and has a bright future. Dear shareholders, thank you for your trust and investment in SAP.
Thank you, Pekka. Thank you, Pekka. Ladies and gentlemen, as Pekka mentioned in his speech, there will be a change in our supervisory board again this year. With the departure of Gerhard Oswald and Gunnar Wiedenfels at the end of this annual general meeting, two seats on the shareholder side will become vacant. New candidates have been nominated for both seats. Since both candidates are standing for election by the shareholder for the first time today, they will each give a brief introduction at this annual general meeting, as it is our custom. I would therefore like to start by asking René Obermann to address our shareholders here on stage.
Friederike, thank you, Friederike. Dear shareholders, members of the supervisory board, members of the management board, and dear employees of this company. SAP is a great company with a long-standing tradition in our industry. It is arguably the world's most significant technology company in its category. The entrepreneurial achievement of the founders over so many years is simply magnificent and admirable. Your company's products are indispensable in many parts of the world for the economy, public administration, security, and other sectors. We've already seen and heard about that today. SAP is extremely successful, as the latest figures once again clearly show, despite all the recent concerns about disruption caused by AI.
I therefore stand before you today with deep respect for the achievements in building and transforming the company made by the leadership and the entire team, SAP, and with equally deep respect for you as shareholders of the company and for our customers who support SAP success with their trust and who ultimately are the true employers. Of course, we all know that long-term success is not a self-perpetuating process. It requires entrepreneurial foresight and timely strategic decision-making. Success requires strength and courage because good strategies are usually met primarily with questions and not infrequently resistance rather than immediate understanding and applause. Otherwise, incidentally, they wouldn't be good strategies. I'm thinking, for example, of SAP's successful cloud transformation. Once technological disruption and their effects are already apparent to everyone, it is often too late to change the direction of the company at that point.
Generally speaking, exceptional agility is not exactly a strength of large corporations. In my view, however, SAP has demonstrated foresight and the courage to change, or rather to renew what has been tried and tested. The demands placed on management teams and supervisory boards of international companies have increased significantly and massive uncertainties are weighing on the markets. In particular, the effects of geopolitical tensions on regulations, supply chains, and sales markets, as well as the rapid technological changes driven by AI and the resulting uncertainties among people who are grappling with uncertainty about their future. All of those are things we have to consider.
Especially when it comes to the last topic, from my perspective as an outside observer so far, I can see that your management team, led by Christian Klein, is focused and working with the utmost dedication to capitalize on AI opportunities for SAP and ward of any potential substitution scenarios as well as threats. One thing is clear to all of us, to you, as well as to me. The winners and losers of the AI revolution will be determined before the end of the decade. In my view, SAP has a good chance of being on the winning side, massively increasing the value of its products and remaining competitively efficient. This won't happen on its own. It requires change processes, and these are a great challenge. That's why management, the Supervisory Board, and our representatives have to work well together.
I stand before you today for your vote, fully aware of the responsibility that this task entails at this very special time. A brief overview of my career. High school diploma, military service with the Air Forces, business apprenticeship in a talent development program at BMW. Founded a telecommunications company with, at the right age of 23, which became one of the first private mobile network operators. After 12 years leading the company I founded, I then moved to the management team at T-Mobile. Back then it was a 100% subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom. A few years later, I was then serving as CEO of T-Mobile International, so that is also a division by Telekom. At the same time, I was also a member of the executive board of Deutsche Telekom AG. From the fall 2006 through December 2013, I was the Chairman.
After that, I moved to London, including a period as CEO of a cable network and internet provider in the Netherlands. In 2015, I started there as a career changer investment professional at a U.S. private equity firm. Later, I became co-chairman for the European business with that company, and since 2024 I have been chairman Europe, as we call it. Since 2011, I've also gained supervisory board experience in Germany and Scandinavia, for example, at Spotify or Telenor or E.ON in Germany. I also served as chairman of Ionos in the years leading up to its IPO, and I remain on its supervisory board until today. In 2018, I was elected to the board of directors of Airbus, and since April 2020, I have served as its chairman.
At the last Airbus Annual General Meeting a couple weeks ago, I announced that I would step down as chairman in October of this year, and I would not stand for re-election at the next AGM in 2027, which is when my mandate expires. This leaves me more time for my work here at SAP, which is very important. Perhaps also a personal note. Tough times and challenging tasks are nothing new to me. Since my youth, right up until today, I've had my fair share of them, whether as a founder building a company from scratch without any startup capital, or later as a manager overseeing the transformation and modernization of the former state-owned enterprise, Deutsche Telekom, or as chairman of the supervisory board of an aerospace group in times of crisis, ranging from the existential threat posed by the pandemic, Coronavirus.
That's when I started the position as chairman to the current upheavals caused by wars, supply chain disruptions, and the so-called weaponization of trade. I hope that all of this experience will serve as a purpose, namely that Christian Klein and his management team can be supported when it comes to their difficult tasks, and I want to provide constructive critical guidance and motivate them in a positive manner. In any case, I look forward, provided I'm given your trust today, to a productive and trusting collaboration with Pekka and the entire supervisory board, as well as Christian and his management team. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Rene. The second candidate running for the first time for a seat on the supervisory board is Mike Gregoire. Unfortunately, he can't be here with us in Walldorf today. However, he recorded a video in the run-up to the annual general meeting in which he briefly introduced himself. Please play the video now.
Hello, my name is Mike Gregoire, and I'm very honored to be nominated to the SAP Supervisory Board. I have 30 years of software experience, 20 years of it as a public company CEO at companies such as Taleo and CA Technologies. For the last eight years, I've been co-founder of Brighton Park Capital, a private equity firm based out of N.Y. that invests solely in software and software-enabled services. Over the last eight years, we've looked at over 800 companies a year, and we invest in three to four of them, deploying almost EUR 4 billion in capital. I also sit on the board of AMD, the semiconductor company. I've been on the board of a number of large cap software companies, including CA Technologies, Taleo and ShoreTel.
The combination of running companies at scale, being on large cap public company boards, as well as being an investor, gives me a unique perspective into technology and business models as SAP embarks on its future in the AI world. On a personal note, I have a wife of 35 years, two children which are twins, 27 years old, and I reside in California and Arizona with frequent trips to New York City, where Brighton Park Capital is located. SAP is a storied franchise driving innovation for decades. I think in this new age of AI, it's probably the most exciting time for SAP to leverage all of its intellect, its customer relationships and business know-how. I'm very excited to be nominated, and I'm very excited to have the opportunity to work with the supervisory board and the executive board.
I would thank you for your support in my nomination, and I look forward to working with all of you.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would now like to ask SAP CEO Christian Klein to present his speech, which was already published on our AGM website on April 25th.
Dear shareholders, dear colleagues, dear friends of SAP, welcome. Welcome to our AGM. I'm very glad that you've joined us online today. Pekka has already presented the changes on the supervisory board. My thanks and those of the entire executive board go to Gerd Oswald and Gunnar Wiedenfels, who are stepping down from the supervisory board today, and to Margret Klein-Magar who resigned her seat at the end of last year. We thank you for your many years of dedicated service to SAP. We wish you well for the future. I'm particularly grateful to Gerd Oswald. To me, he was my mentor for many years. When I was born, Gerd actually joined SAP in 1981. He was part of the creation of this company from day one. Whatever he created is going to remain the same.
Gerd was part of SAP for 45 years, 20 of them in the management board and seven in the supervisory board. He embodied our culture, he lived it every single day. He was always right by the side of our employees and customers. At the same time, I would also like to welcome Marielle Ehrmann to the supervisory board and wish her well in her new position. My thanks also go to René Obermann and Mike Gregoire, who are also standing for election today. Ladies and gentlemen, when we accelerated the transformation of our business model to the cloud in 2020, we made one promise. Today, I can tell you that we have delivered on that promise. Our results for 2025 are compelling evidence of that. Total revenue saw double-digit growth of 11%. non-IFRS operating profit was up 31%, profitable and rapid.
Free cash flow was EUR 8.2 billion, almost double that of the previous year. Cloud backlog was EUR 77 billion. That's a year-on-year increase of approximately 30%. Put it simply, our order books are full, and this trend continues. At the end of April, we closed out a strong 1st quarter of 2026. We want you to participate in this success. That's why today the executive board and supervisory board are proposing a dividend of EUR 2.50 a share. Ladies and gentlemen, we are facing the next big transformation: artificial intelligence, or AI. There are doubts in the market about whether software providers still have a future in the age of AI. These doubts are reflected in the stock price. Our stock price in 2025 decreased by about 13%, and it has continued to fall in 2026, losing slightly over 25%.
We're not on our own. Our competitors, when it comes to software as a service, have witnessed similar losses over this period. This transformation is a marathon, not a sprint. We already learned that lesson when we transitioned to become a cloud company. Evolving into a leading tech company in AI will also take time and patience. We have a clear plan, and we will deliver on our promise this time as well. This skepticism is nothing new to us. With the rise of the internet at the turn of the millennium, people told us it was the end of our company, yet the opposite was true. Without SAP's process expertise, e-business wasn't scalable. Now, in the age of AI, our process knowledge is a crucial part. Generative AI, a new class of AI, has enabled a transformative breakthrough in the world of technology.
Large language models are being trained on vast quantities of unstructured data. This is data that is not stored in static tables and databases. For example, the content in emails, articles, and on websites. Such AI models can answer complex questions, formulate text, and summarize documents. This is why, since early 2025, investors have shifted their focus in two main directions: providers of large language models and the data centers and hardware required to train and operate these large language models. While betting on these two parts are the winners, investors are skeptical about other sectors, including software. Generative AI models have been trained on huge amounts of publicly available software code. This means they know most of the building blocks that software is made of. If everyone can now develop software, do we still need SAP and other software providers? Let me reassure you, absolutely yes. Why?
Because these large language models aren't trained on sensitive business data. Such data is not publicly accessible. That is precisely where SAP's strength lies. Let me give you an example. When I use AI at home, when I want to generate fun images with my children, it can have some inaccuracies, but in the business world, it cannot. An AI agent cannot be just 90% accurate. When it comes to financial and other core processes, there is no margin for error. Our customers need AI agents that don't guess. They need AI agents that know. Let's imagine that an AI agent is tasked with improving an invoice. It needs to know, is this an invoice number or a purchase order number? Is the product in stock or still moving through the supply chain? Who's authorized to approve that? That is exactly the context that SAP and only SAP can provide.
Your investments in AI work. They aren't working together. The finance department uses AI, the supply chain uses AI, but everyone works in silos. We're only seeing small improvements for individual teams while the real opportunities are falling through the cracks. The question isn't whether AI can help your company, but whether it can transform it from the ground up. Imagine an AI that understands companies as well as they do, not as separate departments, but as a connected enterprise. Such an AI can help finance teams resolve payment discrepancies 30% faster, reducing costs while strengthening customer loyalty. Supply chain planners can boost their productivity by 50% by optimizing production orders and identifying scheduling conflicts early on.
This makes processes more efficient, HR can ensure that managers spend 50% less time preparing for performance reviews with their teams because they get exactly the insights that really matter. That's the point. With SAP Enterprise AI, everything changes. These aren't isolated successes. They all rely on the same data, the same platform, the same intelligence, work together across the entire enterprise. It all starts with Joule, your AI assistant, which works in both SAP systems and third-party systems. Joule doesn't just help you complete tasks 90% faster. It transforms these tasks into connected workflows, orchestrates agents that work together like teammates to optimize processes end to end. Because our Enterprise AI is firmly anchored in your data, your transactions, your processes, and your business context, every insight is relevant, every recommendation is actionable, every result is trustworthy.
The foundation for all of this is the AI Foundation, a unified operating system for AI. Your IT and development teams can use it to develop, extend, and scale customized AI solution, accelerating the path to the cloud and reducing development costs by 30%. SAP Business AI, integrated into every workflow, transforms businesses. An investment that pays off for your entire company faster than ever before. Our ERP system is the central company software. It's the brain of the enterprise. The SAP brain has three key strengths that are crucial for generating value with AI. First, process knowledge based on more than 50 years experience. We understand more than 120 core processes run by the world's most successful companies. This understanding goes beyond knowledge. It is deeply embedded in the logic of our software, making it nearly impossible for an AI model to copy.
We know all of the critical touch points, including diverse regulatory frameworks, complex interdependencies, and the many unique characteristics of each company's operations. Second, data in the right context. Our systems contain many millions of data fields. Linking those data fields together creates billions of data points. SAP Datasphere harmonizes this data into a semantic layer and makes it accessible to our AI so that we can achieve reliable results. Third, clear rules and oversight for responsible AI from start to finish, and transparent and always with a human as the final decision maker. These three building blocks turn our ERP into a roadmap for AI agents. We build and operate these AI agents for our customers. We ensure they only access the data they're authorized to see because not everyone in a company should see everything. This applies to people and AI agents alike.
In this foundation, we're building enterprises on software for the AI age. Today, people initiate transactions, work through processes step by step, and create reports. Tomorrow, AI agents will handle much of this work, suggest actions, complete tasks across entire workflows. People will review, approve, and gain time for meaningful work. Work becomes faster, easier, and safer. This is our vision: a new kind of company that manages its core processes increasingly autonomously, securely, precisely, and transparently. We are convinced no other company is better positioned for this than SAP. Customers, partners, and investors now want proof that we can turn this vision into reality. This is our mission, and we will deliver. Yesterday, we actually said that we want to bring Prior Labs and Dremio. Why? Well, because great AI is all about great data.
With SAP Business One, we actually have an AI model that understands the most important company data and tables, like orders or financial figures. With Prior Labs, we get top AI researchers in this area. This strategic area is very important for us so that our models can be strengthened. Dremio is strengthening our business data cloud so that customers have all their data, SAP and non-SAP data, in one place for AI use, faster and more effective. To shape the future of our company, we are returning to our roots. We work closely with our customers to continuously improve AI. It is at the heart of what we do, building, testing, and improving, always moving forward. We lead from the front because we aim to set the standard. Together with our customers, we are forging new paths.
Even before a contract is signed, we develop AI agents for them, so they can experience the value of AI before making a decision. This is just the beginning. An AI agent that shines in a demo but is never used in daily operation creates no value. Not every customer is ready to use AI effectively today due to outdated systems, fragmented data, and complex processes. That is exactly why we are helping our customers transform their entire enterprise. We want to empower them to deploy AI productively, reliably, and securely. To achieve this, SAP is bringing its sales and consulting teams closer together than ever before. Where's our focus? We have two clear imperatives.
First, enabling our customers to run their businesses more autonomously through AI assistants and agents that manage and execute tasks from A to Z while the human remains in control, clear, traceable, reliable every time. Second, accelerating cloud transformation radically. This requires clean processes and clean data in a secure, scalable cloud. This is the only way AI can truly unlock its full potential. By leveraging AI tools, we are making the cloud journey itself faster and easier. What does that mean for our customers? Well, they can already tell today. Siemens, our AI application saved consultants up to a quarter of their working time. That is 10 hours per person per week. KPMG is accelerating its customers SAP project with Joule. Project sprints are running up to 20% faster, that makes it where the path to the cloud is faster for our customers. Naturform Park.
Here we have AI agents that help them develop products 30% faster. A second agent actually does invoicing 9 x faster. Hörmann, known for garage doors, and much more. With AI, it can now process complex tenders in hours instead of weeks. This reduces manual work by up to 70%. Fresenius. In healthcare, we are developing AI that helps medical staff, so they have to spend less time on paperwork, so they can spend more time on patient care in the future. These examples demonstrate that SAP's AI is already delivering real value today. What do critical sectors like healthcare require as a foundation? Guaranteed security and oversight. This is where digital sovereignty comes into play. It's far more than just a strong lock. Picture a blank vault.
It is protected not just by solid reinforced walls, the technology, but also by strict access protocols, the processes, and trustworthy guards who oversee everything. It's this combination of technology, process, and people that earns the trust of our organizations like the U.S. Navy or Hensoldt. Regulations are constantly evolving. Digital threats are intensifying. Geopolitics is reshaping the business world in real time. For the public sector, the defense industry, and regulated companies, the question is not simply how to operate a digital ecosystem, but how to make it secure and resilient in times of crisis. Your legacy on-premise environment has served you well, but it is now holding you back. Only the cloud offers you the agility to rapidly deploy new capabilities, innovate continuously, and adapt without disruptions.
However, when processing sensitive data or delivering critical services, you need control, not just agility. Many cloud providers can meet requirements for data and storage locations, but that is only a part of the challenge. True digital sovereignty is about control over who operates your environment, how systems are isolated, and which laws govern access. SAP Sovereign Cloud offers sovereignty across all areas, infrastructure, platform, and applications across four dimensions. Data sovereignty, all data, including telemetry and metadata, remains within your legal jurisdiction. Operational sovereignty, management is handled exclusively by verified nationals or residents of trusted companies. Technical sovereignty, dedicated infrastructure with strong separation, encryption, and isolation in terms of workload. Legal sovereignty, everything is subject to your national law. Access from abroad is prevented. This goes beyond what most cloud providers can offer.
Your core SAP processes, finance, procurement, human resources, and supply chain are securely executed, remain resilient, and continuously benefit from innovation, automation, and AI. With SAP Sovereign Cloud, compliance adapts as regulations change and operations remain resilient, even under geopolitical pressure. You gain the speed of innovation from the cloud without compromising control. Trust becomes tangible through verifiable technical and legal safeguards. SAP Sovereign Cloud, compliance, resilience, and innovation. You can protect your mission at the pace required to achieve your goals, enabling companies to transform themselves without compromise while upholding the highest standard. Precision, reliability, security. These are the qualities that also resonate with many of the companies shaping the future of AI with us. NVIDIA, the architect behind the AI infrastructure, entrusts its complex supply chain management to SAP. Google Cloud uses our ERP and our business data solutions.
Mistral AI and Perplexity, two of the most innovative providers of AI themselves, became SAP customers because our software enables them to scale at speed. Alibaba, a heavyweight in cloud data and AI, deploys our software and sells our solutions as a partner. As you can see, companies across industries place their trust in SAP. What drives us? Not the technology itself, but the difference it makes for people. The engineer who can turn an idea into a product faster. Logistics experts who keep supply chains running. Doctors who have more time for their patients. We don't stop just because something is working well enough. We keep going until it makes a difference that truly matters to our customers, and we lead from the front to actively shape markets. Financial strength is a foundation.
Sustainable success is our future, and we achieve it by aligning everyone's interests, those of our customers, of our employees, and our shareholders. Let's start with our customers. Their trust is at the core of everything we do. This is how we measure our success. Last year, we did not meet the target we set for our customer Net Promoter Score. That sent a clear message, and we have sharpened our focus on what really matters, the real value our customers derive from our products. Our new, more precise metric shows that 75% of our customers are satisfied with the tangible value our cloud solutions deliver every day. It is the compass that guides us to build the right innovations in a targeted manner.
That is why in the year ahead, we will be expanding our on-site collaboration with our customers, especially when it comes to building AI solutions, which is very important to us. The way we build software here at SAP is also changing fundamentally. To be clear, no role at SAP will stay the same. Our current transformation, focusing on AI, it is not just about technology. It is about changing SAP from within, rapidly and profoundly. For example, AI tools are automating traditional consulting tasks. When people ask what this means for their job, it is our job to answer, to explain, to provide training, to give guidance. We are investing in reskilling, particularly in AI. At the same time, we are also bringing in new AI talent. We are using AI to become more efficient ourselves. We are our own first customer, and the results are impressive.
Our developers are already building software significantly faster today. In customer service, queries are being resolved automatically. On customer projects, AI is saving our consultants up to a full day every week. The results of our employee survey speak for themselves. We achieve high scores in engagement, workplace culture, and inclusion. Good ratings like these should not be taken for granted, especially in times of transition. It shows that as we embark on this journey, we are starting out from a position of strength in order to go down this route with our teams. There are more than 100,000 people at SAP, and they are the heart of our success, and I extend my sincere thanks to all of you. As a global business, we also have a responsibility for our planet. In 2025, we saw our carbon emissions decrease to 6.3 megatons.
Our objective is very clear: to become carbon neutral in our operations by 2030. A strong sense of responsibility is the foundation on which we built, and it is on this foundation that together we are building the new SAP for the AI era. We remain confident about the year ahead, and we expect robust growth in our cloud business in 2026 and in 2027. We are Europe's largest software company, and we will continue to grow. Let's be honest, no other industry is changing as fast as our industry is right now, and nowhere is competition tougher, especially from the United States and Asia. Their tech champions get strong support from their governments. In Germany's economic policy, other industries often take priority. That is our reality for us and for many tech startups in Europe. That is not something to complain about.
It is what drives us to lead here too. Europe needs technology and the companies that built it. We need a Europe that attracts investments, that encourages innovation through smart regulation, and that moves fast. Ladies and gentlemen, we build more than software. We build the future of business. We help companies become more resilient, productive, and sustainable. We help governments serve their citizens better. We help societies become safer and more independent. No other software is as deeply embedded in the processes of global economy as SAP. Our AI agents are using that knowledge, and they deliver where precision is key. My thanks go to our team, our partners, and our customers, and especially to you, our investors, for the trust you place in us. Our transformation for the AI era takes time, and we ask for your patience.
We've proven that we can deliver. We will be measured by that same standard this time. I promise you, we will keep moving forward. We push ahead. We never settle. This has been our DNA for over 50 years. Our best days are still to come. I'm looking forward to the upcoming discussions with you. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Christian. In addition to agenda item one, I will now call for discussion of all other items on the agenda, specifically agenda items through to nine, which you can find in the invitation published in the Federal Gazette and on our website, along with the administration's proposed resolutions. Regarding the appropriation of re-retained earnings from the 2025 fiscal year, we propose a dividend of EUR 2.50 per share. I would like to point out at this time that the number of shares entitled to dividends has decreased as of today. As announced in the invitation, the Management Board and Supervisory Board have therefore adjusted their proposals for the appropriation of retained earnings to reflect the changed numbers of shares entitled to dividends with the provision that a distribution of EUR 2.50 per share remains unchanged.
The number of dividend-entitled shares as of the date of today's annual general meeting is 1,153,182,086. The revised resolution proposed by the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board is therefore as follows: The net income for the 2025 fiscal year as reported in the annual financial statements in the amount of EUR 12,727,332,174.77 will be pre-operated as follows: Distribution of a dividend of EUR 2.50 per dividend-entitled share. This corresponds to a total distribution of EUR 2,882,955,215.
allocation to other retained earnings, EUR 3 billion EUR 0.95 billion carry forward of the remaining amount to new account. This amounts to EUR 2,894,376,959.77. This amended resolution proposal has also been published on the SAP website and is available there under annual general meeting. When we proceed to the votes later, the vote on agenda item two will refer to the amended version of the resolution proposal just read aloud. In addition to the discharge of the executive board and supervisory board for the past fiscal year and the election of the auditor, we also propose the approval of the compensation report.
In addition, under agenda item seven, we are requesting a new authorization to issue convertible bonds or bonds with warrants, as well as profit participation rights or profit sharing rights, with the option to exclude subscription rights. This also includes the renewal of the associated conditional capital. The current authorization granted by the AGM to issue these rights expires on May 11th, 2026, and is therefore to be renewed. The terms and conditions of the new authorization are to correspond in all material respects the provisions applicable to the previous authorization. Agenda item eight concerns the election of members to the supervisory board. In addition to the election of René Obermann and Michael Gregoire, who both introduced themselves today, we are also proposing the re-election of Pekka Ala-Pietilä and Rouven Westphal. Pekka has already addressed these nominations in his remarks.
Finally, under agenda item nine, we are proposing an amendment to the articles of incorporation to bring the provisions in our articles into line with the new legal situation and to enable the issuance of electronic share. I therefore ask for your approval on this proposal as well. Dear shareholders, before we begin the discussion, I would like to briefly inform you of the current attendance at today's virtual annual general meeting. Of the share capital of the company in the amount of EUR 1,228,504,232, divided into the same number of no par value shares, are represented at today's annual general meeting 710,349,856 no par value shares with the same number of votes. This corresponds to 57.82% of the share capital.
In addition, postal votes have been received for 136,505,914 no par value shares. Thus, 846,855,707 no par value shares are present or represented by postal votes. This corresponds to 68.93% of the share capital. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now proceed to the discussion, the formalities of which I explained at the beginning. To recap briefly, if you have not already done so, you may request to speak via our shareholder portal. After that, our technical team will first ask you to perform a brief technical test. After that, please be ready to speak. I will call you and then connect you live to the meeting. We will record your questions verbatim and compile them for response.
Questions concerning the supervisory board's area of responsibility will be answered by Pekka Ala-Pietilä and me in consultation with the executive board. If necessary, we will repeat this process until you have had the opportunity to raise all your concerns, and we have answered all your questions. As mentioned earlier, there is currently no time limit for questions or speaking, but I would appreciate if you could aim for a guideline of 10 minutes in the interest of everyone involved. Ladies and gentlemen, I have already received the first request to speak. I will first give the floor to Ms. Hölzl and ask the production team to connect the call. After that, I will call on Mr. Kienle. Please be ready.
Thank you very much, Ms. Rotsch. I hope you can hear and see me well. Okay, great. Ms. Rotsch, Mr. Klein, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Christiane Hölz. I'm the managing director of DSW. I'm speaking for those private investors that have given us their rights for SAP. Ladies and gentlemen, SAP has actually spoiled us over the past few years. The biggest and most valuable software company in Europe, that's not a bad thing for a company from Walldorf, which is very small. That's the exact reason why we measure it by the market. It's definitely the expectations are higher than they are with almost every other company. I would like to start with the point that a lot of private investors are touched by, which is the share price. The share price shows very quickly if the market has trust or doubts.
SAP, the share only knew one direction for a long time, which was upwards. January 29th, 2026 happened, and you showed solid figures, everything was good, but the backlog failed to meet the expectations by one percentage point, just one percentage point. Together with the weaker forecast for the CCB growth in 2026, that was enough for about 15% market share loss in a single day. Even before that happened in January, it felt like the market is not just measuring SAP by the cloud transformation, but also the question, what kind of role SAP is going to play in the AI era? Mr. Klein, you are going to measure by whether or not the market trusts your business model in the era of AI long term.
Well, the big question would be, is AI backwind for SAP, or is it exactly making it where the foundation of SAP is being questioned? Mr. Klein, you explained that AI is going to make SAP stronger, and there are good points in favor of that because SAP has something that no other AI standard can be replicated. We have deeply integrated company data from core processes of global companies that have been collected for decades. In the market, we also have a counter position. AI could also make it where classic software logics could be changed and therefore put pressure off the implementation and business models in general. Of course, the decline in share prices has shown that a part of the market or a significant part of the market actually takes this counter position seriously.
That is why SAP is currently in the AI loser basket. Mr. Klein, you are presenting SAP Business AI being a central growth driver. Is AI making SAP more valuable? How is that going to turn into a long-term measurable economic effect? You said that AI is already creating added value for your customers, specifically, how is SAP making money with AI? Higher prices, new products, or additional use? How do you make sure that if it's a user-based pricing model, that visibility is going to still be there? For us as shareholders, what counts at the end of the day is not the AI narrative, but the AI result. I would also like to say that the imperative development of SAP remains strong. In Q1 of 2026, the CCB has increased to EUR 21 billion, so by 20%.
Cloud results by +19%. Cloud ERP reached by 23%. The current strength is definitely there. The big question would be whether or not you can also be part of the next technological phase. The cloud transformation is supposed to be concluded by 2027, and for 2026, you still see growth when it comes to cloud and software and also more improvement when it comes to profitability overall. At the same time, you also mentioned that the growth of Current Cloud Backlog when it comes to the next 12 months in comparison to the previous year is going to be lower. Because of that, my next question is, what is the result plan after 2027? Is the margin improvement going to be the domineering steering goal, or is the main focus going to be on additional growth and AI monetization and innovation speed?
A part of that would also be the competitive question. Where do you actually see the biggest pressure at the moment? Would it be the big established software companies or specialized cloud providers or also data and AI-driven platforms? What does that mean for your product and pricing politics? Both of it leads me to the next question. How does SAP make money in 2030? How do you make it where you have the same position, platform, cloud innovation, or data and processes being combined and orchestrated? You also mentioned that you have more than EUR 20 billion that you're investing in the SAP Sovereign Cloud, cloud solutions for regulated companies that don't want to give their data to Microsoft, for example, or Amazon. Strategically, that makes sense, and it's been overdue.
What kind of role do you want to play when it comes to the European digital strategy and data sovereignty in the long run? In addition to that, from the shareholder perspective, we also have a very simple question. When is that going to turn into a contribution to your revenue? The geopolitical uncertainties, weaker dollar, Mr. Klein, that is something that you have mentioned to be the new normal, and that is exactly the point. Uncertainty is not just a short-term disruptor, but it is a long-term management job. How is that going to impact everything for you personally? Do you see longer decision-making cycles or stronger budget when it comes to industrial and export industries? How strong does a weaker dollar impact your business?
Do you think that you, SAP being a European company, do you see any structural disadvantages when it comes to access to AI infrastructure, regulations, or capital? Ladies and gentlemen, a company like SAP today is not just measured by technology, but it's also measured by how it deals with risks, with data risks, with legal risks, and also governance. The Teradata comparison is a good example. $480 million were invested and more than $400 million cash flow just in Q1 2026. That is a lot of money. Do you expect that legal risks when it comes to data, intellectual property, and AI are going to happen more often in the future? What do you do structurally in order to recognize these risks early on and to be more effective in terms of limiting them?
March 31st, you actually saw some savings. Can you show us the total amount of all the legal and compliance cases without the Teradata complex for which you don't have any or just partial savings at the moment? What kind of main risks could be derived for shareholders even though they are not the case today and they're not presented in the revenue today? With that, I would like to move on to the agenda, ladies and gentlemen, and I would like to talk about the remuneration report. I know that's never the best thing, but for us shareholders, it's definitely the test whether the incentives for the management board are in line with our best interest. When it comes to the Teradata legal dispute, there's a basic question. The remuneration was excluded for that, and the non-IFRS logic was used to explain it.
You can do that. Of course, then you also have to say what that means. A real means that is outgoing is something that is not operative for the management board. That is something that I view as critical because for the company, this payment was real. It also was a burden on our cash flow. That is something that should be considered in the remuneration report if the effects were very low this time. Of course, the remuneration system is going to be reworked this year, Mr. Ala-Pietilä. That is why my question is, do you plan having clear structures for the remuneration system when it comes to these legal disputes, even though they may just be a one-off effect in the books?
Under top A today, we are supposed to elect Mr. René Obermann to be in a Supervisory Board, and he's supposed to be the chair starting in 2027. This discussion is something that took some time, and that is why it's even more important that we finally have a good solution now. Mr. Obermann, I don't know if you're listening at the moment. I cannot see you right now, but I welcome you cordially at SAP, and your introduction and your CV is very, very good. We are going to approve your election by click on the screen, just like everything is happening today.
That is very unfortunate, not because the result is going to be different, but because somebody who is going to be chairing a Supervisory Board, which is very, very important for SAP, they should actually have a different reception, a room with people and applause. Instead of that, it is just an item on the agenda among many between the changes of the constitution. Mr. Obermann, I'm very happy to our personal meeting next year so that we have a room full of people and hopefully applause. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes my speech. SAP is strong. SAP as a market position has the right customer base and also the right substance. The last few months have shown that strength alone is not enough for the capital market.
The market wants to know how good the business model is when it comes to geopolitics, a stronger competition, AI, and all the other factors. Our message to you, Mr. Klein, and the whole management board and supervisory board is very simple. SAP is not just supposed to be the winner of the past transformation. SAP is supposed to be the winner of the next one because SAP is one of the few European technological companies that is a global player and is not just watching. SAP has the means, the infrastructure, and also the European trust in order to be the answer to AI from Europe. If the step of transformation is happening, let me prove the technology leadership is not necessarily happening in Silicon Valley. Bring out your best, all right? Build our future. Thank you so much.
Thank you very much, Ms. Hölzl. I'm now going to call on Markus Kienle.
Pekka Ala-Pietilä, Christian Klein, ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, my name is Markus Kienle. I'm a lawyer in Frankfurt, and I work for Schutzgemeinschaft der Kapitalanleger. Christian Klein, in an economically and geopolitically difficult environment, you have good growth potential. You have almost accomplished all of your targets, even though it was always at the lower threshold. Cloud results increase of 22%, operating result more than a 100% increase. Profit after taxes has increased as well. Of course, 10 percentage point increase overall. All right, the business year 2024 was actually burdened because of restructuring efforts which have been executed in 2025, that was not a cost that occurred again. In 2025, you had a positive special effect of EUR 620 million because of less burdens from the past.
The positive special effect from 2024 has been compensated with savings, and the elimination of the restructuring efforts of 2024 was EUR 3 billion. The profit before taxes is still at more than EUR 2 billion, EUR 2.5 billion to be specific. It's more than the previous year. Even though Q1 2026 was very good for what we've seen in the past business year, we would like to thank all of the employees, and I would like for you to pass this thank you on. The success story is just something that the market doesn't believe because SAP SE, since July 2025, we can see that the share price has not developed as good as the DAX or Nasdaq. In January of 2026, the share has actually seen a decline, which the share price has not recovered from until today.
It's quite the contrary. In April of 2026, the share price has declined even further, and it's been oscillating at the same level ever since. From your point of view, what are the main reasons for this poor development of the share price in comparison to DAX 40 and Nasdaq-100 index? From your point of view, what are the main reasons for the share price downward spiral in April of 2026? In January, AI development actually caused some disruption, which was supposed to have the potential to not make software necessary anymore. Does that have an impact on your business model and also the revenue of our company? If not, why not? Why has the share price, despite a good Q1 2026, why has it not recovered? What is the capital market doubting when it comes to SAP? Is this the business model?
Is it not as robust and successful as the figures suggest? Could the critical attitude of the capital market be caused by your communicated investments in AI being way below the Silicon Valley investors, and the capital market therefore has doubts when it comes to your competitiveness as SAP? The cloud margin was improved by 1 percentage point. What kind of cloud branches do you want to follow in a sustainable manner? You're addressing different cloud solutions and different targets and customer groups. Do you actually get the same margin everywhere? If that's not the case, how is the cloud margin derived, and what is it made up of? The cloud growth in U.S. in 2025 is only half of the growth of the EMEA region. What is the reason for that? In which regions do you see the strongest cloud growth over the next three years?
If you look at the table of your business report on page 66, cloud growth since 2023 has shown sideways movement. Is the growth dynamic from cloud gone already? AI seems to be the miracle word for future product solutions, but how do you measure the benefit and the success in comparison to products that don't have AI integrated? In March, you actually published the intention to acquire the Reltio acquisition, and you think that's going to happen in Q2 or Q3 2026. What is this current status quo? The stage of letters of intents should have expired, so are there any binding contracts already? If you think about foreign capital, if you finance that, is that not just banks or also other things? Foreign financing, is that something that's cheaper versus just bank credit?
With an EK quota of 64%, you actually show a big capital basis. How high is the cost overall and also for the individual segments? How much is the return for the individual segments? You actually have a rate of 20, 64% capital allocation efficiency. What do these ratios look like for your main competitors, and what is your return for 2025 if you actually had a financing structures like your competitors? If you look at the prognosis for 2025, the strong decline of the Net Promoter Score needs to be mentioned. Not only is your prognosis definitely something you haven't met, the NPS is also way below the one of the year before. What are the main reasons for you not meeting that target when it comes to customer satisfaction?
In your quarterly report for Q1 2026, you mentioned that the financial foresight for 2026 is based on the assumption that the conflict in the Middle East is going to find a resolution in the near future. What kind of relationship context does SAP SE have when it comes to the conflict in the Middle East? What kind of impact do you foresee for the business year 2026 if the assumption is not happening? What do you consider a resolution and what is in the near future? I would also like to talk about the format of a virtual AGM. I think having an in-person AGM is something that would be imperative because we can talk about everything, but of course, a virtual AGM is just not something that we prefer. When it comes to the next AGM, when is the next AGM going to be happening in person?
Do you plan on the introduction of a model of one AGM in person and one virtual AGM? When it comes to the suggestion of the auditor, we can see that there are some problems when it comes to their remuneration. Something like that would have not been possible in the past of SAP SE. Considering Wirecard, that is something that we do not understand, so we are not going to approve the auditors if we cannot resolve this issue. What kind of remuneration is paid for non-research? The election of the candidate, Mr. Obermann, and supervisory board will only be supported if the mandate of the chairman, Hasso Plattner, Germany, as he is not going to be operative. If the mandate is going to be operative, the candidate, Mr. Obermann, is going to be over-boarded because he has more than three external mandates.
In this case, we could not approve of Mr. Obermann, even though we do appreciate his past experience. SdK, when it comes to operative mandates, we only accept maximum of three mandates, and if you have a chair, it counts as two. Being a mandate at Warburg Pincus Deutschland GmbH is an operative or non-operative mandate. Mr. Klein, I wish you and your management board members lots of success when it comes to managing this company in 2026. Thank you very much for your attention.
Thank you so much, Mr. Kienle. I am now calling Mr. Vogel.
Thank you so much, Ms. Rotsch. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Ingo Speich. I represent the Deka Investment, one of the biggest fund company in Germany and the daughter of the DekaBank, which is part of the Sparkasse. Dear shareholders, we are currently in fast-moving times. This becomes very visible when we look at the share price of SAP. The share has developed from the start of 2024 almost doubled. Then within a couple of months, it was cut in half. The reason for this are geopolitical uncertainties, disappointed expectations in the cloud growth, and especially the doubts about the strategic role of SAP in the age of artificial intelligence. When we talk about AI, SAP in the middle of a labyrinth, there are so many different ways and options, whether it's AI products, data platforms or new pricing models.
Only few of them will lead to a sustainable profit-profitable business model. For the shareholders, it is important that SAP has a clear strategy. For the time being, sometimes it seems to be like a trial and error procedure. This might be normal in software development, but it shouldn't decide about the direction. Let's have a look all together on this labyrinth. The executive board has declared SAP an all-in AI company, AI should be at the core of the company. Automated agents in the core processes and Joule as a new workplace. This sounds convincing on paper. SAP is deeply enshrined in the client's business procedures and has data that others only dream about. These strengths might be also important for the future. Let's have a look at the implementation.
AI has been marketed for the past years, in the reports, you cannot really see the effect. It does rather disappear in the cloud numbers and is not really shown as a separate figure. At the same time, SAP has readjusted this margin figure to create more room for investments into the cloud. This, the capital market does not see that this problem has been solved. What the capital market needs is a clear roadmap. Today, we hear about SAP Business AI, business data cloud, Joule, we don't get a clear picture of how these building blocks will look like at the client in the upcoming years. Where exactly does SAP want to head with the AI procedures? How do you want to ensure that SAP will still be visible and not be hidden behind other agents?
The question of the pricing model is not clear either. If agents can automize the procedures and, a classical per user model is not enough anymore. How do you want to price the value addition of AI in the long run? What effect will this have on the margin? Mr. Klein, a couple of years ago, you have started the transformation of SAP into the cloud. This was a very courageous move. You have shown that you can transformation, but the building of the cloud business raised SAP and the move away from the classical model were important and necessary steps. Now, you decide to be the head of the next AI wave, so AI is a very important topic. This is a stark, a strong signal, but it also means that you haven't done enough.
At the same time, the rest of the path to the cloud is getting more and more steep. The clients are sitting on SAP landscapes that have grown for many years, so the transformation will take time and will be costly. The development is solid, but investors would have expected more. A more cautious expectation would have been better. At the end of the day, what counts for us is the future. How do you want to ensure that the outstanding cloud migration can be implemented in an economically meaningful way and that the cloud growth will be shown also in the figures? What goals do you have so that the market can understand this transformation? Ladies and gentlemen, SAP is in an environment that is technologically demanding but also geopolitically sensitive.
Cyber attacks on critical ERP systems are increasing, and all the agents have to be checked if there are security leaks. At the same time, cloud infrastructure becomes very important infrastructure. Data controls and the interest of national security define where data can be stored and who is allowed to have access to them. SAP is here focusing on the sovereign cloud offers and has already announced investments and partnerships. How much resistance does this model have if the trade conflicts are increasing and there is no access to the market in certain areas? How do you want to ensure that AI and cloud services will be further developed and that your clients can see or implement critical updates in their landscapes? Another topic is our demand for responsibility, climate, diversity, and the dealing with their own employees. SAP is following very ambitious climate targets.
At the same time, the CO2 footprint and the energy consumption are increasing with the use of AI. For us, the question is: How do you want to ensure that SAP can still maintain the CO2 zero goal if there is more energy use? Why do you not put this to the discussion in this AGM? It is also important, the social dimension. SAP has gained a lot of attention because in the U.S., the diversity goals have been taken back. We don't want to question legal requirements. What we want to know is rather, how can you assure that despite of different regulations, SAP can still follow the global goals for diversity? How can you ensure that these goals are not diluted?
How do you want to design the transformation from the cloud to AI for your workforce with upskilling new jobs, and how can you make sure you don't lose them? Let's have a look at the agenda. The agenda item seven, we are voting in against because the total volume of more than 40% of the share capital is clearly above our guidelines. For all the other agenda items, we will vote as per the administration. The vote of the election of Pekka Ala-Pietilä does not 100% be aligned with our governance guidelines, but we will take it as a solution because obviously René Obermann needs to be trained as the future chair. Ladies and gentlemen, let's conclude. The challenges that SAP faces are many, and there are also many solutions.
Mr. Klein, now, for the second time, you need to lead SAP through a large transformation. In the age of AI, the walls of the labyrinth are moving faster than software industry has ever seen, and we wish you the best of success for you and for your employees. Thank you so much, Mr. Vogel. I am now calling Marianne Friese. After that, we don't have any other requests to speak. Hello. I am very happy that I'm able to speak here, and I thank all the previous speakers of SAP and also the others who have asked question. I have a formal question about the topic of the second law for management that SAP has to follow in Germany. This law says that there needs to be a gender quota of at least 30% in the supervisory board.
This also means that 30% of the members of the supervisory board needs to be women. I am wondering if I have overlooked these women or when they will be nominated, and how does SAP wants to deal with this infraction of the law? I'm looking forward to hearing from you, thank you for your attention. Thank you, Ms. Friese. For the time being, we have not received any other requests to speak, so we will now start the first rounds of answers. We will start with the question of Ms. Hölzl. Ms. Hölzl, you have asked if, in the future there will be more concrete malice regulations for compliance cases to be added to the compensation system, even if these have been treated as one-time effects. The future compensation system is currently under discussion.
The supervisory board has already today the legal malus and clawback rules. These rules can ensure that variable compensation can be based on the financial basis and can be asked to be paid back if necessary.
One question was whether or not AI is actually a headwind for SAP or is SAP actually basing everything on the past strength. Ms. Hölz, you asked whether AI is headwind or if our current strength is being questioned. It is a very clear answer. For us, AI is definitely helping us because of our traditional strength. AI is deviating the main focus on the AI agent level. These agents, as we already mentioned earlier, can only act reliably if they are based on structural processes, clear data, and also strong governance. That is exactly where we have our strengths, our core competence at SAP is exactly the robust ERP processes, regulatory depth, and also being able to use indications. Process knowledge and data as well as applications are the basis on which AI can work reliably.
Software is therefore a specific strength of AI, and that is what we build our vision on, agents that actually show all of our processes in an autonomous way. We need booking automation in real time and rich business data for a good understanding of processes. All of that is provided by our system. That is why we do understand the trend to be a further development, not as something that is replacing classic ERP strengths, which we also base our future vision for Joule and our whole portfolio on. To keep it brief, AI is not attacking our strengths, but is making it more visible and more valuable. It is definitely helping us make it where we are the backbone of the economy.
The next question: Does AI make SAP more valuable or is it actually making it where our current business model is being put under pressure? How is that turning into a measurable economic effect? Miss Hölz, you also asked if SAP is more valuable because of AI or is putting pressure on us. AI makes SAP more valuable. It makes it possible for us to have a wider range of offers and also make it where our business model can develop further. First and foremost, we see that in the growth of important components of our AI strategy, the business data cloud in a very short period of time has made it where we have made EUR 2 billion in contractual value. In Q4 2025, more than 2/3 of our cloud contracts contained at least one AI component. AI is increasing our value and attractiveness.
Secondly, does AI change how we produce our revenue? Yes. Less than 40% of our cloud revenue are still user based. The majority is based on value and consumption AI's, and is still going to develop in terms of pricing. It's going to be based on actual business results. With AI, via AI Units, we have agent-based pricing, and we can make it where use and additional value can be priced in without making it where our stable subscription business is endangered. A tendency that we also see with other successful companies in the market. Third, AI is also giving us more efficiency because of the internal use of AI, we want to have more significant productivity and efficiency, and with that also have margins and operative cash flow that can be improved.
That is how we can make it where AI can actually be a measurable economic effect.
How does SAP make money in 2030, and how does it defend its position with applications, platforms, or also with the ability to have data and processes that work together in an orchestrated manner? The answer is very simple. With all of the elements that you have mentioned, they are supporting each other and they are together building what makes us unique. Our application layer is going to remain the heart. We reach them and enrich them with AI agents that are embedded in the business models. That is how our applications are going to be more valuable, and we create more ways of monetization, for example, by role-based assistance and also user based models. At the same time, we are also building our platform business, and we are expanding consistently with the SAP Business Technology Platform.
We offer our customers and partners the best tools in order to develop their own AI agents and applications with the world best AI models on our platform. The PaaS ecosystem is going to be scaled up and it's going to be strengthened as well. Our unique strengths lies with the orchestration across processes. SAP has more than 50 years process knowledge and understands the context of business data like no other provider. This depth makes it possible to have agents that are secure and reliable across end-to-end processes. This orchestration is something that we are going to monetize long-term. Our competitive advantage is based on the collaboration of three layers: application, platform, and orchestration.
All right. Talking about the geopolitical situation in the U.S. specifically, do you see longer decision-making cycles or less budget when it comes to customer, especially when it comes to industrial or export industries? How much is a weaker dollar impacting your business? Do you see a problem or structural disadvantages for SAP being a European company when it comes to the axis of AI structures, regulations or capital? The short answer is yes, we do see longer sales cycles in specific sectors, but no decrease in investments. The geopolitical tensions and trade conflicts are definitely a big point for us. They also put additional pressure on companies and therefore contribute to longer sales cycles. It remains uncertain whether these effects are going to have an impact on Q2 or if we can catch up in the second half of the year.
Our report in 2026 shows that companies are critically questioning investments. 90% of the companies that were asked say that the economic framework conditions are impacting their SAP investment strategy. What is important, not a single project with a longer decision-making cycle was lost to our competition. Our pipeline remains strong. ERP transformation are highly strategic. They've been prepared long term, and they are not questioned. Our business model with a very big proportion of plannable revenue actually gives us lots of resistance. For the ongoing year and 2027, we do expect more robust growth in our cloud business. You also asked if a weaker dollar is impacting our business. The U.S. dollar is our most important foreign currency. Two-thirds of our overall revenue are non-euro transactions. In 2025, these currency effects had an impact of about EUR 1 billion on our overall revenue.
About 40% of our investments are also made in U.S. dollars. We actually have a natural hedge that actually balanced everything out pretty well. You also asked about possible structural disadvantages for SAP being a European company when it comes to AI infrastructure, regulations or capital. We do not see any structural drawbacks for SAP. Quite the contrary, SAP is profiting off of a strong presence in the U.S., global scalability, and also deep partnerships with leading cloud and AI ecosystems. At the same time, we can also see that AI is also facing question of national security and public procurement, for example, when it comes to requirements where AI is being run, developed and used.
SAP, again, is very well positioned among other things because of the NS2 SAP, which is our U.S.-based subsidiary for national security requirements that actually can deal with sensitive requests by governmental bodies. So the deregulated environment in the United States also offers incentives for investments and innovation. Of course, that is something that is positive for SAP, in our opinion. Overall, we can see that our presence, our partnerships, and our global situation is very, very good in order to react to political and regulatory framework changes in the future. With that, I'm gonna hand over to you, Dominik.
Thank you, Christian. Ms. Hölz, you also asked about the specific monetization of artificial intelligence. I would like to say that the majority of our incoming orders in Q4, if I can mention that specifically, were 2/3 of those included integrated AI solutions. Of course, that made it where the value of the suite that we're offering is increased significantly. Secondly, we've also created new products that support AI. I'd like to mention the SAP Datasphere, for example. At the end of last year, we actually said that we had a contractual value of about EUR 2 billion in our books. Of course, that is also something that we have to see separate from that. At the end of the day, we can also say that monetization models, especially ours, are adapting gradually.
For example, when it comes to Joule, for consultants, we have a user-based monetization scheme. At the same time, when it comes to other areas, we also have monetization by use of AI. Of course, there are some areas where we also have rationalization measures where there's a reduction of use. On the flip side, the best interest of our customers and our own are synchronized by just having higher use and also having value participation of the value that is created. When it comes to us being able to plan it, I can tell you that we still have a lot of revenue that we can plan on. Additionally, as I already mentioned, we also have user-based models or use-based models, especially when it comes to AI, and all of that is going to be introduced.
The next question was about the plans after 2027 when it comes to the revenue specifically. We are not going to tell you anything just yet, just because statistically it is the case that the more we look into the future, the less precise our forecast is going to be. Mathematically, if you look at the forecast for four years, it's twice as prone to error. Of course, in one contribution it has been mentioned today that it is very important to have forecasts that are sustainable. If you look at a specific time horizon, we just don't think it's a good idea to actually give you any hard facts in terms of where we're gonna end up. For the short term, of course, we can do that very well because of the planability that I already mentioned earlier.
For 2027, we also have an increase of a revenue growth that we've indicated. What we can tell you is that if you look at the operative investments of the company, and also the growth of these investments on the part of the company are at about 80%-90% of the revenue growth, and it's going to be limited to that. That also holds true beyond 2027. Talking about the legal and compliance cases, you talked about the Teradata case, which already happened years ago, and now luckily has come to a conclusion with the payment of compensation. What I'd like to tell you about that is that SAP, being a global company, of course, we actually have legal disputes on a regular basis. I'm thinking of the so-called patent trolls.
Those would be patent trolls that are trying to, if they're not working operatively, they're just trying to make some money. With that being said, we of course have to also go by guidelines like IAS 37 as soon as we can assume that there's going to be a payment, we do have savings. If we can quantify the amount, we will do that. If that's not possible to do, if we can't quantify it in a reliable way, then it's going to be a possibility. Of course, these possibilities can happen as Teradata has shown. That could mean that we have to pay or make payments. If you'd like to know about financial repercussions, as far as we can do that, you can actually find more information under C5 in the addendum of our business report. You're going to find more information there.
When it comes to individual cases and individual legal cases, apart from tax things, those are things we don't publish because that wouldn't be very smart when it comes to our negotiating power with the different parties that we actually have to deal with. The next question you asked was about Teradata again. What do we do structurally in order to minimize risks in the future? Well, I already told you earlier that there's always a certain risk because everyone is trying to look at a big company like SAP and make some money, right? Of course, our business is always a business that comes at a risk, right? Especially when it comes to legal questions, that is something that is always a matter of opinion very often. With that being said, that is something that we can never eliminate fully.
Of course, we also have to make sure that we look at these legal topics and also be very offensive in order to protect our intellectual property specifically and also control that a lot more. In order to face these risks and minimize them at the same time, of course, we also have a risk management and compliance system that holds group wide. Of course, a global guideline for risk management, for example, has been improved, and we are developing that on a continuous basis. I trust being one of the key terms here. Of course, we also have internal programs with internal processes, guidelines, and monitoring measures. That way we can evaluate risks when it comes to AI technology. Open source, third party legal procedures, all of these processes are implemented group wide, and then, of course, also double-checked.
If required, we are making changes, and they are not just based on individual cases, just like Teradata was the example. Of course, those would be investments, and you can find further information in the business report. Over to you, Thomas Saueressig. Thank you, Dominik Asam. Christiane Hölz, you also asked about our competitive pressure and where we feel the biggest pressure. Of course, on the one hand, we have smaller providers, and they're very much agile and innovative as well. Of course, partially we also have some partnerships with them. Of course, they are also facing a structural problem because as Christian Klein already mentioned earlier, they do not have access to business data, or also the regulatory depth is just not existent, especially in a company context with more complex integration landscapes or company landscapes.
Of course, this is our benefit as SAP because we do understand this context. This context-rich company data is part of our solution, can be established, that's our benefit, that is exactly access to this sensitive, valuable company data. That is really holding true for the world economy. At the same time, we also have some established competitors that we are facing. Of course, in this regard, we are counting on our integrated business suite strategy that we have. That means that our artificial intelligence is an integral part of our end-to-end business process at the end of the day. Of course, that creates an end-to-end user experience, process integration to make us different.
With our Drive SAP and Chrome SAP, of course, we do have innovation, but of course, also structural long-term transformative programs which are as imperative in phases like the current phase so that we stay competitive. That also leads to us modernizing continuously in order to use this innovation. Of course, cloud is the basis for exactly that, for these environments in order to also use the AI benefit in a sustainable manner and then also create added value. Another question that you asked was about the role, the long-term role of SAP when it comes to the digital strategy of Europe and data sovereignty, and also Sovereign Cloud as a business unit, and when this material contribution for SAP is going to happen. Our answer is very, very clear. SAP is a central player for digital sovereignty in Europe without compromising innovation and scalability.
For us, that's really what it's all about. Innovation and scalability are not two different things, but instead it is the same meadow, and also scalability is just essential. We want to create a trustworthy digital foundation for Europe where innovation remains open, data is protected, and technology serves people, for Germany, for Europe. Of course, everything has to be protected, and of course the technology has to be there for the people. It has to be controlled, as we've already described earlier. This makes SAP Sovereign Cloud a strategically prioritized business area with customer feedback that we've received, and that being the basis of everything, and that is hitting the zeitgeists. We are seeing disproportionate growth because of the current geopolitical situation.
We've invested more than EUR 20 billion for over the next 10 years, and that is what we have actually published already, and that really shows the direction in this business model. We have had more than 80 customers worldwide that are part of our Sovereign Cloud for critical value chains, and of course, also being part of the public sector that we are there for. Talking about finances, Sovereign Cloud is not a separate product, but it is definitely a part of our cloud strategy and therefore it is also going to be a part of our cloud implementation. For 2026, we also have cloud revenue of EUR 25.8 million-EUR 26.2 million, and that'll be a growth of 23%-25%. With our U.S.
subsidiary, SAP National Security Services, NS2, for the past 20 years we've already been active in the market and we also have a lot of experience when it comes to accessing these kinds of markets, addressing these markets. We're already there, and I do think over the past few months we've already seen lots in the media, lots of different customers talking about us, for example, in Europe as well. It'd be customers like Thales or Hensoldt in Germany. Also Edge MRC in the U.K. That really shows what kind of growth potential we have and that we can see at the end of the day. Those are all the questions by Christiane Hölz. Then I'm gonna move on to Markus Kienle.
Markus Kienle asked, growth in U.S. from the business year 2025, less growth than the EMEA region, and he asked specifically about the reason for that. The difference that he's talking about is mainly based on currency effects. If we look at the nominal growth rate, we can see that the cloud revenue in this region in America 2025 has increased by 15%, whereas EMEA reached 29%. If you don't include currency, the growth in America was at 21% and in EMEA it was at 30%. You can see that there's quite the distance, and that is a lot less than it seems like at first glance. Of course, we also have the basis effect. The region America in 2025 had cloud revenue worth EUR 9.1 million, so it's also a higher base.
The higher the base, of course, the higher the difference in terms of growth is. In talking about regional cloud growth over the next three years, we cannot give you any specific forecast on a regional basis. Globally, of course, we can see big differences in regards to regional deviations, resistance, and of course also that is a big benefit for us, and we're very positive when it comes to that. Now I would like to continue with Pekka.
Herr Kienle, you asked when we will hold our next in-person meeting, annual general meeting in person. As I mentioned in my speech, the SAP Executive Board and the Supervisory Board have jointly decided to hold the next in-person meeting next year in SAP Arena in Mannheim. The second question addressed to me, you also asked about Mr. Obermann's role in Warburg Pincus Deutschland GmbH. The position held by Mr. Obermann at Warburg Pincus is not an operational role. As Chairman Europe, he has a part-time role that is of a representative and advisory nature. Friederike, to who?
Over to Christian.
Let's move to the questions of Markus Kienle. From your point of view, what are the main drivers for the worst development of the share price compared to the DAX 40 and Nasdaq-100 index? What are the main reasons for the share price decrease mids of January 2026 and April 2026? In the Tat, well, our share price from the 1st of May 2025 to the 1st May 2026 compared to the DAX and compared to Nasdaq-100 developed worse. These developments have the following explanations. First of all, a sector rotation within the technology field. Investors moved away from growth-oriented software shares towards infrastructural values, health industry, for instance. This affected SAP, but the whole software industry, and this put pressure on all of us. Secondly, on the market, the framework of the SaaS apocalypse. This is really nice terminology.
There are increasing doubts whether software providers in the era of AI will have a future. There are autonomous AI agents. They, of course, could replace classical applications. These are the speculation sales for Microsoft that is now where they, for instance, do suffer the same losses. Thirdly, the U.S. customs politics and geopolitical insecurities lead to the fact that customers cut on IT projects or suspend these projects. We, and this is really important, are of the opinion that this skepticism against software is exaggerated, and we encounter this with a clear strategy. We are sure that we can stick to our promise. In January, there was an AI development which caused an uprise. It was said to have the potential to make software superfluous. Does this AI development will have an influence on the business model and on the revenue of the company?
If not, why not? This was another question. The clear answer to that is no. We do not see any negative impacts. On the contrary, AI supports our business model as our solutions are the institutional brain of every company. They won't disappear, no doubt about it. A harmonized data and process basis is the key today to use the power of AI effectively. With our integrated solutions, we expect to further gain market shares. This is also proven by our figures. In the 1st quarter 2026, our cloud revenues increased by 27%. Adjusted, the cloud AIP increased by 30%. Our Current Cloud Backlog increased by 25% to EUR 22 billion. Here we grow both terms relatively and absolutely, and we gain market share in software and platform business alike.
Generic AI models alone, however, cannot carry out transactional business processes. It requires a deep integration, business data, and it is exactly that what we can do, what we can provide. The figures speak a clear language. Our business model benefits from AI. Customers do not need less software. On the contrary, they need more intelligent software, however. Thus having said, I hand over to you, Dominik. Once again, coming back to the question of the share price development, why did the share price despite the first quarter did not recover? Maybe I can down to the explanations we heard. It takes time. There's still this framework, and it takes time to convince so that some of the arguments are not relevant to the extent it was included in the valuation.
Another question popped up by Mr. Kienle to the cloud margin, how it will further develop. The cloud margin increased slightly 2025. We do not give any information about the development of certain parts, about the gross margin, research and development expenses, and so on and so forth. We say that the amount of all these costs concerning the increase is lower than the revenue increase. Here I refer to what was said before, 80%-90%. This is to maintain flexibility when it comes to pricing of models. It's not only about the margin and percentage, but it is furthermore about incremental EUR and gross margin and benefit, and that's translated into cash flow in the end. When it comes to debt capital, so the question is bonds or loans, classical loans.
The answer is, here we have a mix of different financing instruments. For us, it's really important that we are very careful with our capital structure and thus, maintaining a maximum of flexibility. Looking at diversity, at the same time, we optimize costs of these financing instruments. For us, I think it is really important to have volume capacity with banks for fast investments. Bonds, for instance, take time. That is why we try to maintain the structure as flexible as possible, to have maximum liquidity at optimal costs. Back to the volume. At the moment, we have a volume of EUR 5.15 billion of bonds and half a billion EUR under our commercial paper program, a short-term financing program.
In 2025, we had EUR 2.25 billion. We paid back bilateral bank loans at the amount of EUR 2.25 billion. You further asked about cloud very precisely. To give you a precise figure, in 2025, the cloud gross margin increased by 75%. These are approximately 1.1% more, extrapolated of course. We try to drive excellence, but at hand, we have to deal with the effects of the geopolitical crisis. In a sense that some products are more expensive, and I want to mention hardware for data centers, for data centers. Of course, this will have an effect. This is one reason, as you can tell, that we have to be very careful to talk about this margin component in particular and to extrapolate them.
Because we have the options to reallocate costs if we can have more benefit using the capital in a different way. Cloud growth. It was mentioned that it is slightly decreasing. Christian Klein explained it to you and to Masaua Essich. We should not underestimate the currency effect. If you compare to competitors in U.S. dollar. Some weeks ago from Gartner and IDC, we saw some market figures, and you can tell from that, despite the slight moderation, our cloud grows much faster than the competitors. According to Gartner, more than 10% faster than the competitors. That's to say, because of the high revenue we have in the cloud base, we think that these revenues are really positive, and they show very clearly that AI, business data cloud, different business drivers are used by our customers.
There is an interest in our products and our solutions by the customers. To the topic of Reltio. This is not only a letter of intent, but we really signed the contract. Of course, this is an intent. Of course, we have to deal with some legal questions. After that, we have to realize it, and we think it will happen in the second quarter, but we need some further permissions by authorities for this Reltio business. The outlook to the business year 2026, the conflict in the Middle East.
Yes, we announced after the first quarter that due to the effects in the MENA region, we had a bit of pressure when we saw the orders because there were other customers, and I talk about governments, I talk about companies here directly affected by this conflict. There are, of course, variations because they really feel the consequences and effect of this war. As of course, we as a company, we felt this as well. Looking at our order books, we could maintain it because of the consolidation of Reltio. We, in the near future, we'll get some tailwind. We said because of these effects in the first quarter, we can't put that on top, but it is included.
On the other hand, we would like to say that this crisis in the Middle East has to come to an end, the sooner the better, so that we can improve this outlook. We have a lot of global supply chains, they may be affected by this conflict. If you need a complex product, 1,000, 100,000 of components included in that product coming from the petrochemical industry, despite the strain of firms, critical components can't be delivered, this will lead to bottlenecks or to the full stop of supply chains in the worst case. That is why I think it is highly speculative to tell where in the world could predict what will happen in that scenario of world economy.
That is why we do not want to speculate, but we want to stick to the facts, stick to what we know and can measure and can forecast in a reliable and sustainable manner. Of course, we plan all kinds of scenario, but we hope that the conflict in the Middle East will come to an end soon. When it comes to the equity ratio, it is not this core size. The goodwill, for instance, is included when it comes to acquisitions. We have to capitalize this. For us, it is about liquidity, and here, credit rating is of utmost importance, done by big agencies like Moody's, for instance. We have an A+ rating by SAP and an A1 rating by Moody's.
I think we are very well set up, especially compared to the one or other main competitor with a more aggressive balance structure in the end. These ratings are reflected by so many different benchmarks. For instance, the amount of cash flow to pay interests and debts, but it is not the equity ratio here which counts, of course. This is affected by the bookkeepings and not by the ability of the company to pay back debts and to pay interest rates reliably. Compared to the competition, however, to the big competitors with high ratings, comparable level, there are some competitors, as I said, they have more aggressive debt financing. I would like to ask you to ask them about their strategy, why they act as they do.
We as a system critical supplier, I think for our customers, we have a high financial standing in order to maintain our flexibility, our cash flow, and also to implement our strategy, although in difficult times. Please rest assured that we have a conservative approach, and we will re-maintain this conservative approach. To the question about the interest rate of this equity. Equity and debt ratio, a high debt ratio and high leverage, of course, it's cosmetic and this can bring down the interest, but at the same time, if the risk that the financial statement will suffer, what you can tell in the rating. We look at the overall capital costs and the profit and the capital used.
Here when we talk about impairment tests, for instance, you find some figures and information. We are very well established. If you compare it to the actual figures, you can tell that we have a higher interest rate of our capital than the capital costs in the end. Of course, this corresponds to an increase in value. To the topic of remunerations, non-audit performances. In 2025, the expenses for legal audits beyond the final audit were less than EUR 500,000. Just to tell you, the big part of these shares of EUR 8 million is not unnecessary from legal point of view. The bigger share is to SOC certifications. These SOC certifications are relevant for our customers.
You know, the customers in our cloud, they do audits of our systems, and of course, they need certificates from their cloud provider here, SAP. That is why we need to appoint an auditor and audit all our systems, it would be dysenergy to hire a third party. These are voluntary, so to speak, voluntary audit measures. However, these are measures which are important and which are necessary, the final auditor has to carry it out. These audit close services are within the legal framework, of course. Otherwise, we won't do it.
Thank you, Dominik. Mr. Kienle, you asked how we measure the advantage or the benefits of the product solutions that include AI compared to the ones that don't. Concretely speaking, we compare AI-enabled capabilities with largely the same classic process flows using KPIs such as processing time, degree of automation, cost per transaction, lead times, user adoption, and quality of outcomes for our customers. If a financial close or a supply chain planning run or a service request is handled faster, more reliably, or with less manual rework through the benefit of AI, then that is directly measurable on the impact that AI is creating. The efficiency gains always depend on the specific customer situation, of course. Let me give you a couple of examples.
Nestlé, for instance, was able to almost fully automate the review and approval of expense reports and thus triple the efficiency of employees when creating their expense reports. AMD reduced time to resolution for supply chain issues by up to 90% and additionally saved several thousand working hours per year by using our AI. Take SAP ourselves, for example. By the end of 2028, we expect annual savings of around EUR 2 billion from the internal use of AI across all areas of the company. What always matters is that our AI is deeply embedded in our customers' business processes and business data. The advantage does not come just from a large language model, but from the combination of SAP applications, our semantic understanding of the enterprise data, and the process knowledge and reliable governance. With that, Frederike, back to you.
Thank you very much. Answering the last questions posed by Mr. Kienle, I hand to Christian. Why did the share price of SAP, despite a good first quarter 2026, did not recover? Well, why does the capital market doubt SAP? Is the business model of SAP not that successful and robust as figures may suggest? Well, let me first clarify, our business model is a robust one. The share price development has different reasons. The software sector is under pressure. It's true for the overall software sector. There's an industry-wide debate whether AI will replace classical models. Oracle and others lost more than we did. Geopolitical insecurities do play a role and lead to longer sales cycles. Investors ask monetization of AI and the sustainability of price-based models.
What is a decisive factor is the following: with SAP, the investor feedback is quite positive. Analysts confirm our cloud transformation, planning of our revenues, and our solid financial basis. The current evaluation reflects the branch feeling, no fundamental weaknesses of our business. Thank you very much. Now we come to the questions of Mr. Vogel and then to other questions. Now to Christian.
To the topic AI once again. Where will SAP implement AI in core process? How do you make sure that SAP in the front end of the business processes will be visible and won't disappear behind foreign agents? Really good question. Mr. Vogel, you ask, where do we want to go to in our core processes with AI. Our aim is to make AI from a supportive function to an integral part of our business processes. What does it mean? It means in precise terms AI agents, for instance, or specialized agents take over routine works or pre-works along central chains. For instance, production planning, warehouse planning, purchase and service processes. These agents do not act independently, they work on the basis of real company and enterprise data, and they are integrated in business logic and compliance regulations of SAP.
The system remains reliable, and at the same time, we have more automation in the end. Joule will become one service application. Joule orchestrates in the background data workflow and AI agents in the background. Processes will be driven internally and long term without giving away the control. People are still responsible for priorities, exemptions or risky decisions. AI drives for consistency and discharge in the operative daily business. Our claim is clear: to have a higher productivity, which is measurable, better decisions in real time, and continuously learning core processes on a stable, reliable SAP basis, which will be sustainable for both our customers and our shareholders. You asked how we make sure that SAP will be in the front, will be visible in the front end of our businesses. I think I answered that question already.
Joule is the new front end, the central surface mode of orchestration. Users ask questions to Joule. Joule answers it reliably, and no matter whether it is HR software, supply, CM, service, and so on and so forth, Joule will be your competent and reliable partner. Another question for me to the topic artificial intelligence and price models. How do you want to make sure that, or how you want to price AI on a long term, and what effects will it have on margin and growth? I want to give you a clear answer. AI for SAP is a growth driver, but also a leverage for operative efficiency. When it comes to revenue increase, AI develops to a very important growth driver, as I said before. With new business, we talked about it.
When it comes to margin, we plan to limit it to 80% - 90%. An important lever is the use of AI internally. Our target is that by 2028, we have yearly cost efficiency of EUR 2 billion by the internal use of AI. This corresponds to 15% - 20% of the addressable cost basis. In development and service, we have measurable productivity gains even today. To put it briefly, AI drives our revenue growth and improves our profitability in the end. That having said, I would like to say against the backdrop of the current debate, I would like to give you the following explanation. An API is a digital interface, connecting our systems, not connecting only our systems, but other software solutions. They can talk to our software solutions.
We bring in regulations. They do exist, we unify them and harmonize them with a standard, this is what's done throughout the industry. All the different providers do have these policies, especially in times of AI. It is important for stability of our systems and the systems of our customers. Access from one system to another are important to find solutions and to communicate solutions amongst others, in the end, it is one integrated solution. We do not want to prevent these accesses and not access from customers to their own data. What will change is the intensity of the access to this data.
One AI command can have one request to one SAP system, and no one wants, and not our customers, will put in danger our stability or that an AI agent will write in something in the main book, so to speak. In order to guarantee that, it requires a transparency via the accesses, and this requires rules and regulations, regarding access. I would like to emphasize once again, we do not want to endanger the business basis of our partners. On the contrary, we have and we want to focus on an open ecosystem. This is what we want for our customers, that they have a broad basis with our solutions and the solutions of our partners. I want to give you 1 example.
A solution of a third-party provider, because of many API access, caused system instabilities with a customer system. Together with the provider, we reviewed the interfaces so that in the end, the product without endangering the stability, continues to work. This describes our intent very well. If we see an access which are not in line with our policies, we go into a dialogue with our partners and with our customers to find appropriate solution for both sides.
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Sebastian, the floor is yours. Actually, one question has been allocated twice, I pass directly to Gina. Thank you. Dear Mr. Vogel, you asked how SAP can in worldwide stick to the sustainability goals and which government mechanism can ensure that these goals remain stable. On the same time, our commitment for diversity and a good company culture still stays, and it's an important part of our governance goals. In 2025, we have opened our global office and it has become part of social inclusion. By that doing, we bundle our commitment for equal chances inclusion within the SAP and our internal communities. That way, we can ensure that diversity and equal chances are not separated figures, but integrated parts of our company strategy.
Already existing formats as our network groups, where we have now more than 30,000 employees who are committed, as well as new formats as our Inclusion Impact Advisory Councils, make sure that diverse points of view from the whole company can be exchanged and listened to, and that way, creating the groundworks for our strategy and its implementation. Via the Business Health Culture Index, we are steering legally robust integrator and we also have our Inclusion Culture Index that has been constantly at over 90% over the past years. That way we can ensure legal transparency and efficient steering without renouncing on the legal requirements. You have also asked how we can design the shift to the cloud and with reference to the skill shift, job skills instead of losing them.
We are investing in new competencies in cloud technology, artificial intelligence, data analysis, as well as client transformation and consulting. Since 2024, we have been rebuilding SAP into a skill-based company. That way we actualize our skills profile to be aligned with the necessary adjustments. We have over 700 current skills, and we have a skill taxonomy that enables us to plan the necessary profiles skill-based. More than 80,000 employees have already been put together with jobs and skill profiles. That way we can show our employees perspective, and they can actively develop into new roles. We also follow an integrated approach with targeted learning options, change management and communication under the campaign Let's Work the AI.
Already 97% of the workforce have finalized a comprehensive AI training for the strategy, practical application areas, as well as the use of role relevant AI applications. We also have practical formats such as AI roadshows and code campus, as well as user applicable learnings with internal experts in the community. We can say that a large part of the new roles is filled through internal qualification. At the same time, we also need new recruits in the highly specialized AI and technology profiles. What we want to do is to continue the current transformation and to reskill our employees. You also wanted to know how it is possible to plan the Current Cloud Backlog to make sure it is translated in a sustainable growth. Yeah, it is very clear we have data centers and they will help to do so.
I will now show you how we are already helping our clients. We have clients that have reduced their work of up to 35% for the whole life cycle, from the planning, testing, and finally to the implementation. This means that we can significantly reduce projects that lasted years in the past, which is very important for our clients, we can actively support this migration to the cloud. If we look at the Current Cloud Backlog in the first quarter 2026, it grew by EUR 21.9 billion, cloud contracts will step by step be implemented and have an impact on the revenue. For 2026, we expect a cloud revenue of between EUR 36.3 billion and EUR 36.8 billion. Our Cloud Backlog still stays the best early indicator.
It also shows the on long term contracts. It is not yet 100% visible in the Current Cloud Backlog. For 2026, we expect cloud revenue of between EUR 24.8 billion and EUR 26.7 billion. Up to 2027, further acceleration. These numbers are reliable anchor points for you to see our progress. Another question from you was about the resilience of our Sovereign Cloud models. Also, in light of the trade conflicts that might become stronger or we have a limited access to markets. This is obviously a very important question for the Sovereign Cloud model, and I would now like to explain why our model has been explicitly set up for such scenarios. First of all, our architecture is made for geopolitical resilience.
The SAP Sovereign Cloud does not offer unique solution, but different models. Our clients can choose between SAP Cloud Infrastructure, our own open source technologies-based platform in our own data centers, and they are served with the SAP Sovereign Cloud on site in the client's data center, national platforms such as NS2 in the U.S., Delos Cloud in Germany or Bleu or S3NS in France. We also offer sovereign hyperscaler model, such as the European Sovereign Cloud. This diversity means that you have many options, and that is important for the decisions of our clients. If we have less access to a region or to one provider, our clients have other possibilities within our portfolio. Secondly, our local anchoring protects us from external access. For example, the Delos Cloud shows this very clear.
Delos Cloud is the only German company with its headquarters in Germany without any commercial relations to the U.S. and without any physical presence there. The legal analysis shows it very clear that American laws are only for U.S. companies. If there is no relations to the U.S., there are no problems with Delos Cloud. Microsoft does not have access to the live system, our security mechanism makes that sure as well. Third, we have strategic partnerships that strengthen our European autonomy. With Sopra Steria, Capgemini, Bleu and S3NS in France, as well as BSI in Germany, we have created a European ecosystem that works independently of out, of European that are taken outside of Europe, the German-French collaboration shows this resilience.
Fourth point, our investment basis has been planned on a long term, that way we can create long-term structures that are not endangered by short-term shocks. To sum it up, you can say that our SAP Sovereign Cloud model has not been created despite the geopolitical tensions, but just because of them, there are clients who further develop their trade relations. Vogel, you have asked how we can ensure that our clients can be supported with critical updates. All SAP products are following the ISO/IEC 27001 norm, that framework defines reliable methods and guidelines and tools to address security concerns over the whole product life cycle in architecture, design, development, up to the maintenance. SAP actualizes these secure SDLC continually to be able to answer to changes in the threat or technological developments.
This is not a continuous process of improvement. Cloud security patches are given to the clients on time and automatically, and on-premise systems allow critical security patches on mandatory security patch day. Afterwards, the client needs to put this. Yeah, thank you, Thomas. Before we answer more questions, we would like to introduce another speaker. Mr. Dufner, I hand you the floor, and I see that for now you are the last speaker. If any other speakers want to register, I ask you to do that right now. Mr. Dufner, you have the floor. Yes, thank you very much for the possibility to speak here at the AGM of SAP.
Dear members of the Supervisory Board and the calculative board, SAP SE is in the IT sector, a leader for climate protection, and until 2036, the company has given itself the goal to be climate neutral. There are, however, specific critics and challenges that we would like to address today. SAP is already quite efficient with Scope 1 and 3 in their own company, but in Scope 3, we have a problem, especially with emissions of cloud computing and in server infrastructure. Mr. Klein, please explain how SAP wants to deal with these challenges. Please also give me concrete examples. Let's now talk about the dependence on compensations. One part of the climate neutrality in SAP can be reached by buying certificates. This is less effective than the direct to directly avoid emissions.
My question is, how high was the amount in EUR that SAP paid from 2023 to 2025 that SAP bought certificates, how trustworthy are these certificates? What does SAP do to make sure the quality is high? About the SDG data quality for clients. We want to point out that the ESG information in the cloud systems of the clients are often not complete or have mistakes, which makes it difficult over the whole life cycle. Please give your point of view. Tell me about concrete measures. The energy need of cloud services. With the transformation to the cloud, there is more need for data center, which increases the need for a 100% green electricity.
Please give us your opinion on that once again, what are the measures that you are taking to control this high energy need? The climate goal 2023 to have net zero emissions in the value creation chain, that is a very ambitious goal. Can you also reach that goal for the scope 3 emissions? Investments in green IT. SAP invests strongly in the development of sustainable software. For example, the SAP Sustainability Control Tower, for not only make emissions measurable for clients. Please explain the SAP Sustainability Control Tower so that the shareholders can really understand, please also explain what are your expectations here. Another complex, SAP is intensively working with the defense sector. For 2026, the defense sector is the strongest growing part in the company.
For 2026, SAP has even opened a special defense hub in Munich. Defense companies and institutions that SAP works together with and who are using SAP software is, for example, Rheinmetall. Rheinmetall is an important client of SAP. What is the volume of the collaboration with Rheinmetall? Bundeswehr. SAP is one of the main service providers for the digitalization of the Bundeswehr logistics and the HR management. Here, please tell me how much revenue you are creating. International military. SAP delivers software for defense authorities, and SAP National Security Services plays a crucial role for the U.S. military and the security sector. The Russian defense industry, until 2021, 2022, there have been connections and collaborations with Rostec.
Something quite critical about this collaboration with the defense sector, the Bundeswehr has a lacking quality. SAP systems for the Bundeswehr have massive problems leading to a lower performance. As according to reports, this jeopardizes the work of many soldiers and it looks like it's a flop. Please give us your opinion. There has been a boom in the defense center, and SAP is profiting from the increase of expense, defense expenses. Is defense a new area for the company? Next point, critics of the export. There has been criticism that SAP software might have ended up in countries like Turkey, and this gives rise to ethical critical questions. Have there been infractions to the law? Might there be the danger that this software ends up in the hands of the wrong people?
Russia, despite the sanctions against Rostec, up to 2022, there has been support for Russian clients. Please give us your point of view. Fifth, the digital dependence. Critics say that due to the close cooperation with U.S. partners, you're losing your digital sovereignty. Please also give us your point of view on that. Thank you so much for your patience and your attention. I'm looking forward to the answers to my questions. Thank you so much, Mr. Dufner. I have received the information that Mr. Kienle has some questions, so you have the floor
Thank you so much. Mr. Asam, I would like to talk about the auditor again, then also the non-auditing services. If I understand you correctly, the majority of the salary are SOC certifications. These SOC certifications, do they have any kind of relationship with the final audit or is that something that is completely decoupled and independent of it? There are no doubts that an independent auditor costs money, and it's gonna have to cost money. If you don't want to do that, then you have to be honest enough to actually not do the independent audit and request that that's not gonna happen. There's no point to potentially pay these salaries for not auditing services and therefore make it where the service that is provided is not of good quality. If you don't want to be audited, then just don't be.
I also asked about the capital costs on a group level and also on a segment level, as well as the individual returns on a segment level. The group level, I mean, that is something that I can calculate myself. In my opinion, you have not answered that question just yet. Could you please answer this question, especially those costs on a group level and segment level? Do you have these figures or do you not have these figures available? If you do not want to mention them or cannot mention them, then I'm gonna ask you to give me the reason for that. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you so much, Mr. Kienle.
Currently, we do not have any other requests to speak, so we are therefore going to move on to our answers again, answers that are still open by you, Mr. Kienle, and then also Mr. Vogel and Ms. Friese. First of all, Christian, over to you for further answers. Thank you so much, Friederike. I'm going to answer another question by Mr. Kienle. The critical attitude of the capital market, could that be because of the communicated investments in AI are way below those of the Silicon Valley companies, and the capital market therefore has doubts when it comes to the competitiveness of SAP in the future. Well, the central worry of the market, Mr. Kienle, is not primarily the amount that we're investing, but the basic question if autonomous AI agents and classic software applications working together.
Like I said, that doesn't only hold true for us, but also for our competitors. We are investing in broad artificial intelligence and data technology, but it is not about hyperscalers and us actually competing when it comes to the highest investments in data centers or the next large language model. Instead, it is about using AI in places where it's all about precision in business processes. That is where we're investing organically in our own AI models and also by acquisitions. The recent acquisition of SmartRecruiters and also the planned acquisitions of Reltio, Prior Labs, and Dremio are great examples of that. Okay, we are going to move on to a final question. Oh, there is one more.
When it comes to the comparison of our forecast for 2025, the decline in our Net Promoter Score is something that we have to mention. It's not only your forecast of the NPS, there's a clear miss of your target, but the NPS is even way below the previous year's score. What are the main reasons for you not meeting that target when it comes to customer satisfaction? In 2025, our NPS in comparison to 2024 was lower, mainly because of lower scores of our on-premise customers. Because of the shift to the cloud, we are offering a lot of informations like all of our competitors. They're exclusively offered in the cloud, and of course, we are actively trying to make sure that our on-premise customers are also joining us in the cloud.
Thank you so much. Okay, with that, we are going to move on to Dominik.
Yeah, it's very good that we are still working on the ESG question, that we waited for it because there were some follow-up questions on that as well. It's specifically about the whole topic of net zero 2030, and also sort of looking at all scopes 1 through scopes 3 and hitting the zero target by 2030. The question in regards to how we're doing and how artificial intelligence is influencing these emissions, and also how we are going to work in our customers' ecosystems and providers' ecosystems in order to make sure that we can reach this goal. Well, we've already mentioned that today we actually have our own computing centers, and we use green energy. In that regard, we can actually decarbonize very quickly, so we're net zero in our own context. When it comes to scope 3, we have different stakeholders.
On the one hand, of course, there'll be suppliers, cloud services that we acquire, and of course, in that regard, we are negotiating with these service providers. We make every effort possible in order to ensure that it's a cloud service or the infrastructure, first and foremost, that we are acquiring is climate neutral as much as possible. Of course, not surprising that it's not become easier, especially in the U.S., where the climate targets aren't really present anymore or even denied, and that is why we have to put in a lot more effort now. Of course, there are also incentives to make sure that decarbonization on the procurement side is being met.
On the sales side, of course, when it comes to software that our customers are using, it is a lot more difficult because we cannot influence in what type of data center or what kind of infrastructure using hyperscalers our customers are using. They are leasing our software, right? The good news is that software in and of itself is a model that is going to be phased out over time, and we are gonna transfer that to our cloud business. On top of that, these emissions, in line with our standards, are being calculated in a manner that whenever we are selling software, the whole emission is being calculated throughout the life cycle in the future. That is gonna be part of the books of the future. Of course, because that by 2030, we are only gonna have very few software sales.
With that being said, of course, that is going to be a low figure. Like I said, SAP is still very much on this path, and we are putting pressure on our partners to implement that. We also have the question about our own products, and that brings me to the final portion of questions, how that is contributing to reaching these sustainability goals, and Sustainability Control Tower was mentioned. I think overall, that's a cockpit for companies, where all relevant information from the whole company is being gathered. I would also like to mention another product that we're very proud of, and that is the so-called Green Ledger.
Overall, that is a book basically to book CO2 emissions in order to actually get away from rough estimates and actually have hard facts and sort of like similar to revenue, so that way we can also create more transparency when it comes to CO2 emissions. I can tell you that SAP is not following the trends of some geographies that we see somewhere where we take it less seriously, but it's quite the contrary. We actually put in every effort possible in order to make sure that these goals are met and we can implement everything we set out to implement. Now I'm gonna have to look at Mr. Dufner's questions. The certificates, emissions. There was also an ESG detail, which was the question, if we actually work with certificates.
I have to say that in 2025 at SAP, we actually had a carbon credit portfolio, and we had about 237,000 tons CO2 reduction. Of course, that is just a small portion of emissions. Of course, trustworthiness when it comes to these certificates is very high. All the acquired certificates are 100% recognized standards, and they're certified. The Verified Carbon Standard, which is the Gold Standard when it comes to these topics, has to be mentioned. Also the vivo standard and also the more future standard. Again, the collaboration is very close, and we actually make sure that it's the right quality that we're acquiring, and we do not want to purchase any certificates that are of no value.
Of course, when it comes to our targets, 2030, we have some limitations via SBTi, so that'd be the Science Based Targets initiative for emissions, so that we cannot do more than 10% offset. That means that the comment is completely correct, that the majority of the reduction is via operative sustainable measures. Only in some threshold areas, there are some certificates that are needed and being used. Talking about the scope 3 emissions, I already reported on that. SAP offers, I already mentioned those as well. Now you had an additional ESG portion, and that was the whole topic of export control and defense industry. We do think that our defense activities are, of course, an imperative market for us, especially considering what is happening in the world and in Russia, Ukraine, et cetera.
I do think that is definitely something that is important for us. I'd also like to say very clearly that at SAP, we are convinced that export control is only something that highly qualified governmental bodies in democratic states should carry out. No citizen can claim to know better than the governmental bodies in our democratic areas to know which export has to go where. Because of that, of course, we do have a very holistic export control system, and I personally am liable if we actually were to violate any rules or regulations. With that being said, you can trust that we take it extremely seriously. You also mentioned Russia in this context, and of course, in that regard as well, we have actually fulfilled all the different guidelines to the fullest extent.
Of course, very early on, we actually left Russia step-by-step with all the different resolutions that became stricter over time. Because of that, everything that we actually can take out, we are taking out, and all the different guidelines are met. Not only German guidelines, but also American guidelines, in order to secure that the wish of the governments is being met and implemented. On top of that, the whole sovereign activities that we are driving, of course, especially when it comes to these highly sensitive topics like the defense industry, are imperative. With that being said, we also have a strategic nexus and of course, we don't wanna hide behind that. We definitely stand by that decision. I think that answers all the ESG topics on my end.
There were also some questions about Turkey and Arab countries. I think I already answered those by saying that we do actually have permits before we actually export software or also cloud services. Maybe that's the right point in time in order to talk about our own return on capital. I think, like I already said, usually we look at the whole return. Like I said, we actually have a high one-digit figure costs. Of course we can also wait for the back office to give me the specific numbers because what we do is we always have the impairment test at the end of the year. That means that if we've actually made some acquisitions, we have to double-check if the goodwill is still existent.
Of course, there is also an auditor that also looks at capital costs. I already said that we are surpassing those. Maybe in this context, there's one more thing I'd like to say about our share buyback program. Of course, that is also a way of us using our capital. I would also like to inform you about the last status quo of our share buyback program. The last program was concluded successfully with an overall volume of EUR 5 billion. That happened at the end of 2025. That's when it's concluded. In 2025, the buyback volume is already in our integrated report. It's been published in January of 2026. We published a new share buyback program with a EUR 10 million budget ending in 2027.
With this new program, we also actually bring capital back to our shareholders, also we balance out effects that are based on the share programs for our employees. The share buyback program is based on the basis of what we have agreed at the AGM in 2025. In the framework of this program, since the beginning of this year, we've had about 16.3 million of our own shares that we bought for EUR 2.6 billion overall, and that is in line with the proportion of the share capital worth 1.3% of all of that. That has actually happened for the purposes that were approved by the AGM. Further buybacks are going to follow over the course of the year, of course, we are also going to report on those on our website on a regular basis.
I think that covers all of my topics for now. All right. Thank you so much. With that, we have answered all questions by Mr. Vogel, and I'm now going to move on to the question that Ms. Friese asked. You said that the gender ratio of 30% in the supervisory board isn't met, and you asked when candidates for the supervisory board are gonna be nominated. First and foremost, I would like to tell you that all of the different elements of diversity are important to us in the supervisory board. I have to tell you that the legal gender ratio of 30% at the SAP supervisory board is met. Overall, we have five women in our 18-member supervisory board. 30% of 18 would be 5.4, so including the legal guidelines, we are mathematically using five women.
That means to fulfill the 30% ratio, we have to have at least five members of the 80 members be women. When it comes to 6 female members, the ratio would be at 33.3%, that is actually something that is outperforming the legal guidelines. Our suggestions for the supervisory board today are in line with the gender ratio and gender quota because for the two leaving members, Mr. Oswald and Mr. Wiedenfels, we also have two male new members filling in for them. That is the suggestion so far, that's why we still have the same gender distribution in the supervisory board and that is not going to be changed because of the new election. It's going to be remaining the same, we are in line with legal gender quotas.
That brings me to the questions by Mr. Dufner, and I'm going to hand over to Thomas Saueressig. Thank you so much. Mr. Dufner, you had a question in regards to the revenue volume with Rheinmetall and also the German Armed Forces, Bundeswehr. I'm gonna ask for your understanding that of course we cannot give you any specific figures for confidentiality reasons, but also without their permission it wouldn't be possible. Another question was, is the defense industry a new foundation for this company? No. For decades, we've been active when it comes to aerospace and defense, and that's a strategic industry for a long time, and we're very proud that we can support our customers, and of course, that we can also be active when it comes to our innovation and contribute to their success.
Another question that you asked was, critics are saying that the German Armed Forces are working with cloud service providers in the U.S., and therefore they're not sovereign when it comes to their cloud business. Mr. Dufner, my answer is, well, you asked about the sovereignty and the German Armed Forces as well as other NATO partners are working with SAP software. With our solutions, we are contributing to European sovereignty and safety and security. Our architecture is set up in a way that we actually have the best available technologies that are being used, and at the same time, we are fully controlling the data in Europe. Of course, that is happening in collaboration with the customers and of course, the safety and security offices.
The digital sovereignty is not going to happen by isolation, but instead by actually having the best available technologies with strong partners, bringing those to Europe, then also making them usable when it comes to full control about our own data. Like I said earlier, we are investing more than EUR 20 billion over the next few years in order to actually have these SAP Sovereign Cloud and AI solutions for our customers. That also shows our clear commitment to technological excellence and innovation, but also European sovereignty, which is closely connected to exactly that. I am now going to hand over. Thank you so much, Thomas. That brings us to Let me check what is finished, what can be answered already. Let me just ask Dominik. Over to Dominik. Well, I still owe you the specific figure.
The business report includes the respective information when it comes to capital costs for our segments and the applications technology and support and Cross Services. I found the figures. We are using, for the impairment tests, a discount rate of 11.7%, that is very much conservative, more conservative than the industry usually does, the banking sector, et cetera, for ATS and 10.2% for Cross Services. Those would be capital costs overall. Overall, we can say that we actually have a net cash position, that means that they are very close to what our capital costs that are underlying are. Of course, you can find that in the business report in the segment goodwill impairment test. Okay. Thank you very much. That brings me to answering the next question.
Mr. Dufner, you asked about the SAP Sustainability Control Tower and what we expected from it. The SAP Sustainability Control Tower is a central component of our sustainability portfolio of products. It belongs to our ERP-centric, our cloud-based, and AI-powered sustainability solutions that we offer to our customers of all sizes and across industries. The portfolio also includes products such as SAP Sustainability Footprint Management, SAP Sustainability Data Exchange, and as Dominik mentioned, SAP Green Ledger. The Sustainability Control Tower enables new impactful analytical use cases and supports decision-making. It is part of our data-driven approach, where sustainability data is provided through a unified data model and the SAP Datasphere. Our strategy pursues the goal of embedding sustainability into daily workflows for CFOs, COOs, and CIOs, and other decision-makers.
We aim to transform compliance from a burden into a competitive advantage and convert risks into resilience. We expect that customers will achieve measurable business value through the integration of applications, data, and AI, while simultaneously reaching their ESG goals. Back to you, Friederike.
Thank you so much, Muhammad. With that, let me just check our system what is still unanswered at this point. We have one more question unanswered, and I think, Thomas, I cannot see whether or not it has been answered already. Is it ready to be answered? All right. With that, we are going to take a very short break of five minutes in order to ensure that all questions have been answered. Thank you.
[Foreign Language]
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You ask whether or not that's decoupled, if it's independent. What we talked about earlier are so-called SOC certifications. Not SOC 404 that we have in our audits for SAP that are executed by U.S. rules, and with that they're part of our final audits. As I already mentioned earlier, when it comes to these so-called SOC, so SOC certifications, those are services, audit services in order to have internal controls that our customers that are doing their audits using our systems, and that provides proof basically. Since these internal control factors are internal controls that SAP is using for their own systems, and also knowing about these internal controls make it easier for the auditor to understand how we actually show these internal controls.
That is the reason why we also use BDO, that doesn't have anything to do with us actually have cross-functional auditors. It's a synergy that makes it possible for us. It's quite the contrary. It makes it possible to keep this number as low as possible, the spending as low as possible in order to also have independence. The independence of the auditor is something that we actually make sure of every single year, that's been confirmed before we actually appoint them. Yeah, Mr. Dufner, you also asked about reports for when it comes to performance problems with SAP systems for German armed forces. There's one thing that is very important. The currently used SAP systems at the German armed forces are running in a stable manner without any limitations. The operative matter was not impacted.
What you heard about in the media is a new system that is scheduled to be implemented. I'm gonna ask for your understanding that I cannot give you any more details when it comes to customer projects and operative details. The contractual connection to SAP and our customers, especially in the defense sector, are definitely confidential. What I can tell you in general about this stage is that important milestones have been met successfully, so the migration of central systems when it comes to HR has been concluded on schedule. When it comes to ongoing project phases, it's about strategic endeavors where the highest quality and security standards are the main focus. When it comes to time adaptations, they're only happening in order to meet these standards and secure them. Data security and system stability are our main priority.
SAP is working closely with our customer in order to have a secure and high performance and future-oriented solution that can be provided. Overall, SAP is a reliable partner for the public sector and also for the defense sector, and takes this responsibility very seriously. In Munich, we actually have a main focus for security and defense technology, so you also mentioned the Defense Innovation Hub. We are working with partners from the industry and governmental bodies in order to have ideal focus areas for the defense area. We have the digital infrastructure and also the defense organization when it comes to logistics, procurement, HR management, and also data analysis. The performance of an SAP system depends on many different factors. Among them, the system architecture, the implementation, and the ongoing operations. SAP stands by our customer sides and works continuously on having the ideal result.
With that, back to you, Friederike.
Thank you so much, Thomas. Ladies and gentlemen, we have now answered all the questions that were raised. Thank you very much to the Executive Board for their comprehensive answers. Above all, however, thank you to you, our shareholders, for your questions and your interest in our company. I note that there are no further requests to speak and that all questions have been answered. I hereby close the discussion on all agenda items. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now proceed to the votes on the proposed resolutions for agenda items two through nine. Regarding agenda item two, the administration-proposed resolution, adjusted to reflect the current number of shares, is up to vote, as I read it out verbatim at the beginning and as it's also published on SAP's AGM website.
For the remaining agenda items, the administration's proposed resolutions and election nominations are each put to a vote, as they were announced in the Federal Gazette on March 25, 2026, along with the notice of the meeting. Resolution on agenda items two through six and eight require a simple majority of the valid votes cast. Resolutions on agenda items seven and nine require a three-quarters majority of the valid cast vote. I would like to point out that no one may exercise their right to vote when it comes to their own discharge, neither on their own behalf nor on behalf of another, nor through another. This applies to agenda items three and four on today's agenda. It has been ensured that the members of the executive board and supervisory board concerned will abstain from voting on these matters.
Ladies and gentlemen, as explained at the outset, this is your final opportunity to cast your vote electronically via our shareholder portal or to authorized and instruct the company's proxy holders. I look at my watch now. It is now 1:37 P.M. In five minutes, so at 1:42 P.M., I will have the proxy and voting instructions functions on the shareholder portal closed. The company's proxy holders will then vote in accordance with the instructions. Subsequently, that is once voting has ended, I will also have the absentee voting functions on the shareholder portal closed. Voting takes place using the cumulative voting method. This means you must actively cast your vote by selecting either yes or no. The votes are counted electronically by our system, which counts both the yes votes and the no votes. Abstentions are not taken into account.
I will now suspend our annual general meeting briefly for approximately five minutes. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now resume our annual general meeting. I note that all shareholders and their representatives have had sufficient time to exercise their voting rights. The function on the shareholder portal for granting proxies and issuing instructions to the company's proxy holders is now closed. The absentee voting function will remain active until voting closes, which is just a few moments from now. The company's proxy holders will now cast their votes in accordance with instructions by releasing the votes in the system. I hereby close the voting and note that no further postal votes may be submitted at this time. We will now determine the voting results. The notary will oversee this process.
I will announce the attendance figures at the time of voting and the voting results as soon as they are available to me. I would also like to point out that once the voting results have been announced at the end of today's annual general meeting, I will promptly adjourn the meeting. Please keep this in mind if you wish to file an objection to a resolution passed at the annual general meeting, as this is only possible until I, as the chairperson, adjourn the meeting. We are going to take another break, probably for about 15 minutes, and then we'll be right back with the voting results. At around 2:00 P.M.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now continue our annual general meeting by announcing the attendance figures at the time of voting and the voting results. We will display all figures clearly on the screen for your viewing and provide them to the notary for the minutes. After the annual general meeting, you will also be able to find the voting re-results with all details on our AGM website. The presence changed. Of the share capital of the company in the amount of EUR 1,228,504,232, divided into the same number of no-par value shares are represented at today's annual general meeting 710,374,305 no-par value shares with the same number of votes.
This corresponds to 57.83% of the share capital. In addition, postal votes have been received for 136,624,045 no-par value shares. Thus, 946,998,315 no-par value shares are present or represented by postal votes. This corresponds to 68.95% of share capital. I note that the AGM adopted all items with majorities. Item two, resolution on the appropriation of the retained earning of fiscal year 2025, 99.91%. Item three, resolution on the formal approval of the acts of the executive board in fiscal year 2025, 99.5%.
Item 4, resolution on the formal approval of the acts of the supervisory board in FY 2025, 99.49%. Item 5.1, appointment of the auditors of the financial statements and consolidated financial statements for the FY 2026, 99.77%. Point five, appointment of the auditors of the sustainability reporting for the FY 2026, 99.78%. Item 6, resolution and approval of the compensation report for FY 2025, 90.96%.
Item seven, resolution on the cancellation of the existing authorization and the granting of a new authorization of the executive board to issue convertible and or variant linked bonds, profit sharing rights and or income bonds or combinations of these instruments mentioned before, the option to exclude shareholder subscription rights, the cancellation of contingent capital, and the creation of new contingent capital and the corresponding amendment of Article 4-7 of the articles of incorporation, 92.74%. Item 1.8, elections of the supervisory board members, Pekka Ala-Pietilä, 88.48%. Rouven Westphal, 93.49%. René Obermann, 99.04%. Mike Gregoire, 95.27%. Item nine, amendment to Article 4, paragraph 3 of the articles of incorporation to enable the issuance of electronic shares, 99.94%.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have now reached the end of our agenda. I have mentioned several times that there is an opportunity to object and that the AGM is about to be adjourned. If anyone still wishes to object to a resolution passed at this meeting, please do so immediately. I would like to thank you for your interest in our company and your company. I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to all employees who were involved in preparing and conducting today's event. I hereby adjourn our annual general meeting. I will now hand the floor once again to our Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Pekka Ala-Pietilä, for a brief closing statement.
In closing, dear Frederike, I would like to extend a sincere thank you for your professional leadership of this meeting. A heartfelt thanks also goes to you, dear shareholders, for your participation, questions, feedback, and support today. All the best, and until next year. Thank you