Germany's SAP AG, the world's biggest maker of business software, said on July 26, its Asia Pacific software sales could outperform the global average growth goal of 10-12 percent in 2005, thanks to a robust order pipeline.
"We're sticking with the global guidance of 10-12 percent, but Asia Pacific has been growing at a much faster rate than the global average," SAP Asia Pacific Chief Executive Hans-Peter Klaey told Reuters in an interview.
"We have proven that in the past, and we have the pipeline to show for that as well, that we can grow 1.5 to 2 times faster than the overall market."
Asia contributes about 15 percent of global software sales for SAP, which competes with second-ranked Oracle Corp, the business software segment of Microsoft Corp and Siebel Systems Inc.
Klaey said software revenues in China, India, Australia and South Korea had seen double-digit percentage growth, with the latter two markets reporting expansion rates of over 20 percent.
SAP is at a crucial stage in its long-running rivalry with US database software specialist Oracle, which has embarked on a recent spate of acquisitions as it steps up efforts to claw back share of the business software market from its larger rival.
Last week, SAP beat analysts' forecasts for the second straight quarter when it posted a 16 percent rise in global licence sales, which bring in future services and maintenance revenues, to 576 million euros ($693.2 million) for the June quarter.
In Asia Pacific, SAP's software revenues grew 20 percent to 85 million euros ($102.3 million) for the June quarter, after stripping out the effect of currency exchange rates.
Klaey also said SAP had hired over 1,000 new staff in Asia over the last 12 months, bringing its total regional headcount to over 5,500. Worldwide, SAP employs 34,100 staff.
He also confirmed that by year-end, SAP plans to take on an additional 1,350 people in India, its biggest development centre outside Germany. It currently employs 2,300 people in India.
Measured against Oracle, Microsoft and Siebel, SAP's market share for software licence sales in Asia Pacific rose to 72 percent in the second quarter, up from 63 percent in the year-earlier period, Klaey said.
He added SAP was seeing demand from small- to medium-sized businesses, particularly in China and India.
Oracle said on Tuesday its Asia Pacific business applications software sales grew 80 percent to US $45 million in the quarter to May, thanks to demand from governments, universities and banks.
"Customer response to Oracle across Asia has been overwhelming," Oracle Asia Pacific's senior vice president for applications business, Mark Gibbs, told Reuters.
The May quarter's result includes full contribution from PeopleSoft Inc's operations in Asia, after Oracle completed its long-drawn-out $11.1 billion purchase of the rival in January.
Oracle announced earlier this month its purchase of private retail software maker ProfitLogic for undisclosed terms. This follows four other take-overs, including another two privately held software makers and retail software firm Retek Inc.
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