SAP shares ended Friday with a rare burst of energy, climbing 3.92 percent to €136.16. The advance snapped a relentless slide that has wiped nearly a third of the company’s market value since the start of the year. Two separate catalysts — one from Brussels, the other from Silicon Valley — converged to produce the rally.
The European Commission has been investigating SAP since September 2025 on suspicion of abusing its market power. Regulators allege the software giant makes it deliberately difficult for customers to switch to competitors, a classic lock‑in strategy tied to maintenance and support contracts. To head off a potential fine of up to ten percent of annual sales, SAP has now offered concessions. The company proposed broader interoperability between its systems and rival platforms, along with greater transparency on fees — in particular, re‑entry charges for lapsed support contracts. The Commission has opened a feedback round on the proposal, and if it is accepted, the probe could end without any financial penalty. SAP itself has said it does not expect the matter to have a material impact on its results.
On the same day, a different cloud lifted. The New York Times reported that OpenAI is delaying its planned initial public offering until 2027, citing ongoing financial strains. The news undercut the narrative that generative AI would rapidly displace legacy enterprise software such as SAP’s. “The stocks that were most vulnerable to the AI‑disruption thesis rallied the hardest,” said Adam Tindle of Raymond James. Oracle, which is tied to OpenAI through a massive cloud‑infrastructure contract, lost about three percent on the day. RBC’s Rishi Jaluria cautioned against reading too much into the bounce: “Companies are not going to replace their software with AI overnight.” Still, the sector may have seen the worst of the selling pressure for now, analysts say.
Behind the headline gain, the stock remains deeply wounded. At €136.16, the price sits just a few euros above its 52‑week low of €130.80. The year‑to‑date loss stands at almost 33 percent.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SAP?
SAP’s share‑repurchase programme is providing a floor. The current tranche authorises buybacks of up to €2.6 billion through July 2026, part of a broader €10 billion plan that runs until the end of 2027. In the first tranche, SAP repurchased roughly 16.3 million shares at an average cost of €161.16 apiece — well above today’s level.
The cloud business, meanwhile, continues to perform. In the first quarter, cloud revenue rose 27 percent on a currency‑adjusted basis, and the order backlog expanded solidly. Those numbers stand in stark contrast to the share price.
Analysts remain broadly bullish. The average price target from 33 estimates sits at €221.85, implying potential upside of about 64 percent from current levels. Berenberg, for instance, rates SAP a buy with a target of €215. The next hard catalyst arrives on July 23, 2026, when the company reports second‑quarter earnings. Investors will be watching the cloud backlog and gross margin as key tests of whether SAP’s artificial‑intelligence strategy is translating into real commercial traction.
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