SAP today announced preliminary results for its most recent financial quarter, revealing a 140% increase in operating profit to €1.8 billion.

The company grew revenues by 15% to €3.4 billion during the three months ending 31 September. License sales rose 28% to €841 million, while the "software and software-related services" segment, which includes maintenance fees, grew 16% to €2.7 billion.     

By comparison, SAP’s arch rival Oracle grew its application revenues by 17% to $1.7 billion (€1.2 billion). Oracle’s applications business, in other words, is growing slightly faster than SAP’s but is still around half the size.

SAP’s net income, which it will officially report later, will be much lower than the operating profit, due to various acquisition-related charges and write downs. Nevertheless, today’s figures reveal that SAP is making a lot of money, which customers will hope to see invested in innovation.