WALLDORF — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced its intent to take Qualtrics public through an initial public offering (IPO) in the United States.
Qualtrics is the market leader and creator of the Experience Management (XM) category, a large, fast-growing and rapidly evolving market. SAP intends to remain the majority owner of Qualtrics. SAP’s primary objective for the IPO is to fortify Qualtrics’ ability to capture its full market potential within Experience Management. This will help to increase Qualtrics’ autonomy and enable it to expand its footprint both within SAP’s customer base and beyond.
“SAP’s acquisition of Qualtrics has been a great success and has outperformed our expectations with 2019 cloud growth in excess of 40 percent, demonstrating very strong performance in the current setup,” SAP CEO Christian Klein said. “As Ryan Smith, Zig Serafin and I worked together, we decided that an IPO would provide the greatest opportunity for Qualtrics to grow the Experience Management category, serve its customers, explore its own acquisition strategy and continue building the best talent. SAP will remain Qualtrics’ largest and most important go-to-market and research and development (R&D) partner while giving Qualtrics greater independence to broaden its base by partnering and building out the entire experience management ecosystem.”
Qualtrics, which is part of SAP’s cloud portfolio, has operated with greater autonomy than other companies SAP had previously acquired. The founder and current management team of Qualtrics will continue to operate the company.
“When we launched the Experience Management category, our goal was always to help as many organizations as possible leverage the XM Platform as a system of action,” Qualtrics Founder Ryan Smith said. “SAP is an incredible partner with unprecedented global reach, and we couldn’t be more excited about continuing the partnership. This will allow us to continue building out the XM ecosystem across a broad array of partners.”
SAP agreed to acquire Qualtrics just four days before Qualtrics was to go public in 2018, recognizing the potential of bringing together experience and operational data (X+O) to help organizations take action. SAP currently owns 100 percent of Qualtrics shares. SAP will retain majority ownership of Qualtrics and has no intention of spinning off or otherwise divesting its majority ownership interest. Ryan Smith intends to be Qualtrics’ largest individual shareholder.
SAP is fully committed to Experience Management and the Qualtrics XM Platform as a key element of its intelligent enterprise strategy. SAP will remain Qualtrics’ closest and most important co-innovation and go-to-market partner.
A final decision on the IPO and its conditions and timing is pending and subject to market conditions.
Since SAP, as majority shareholder, will continue to fully consolidate Qualtrics, the transaction is not expected to have an impact on SAP’s 2020 or longer-term financial targets.
Visit the SAP News Center. Follow SAP on Twitter at @SAPNews.
About SAP
As the Experience Company powered by the Intelligent Enterprise, SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software, helping companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: 77% of the world’s transaction revenue touches an SAP system. Our machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers’ businesses into intelligent enterprises. SAP helps give people and organizations deep business insight and fosters collaboration that helps them stay ahead of their competition. We simplify technology for companies so they can consume our software the way they want – without disruption. Our end-to-end suite of applications and services enables more than 440,000 business and public customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference. With a global network of customers, partners, employees, and thought leaders, SAP helps the world run better and improve people’s lives. For more information, visit www.sap.com.
Note to editors:
To preview and download broadcast-standard stock footage and press photos digitally, please visit www.sap.com/photos. On this platform, you can find high resolution material for your media channels. To view video stories on diverse topics, visit www.sap-tv.com. From this site, you can embed videos into your own Web pages, share video via email links, and subscribe to RSS feeds from SAP TV.
For customers interested in learning more about SAP products:
Global Customer Center: +49 180 534-34-24
United States Only: 1 (800) 872-1SAP (1-800-872-1727)
For more information, press only:
Susan Miller, SAP, +1 (610) 661-9225, susan.miller@sap.com, ET
Marcus Winkler, SAP, +49 6227 7-67497, marcus.winkler@sap.com, CET
SAP Press Room; press@sap.com
Jessica Jones, Qualtrics, +1 (510) 396-6120, jjones@qualtrics.com, MT
For more information, financial community only:
Stefan Gruber, +49 6227 7-44872, investor@sap.com, CET
Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP’s future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including SAP’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.
© 2020 SAP SE. All rights reserved.
SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. Please see https://www.sap.com/copyright for additional trademark information and notices.
Please consider our privacy policy. If you received this press release in your e-mail and you wish to unsubscribe to our mailing list please contact press@sap.com and write Unsubscribe in the subject line.