SAP to Spend US$2 Billion in China

BEIJING, Nov. 15, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced multi-year spending plans of more than US$2 billion through 2015 to grow its business in China. The company intends to deepen its investment in this key global market in order to further underscore its long-term strategic commitment to the world's second-largest economy. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE® NOW + SAP® TechEd, being held as a co-located event in Beijing from November 15-17.

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"We have successfully grown our business in China over the past 20 years and now want to scale our operations to fully meet the needs of both enterprises and our ecosystem," said Bill McDermott, co-CEO, SAP AG. "Our SAP Labs and SAP Research facilities there will continue to drive innovation for our Chinese customer base. We will also create more research and development facilities, hire thousands of people, train more experts and consultants and bring our world-class benchmarking methodology to China — all aimed at helping drive sustainable growth through informatization."

To position its business for continued growth in China, SAP expects its spending and investment to occur in the following key dimensions:

• Creating Solutions: Innovating for the benefit of customers will further drive alignment between SAP and Sybase in China. SAP Labs in China will be the primary innovation center for the development of new solutions tailored to meet country requirements.
• Delivering Solutions: Growing the business in China will require a significant increase in market presence. To bring services and support closer to its customers, SAP aims to hire approximately 2,000 people through 2015, open five to six new offices across the country and scale all support functions appropriately.
• Supporting Solutions: Investing in the services and support functions that deliver value and drive co-innovation are critical to meeting growth objectives. The SAP® Active Global Support (SAP AGS) organization has already taken steps to specifically address the needs of companies operating in the Chinese market (see "China Draws Maximum Attention as Support Stronghold, Innovation Springboard for SAP"). SAP will scale SAP AGS and the SAP Services organization to support growth.
• Growing the IT Ecosystem: SAP's success stems from the ability to nurture, educate and grow an ecosystem to meet customer needs, particularly in the small and midsize (SME) market. Building mutually beneficial relationships with both traditional and non-traditional partners — from systems integrators to banks and telecommunications companies — will support SAP in exponentially expanding its reach. SAP's experience in China shows that when the company invests, its local and global partners also invest. In this way, SAP's investments create a significant multiplier effect across the entire Chinese IT ecosystem.

"This is an exciting time for SAP China as we embark upon this significant plan," said Hera Siu, president, SAP China. "With this increased level of commitment, we are better positioned to help China enterprises run better, thereby contributing to China's transition to a knowledge-based economy, a key component of China's 12th five-year plan. It will also spur broader innovation across the IT industry here for customers and partners throughout the ecosystem."

SAPPHIRE® NOW + SAP® TechEd Beijing

In 2011, SAP brings together its largest ecosystem education event series with its premier customer conference for a co-located event being held in Beijing, China, from November 15-17. With SAPPHIRE® NOW, SAP offers its customers, partners and prospects even more opportunities to engage in dialogue with peers, participants and thought leaders around the globe, and can gain insight as to how SAP is delivering on its product strategy and helping organizations around the world to run better. SAP® TechEd brings IT managers, software developers, administrators, and business process experts together for a look under the hood of today's business motors: the latest advances in in-memory and mobile technologies, and in on-premise, on-demand, and on-device applications from SAP and more. Follow on Twitter at @SAPTechEd and @SAPPHIRENOW, and join the conversation at #SAPTechEd and #SAPPHIRENOW.

About SAP

As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (NYSE: SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device – SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable more than 176,000 customers (includes customers from the acquisition of Sybase) to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

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.

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SOURCE SAP AG