SAP's Buyback Total Nears 8.9 Million Shares Ahead of October Print

SAP has repurchased 8,895,886 own shares under its current buyback; its U.S. unit won a $903 million Defense Logistics Agency cloud contract.

SAP has now repurchased 8,895,886 of its own shares under its current buyback program, the Walldorf software group disclosed in its ninth interim report on the capital measure. The latest tranche covers the period from September 21 through September 25, 2026, during which the company acquired 590,000 shares on the Xetra electronic trading system. The heaviest activity came on September 24 alone, when 550,000 shares changed hands as part of the program.

The purchases carried a total transaction value of EUR 108,368,601.00. By shrinking the number of shares in free float, the program aims to return surplus liquidity to shareholders and lift earnings per share — a lever management continues to pull even as it funnels investment into new technology.

A $903 Million Cloud Mandate

Fresh business momentum arrived roughly a week ago, when SAP National Security Services secured a major contract from the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency. The IDIQ cloud-services agreement runs for a potential seven years and carries a total value of USD 903 million, with a guaranteed minimum of USD 100,000.

Chief executive Christian Klein, meanwhile, is pressing ahead with the company's technological repositioning. Speaking to dpa, he described artificial intelligence products as a historic growth opportunity for the group, with the goal of embedding so-called AI agents deep into customers' core business processes, data structures and operational management. SAP has already backed that strategy with product moves: at its own Transformation Excellence Summit it unveiled functional extensions for SAP Signavio, SAP LeanIX, WalkMe and SAP Cloud ALM, and added the TabPFN-3.5 Plus model to its SAP AI Core platform to give business customers broader analytics capabilities directly inside their operational systems. Demand for such transformation work is visible on the ground as well — transit operator BERNMOBIL is modernizing its process landscape with cloud solutions and an architecture built for future AI applications.

Split Verdicts on the Street

Analyst opinion remains divided. Jefferies raised its price target for SAP from EUR 210 to EUR 220 and reaffirmed its buy rating, while Citi also lifted its target and reiterated a buy recommendation — calls that helped lift the shares at the time. JPMorgan struck a more cautious tone, keeping its rating at "Neutral" with a target of EUR 175.

The stock closed Friday at EUR 184.70, down 1.4 percent on the day, and remains above its 200-day moving average of EUR 166.31. Since the start of the year, the shares are down 12 percent.

Investors will get a clearer read on late-summer business momentum on October 21, 2026, when SAP publishes its third-quarter results. The report is scheduled for 22:05, followed by a conference call for analysts and investors at 23:00. Only then will it become clear how strongly the new software offerings and cloud demand are already flowing through to revenue and operating profit.