SAP's Buyback Tally Nears 9.6 Million Shares as JPMorgan Bets on AI Payoff
Published on 11/10/2026 at 15:21 | Editorial boerse-global.de
SAP's latest capital markets disclosure landed on 3 November, confirming the acquisition of 50,000 of its own shares. The purchases, executed between 26 and 30 October, carried an aggregate volume of roughly EUR 10.6 million.
The filing is the most recent instalment in a buyback programme that has been running steadily. Through the previous week, SAP had repurchased a further 465,412 shares via XETRA at a weighted average price of EUR 210.48. Cumulative purchases under the current programme now stand at 9,602,368 shares.
JPMorgan Flips to Overweight
Those mechanical purchases are only part of the story drawing investor attention. The sharper catalyst came from JPMorgan analyst Toby Ogg, who lifted his rating on the stock from "Neutral" to "Overweight" and raised his price target from EUR 175 to EUR 275. The upgrade drove the positive share price reaction yesterday, and the stock added 1.0% in pre-market trading today.
Ogg's case rests on artificial intelligence moving out of the experimentation phase. According to dpa-AFX, he pointed to enterprise AI transitioning from pilot projects into productive deployment, alongside an expected rapid payback period. Progress in SAP's own AI offering featured among his stated reasons for the more constructive view.
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The analyst also nudged up his forecasts for adjusted operating profit and adjusted earnings per share, with the revisions falling in the low-to-mid single-digit percentage range. Efficiency and margin gains from AI underpin that revision.
Cloud Backlog Provides the Hard Numbers
For all the optimism, the operational evidence sits in the cloud figures. In the third quarter of 2026, cloud revenue climbed 26% to EUR 6.67 billion, with the cloud ERP suite also posting solid growth.
The more forward-looking gauge is the Current Cloud Backlog, which rose 28% to EUR 24.1 billion. That metric gives investors a read on whether the growth momentum can be sustained — and, by extension, whether it will translate into higher revenue and earnings down the line.
Bottom-line progress was visible too. Earnings per share for the third quarter of 2026 reached EUR 1.96, up from EUR 1.72 in the same period a year earlier.
NTT Partnership and Joule Expansions
SAP has not been idle on the product front. On 28 October, the company and NTT announced plans to collaborate on SAP Sovereign Cloud and SAP Business AI. Under the proposed arrangement, SAP's sovereign cloud capabilities would be combined with infrastructure managed and operated by NTT, which would contribute infrastructure, integrated operational services and AI expertise. The announcement describes an intended partnership rather than a completed rollout.
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A day earlier, at SAP TechEd, the group unveiled AI enhancements for Joule Work, Joule Studio and the SAP Business AI Platform. These include tools for orchestrating AI agents, AI governance functions and new models for tabular data.
What to Watch
The next scheduled checkpoint is the quarterly report expected on 28 January 2027, when investors will assess whether cloud growth and earnings momentum can keep carrying the stock. Continued buybacks round out the picture — but it is operational execution that will set the bar for how much of JPMorgan's upgraded thesis holds up.
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