German software giant SAP announced Monday its third-quarter revenue rose by 5 percent in currency-adjusted terms year-on-year, thus beating analysts' expectations.

Revenue was primarily boosted by the company's cloud operations, with turnover in the segment surging by a staggering 41 percent to 278 million euros ($355 million) from July to September.

"SAP again delivered strong growth in the cloud and a solid overall revenue performance," the Walldorf-based company commented in its Q3 report. "SAP is the fastest-growing enterprise cloud company at scale."

Going from strength to strength

The software firm added its currency-adjusted operating profit in the third quarter amounted to 1.36 billion euros, marking a 3-percent jump year-on-year.

For the whole of the current fiscal year, SAP penciled in operating earnings between 5.6 billion and 5.8 billion euros, revised downward from 5.8 billion to 6.0 billion euros.

CEO Bill McDermott the company currently had over 44 million cloud users and the world's largest business network. "We are raising the cloud outlook again while adjusting the operating income to reflect less upfront and more ratable revenue," he said in a statement.

hg/uhe (Reuters, dpa, SAP)