After a strong start to the year, growth in SAP's cloud division has slowed somewhat again. Revenue in this key business segment rose 24 percent in the second quarter to €6.28bn, the Walldorf-based software group said on Thursday. That was in line with expectations. In the first three months of the year, the increase had been 27 percent. By contrast, growth in cloud order intake accelerated slightly in the reporting period to 26 percent, reaching €22.9bn.

Overall, SAP posted, as expected, an 11 percent rise in revenue to €9.88bn. Operating profit, however, at €2.74bn, fell short of analysts' forecasts. This was due in part to investments in artificial intelligence (AI) and the group's restructuring, SAP Chief Financial Officer Dominik Asam explained in a conference call.

(Reporting by Hakan Ersen, edited by Scot W. Stevenson. For questions, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)