German software equities advanced on Thursday, tracking gains in U.S. peers after Salesforce and CrowdStrike reported better-than-expected earnings and raised forecasts.
SAP, the largest German software company by market value, rose 1.4% in Frankfurt trading. Nemetschek gained 3.5%, TeamViewer added 3%, IONOS climbed 3% and ATOSS Software advanced 2.3%. The gains followed a surge in U.S. software stocks, where Salesforce jumped 11.4% in premarket trading and CrowdStrike gained more than 9%.
Salesforce reported quarterly profit of $3.53 billion, or $4.29 per share, up from $1.89 billion, or $1.96 per share, a year earlier. Adjusted earnings per share reached $5.90, exceeding analyst expectations of $3.27. Revenue rose 11% to $11.35 billion, slightly above the $11.33 billion estimate, including $456 million from the acquisition of Informatica last November.
The company lifted its full-year revenue guidance to a range of $46.1 billion to $46.4 billion, from the prior $45.9 billion to $46.2 billion. Adjusted EPS guidance was raised to $16.67–$16.71 from $14.06–$14.12.
Salesforce also announced a partnership with AI startup Anthropic to integrate its Claude models into its platform. The collaboration, branded Claudeforce, bundles more than three dozen prebuilt sales tools for meeting preparation, deal-health review and pipeline analysis. The tools are available immediately to select pilot customers, with an open beta planned for next month. Further integrations across Claude, Salesforce’s core platform and Slack are expected.
CrowdStrike reported second-quarter revenue of $1.47 billion, ahead of the $1.44 billion forecast, while adjusted profit reached 31 cents per share, topping estimates of 29 cents. Annual recurring revenue grew 25% year-over-year to $5.84 billion. The company raised its full-year revenue forecast to $5.991 billion–$6.01 billion, up from the prior $5.91 billion–$5.96 billion range.
Analysts said the strong results from Salesforce and CrowdStrike eased concerns that artificial intelligence adoption could disrupt traditional enterprise software demand models.
