By Sarah Sloat and Christopher Alessi

FRANKFURT--Business software provider SAP SE (SAP) on Tuesday said its net profit for the fourth quarter rose strongly and raised its guidance for 2017 and 2020, driven by expansion in the cloud and by customers adopting the latest generation of its business software.

Net profit for the three months ended Dec. 31 was 1.51 billion euros ($1.62 billion), up 18% from EUR1.28 billion in the same period a year earlier. Total revenue rose 6% to EUR6.72 billion from EUR6.34 billion.

SAP also provided a fourth-quarter net profit figure of EUR1.82 billion, which isn't recognized under international financial reporting standards, beating analysts' forecasts. Analysts had predicted a non-IFRS net profit of EUR1.67 billion, according to a poll conducted by The Wall Street Journal.

The software company raised its revenue and operating profit guidance for 2017 and 2020. SAP now expects non-IFRS operating profit to be in a range of EUR6.8 billion to EUR7 billion in 2017, raising the lower end of its previous estimate of EUR6.7 billion to EUR7 billion. For 2020, that figure should reach between EUR8.5 billion to EUR9 billion, up from the EUR8 billion to EUR9 billion previously predicted.

-Write to Sarah Sloat at sarah.sloat@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 24, 2017 01:39 ET (06:39 GMT)