SAP to Pump $2 Billion Into China, Bring 2,000 New Jobs

The SAP Labs facility in Shanghai. (Image source: it168)

At an event in Beijing this afternoon, the enterprise application vendor SAP (NYSE:SAP; ETR:SAP) announced spending plans for more than US$2 billion, stretching ahead to 2015, in order to grow its business in China. The plan will nearly double the amount of its employees here.

SAP already has six offices in China, and a major R&D facility in Shanghai that employs over 400 people alone. Today the German company outlined four key areas where that extra expenditure will be used to scale its China operations:

1. More investment in its SAP Labs in China.

2. Hire approximately 2,000 more people through 2015, as a part of increasing its market presence in China, with “five to six new offices across the country” to enable all that.

3. To scale SAP support in the region.

4. By greater outreach to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in China, which the company says will benefit the entire IT ecosystem in the country.

In a press release, SAP’s president for the China region, Hera Siu, described all this as a significant, “increased level of commitment” in the country.

SAP says it has just over 1,500 enterprise-level customers in the country at present.