SAP says strong demand defies talks of crisis: report

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Germany's SAP <SAPG.DE>, the world's biggest maker of business software, said confidence among its clients in no way reflected reported fears of a looming economic downturn.

"Things are still looking good with our customers out there. There is a lot of momentum at the companies," Co-Chief Executive Jim Hagemann Snabe told Sunday paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

"What I hear on the Radio doesn't correspond at all with what we are experiencing in real life," he said in an interview that was in parts made available to the media on Saturday.

He also confirmed that SAP expects to reach the upper end of its target range of 10-14 percent growth for software and related services in 2011.

SAP said last month it expects to reach the high end of its previous 2011 forecast range after a strong second quarter, confounding fears of a slowdown in economically fragile Europe and lifting its shares.

(Reporting by Ludwig Burger; editing by James Jukwey)