Germany's SAP , the world's biggest maker of business software, reported a jump in its third quarter sales and profits, sending its shares 2 percent higher.

"SAP's pipeline remains very strong and companies continue to invest in IT," SAP said in a statement, alleviating some of the fears of a slowdown in technology spending.

In the third quarter SAP said sales at its key software and software-related services business rose 16 percent from a year ago to 2.69 billion euros, with group sales of 3.41 billion beating a 3.32 billion consensus from Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Underlying operating profit for the group jumped 23 percent from a year ago to 1.13 billion euros ($1.5 billion), beating analysts' average forecast of 1 billion.