By Adria Calatayud


Dassault Systemes aims to double earnings excluding exceptional items by 2029, extending by a year a target it set in 2023 as the company looks to deploy its generative artificial intelligence offering.

The French software maker said Friday that its updated midterm financial ambition calls for doubling its non-IFRS diluted earnings per share by 2029. For 2024, the company's non-IFRS diluted earnings per share stood at 1.28 euros ($1.46).

The company said the updated target will allow for the adoption of 3D UNIV+RSES--an offering that embeds multiple generative AI technologies--to deliver its full potential.

In 2023, Dassault Systemes set a target to reach non-IFRS earnings per share of between 2.20 and 2.40 euros in 2028, doubling from 2022 levels. However, analysts' estimates for 2028 were significantly below that target, with a consensus provided by Visible Alpha currently projecting the metric at 1.81 euros.

The update comes after Dassault Systemes cut its annual guidance twice last year, prompted in part by some customers delaying big contracts. For 2025, it forecast stronger revenue growth and higher profitability.

The company said its new target reflects a gradual acceleration in top-line growth, the scale-up of 3D UNIV+RSES, and its capital allocation, including targeted mergers and acquisitions.

Dassault Systemes, like other European software companies, presents its figures as two sets of numbers. One set is based on the International Financial Reporting Standards--an international accounting method that seeks to provide a global reporting standard--though analysts and investors tend to follow non-IFRS numbers. Non-IFRS figures exclude share-based compensation, restructuring expenses and acquisition-related charges.

The company's extension of its 2028 goal to 2029 implies a gradual acceleration in growth and makes the targets back-end loaded, analysts at Jefferies wrote in a note to clients. This means the company will need earnings to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 15% over the 2025-2029 period, faster than the growth rate of about 9% it delivered over much of the past decade, the analysts said.

Shares in Dassault Systemes fell 1.4% in European morning trading.


Write to Adria Calatayud at adria.calatayud@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

06-06-25 0430ET