Brazil remained weak because of political turmoil and "North America had a slower than anticipated start to the year," said CEO Bill McDermott during this week's earnings webcast. CFO Luca Mucic said that there had been a delay in several sales. "We did sign many of the deals we were supposed to sign in the last week in March already," he said. However, the cloud business continued to boom, rising 35 percent to $761.7 million for the first quarter, 31 percent in constant currencies. S/4 Hana was once again the driving force, bringing in 500 new customers in the quarter, nearly a third of them new to SAP. McDermott said this shows the software company's ability to upgrade its installed base and take customers from competitors.