Allot Ltd (ALLT) 2021 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Allot's Fourth Quarter 2021 Results Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. You should have all received by now the company's press release. If you have not received it, please contact Allot's Investor Relations team at GK Investor & Public Relations at 1 (212) 378-8040 or view it in the News section of our website, www.allot.com.

I would now like to hand over the call to Mr. Kenny Green of GK Investor Relations. Mr. Green, would you like to begin, please?

Thank you, operator. Welcome to Allot's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2021 Conference Call. I would like to welcome all of you to the conference call, and I'd like to thank Allot's management for hosting this call. With us on the line today are Mr. Erez Antebi, President and CEO; and Mr. Ziv Leitman, CFO.

Erez will provide an opening statements and summarize the key highlights of the quarter. We will then open the call for a question-and-answer session, where both Erez and Ziv will be available to answer investor questions. You can all find the financial highlights and metrics, including those we typically discuss on the conference call in today's earnings press release.

Before we start, I'd like to point out the safe harbor statement. This conference call contains projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future performance of the company. These statements are only predictions, and Allot cannot guarantee that they will, in fact occur. Allot does not assume any obligation to update that information. Actual events or results may differ materially from those projected, including as a result of the impact due to the COVID-19 pandemic, changing market trends, delays in the launch of services by Allot customers, reduced demand and the competitive nature of the security systems industry as well as other risks identified in the documents filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

And with that, I would now like to hand the call over to Erez. Erez, please go ahead.

Thank you, Kenny. I'd like to welcome all of you to our conference call, and thank you for joining us today.

Our fourth quarter was another quarter of solid growth. Revenues grew 5% year-over-year for the fourth quarter and reached $41 million. Our full year 2021 revenues grew 7% year-over-year, reaching $145.6 million. This is our 16th straight quarter of revenue growth year-over-year, and I'm very pleased with the results we achieved during the fourth quarter.

Also, during the fourth quarter, we succeeded in signing several recurring security revenue deals for several of our Allot Secure product lines, including a deal with a significant mobile CSP in North America and the Tier 1 operator in Southeast Asia.

In December 2021, our SECaaS ARR was $5.2 million. And our total ARR, inclusive of maintenance and support, was $47.2 million, up 39% from December 2020. I am very pleased with these results, and I believe it shows we are successfully executing on our plan. Our business is expanding across all product lines and markets, and we are increasing our market share, especially in the cybersecurity business, as I will describe in more detail. As we see our opportunities grow, we continue to invest to capitalize on a significant number of opportunities that we are identifying.

We announced earlier today that we raised $40 million in a convertible loan from our long-term shareholder, Lynrock Lake. The additional cash will enable additional flexibility in executing our SECaaS strategy and enable us to support the growth while maintaining a strong balance sheet. I will further discuss the loan and its terms later.

I would like to start by discussing our traffic management and analytics business addressed by our Allot Smart product line. Our Allot Smart business went well in 2021. The main use cases we see today in CSPs are continuing to be in traffic management, congestion management, quality of user experience, especially for video, policy and charging control and digital enforcement.

During the fourth quarter and throughout 2021, we won several deals where we will be replacing a direct competitor's product that is installed. We are discussing multiple other opportunities with other CSPs currently using our competitors' product and are working on expanding such deals that we won before. We are continuously increasing the number of CSPs that we work with either by replacing competition in DPI or by our security offerings. This growth in our CSP customer base creates new opportunities for both Allot Secure and a Allot Smart product lines.

As governments look to fight crime and terrorism, we see a growing interest globally to be able to block illegal activities such as drug trafficking, child phonography or terrorism. We are seeing growing interest in our products in this area as well.

Our enterprise business is continuing to grow, reaching revenue of $28.7 million in 2021 compared to $21.1 million in 2020. It is worth noting that we are seeing much of the growth coming from North America and APAC, regions that contributed less to enterprise sales a few years ago. The deal we signed in the beginning of 2020 was Broadcom, to position Allot as the replacement for their Packeteer product, which is at end of life, is contributing a significant portion of this growth. To summarize, I believe the demand for the Allot Smart product line, including congestion management, traffic management, analytics, digital enforcement and enterprise use cases will remain healthy.

I want to say a few words on the 5G market and what we believe it holds in store for Allot Smart and our 5G NetProtect product lines. Many operators worldwide are deploying 5G networks, most of these are using 5G frequencies and radios but continuing to use a 4G core. However, a growing number of operators are now making concrete plans to deploy a 5G core. We believe the 5G market is a significant long-term growth opportunity for Allot, and we continue to invest heavily in it.

I would like to expand on 2 aspects of the 5G opportunity. During 2021, we successfully deployed 5G NetProtect in a couple of operators. As more operators solidify their plans to roll out a 5G core, we expect our pipeline for 5G NetProtect deals to grow out in 2022 in advance of revenue growth in further years. Another aspect is 5G on the cloud. Many CSPs plan to deploy their future core in a cloud environment, for example, DISH and Rakuten. We believe the growth in traffic volumes that is expected in 5G networks, together with the need for high-quality control of the traffic, creates an opportunity for Allot Smart and our 5G NetProtect in this growing market segment. Not all clouds are the same, some work with AWS, some with Azure and some like Rakuten use their own version.

We are deploying our products in networks we contracted with, such as DISH and Rakuten. In addition, we are investing to adapt our products to the various containerized native cloud environments to take advantage of this growing market opportunity. Last week, we announced our partnership with AWS. We are working with AWS as an AWS Independent Software Vendor, building certified applications on the AWS cloud. This enables CSPs that choose to deploy their core functions on the AWS cloud to deploy a full suite of Allot cloud-native applications already pre-integrated and tested. We have already deployed such a solution on the AWS cloud in North America. I believe our partnership with AWS will enable us to grow further in the 5G market as it is being revolutionized by cloud-native technologies. In addition, I will note that we are working with other cloud technology providers to reach similar agreements to further expand our opportunities.

I want to turn our attention now to what we see in our cybersecurity business and how the market is continuing to change favorably. As I have said in previous calls, Allot is transforming into a cybersecurity company, and this is where we see most of our future growth coming from. There is a revolution happening in the consumer cybersecurity market. Responsibility on securing the consumer, family, small business lies today with the individual. Each person is responsible to protect himself or herself and their families and small businesses. To do this, they have to find a security app, buy it, download it and install it on every one of their devices. The problem is that regardless how good or bad the security app is, more than 90% of consumers do not do what I just described and are left unprotected. This means that the current solution with endpoint security apps is not accessible enough to most people.

End users, consumers and SMBs are looking for a simple "zero-touch" cybersecurity service. They prefer a simple security service and not have to do anything technical, like downloading an app to each device and configuring it. Network-based security is the solution that makes this possible.

We are engaged worldwide with CSPs that are looking to provide their customers with such network-based SECaaS security. As we look at the market, we clearly see that the direction and momentum are very positive. We see that the number of engagements, the level of engagements, the total addressable market size of our pipeline, Allot win rate, the acceptance and scope of service by consumers in SMB are all improving and getting stronger. We see evidence of all these in the rate and size of deals we signed and in the networks that have commercially launched.

As of December 31, we signed a total of 22 deals with CSPs to launch SECaaS to their customers. Of these 22 customers, 12 were signed in 2021. This is more than what we signed in 2019 and 2020 combined, which was 10 deals. Furthermore, by our count, Allot won most of the deals that were closed in 2021 by CSPs worldwide to launch network-based security services to consumers. I believe this shows 2 very important points: one, network-based security services by CSPs to consumers is an expanding market as more CSPs understand they need to launch such services; and two, Allot achieved a prime leadership role as a technology company, enabling the SECaaS CSP services.

Last week, we announced 2 very interesting deals that were recently signed towards the end of 2021. One is with a significant North American CSP with millions of mobile customers. This CSP plans to offer the service based on Allot NetworkSecure to both 4G and 5G customers. It is important to note that this is our third deal to deploy security services to consumers in the North American market. Previously this year, we announced such an agreement with DISH. We also signed and announced a deal with a European-headquartered group that also has operations in North America to deploy our HomeSecure solution.

As I discussed in previous calls, we are seeing interest in providing network-based cybersecurity to consumers with several North American CSPs. In addition to those that signed with us, we are in discussions with other North American operators as well. It is worth noting that none of the North American CSPs we signed were commercially launched yet. While we expect significant SECaaS revenues from North America in the years to come, based on the expected launch time and initial customers targeted, I do not expect significant SECaaS revenues from North America in 2022. The other deal we recently announced is with a Tier 1 operator in Southeast Asia, where the operator will deploy Allot NetworkSecure to protect its SMB customers. I will note that in this case, we are replacing an existing service based on a competitor's product that, according to our customer, could not scale well enough to support their future growth.

We are continuing to see growing interest from CSPs worldwide in launching security service to consumers and SMBs. Our pipeline is continuing to grow as we continue to sign additional deals with CSPs. In addition to the deals we signed, we have already been awarded by several other CSPs in Europe, in North America and in South America, and we are working to sign contracts with them. If all goes well, these contracts should be signed in the coming months.

As I indicated in our previous call, there is still a lot to be done to turn signed contracts into short-term revenues. I think that during last year, we learned a lot more how to overcome obstacles and how to help the operators become more effective in marketing the services to their customers. To that end, we have implemented internal changes in Allot in both the technical and marketing teams. Every CSP that we contracted with to launch security services is assigned an accounting consisting of a sales person, a customer value manager for marketing and a program manager. Each such team, which may have multiple accounts, has a SECaaS revenue target, a target launch date and later tasked with improving bugs. While this structure does require some more people, it brings a strong combination of expertise in what is needed to launch quickly, what is needed to achieve high adoption rates and how to get the CSP to accept and implement the required actions.

From what we see in the last few months since we implemented this change, we are seeing more ideas on how to improve and more effective interaction with the CSP. This is true at both at the working level and the executive level and in the -- in both the network teams and the business teams. While I expect we will see more effective launches in 2022, still most of the revenues will come in the years ahead.

In 2021, we signed deals worth a combined total MAR of $193 million, which, of course, is in addition to the MAR signed in previous years. As we learn more about the SECaaS market dynamics and we get more involved in the detailed launch planning before we sign the deals, we also learned to better calculate the MAR. We now have a better understanding in many cases of which segment of the market the CSP will initially target in their marketing. And sometimes, we know the extent to which their marketing will be "serious" about it. We also learned how to influence things in early days to yield faster and better results.

The MAR, as we learned to calculate it better, considers the relevant subscriber base that is expected to be targeted as of launch in a "serious" manner. I will remind us that the MAR is calculated based on the number of relevant subscribers the CSP has when we sign the deal. For example, we signed a deal with DISH this year. While DISH has today millions of customers on a 4G network, this deal is focusing on customers that will be under a 5G network which is not yet commercially launched. Therefore, while we believe the revenue opportunity for Allot with DISH is large, the MAR was calculated as 0.

As I discussed in the previous calls, the MAR indicator, which we have put forward as an indication for future revenues, is not good enough to forecast revenues in the short term. It does not take into account the high variance on launch timing and marketing strategies, especially over a small base of launched operators. There are many variances, some of which we were aware of, like the difference between prepaid and postpaid customers, and some we learned to appreciate more recently. Therefore, while we will continue to provide information on MAR, we will also continue to track the number of signed deals, the number of launched services, the SECaaS revenues and the SECaaS annual recurring revenue rate, or ARR.

We define the ARR as the monthly recurring security revenues we achieved during the last month of the quarter, multiplied by 12. During 2021, the ARR for SECaaS revenues grew from $2.7 million in December 2020 to $5.2 million in December 2021. As of December 31, 2021, of the 22 signed deals, only 8 launched commercially, some of them only to a portion of their subscriber base. As I said in the previous call, I expect we will launch an additional 12 to 18 SECaaS customers during 2021 -- excuse me, during 2022. This is a significant operational challenge. We have planned and made organizational changes to prepare for it, and I am confident in our ability to deliver on time.

On the Allot Secure product side, we also have challenges. While NetworkSecure was launched in multiple networks, HomeSecure launched operationally only recently. As products get launched and are deployed more widely, it takes efforts to mature and support them. We have expanded and aligned the organization in anticipation of the launches, and we are confident that we are well prepared.

Our team is working closely with the customers, and we see there is a strong appetite by the CSPs to launch. But as I mentioned in previous calls, there are also challenges and delays. Even once the network is commercially launched, it may still take time for it to generate revenues as CSP's offer security services with free service periods of up to 3 months. As we prepared and aligned the company to launch their networks and worked with the CSP to drive revenues, caution and patience are still required.

As we look at the SECaaS potential globally, I am very encouraged with our prospects for several reasons. One, our pipeline is bigger than ever. A growing number of CSPs understand they need to launch security services to their customers, and as a result, we see continued growth in number of RFPs, a number of operators who we are in direct engagement with.

Two, adoption rates of consumers and SMBs. When the service is launched with good go-to-market approach, adoption rates are high, as we discussed in previous calls. Not only is the adoption rate high, but customers stay with the service even when they can opt out. In most cases, the lifetime operators calculate for a consumer is around 3 years.

Three, a growing number of CSP chief marketing officers, understand that security needs to be part of the brand promise and are building it into their core offering. Some CSPs still look at security services as a VAS, or a value-added service, but a growing number view it as a core service. Viewing security as a core service rather than a VAS leads to more aggressive go-to-market and higher penetration rates.

Four, the North American market is very interested now in network-based security services. As I mentioned earlier, several North American operators, in addition to the 3 we already signed, are actively looking to launch such a service, although it may be for a subset of their customer base.

Five, we have a high win ratio. During the past year, by our count, we won most of the deals that were awarded for CSP network-based security to consumers. We are winning due to our unique combination of several elements: a, a comprehensive 360-degree product offering that enables unified security across mobile and fixed access, across all devices and against many threats; b, our commercial partnership model where we share the risk and reward with the operators; c, our value-added sharing best marketing and sales practices, helping them position and launch the service; and d, our track record that can be shared proving that when launched correctly, adoption rates and revenues are high.

Looking ahead, I want to summarize our expectation for 2022. We expect our SECaaS revenues in 2022 to be between $10 million to $15 million, 1-5 million. Most of these revenues are expected to come in the second half of the year as additional customers launch and as existing customers grow. We expect the SECaaS ARR for December 2022 to be between $20 million to $30 million. In addition, we expect to sign during 2022 additional SECaaS deals with an aggregate MAR of more than $118 million. We also expect to commercially launch between 12 to 18 new SECaaS customers through 2022.

I would now like to say a few words on our expectation for the overall company performance in 2022. Overall, we expect our 2022 revenues, including CapEx and recurring revenues, to be between $147 million to $153 million. The revenues in the first quarters of the year are expected to be roughly in the same level as in 2021. And towards the end of the year, we expect to see growth. We expect our total ARR in December 2022 to be between $61 million to $73 million, comprising of $20 million to $30 million of SECaaS ARR and $41 million to $43 million of support and maintenance ARR. We expect gross margins to be around 70% in 2022.

As we continue to invest to deliver on our SECaaS strategy, we expect our OpEx in 2022 to grow. We expect some increase in head count, mostly in R&D and sales. As you know, the global market for high-tech talent, including in Israel, has become very challenging and the shekel exchange rate also has an impact. Allot is committed to get the best talent and invest in people as we think this is required to succeed and deliver on the opportunities we have. Altogether, we expect 2022 OpEx to be between $127 million to $130 million. As a result, we expect an operating loss between $23 million to $24 million.

I believe 2022 will be a very significant year for Allot. Significant number of new SECaaS networks will be launched. SECaaS revenues and year-end ARR will become substantial for the first time. As I stated earlier, this year also comes with operational challenge to launch many new SECaaS customers and several new products. The right thing for us to do is to invest what we should to succeed in the goals we set for ourselves, and that, I outlined to you today. This results in an expected increase of our operating loss and cash burn in 2022.

We do not manage our business with a separate P&L for SECaaS and CapEx deal. And therefore, we do not report it this way. However, to give some color on this, we made a synthetic analysis of our 2022 expected business on a fully loaded basis. Our analysis shows that our key CapEx business, which is estimated to have around $135 million to $140 million revenues in 2022, should have an operating profit of 10% to 15%. On the other hand, our SECaaS business on the same synthetic fully loaded basis is expected to lose tens of millions of dollars. This analysis shows that the investments we are making in 2022 are going towards growing our SECaaS business.

Our expected negative cash flow in 2022 is expected to be $35 million to $38 million. The main reasons for the negative cash flow are the operating loss, expected reduction in deferred revenues and other working capital elements and CapEx investments required for the SECaaS deals. As SECaaS revenues grow, we expect that our loss and cash burn in 2023 will be significantly less than in 2022. We further expect that as the SECaaS revenues continue to grow, we should become profitable and generating cash in 2024.

Earlier today, we announced we reached agreement with Lynrock Lake, our largest shareholder, to provide us financing of $40 million in the form of a convertible loan. The loan will mature in 3 years with an option to extend the maturity up to 5 years by additional 2 1-year extensions at Allot's sole discretion. The note will not bear interest and will not accrete. The conversion price was agreed at $10.30. There will be downward adjustments in the conversion price if the maturity is extended beyond the 3 years. We believe this is an excellent deal for Allot as it allows us additional flexibility in executing our SECaaS strategy. It further enables us to pursue growth while maintaining a strong balance sheet, which is desirable for our potential CSP customers. I think this deal is a testament to the trust Lynrock Lake has in our company and our strategy, and I wish to thank them for this vote of confidence.

I would now like to summarize the overall picture and the key messages. In the Allot Smart product line, we see a strong pipeline, multiple use cases such as congestion management, digital enforcement, enterprise business are growing. We are successful in winning deals away from our competitor, and I'm seeing them in several CSPs where they are the incumbent. Overall, we see a solid demand for a Allot Smart.

The security area is where we see our long-term growth. We are very encouraged by the pipeline growth we see and by the consumer and SMB take-up rates as they sign up for the service. I believe the network-based cybersecurity market is emerging as a high-growth market. We are winning most deals, and I am confident of our future success and the direction we are pursuing. We are working better with CSPs to achieve high penetration rates, and I am very optimistic on our recurring revenue outlook.

And now I would like to open the call for questions and answers. And Ziv and myself will be available to take your questions. Operator?

(Operator Instructions) The first question is from Alex Henderson of Needham & Company.

Great. So very nice description of the current situation the company is in and a lot of detail. Thanks for that. And congratulations to Cynthia Paul and Lynrock on their investment. It looks like a brilliant move on their part.

I was hoping you could talk a little bit about the change in the MAR calculation. It sounds like you're tightening it somewhat. Has that changed any of the MAR assumptions. In previous periods, you talked about in the '18, '19, vicinity of $85 million and then '20 at $192 million, and now given your '21. But has any of the historicals changed as a result of tightening the definition and better understanding?

Hi, Alex. As we disclosed previously, we calculate the MAR on the date that we signed the contract, it's after that date, let's assume the number of subscribers will increase or decrease. We don't adjust the MAR. So what was the calculated in previous year, the number [as is] and we don't change them.

I see. Yes. If you were to tighten the definition relative to what you thought in the past, it sounds like those might be a little bit smaller than you had initially calculated. Is that fair? Or is there some that are larger and some that are smaller?

No. This is a fair assumption, that it will be lower.

I see. Okay. And then going back to the marketing side of these programs. It does sound like you've changed your marketing stature. And that is -- the go-to-market improvement there is resulting in increased confidence in the timing of getting programs out. Have you improved the time line from closure to launch based on the way you're structuring your support teams?

I can say that we have already improved it, yes. I think that it's still going to take probably a year from when we sign until they actually launched. But I think that when we launched, we will be -- both us and the CSP working together, I think we will do a better job of it in terms of having a more aggressive go-to-market, addressing a larger portion of the customer base from day 1 and things like that. That will help improve the penetration after the launch. But I don't think that the time to launch has changed.

Right. Going back to the traditional business. Could you give us your sense of what you think the growth rate in the traditional business will be for the full year? I think you've managed to sign some deals that will continue to allow it to grow in that 0% to 5% range as opposed to decline. Is that an accurate read?

As we said in the past, this market is single-digit -- low single-digit growth rate on a multiyear basis, which means it's -- one year, it will grow more, and the other it can go less or it can be flat. And the guidance of the revenue for next year -- taking the assumption that it will be, roughly speaking, it will be flat.

So when you say next year, you mean '22? I assume that you're saying next year is roughly flat.

Yes. We're still mentally with 2021.

I understand. And going back to the OpEx side of it, have you increased your assumptions for T&E associated with increased traveling and the like in that calculation of OpEx? Or are you still assuming fairly tight travel conditions?

We increased the travel expense, even though it's not in the same level as it was in 2019 or before pre-COVID. But to some extent...

So we should assume further loosening of the travel expense or increase in the travel expense, loosening of travel restrictions as we go into '23 as well then?

Not necessarily, because now Allot and all the other businesses around the world, we found out that many things can be done remotely and you don't need to send 5 people to each meeting, part of it can be remotely via Zoom.

The next question is from Eric Martinuzzi of Lake Street.

I just had a question on the debt arrangement. I wanted to make sure I understand that. So this dollar amount, this $40 million, as you were sizing up the debt arrangement, is this roughly equivalent to what you expect your cash burn to be over the next 2 to 3 years?

As we said before, we are expecting a negative cash flow in 2022 for between $35 million to $38 million, and the BLA is for $40 million. And as we said, in 2023, probably we will be cash flow negative, but the number will be significantly lower than the 2022. And in 2024, we expect to be profitable and cash flow positive.

Okay. And that's the assumption behind the 3-year, and if things are changed a little bit, you've got the flexibility for the extensions?

Yes.

Okay. I do have a -- go ahead.

As what was stated before by Erez, the other amortization that we have for raising this BLA is to keep our own balance sheet. It's very important when we compete against others, it's very important that we can present the -- we can show that we have a very strong balance sheet. So when we can...

Yes, that's exactly where I would add next. Basically, you -- kind of the cash that we have is the -- responding to the RFP cash, that the idea is to not touch the balance sheet as of the end of December and then this is sized for the continued investment, and the SECaaS, the debt arrangement is to go after the SECaaS. I get it.

Okay. The backlog at the end of 2021 were $89 million. That was down versus $110 million a year prior. So the expectation for 2022, I have a question. Do you expect that to be down versus 2021? And if you don't, why not?

We don't. Usually, there are timing differences between one year to another. Sometimes the backlog is going up, sometimes it's going down. It depends on orders that were -- that are expected to be received, let's say, at the end of the year, sometimes there is a slippage to the next year. So -- but we don't expect a reduction in the backlog at the end of ['22].

As I was asking it from a supply chain -- disruptive supply chain perspective, are you impacted at all by -- is the backlog impacted at all by supply chain issues?

Not -- it was not in 2021. We'll see what happens in 2022. Right now, we are not suffering at this point. We're not seeing problems in our supply chain that are limiting our ability to deliver. And we signed -- we bought more equipment to hold in inventory in anticipation of all the supply chain issues. We're doing other arrangements to make sure that we can deliver what we need to on time. And so far, that has been successful. Now we do see that the supply chain issues are continuing, and there are some specific servers or switches that are harder to get. And we have to do some juggling to get them. But right now, I think we're in okay shape. I hope that, that will not change during 2022.

Okay. And then last question for me. I appreciate the detail on the percentage of top 10 end customers of the total revenue for the year, I saw that declined from 2020 to 2021. What's your expectation for the coming year based on the pipeline you have? Does that roughly half the revenue from the top 10 customers continue to play out?

Yes. This is a fair assumption, it's about 50% of the revenues will come. 50% of the revenue will come from the top 10 customers. It's a fair assumption.

The next question is from Nehal Chokshi of Northland Capital Markets.

And good to see, I think [there is a] calendar '22 guidance and the in-line December quarter results, I will just drill down on some of these things. First of all, did you give actually the December quarter SECaaS ARR?

Yes, we gave it, $5.2 million.

5.2 million. Okay. Great.

In the end, you can see there is a table in the -- the last table of the PR. It's always there. There are 2 pages.

Okay. Great. And what about March quarter? What are your thoughts on overall as well as SECaaS ARR exiting March quarter?

We expect it to be higher, but not by much because things will accelerate towards the end of the year as more and more launches happen and revenues start coming in from them.

Got it. Okay. So you expect incremental SECaaS the ARR cadence as we go through calendar '22 to build each quarter basically? Like maybe 1, 2, 3, that sort of cadence?

Yes. But we expect a real hockey stick in 2022 towards the end of the year.

I'm sorry. Could you say that one more time?

We are expecting the hockey stick phenomenon in 2022, which means most of the increase will come in the second half of the year.

Yes. Yes. Understood. Okay. And on the 3Q '21 earnings call, when you introduced your SECaaS ARR guidance and the reduction of SECaaS revenue guidance, that implied a pushout in incremental SECaaS ARR from calendar '21 to calendar '22. And I believe that the rationale there was extended launch time -- no extended launch time, extended promotional periods of 3 to 6 months. And so I guess I would think that, that would result in that push out hitting your incremental SECaaS ARR in the first half rather than the second half. Can you explain to me where that logic might be wrong?

First of all, I don't recall that we said that it will increase from 3 to 6 months. We said, according to our assumption -- initial assumption, we didn't think the CSP should give any free period. And now they are -- they are insisting of having or most of them providing 3 months offer free periods. But there were other reasons as well. So this is why we said that -- and it was like 3 months ago, we said we see postponement in the time favor of about 6 months.

Okay. Okay. And what were the other reasons for the postponement of about 6 months?

Some of it has to do with delays in the launch dates themselves. Some of it had to do with the fact that when the operators are launching, then they're launching not to the entire customer base but to only a portion of the customer base. Some of it had to do with how effective the go-to-market techniques were, was that when they launched, how aggressive are they actually going after whatever portion of the launch of the base that they're going after. We talked about issues of there's a number of routers. We do HomeSecure number of routers that we have to integrate, which was a larger number. So it was a range of things that when we put them together, they led to what was then a 6-month postponement of our forecasts.

Okay. All right. You guys also mentioned that none of the North American CSP signed have been commercially launched yet. That's not surprising. An initial launch time will not produce SECaaS revenues in calendar '22, but what about contributing to SECaaS ARR within calendar '22? So they could launch at the, say, in the fourth quarter of calendar '22 and you could get some initial penetration within calendar '22 to produce some nominal SECaaS revenue, but much more material ARR. Is that what is embedded in that back-half loaded incremental ARR here?

Not really. I think we're looking more at non-North American operators for the revenues and ARR for this year. And even if someone does launch in November or December, they only -- they will only have a small number of customers. So the monthly revenue will be very small. So -- also the ARR won't be material.

The next question is from Marc Silk of Silk Investment Advisers.

So about a year ago, when you started getting into the 5G, I kind of asked you a question. And I thought it was just only onetime revenue, but that announcement last week shows that actually 5G is going to also be recurring revenue for you guys?

Look, 5G is the -- it's a mobile technology. So as we're providing -- as the operators providing SECaaS services, most of their customers today are on 4G worldwide because that's the networks. And in the future, many customers are going to be on 5G networks. So I would expect that when they launch SECaaS over their -- to their 5G customers, then we have SECaaS recurring revenue on 5G. But I'm not sure if I fully understood your question.

No, that was it. I just, I know you signed a deal like a year ago, and I thought it was a one-off. So that's actually good news.

Last question is you started to deal with Amazon Web Services, which is -- it shouldn't be overshadowed considering it's one of the biggest companies in the world and little Allot signed a deal with them. So kind of what are they interested in? What overwhelmed them? How many competitors were you going against? And if you could comment more on that because I would think that this is something also that you can leverage with other customers, the fact that Amazon picked you guys. And I would assume that, that probably opens a lot of doors for you guys.

Yes. I think it's a very important deal. And it's -- the reason they are working with us is because we have a good and solid technology. And what Amazon wants to be able to do is come -- as they provide the cloud environment and they offer their cloud environment to operators who wish to deploy their core services, not on their own premises but on the cloud environment that Amazon will provide, they want to be able to offer these operators as many capabilities that are pre-integrated and work together and are tested and so on and work in their environment quickly and efficiently as possible. So when we do this deal with Amazon, it enables them to expand their offering or the value of their offering as they go to other CSPs. And what it does for us? Of course, it allows us to have a better position. When an operator decides to deploy on AWS, it allows us to have a much, much better position to convince them to use our technology and not someone else's. So I think it's a very important deal, and I think it's a good deal for both sides.

How many people were competing for this deal?

It's not exactly an closed RFP with -- where there are x numbers submitting bids and so on. It's a process of discussions. We know each other. We talk to each other. Each side sees the value. And then we reach the deal. And I'm sure that they're talking to others as well.

And do you see this deal being able -- your sales team being able to leverage this? Because I would think that, that's probably one of your more impressive customers?

Yes, I would. I would definitely see it. We definitely look to leverage it.

The next question is from Alexander Henderson.

Great. I wanted to go back to the question of adoption rates and mindset of the service providers. It seems pretty clear at this point that you're getting a very significant response from a pretty broad range of service providers in North America. If I were to guess, you're talking about all of the majors at this point. And to that extent, I'm wondering if there's a growing realization among those service providers that there is going to be a competitive dynamic in the marketplace where this is a functionality that obviously has value to consumers that they want to get out in front of as opposed to being at all behind the curve on, i.e., is there a change in the landscape where the competitive dynamics between service providers to be seen as ahead of the curve and more value-added and the like, where Security-as-a-Service for them becomes a strategically important element where the competition, therefore, accelerates the adoption rates?

I think there's definitely a change in the perception and understanding within North American CSPs on the necessity to launch network-based security services. I think, I talked about it, 2 years ago, they basically were uninterested, the vast majority of them. Today, that dynamic has changed. The understanding that this is something that consumers are looking for, that it's something that the operators should provide, that the operators should be viewed as providing secure access is growing. And we are seeing cases where one operator is seeing that another one is or hears that another one is going to launch such a service and that does accelerate their own process in doing this. Now when I say accelerate, it was operators especially in North America that doesn't mean it becomes very fast, but still takes time, but it's faster.

Right. Exactly. It sounds like the North American market's gotten towards that critical characteristic of competitors in the category meeting it. Can you characterize Europe in a similar way? Is it -- have the EMEA service providers starting to look at this as a critical element? Or is the overlap in EMEA somewhat less, and therefore, less of a factor of competing between the service providers?

EMEA is not a homogeneous market like the U.S., right? Each country has different sets of operators that work there. And there are some operators like Vodafone, for example, that work in multiple countries. And it's -- so the market situation is a bit more complex. But if we look at specific markets, then yes, in EMEA, we definitely see it, that when one operator launches a security service, then other operators competing in that market start to look at launching security services more seriously and start to engage with us more seriously at that point. It's definitely...

One last question. The U.S. and EMEA tend to be the leaders in terms of thought process for service providers on a global basis. While there may not be the same level of competition in LATAM or APAC, tending to be fewer service providers and less overlap, hence, not going to have that competitive dynamic we talked about. Do they see the increased competition in the U.S., in EMEA and the adoption rates in those countries as indications that this is more of an accepted technology. Are we crossing the rubicon of where this is something that's optional, i.e., a VAS to something that's core in more of those less competitive markets where there's maybe 1 or 2 service providers as opposed to as many as there are in the U.S. and Europe?

I think as a general note, I think that APAC and Latin America are behind on providing security services to their customers, much like in other areas. And you're right, EMEA, Europe basically and North America are much more thought leaders in this process. So I think the APAC and Latin America are behind Europe, and North America from what I see, but I think we've won deals both in APAC, we won deals in Latin America. And I think that it's going to start catching up, but it's lagging behind.

Yes. So the question was, as the U.S. and EMEA accelerate adoption, does that change the attitude in EMEA -- I mean, Latin America and APAC?

I can't say that I've seen that yet. I would expect that it would happen in the future, but that's an expectation. I can't say that I've seen that happen right now.

The next question is from Shawn Boyd of Next Mark Capital.

Can you hear me, okay?

Yes.

Great. First thing on the convert, just quickly. Just a cursory look at your ownership list, it looked like Lynrock is already at 20%. There are 2 maximums mentioned in that press release, 20%, and then also up to 25% if they give you 60 days notice. Is it correct to assume if the stock price were such above this current exercise, where they would want to convert, they can really only convert up to half of that $40 million right now?

First of all, they can transfer the note to someone else. This is a -- they can sell part of their current holding, so they will be able to convert the entire amount.

Got it. Okay. The other question is on just COVID impact in general. Previous calls, we've talked about the issue with flying and seeing customers and working on deployments, et cetera. We didn't really speak to that too much. You guys have been great on giving us some fairly granular guidance now kind of quarter-by-quarter and talking about ARR. We have had just a heck of a wave, though, in Q4 and Q1. Is that slightly impacting sort of your -- where your SECaaS revenues came in the December quarter, and then possibly also that ARR as we now start into 2022?

It's -- it did have some impact towards the end of the year. Israel, at least had in December, a very severe travel restriction. So we couldn't basically go anywhere and it was right till the end of the year, which made a lot of things difficult, including launches and some other deals and so on.

Right now, if I look at sort of the world map, we can -- we see that we're able to travel and interact throughout Europe and North America. APAC is still really shut down in terms of travel. It's very, very hard to travel there, and it's been going on now for almost 2 years. It's a very long time, where we do not see customers face-to-face. And Latin America is also not very -- they don't accept too many people in a face-to-face meeting. So that's also a harder environment right now. We hope all get better.

Yes. I think we all do, and I think it is going that way, just taking some time. Last question from me regarding market share. I think you've mentioned a couple of quarters ago, you feel that a lot has -- the majority of the market in network-based security, you've now signed, if I'm hearing this all correctly, you signed 22 deals to date worth of combined MAR of nearly $500 million. How does that compare to your competitors? I'm trying to understand this edge that you're getting in selling the next new customer with -- partly based on track record and you being able to point to that. So -- what does that look like versus the competitors?

Well, I can -- I'll -- in last year in 2021, by our count, based on all the deals that we are aware of that were closed for network-based security, we won most of them. So we signed 12 deals last year, our competitors in network-based security combined signed less than that. It's hard for me to calculate the MAR, but -- of their deals because I definitely don't know the exact terms and so on, that -- it's not that they signed large deals, they only won small ones or anything like that. So I think that they signed less. I would expect that they have signed less MAR in total, if we use that metric, than we did for a total for all our competitors in this space.

Now is it -- and you ask if it is helpful in the next deals, yes, absolutely, it's helpful. Because we get references, customers -- any customer likes to buy from people, from companies and partners that are working well with others in their respective field. So yes, it's definitely helpful in getting the next deal.

All right. Okay. Good luck, gentlemen, and thank you for the additional disclosure on some of these KPIs. I think they'll help potentially attract new business.

Thank you.

There are no further questions at this time. Mr. Antebi, would you like to make your concluding statement?

Yes. Thank you. Well, I want to thank everybody for joining the call today, and thank you for your support of our company. And I look forward to definitely to talking to you on the next conference call. And hopefully, as travel starts, to meet some of you in person during the next few months. Thank you very much.

Thank you. This concludes the Allot Fourth Quarter 2021 Results Conference Call. Thank you for your participation. You may go ahead and disconnect.