Confluent Inc (CFLT) 2023 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Confluent Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call. I'm Shane Xie from Investor Relations, and I'm joined by Jay Kreps, Co-Founder and CEO; and Steffan Tomlinson, CFO.

大家好。歡迎參加 Confluent 2023 年第一季度收益電話會議。我是投資者關係部的 Shane Xie，聯合創始人兼首席執行官 Jay Kreps 也加入了我的行列；和首席財務官 Steffan Tomlinson。

During today's call, management will make forward-looking statements regarding our business, operations, financial performance and future prospects, including statements regarding our financial guidance for the fiscal second quarter of 2023 and fiscal year 2023. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated by these statements.

在今天的電話會議上，管理層將就我們的業務、運營、財務業績和未來前景做出前瞻性陳述，包括關於我們 2023 財年第二季度和 2023 財年財務指導的陳述。這些前瞻性陳述存在風險和不確定性，這可能導致實際結果與這些聲明預期的結果大不相同。

Further information on risk factors that could cause actual results to differ is included in our most recent Form 10-K filed with the SEC. We assume no obligation to update these statements after today's call, except as required by law.

有關可能導致實際結果不同的風險因素的更多信息包含在我們最近向美國證券交易委員會提交的 10-K 表格中。除非法律要求，否則我們沒有義務在今天的電話會議後更新這些聲明。

Unless stated otherwise, certain financial measures used on today's call are expressed on a non-GAAP basis, and all comparisons are made on a year-over-year basis. We use these non-GAAP financial measures internally to facility analysis of our financial and business trends and for internal planning and forecasting purposes. These non-GAAP financial measures have limitations and should not be considered in isolation from or as a substitute for financial information prepared in accordance with GAAP.

除非另有說明，否則今天電話會議中使用的某些財務指標是在非 GAAP 基礎上表示的，並且所有比較都是在同比基礎上進行的。我們在內部使用這些非 GAAP 財務措施來促進對我們的財務和業務趨勢的分析，並用於內部規劃和預測目的。這些非 GAAP 財務措施有局限性，不應孤立於或替代根據 GAAP 編制的財務信息。

A reconciliation between these GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures is included in our earnings press release and supplemental financials, which can be found on our Investor Relations website at investors.confluent.io.

這些 GAAP 和非 GAAP 財務措施之間的對賬包含在我們的收益新聞稿和補充財務中，可以在我們的投資者關係網站 investors.confluent.io 上找到。

Please also note that we will host Investor Day 2023 in New York City on Tuesday, June 13. To join in person, please contact IR for the registration information. The program will also be webcast live on our IR website, beginning at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

另請注意，我們將於 6 月 13 日星期二在紐約市舉辦 2023 年投資者日。要親自參加，請聯繫 IR 獲取註冊信息。該計劃也將從下午 1:00 開始在我們的 IR 網站上進行網絡直播。東部時間。

With that, I'll hand the call over to Jay.

有了這個，我會把電話交給傑伊。

Thanks, Shane. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to our first quarter earnings call. I'm pleased to report a strong first quarter, with results once again exceeding all of our guided metrics.

謝謝，謝恩。大家下午好。歡迎來到我們的第一季度財報電話會議。我很高興地報告第一季度表現強勁，結果再次超過了我們所有的指導指標。

Total revenue grew 38% to $174 million. Confluent Cloud revenue grew 89% to $74 million, and non-GAAP operating margin improved 18 percentage points. These results are a testament to the mission-critical nature of our platform, our strong TCO value proposition and the solid execution of our team despite a volatile macroeconomic environment.

總收入增長 38% 至 1.74 億美元。 Confluent Cloud 收入增長 89% 至 7400 萬美元，非 GAAP 營業利潤率提高 18 個百分點。這些結果證明了我們平台的關鍵任務性質、我們強大的 TCO 價值主張以及我們團隊在動蕩的宏觀經濟環境下的穩健執行力。

Over the last year, Confluent has continued to show very strong gross retention, even through a substantial change in the economic environment, including abrupt changes in interest rates, an economic slowdown, a significant drop in funding for private tech companies and the recent challenges in banking. Environments like these show which products have true durability and which are simply fabs or nice to have. I wanted to take the opportunity to explore what drives this durability for Confluent.

在過去的一年裡，Confluent 繼續表現出非常強勁的總保留率，即使經濟環境發生了重大變化，包括利率突然變化、經濟放緩、私營科技公司的資金大幅下降以及最近的挑戰。銀行業。像這樣的環境表明哪些產品具有真正的耐用性，哪些產品非常棒或值得擁有。我想藉此機會探索是什麼推動了 Confluent 的持久性。

The first factor is that Confluent serves mission-critical custom software applications. These are high-value projects that customers invest their expensive software engineering resources in. Because of these high investments, the applications tend to target the most valuable use cases that last a long time. We often hear from customers about applications lasting not just years but decades. Naturally, the underlying data platforms used by these applications tend to persist along with them.

第一個因素是 Confluent 服務於任務關鍵型定制軟件應用程序。這些是客戶將昂貴的軟件工程資源投入其中的高價值項目。由於這些高投資，應用程序往往以持續很長時間的最有價值的用例為目標。我們經常從客戶那裡聽到有關應用不僅持續數年而且持續數十年的信息。自然地，這些應用程序使用的底層數據平台往往會與它們一起持續存在。

The second factor is that unlike a database, Confluent isn't just a platform for 1 app, but access an interchange between multiple teams and applications. This is inherent in the core use case of the technology, publishing streams of data, so multiple other applications and teams can consume those streams. This kind of multi-team, multi-application platform gets more and more sticky as it gets more heavily used and displays very different dynamics to the platform that each application can choose or abandon independently.

第二個因素是，與數據庫不同，Confluent 不僅僅是一個應用程序的平台，而是訪問多個團隊和應用程序之間的交換。這是該技術的核心用例所固有的，發布數據流，因此多個其他應用程序和團隊可以使用這些流。這種多團隊、多應用程序的平台隨著使用量的增加而變得越來越有粘性，並向每個應用程序可以獨立選擇或放棄的平台顯示出截然不同的動態。

The reason for this is very obvious. The migration to another platform would require a coordinated effort across many teams all at once, which becomes harder and harder to imagine as there are more and more producers and consumers building against the streams of data in the platform.

原因很明顯。遷移到另一個平台需要同時協調多個團隊的工作，隨著越來越多的生產者和消費者針對平台中的數據流進行構建，這變得越來越難以想像。

By analogy, think of the cost of switching to a new incompatible telephone system. The challenge isn't buying a new phone, it's getting all your friends to do the same thing at the same time so you can still call them. This pattern of cross-team interaction and cross-application interaction is a unique and positive characteristic of data streaming and isn't shared by most other data systems.

以此類推，想一想切換到新的不兼容電話系統的成本。挑戰不在於購買新手機，而在於讓您所有的朋友同時做同樣的事情，這樣您仍然可以打電話給他們。這種跨團隊交互和跨應用程序交互的模式是數據流的獨特而積極的特徵，大多數其他數據系統並不共享。

The third factor of our durability comes from the inherent TCO advantage of our cloud offering. I'm going to dive into this factor at length, as it's critical to understanding the deep technical note that Confluent has built.

我們耐用性的第三個因素來自我們雲產品的固有 TCO 優勢。我將深入探討這個因素，因為它對於理解 Confluent 構建的深度技術說明至關重要。

Initially, it might seem that a customer, when faced with budgetary pressure, would want to migrate off the cloud data service back to open source. Open source after all is free. Why isn't this happening?

最初，客戶似乎在面臨預算壓力時希望將雲數據服務遷移回開源。畢竟開源是免費的。為什麼這沒有發生？

It is no doubt, in part, due to the comprehensive features and functionality our platform offers. We've talked about this at length in prior earnings calls. But you would imagine that customers might choose to forego better functionality when faced with severe budget pressure. Why isn't this happening?

毫無疑問，部分原因在於我們平台提供的全面特性和功能。我們在之前的財報電話會議上詳細討論過這個問題。但是您可以想像，當面臨嚴峻的預算壓力時，客戶可能會選擇放棄更好的功能。為什麼這沒有發生？

The answer to this may be somewhat counterintuitive. The cloud data service has the opportunity to not just be better than an open source offering, but also be meaningfully cheaper. To understand this, it's important to understand what drives the cost structure of self-managed data systems. This is an analysis we do frequently since we offer both a self-managed software offering and a cloud service. We've worked with thousands of customers with on-premise and in the cloud to analyze and compare the cost structure of open source, self-managed software in a fully managed cloud service. I'll walk through this analysis and show where our substantial TCO advantage comes from.

這個問題的答案可能有點違反直覺。雲數據服務有機會不僅比開源產品更好，而且更便宜。要理解這一點，重要的是要了解是什麼驅動了自我管理數據系統的成本結構。這是我們經常進行的分析，因為我們同時提供自我管理的軟件產品和雲服務。我們已經與數以千計的本地和雲端客戶合作，分析和比較完全託管的雲服務中開源、自我管理軟件的成本結構。我將詳細介紹此分析並展示我們巨大的 TCO 優勢從何而來。

There are 2 easily quantifiable areas of spend around a self-managed software system. The first is the cloud infrastructure for running Kafka. This spans compute, storage, networking and any additional tooling needed to keep Kafka up and running smoothly. These costs tend to increase rapidly, eventually representing the largest portion of cost when usage is at scale.

圍繞自我管理的軟件系統，有 2 個易於量化的支出領域。首先是運行 Kafka 的雲基礎設施。這涵蓋計算、存儲、網絡和保持 Kafka 平穩運行所需的任何其他工具。這些成本往往會迅速增加，最終在大規模使用時佔成本的最大部分。

The second is the software engineers and operations people responsible for configuring, deploying and managing Kafka. Like any data system, and particularly like any large-scale distributed data system, Kafka requires full-time staff to manage it. And the cost of these individuals is significant, particularly for people managing Kafka.

第二個是負責配置、部署和管理 Kafka 的軟件工程師和運維人員。與任何數據系統一樣，特別是與任何大型分佈式數據系統一樣，Kafka 需要專職人員來管理它。這些人的成本是巨大的，特別是對於管理 Kafka 的人來說。

A 2022 study from Dice.com listed Kafka as the fifth highest paying technical skill. That's great for engineers doing Kafka DevOps, but not so great for companies hiring teams with the experience to operate Kafka as a production data system. These costs will scale up with the usage of the system. The larger tech companies that have built significant streaming platforms around open source Kafka have teams of 20 or more engineers attending to their data streaming platform.

Dice.com 2022 年的一項研究將 Kafka 列為第五高薪技術技能。這對於從事 Kafka DevOps 的工程師來說非常好，但對於招聘具有將 Kafka 作為生產數據系統的經驗的團隊的公司來說就不是那麼好了。這些成本將隨著系統的使用而增加。圍繞開源 Kafka 構建重要流媒體平台的大型科技公司有 20 名或更多工程師組成的團隊負責他們的數據流媒體平台。

It's not inevitable that a cloud service will improve on these costs. After all, if we were running the same open source software and operating in the same way, our costs would be no different from theirs. However, Confluent has rethought the problem from the ground up and has built a deeply differentiated stack that's able to drive compelling savings in both of these areas.

雲服務將改善這些成本並非不可避免。畢竟，如果我們運行相同的開源軟件並以相同的方式操作，我們的成本將與他們的沒有什麼不同。然而，Confluent 已經從頭開始重新考慮這個問題，並構建了一個高度差異化的堆棧，能夠在這兩個領域推動令人信服的節省。

I'll start with infrastructure savings. Confluent Cloud has rethought and reimplemented the core protocols for data streaming in a way that is built natively for the cloud to drive significant savings. I'll enumerate a few of these.

我將從基礎設施節省開始。 Confluent Cloud 重新考慮並重新實施了數據流的核心協議，以一種為雲原生構建的方式來推動顯著節省。我將列舉其中的一些。

First, multi-tenancy. Multi-tenancy is the key to SaaS margins, but many investors don't realize that the majority of data systems in the cloud, especially services offered by the cloud providers around open source, aren't actually capable of multi-tenant operations. Our offering runs multi-tenant for the vast majority of customers. This is a very significant re-architecture, touching virtually every tier of the stack, allowing us to pool our thousands of customers on shared infrastructure to drive higher utilization in a serverless experience.

第一，多租戶。多租戶是 SaaS 利潤的關鍵，但許多投資者沒有意識到雲中的大多數數據系統，尤其是雲提供商圍繞開源提供的服務，實際上並不具備多租戶操作的能力。我們的產品為絕大多數客戶運行多租戶。這是一個非常重要的重新架構，幾乎觸及堆棧的每一層，使我們能夠將我們成千上萬的客戶集中在共享基礎設施上，以提高無服務器體驗的利用率。

Next is the elasticity. Our intelligent tiering of data between memory, local storage and object storage helps manage the cost of store data and allows instant scalability, enabling higher utilization of compute resources.

接下來是彈性。我們在內存、本地存儲和對象存儲之間的智能數據分層有助於管理存儲數據的成本並允許即時可擴展性，從而提高計算資源的利用率。

Next is our facilities for sophisticated data balancing. Confluent uses the real-time performance data of our customer base to intelligently optimize the placement of data and the routing of traffic to maximize performance, utilization and cost.

接下來是我們用於復雜數據平衡的設施。 Confluent 使用我們客戶群的實時性能數據來智能優化數據放置和流量路由，以最大限度地提高性能、利用率和成本。

Finally, networking and data replication. Confluent has optimized the replication of data in the networking stack routing data to drive the cost of networking, the most expensive aspect of cloud operations for streaming.

最後，網絡和數據複製。 Confluent 優化了網絡堆棧路由數據中的數據複製，以降低網絡成本，這是流媒體雲操作中最昂貴的方面。

In addition to this, at-scale discounts targeting our unique workload helped reduce spend. Confluent is now at a larger scale than most of our customers, and we're able to drive discounts targeted to our workload.

除此之外，針對我們獨特工作負載的大規模折扣有助於減少支出。 Confluent 現在的規模比我們的大多數客戶都大，我們能夠針對我們的工作量提供折扣。

These significant architectural advantages, combined with thousands of small continual optimizations at every layer of the stack, help drive our significant cost advantage in operations. Those who have watched our gross margins progress over the last few years have absorbed this continual progress at work as we have continually driven additional technical improvements and improved utilization from multi-tenant operations as cloud has become a bigger and bigger portion of our revenue base.

這些顯著的架構優勢，加上堆棧每一層數以千計的小型持續優化，有助於推動我們在運營方面取得顯著的成本優勢。那些在過去幾年中看到我們毛利率進步的人已經在工作中吸收了這種持續的進步，因為隨著雲在我們的收入基礎中所佔的比例越來越大，我們不斷推動額外的技術改進和多租戶運營的利用率提高。

Next, I want to discuss the advantage that comes from our innovations in at scale operations. Confluent operates our fleet with a set of tools and practices vastly different from our customers.

接下來，我想討論一下我們在大規模運營方面的創新所帶來的優勢。 Confluent 使用一套與我們的客戶截然不同的工具和實踐來運營我們的車隊。

First, our infrastructure improvements do double duty here. The improvements I outlined previously drive vastly higher utilization, and hence, we manage an order-of-magnitude fewer servers than we otherwise would. But the big difference in our operations is that it's done by software, not people.

首先，我們的基礎設施改進在這裡起到了雙重作用。我之前概述的改進大大提高了利用率，因此，我們管理的服務器數量比其他方式少了一個數量級。但我們運營的最大不同在於它是由軟件而不是人來完成的。

We orchestrate rollouts with a sophisticated feedback-driven system that allows safe rollouts across thousands of machines in hours. We are able to automatically detect and remediate the kinds of rare problems that become common at scale. And we have real-time monitoring and checks for every aspect of the integrity of the system. These capabilities provide us with a dramatic advantage in the cost of human management.

我們使用複雜的反饋驅動系統來協調部署，該系統允許在數小時內在數千台機器上安全部署。我們能夠自動檢測和修復大規模普遍存在的罕見問題。我們對系統完整性的各個方面進行實時監控和檢查。這些功能為我們提供了人力管理成本方面的巨大優勢。

For example, in our Kafka service, the centerpiece of our offering, Confluent has less than 5 Kafka engineers on call for our tens of thousands of production in Kafka clusters. This gives us a cost structure for operations that we believe is over 1,000x better than our customers.

例如，在我們產品的核心 Kafka 服務中，Confluent 只有不到 5 名 Kafka 工程師隨時待命，以應對我們在 Kafka 集群中的數万個生產。這為我們提供了一個我們認為比我們的客戶好 1,000 多倍的運營成本結構。

The combination of these savings across infrastructure and operations allows us to offer our service at a price point that makes our product not just better, but also cheaper. We think that's a winning combination, especially in times like these. We've gone to great lengths to ensure we are TCO-positive across the customer journey, from their first use case to a large-scale central nervous system.

這些基礎設施和運營方面的節省相結合，使我們能夠以一個價格點提供我們的服務，使我們的產品不僅更好，而且更便宜。我們認為這是一個成功的組合，尤其是在這樣的時代。我們竭盡全力確保在整個客戶旅程中，從他們的第一個用例到大規模的中樞神經系統，我們的 TCO 都是積極的。

We believe this TCO advantage is not just a factor in driving retention. It will also help us drive far greater monetization of the user base of open source Kafka. This is a point often missed by investors looking to make analogies from on-premise open source models to the cloud, which, in fact, are quite different.

我們相信，這種 TCO 優勢不僅僅是提高保留率的一個因素。它還將幫助我們推動開源 Kafka 用戶群的更大貨幣化。這是希望從內部部署開源模型與雲進行類比的投資者經常忽略的一點，實際上，它們是完全不同的。

Traditional on-premise open source business models offer a premium product, better features for more money. As a result, they typically are able to capture only a fraction of the open source users as paying customers. The cloud product, however, isn't just replacing the free software. It's also replacing the expensive infrastructure and people costs. This is driving a general mindset shift among software engineers and IT departments, who are increasingly looking for managed services first, trying to avoid ongoing operations wherever possible.

傳統的內部部署開源商業模式提供優質產品、更好的功能以賺更多的錢。因此，他們通常只能吸引一小部分開源用戶作為付費客戶。然而，雲產品並不僅僅是取代免費軟件。它還取代了昂貴的基礎設施和人員成本。這正在推動軟件工程師和 IT 部門的普遍心態轉變，他們越來越多地首先尋求託管服務，試圖盡可能避免持續運營。

As this shift takes place, we think there is an opportunity to grow from our modest penetration into the hundreds of thousands of open source Kafka users to a much more complete coverage. This higher conversion rate is already apparent. Despite being a much newer offering and despite the much higher bar of maturity for a cloud service, today, Confluent Cloud is already used by more than 6x as many customers as Confluent Platform, our self-managed software offering.

隨著這種轉變的發生，我們認為有機會從我們對數十萬開源 Kafka 用戶的適度滲透發展到更全面的覆蓋。這種更高的轉化率已經很明顯了。儘管是一個更新得多的產品，儘管雲服務的成熟度更高，但今天，Confluent Cloud 的客戶數量已經是我們的自我管理軟件產品 Confluent Platform 的 6 倍多。

In fact, we are so confident in this value proposition that we invite prospects to come and take an assessment where we jointly do analysis with them to prove to them that choosing Confluent will be a more economical decision than self-supporting open source Kafka in the realm.

事實上，我們對這個價值主張非常有信心，我們邀請潛在客戶前來進行評估，我們與他們共同進行分析，向他們證明選擇 Confluent 將是一個比自營開源 Kafka 更經濟的決定。領域。

A great example of the TCO benefits of Confluent for a customer in the earlier stages of the customer journey is a SaaS-based billing startup that helps companies scale their consumption, subscription and hybrid pricing models. This customer's data and billing platform is built on Kafka to compute usage and invoices in real time for millions of end customers and is scaling rapidly to accommodate expected growth. But they quickly found that managing open source Kafka was costly and diverted expensive engineering talent from innovation to low-level infrastructure management.

Confluent 在客戶旅程的早期階段為客戶帶來 TCO 優勢的一個很好的例子是基於 SaaS 的計費初創公司，它幫助公司擴展他們的消費、訂閱和混合定價模型。該客戶的數據和計費平台基於 Kafka 構建，可為數百萬最終客戶實時計算使用情況和發票，並且正在迅速擴展以適應預期增長。但他們很快發現，管理開源 Kafka 的成本很高，並將昂貴的工程人才從創新轉移到低級基礎設施管理上。

With Confluent Cloud, they are able to reallocate at least 60% of their engineers' time managing Kafka to delivering new product innovation without over-provisioning infrastructure. As a result, they've reduced deployment times from months to weeks while reducing the total cost of managing open source case Kafka.

借助 Confluent Cloud，他們能夠將至少 60% 的工程師管理 Kafka 的時間重新分配給交付新產品創新，而無需過度配置基礎設施。因此，他們將部署時間從數月縮短至數週，同時降低了管理開源案例 Kafka 的總成本。

On the other end of the spectrum is a large Q1 deal with a top 10 U.S. bank. Confluent powers thousands of this customer's applications across hundreds of teams, spanning digital, fraud, payments, analytics and more. The bank is now going all in on the cloud, undertaking a massive cloud migration to operate more efficiently and introduce new innovation to their customers faster.

另一方面是與美國前 10 大銀行的第一季度大型交易。 Confluent 為該客戶的數百個團隊的數千個應用程序提供支持，涵蓋數字、欺詐、支付、分析等領域。該銀行現在正全面轉向雲，進行大規模的雲遷移，以更高效地運營並更快地向客戶引入新的創新。

To accelerate their cloud migration, they closed a 7-figure Confluent Cloud deal to connect their data from on-premise environments to the cloud. Despite the turmoil in the banking industry, this customer accelerated their cloud transformation with Confluent, another example of the many use cases that make data streaming a critical tool for modern organizations, even amid macro uncertainty. We are very excited about the opportunity for similar expansion in other customers as the financial services sector moves to the cloud.

為了加速他們的雲遷移，他們完成了一項價值 7 位數的 Confluent Cloud 交易，以將他們的數據從本地環境連接到雲。儘管銀行業陷入動盪，該客戶還是通過 Confluent 加速了他們的雲轉型，這是眾多用例中的另一個例子，即使在宏觀不確定性的情況下，數據流也能成為現代組織的重要工具。隨著金融服務行業向雲端遷移，我們很高興有機會在其他客戶中進行類似的擴展。

In closing, the significant product and cost advantages of our platform put us in a strong position to tap into the hundreds of thousands of users of Kafka, with a product that is more than 10x better and meaningfully cheaper than open source. These dynamics put us in the enviable position as the leader of a $60 billion market opportunity.

最後，我們平台的顯著產品和成本優勢使我們在利用 Kafka 的數十萬用戶方面處於有利地位，其產品比開源產品好 10 倍以上，而且價格便宜得多。這些動態使我們處於令人羨慕的地位，成為 600 億美元市場機會的領導者。

I look forward to seeing many of you at our Investor Day, where, among other things, we'll dive deeper into the significant product innovation driving the success of our platform.

我期待在我們的投資者日見到你們中的許多人，除其他外，我們將深入探討推動我們平台成功的重要產品創新。

With that, I'll turn the call over to Steffan to walk through the financials.

有了這個，我會把電話轉給 Steffan，讓他了解一下財務狀況。

Thanks, Jay. We kicked off fiscal year 2023 beating our guided metrics, delivering high revenue growth and strong margin improvements in the first quarter. These results demonstrate another quarter of consistent execution from our team in a tougher economic environment.

謝謝，傑伊。我們在 2023 財年開局超過了我們的指導指標，在第一季度實現了高收入增長和強勁的利潤率改善。這些結果表明我們的團隊在更艱難的經濟環境中又堅持執行了四分之一。

Turning to the results. RPO for the first quarter was $742.6 million, up 35%. Current RPO, estimated to be 64% of RPO, was $477 million, up 44% and accelerated from last quarter. Growth in RPO, while healthy, was impacted by a decline in average contract duration; additional budget scrutiny, which elongated our deal cycle; and a tough comp against the 8-figure TCV deal closed a year ago.

轉向結果。第一季度的 RPO 為 7.426 億美元，增長 35%。目前的 RPO 為 4.77 億美元，估計佔 RPO 的 64%，比上一季度增長 44% 並有所加快。 RPO 的增長雖然健康，但受到平均合同期限縮短的影響；額外的預算審查，這延長了我們的交易週期；以及與一年前完成的 8 位數 TCV 交易的艱難競爭。

Moving on to NRR. Starting this fiscal year, we moved to consumption-based NRR for Confluent Cloud, which provides better alignment and insight to the underlying consumption trends of our cloud business. Total NRR for Q1 was above 130%, and gross retention was above 90%.

繼續 NRR。從本財年開始，我們為 Confluent Cloud 轉向基於消費的 NRR，這可以更好地協調和洞察我們雲業務的潛在消費趨勢。第一季度的總 NRR 超過 130%，總保留率超過 90%。

NRR for both cloud and hybrid customers remained higher than the company average, and NRR for cloud was the highest. We added 160 net new customers, ending the quarter with approximately 4,690 total customers, up 14%. The growth in our large customer base continue to be robust, driven by use case expansion. We added 60 customers with $100,000 or more in ARR, bringing the total to 1,075 customers, up 34%. These large customers contributed more than 85% of total revenue in the quarter. We also added 8 customers with $1 million or more in ARR, bringing the total to 135 customers, up 53%.

雲和混合客戶的 NRR 均高於公司平均水平，其中云的 NRR 最高。我們新增了 160 名淨新客戶，本季度末客戶總數約為 4,690 名，增長 14%。在用例擴展的推動下，我們龐大的客戶群繼續保持強勁增長。我們增加了 60 名 ARR 為 100,000 美元或以上的客戶，使客戶總數達到 1,075 名，增長了 34%。這些大客戶貢獻了該季度總收入的 85% 以上。我們還增加了 8 位 ARR 達到或超過 100 萬美元的客戶，使客戶總數達到 135 位，增長了 53%。

We've included historical results for NRR and customer count relating to the ARR methodology change in our IR presentation on our website.

我們在我們網站上的 IR 演示文稿中包含了 NRR 的歷史結果和與 ARR 方法變化相關的客戶數量。

Turning to the P&L. Total revenue grew 38% to $174.3 million. Subscription revenue grew 41% to $160.6 million and accounted for 92% of total revenue. Within subscription, Confluent Platform revenue grew 16% to $86.9 million and accounted for 50% of total revenue.

轉向損益表。總收入增長 38% 至 1.743 億美元。訂閱收入增長 41% 至 1.606 億美元，佔總收入的 92%。在訂閱方面，Confluent Platform 收入增長 16% 至 8690 萬美元，佔總收入的 50%。

Confluent Platform outperformed relative to our expectations and was driven by a strong performance in the public sector vertical. Confluent Cloud exceeded 50% of total new ACV bookings for the sixth consecutive quarter. Cloud revenue grew 89% to $73.6 million, representing a sequential increase of $5.3 million, exceeding our guidance.

Confluent Platform 的表現超出了我們的預期，並且受到垂直公共部門強勁表現的推動。 Confluent Cloud 連續第六個季度超過新 ACV 預訂總量的 50%。雲收入增長 89% 至 7360 萬美元，環比增長 530 萬美元，超出我們的預期。

Cloud accounted for 42% of total revenue compared to 41% last quarter. The modest increase in cloud revenue mix relative to historical trends was due to the outperformance in Confluent Platform in the quarter.

雲計算佔總收入的 42%，而上一季度為 41%。雲收入組合相對於歷史趨勢的溫和增長是由於本季度 Confluent Platform 的出色表現。

Turning to the geographic mix of revenue. Revenue from the U.S. grew 32% to $103.9 million. Revenue from outside the U.S. grew 49% to $70.4 million.

轉向收入的地域組合。來自美國的收入增長了 32%，達到 1.039 億美元。來自美國以外的收入增長了 49%，達到 7040 萬美元。

Moving on to the rest of the income statement. I'll be referring to non-GAAP results, unless stated otherwise. Total gross margin was 72.2%, up 250 basis points and modestly above our target range of 70% to 72%. Subscription gross margin was 77.5%, up 200 basis points. Our healthy gross margins were driven by the continued improvement in the unit economics and scaling of our cloud offering, offset by a continued revenue mix shift to cloud.

轉到損益表的其餘部分。除非另有說明，否則我指的是非 GAAP 結果。總毛利率為 72.2%，上升 250 個基點，略高於我們 70% 至 72% 的目標範圍。認購毛利率為 77.5%，上升 200 個基點。我們健康的毛利率是由單位經濟的持續改善和我們雲產品的擴展所推動的，但被持續的收入組合轉移到雲所抵消。

Turning to profitability and cash flow. Operating margin improved 18 percentage points to negative 23.1%, representing our third consecutive quarter of more than 10 points in improvement. Q1 operating margin was driven by our revenue outperformance, which we let flow through to the bottom line, and our continued focus on driving efficiency across the company.

轉向盈利能力和現金流。營業利潤率提高 18 個百分點至負 23.1%，這是我們連續第三個季度提高 10 個百分點以上。第一季度的營業利潤率是由我們的收入表現出色推動的，我們將其轉化為利潤，並且我們繼續專注於提高整個公司的效率。

We drove improvement in every category of our operating expenses, with the most pronounced progress made again in sales and marketing, improving 11 percentage points. Net loss per share was negative $0.09 using 291.9 million basic and diluted weighted average shares outstanding. Fully diluted share count under the treasury stock method was approximately 350.1 million.

我們推動了各項運營費用的改善，其中銷售和營銷再次取得了最顯著的進步，提高了 11 個百分點。使用 2.919 億股基本和稀釋加權平均流通股，每股淨虧損為負 0.09 美元。庫存股法下的完全稀釋股數約為 3.501 億股。

Free cash flow margin declined 1 percentage point to negative 47.5%. As expected and discussed on our last earnings call, free cash flow in Q1 was negatively impacted by charges related to our restructuring, the Immerok acquisition, ESPP and our corporate bonus payout. We ended the fourth quarter with $1.85 billion in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities.

自由現金流利潤率下降 1 個百分點至負 47.5%。正如我們在上次財報電話會議上預期和討論的那樣，第一季度的自由現金流受到與我們的重組、Immerok 收購、ESPP 和我們的公司獎金支付相關的費用的負面影響。第四季度結束時，我們擁有 18.5 億美元的現金、現金等價物和有價證券。

Now I'll turn to our outlook. The demand environment for data streaming and the solutions we're offering to the market continues to be robust, even in a choppy macro environment where it's taking longer to close deals. Mid last year, we were early to flag the increase in the volatility of the business environment and incorporate those dynamics into our outlook.

現在我將談談我們的前景。數據流的需求環境和我們向市場提供的解決方案繼續保持強勁，即使在需要更長時間才能完成交易的動蕩的宏觀環境中也是如此。去年年中，我們很早就注意到商業環境波動性的增加，並將這些動態納入我們的展望。

Looking out to Q2 and the balance of the year, we're expecting to deliver on the commitments we outlined on our last call. We are assuming there is a continuation of additional budget scrutiny, and there will be no improvement in the business environment through the remainder of this year. We'll continue to proactively allocate capital to drive efficient growth and are managing the rate and pace of investments.

展望第二季度和今年剩餘時間，我們期待兌現我們在上次電話會議上概述的承諾。我們假設將繼續進行額外的預算審查，並且在今年剩餘時間內商業環境不會有所改善。我們將繼續積極分配資本以推動高效增長，並管理投資的速度和步伐。

For the second quarter of 2023, we expect revenue to be in the range of $181 million to $183 million, representing growth of 30% to 31%; Cloud sequential revenue add to be in the range of $7.5 million to $8 million. We continue to expect Cloud sequential revenue add to increase every quarter for the rest of 2023.

對於 2023 年第二季度，我們預計收入將在 1.81 億美元至 1.83 億美元之間，增長 30% 至 31%；雲連續收入增加在 750 萬美元到 800 萬美元之間。我們繼續預計，在 2023 年剩餘時間裡，每個季度的雲連續收入都會增加。

Non-GAAP operating margin to be approximately negative 16%; and non-GAAP net loss per share to be in the range of negative $0.08 to negative $0.06, using approximately 297 million weighted average shares outstanding.

非美國通用會計準則營業利潤率約為負 16%；非 GAAP 每股淨虧損在負 0.08 美元至負 0.06 美元之間，使用約 2.97 億加權平均流通股。

For the full year 2023, we expect revenue to be in the range of $760 million to $765 million, representing growth of 30% to 31%; non-GAAP operating margin to be approximately negative 14% to negative 13%; and non-GAAP net loss per share in the range of negative $0.20 to negative $0.14, using approximately 300 million weighted average shares outstanding. Additionally, for Q4 '23, we expect to deliver 48% to 50% of total revenue from cloud and achieve breakeven for non-GAAP operating margin. The timing for free cash flow breakeven will roughly mirror that of our operating margin.

對於 2023 年全年，我們預計收入將在 7.6 億美元至 7.65 億美元之間，增長 30% 至 31%；非美國通用會計準則營業利潤率約為負 14% 至負 13%；非 GAAP 每股淨虧損在負 0.20 美元至負 0.14 美元之間，使用約 3 億加權平均流通股。此外，對於 23 年第四季度，我們預計云總收入的 48% 至 50% 將實現非 GAAP 營業利潤率的盈虧平衡。自由現金流盈虧平衡的時間將大致反映我們的營業利潤率。

In closing, I'm pleased with the strong start to fiscal year 2023. While the macroeconomic environment remains challenging, we're continuing to deliver innovation and value to our customers, which would not be possible without the excellent performance of the members of our team. Looking forward, we remain focused on driving efficient growth and building a profitable business.

最後，我對 2023 財年的強勁開局感到高興。儘管宏觀經濟環境仍然充滿挑戰，但我們將繼續為客戶提供創新和價值，這離不開我們成員的出色表現團隊。展望未來，我們將繼續專注於推動高效增長和打造盈利業務。

Now Jay and I will take your questions.

現在傑伊和我將回答你的問題。

Thanks, Steffan. (Operator Instructions) And today, our first question will come from Sanjit Singh with Morgan Stanley, followed by Wells Fargo. Sanjit, please go ahead.

謝謝，斯特凡。 （操作員說明）今天，我們的第一個問題將來自摩根士丹利的 Sanjit Singh，其次是富國銀行。山吉特，請繼續。

Congrats on the very solid results in what is a pretty difficult environment out there. And to that point, Steffan, I was wondering if you could just give us some color on how the quarter progressed, particularly post Silicon Valley, what trends did you see in terms of booking trends, customer engagement? And what's been sort of the early reads, April going into May?

祝賀你在一個相當困難的環境中取得了非常可靠的結果。就這一點而言，Steffan，我想知道你是否可以給我們一些關於本季度進展情況的顏色，特別是在矽谷之後，你在預訂趨勢、客戶參與度方面看到了什麼趨勢？四月到五月的早期讀物是什麼？

On the booking trends throughout the quarter, we saw a typical linearity pattern that we would see in most Q1s. January started off as typical, which is usually a little bit slow and then it ramped up from a booking standpoint, and we had a good strong month 3.

在整個季度的預訂趨勢中，我們看到了在大多數第一季度都會看到的典型線性模式。 1 月開始時很典型，通常有點慢，然後從預訂的角度來看開始增加，我們在第 3 個月表現強勁。

From a consumption basis, we did see a little bit of an impact relative to some of the consumption trends in our Cloud business in the second half of March. And we saw that manifest itself in the financial vertical. What we did see, though, in April is a nice bounce back. And so we saw a return to normal patterns for the consumption business and the financial vertical.

從消費的角度來看，我們確實看到了與 3 月下半月我們雲業務的一些消費趨勢相關的一些影響。我們在金融領域看到了這一點。不過，我們在 4 月份確實看到了不錯的反彈。因此，我們看到消費業務和金融垂直領域恢復了正常模式。

And Jay, I don't know if you have other things you'd like to add on to that?

Jay，我不知道你是否還有其他想要補充的東西？

I think that was a good summary, yes. Broadly, the results were not too surprising, even though I think in some customers, both in tech and in financial services, there was a fair amount going on in the organization.

我認為這是一個很好的總結，是的。從廣義上講，結果並不太令人驚訝，儘管我認為在技術和金融服務領域的一些客戶中，組織中發生了相當多的事情。

Yes, I appreciate that. It makes a lot of sense and encouraging to hear about the trends, post March, on the consumption side of financial services.

是的，我很感激。聽到 3 月後金融服務消費方面的趨勢很有意義，也很令人鼓舞。

Jay, you did a fantastic job of sort of explaining the value proposition of Confluent Cloud and the TCO advantages that Confluent's bringing to bear in the market.

Jay，您在解釋 Confluent Cloud 的價值主張以及 Confluent 在市場上帶來的 TCO 優勢方面做得非常出色。

I guess the other side of the coin in terms of what we're trying to better understand is the impact of generative AI. I mean, if you're thinking about the classes of applications and the interfaces of those applications, what do you think is the impact on real-time streaming? Is that a forced accelerator for the category in terms of the ops? Or is that a potential headwind?

我想就我們試圖更好地理解的事物而言，硬幣的另一面是生成式 AI 的影響。我的意思是，如果您正在考慮應用程序的類別和這些應用程序的接口，您認為對實時流媒體的影響是什麼？就操作而言，這是該類別的強制加速器嗎？或者這是一個潛在的逆風？

Yes, it's absolutely an accelerator. I mean, it's early in terms of production deployments, as you would expect. But already, we have customers that are doing this for real, including a large travel company that's building real-time context data and using that to power chat interfaces for their customers. And I expect that to be a pattern that is more common.

是的，它絕對是一個加速器。我的意思是，正如您所期望的那樣，就生產部署而言，它還處於早期階段。但是，我們已經有真正這樣做的客戶，包括一家大型旅遊公司，他們正在構建實時上下文數據並使用它來為他們的客戶提供聊天界面。我希望這是一種更常見的模式。

Generally speaking, when there's a new major area that data may need to go towards, that's a powerful thing for Confluent. The more new things, the better for us. And so I know in some areas, it's actually a bit of a disruptive force. But for us, this is actually a powerful thing. And our role in that architecture is kind of helping customers assemble that real-time context data that would go into asking the right questions, powering the right queries, getting the right context into the interface, that's where we fit into that architecture.

一般來說，當數據可能需要進入一個新的主要領域時，這對 Confluent 來說是一件很強大的事情。新事物越多，對我們越好。所以我知道在某些領域，它實際上是一種破壞性力量。但是對於我們來說，這其實是一件很厲害的事情。我們在該架構中的作用是幫助客戶收集實時上下文數據，這些數據將用於提出正確的問題、支持正確的查詢、將正確的上下文引入界面，這就是我們適合該架構的地方。

And then, of course, the same as any enterprise company, there's a lot of interesting use cases internally. We have a number of organizations, whether that's support, engineering, legal, where there's a significant amount of work that is basically text in and text out, that all of those teams could potentially be made more productive, kind of up their game as a result of some of these tools come into practice.

然後，當然，與任何企業公司一樣，內部有很多有趣的用例。我們有許多組織，無論是支持、工程還是法律，其中有大量工作基本上是文本輸入和文本輸出，所有這些團隊都可能提高生產力，有點像他們的遊戲其中一些工具付諸實踐的結果。

If I could just clarify and get your feedback on this sort of logic, where we're interacting with these question-and-answer type interfaces, right? Is the simple point that we need up-to-date data, and that you guys are going to be able to provide that? I mean, to the extent that we're dealing with the public ChatGPT, we're dealing with, outdated data, right? And potentially data at rest and other use cases. Is what Confluent going to do is bring that data sort of up-to-date, so we're getting the most up-to-date answers to our questions?

如果我可以澄清並獲得您對這種邏輯的反饋，我們正在與這些問答類型的界面進行交互，對嗎？簡單的一點是我們需要最新的數據，而你們能夠提供嗎？我的意思是，就我們處理公共 ChatGPT 而言，我們處理的是過時的數據，對嗎？以及潛在的靜態數據和其他用例。 Confluent 要做的是使數據保持最新狀態，以便我們獲得問題的最新答案嗎？

Yes. That's right. The architecture for these is both -- some amount of training that's usually done entirely by the centralized companies, say, an open AI's case, followed by maybe some amount of pretraining on data specific to that customer, and then most importantly, assembling the right information about the particular customer at the time of the question, right? And that's the -- that last bit is the part where we're most relevant. And that's actually quite important, just fitting this into a business that serves particular customers in particular ways that would have particular context about them that has to be incorporated in any response.

是的。這是正確的。這些架構都是——一些通常完全由中心化公司完成的培訓，比如，一個開放的 AI 案例，然後可能是針對該客戶特定數據的一些預培訓，然後最重要的是，組裝正確的提問時有關特定客戶的信息，對嗎？這就是 - 最後一點是我們最相關的部分。這實際上非常重要，只需將其融入以特定方式為特定客戶提供服務的業務中，這些方式將具有關於他們的特定上下文，必須將其納入任何響應中。

Thanks, Sanjit. We'll take our next question from Michael Turrin with Wells Fargo, followed by Piper Sandler.

謝謝，山吉特。我們將從富國銀行的邁克爾·圖林 (Michael Turrin) 和派珀·桑德勒 (Piper Sandler) 提出下一個問題。

Nice job on the Q1 results. Steffan mentioned the ARR statement. It looks like it's tied to consumption. Can you maybe just help level set where those changes show up? And then on NRR, it looks like using the old method, that number did continue to come down a touch. So maybe walk through what you're seeing there? And what you're assuming on the expansion side for the rest of the year?

第一季度的結果做得很好。 Steffan 提到了 ARR 聲明。好像跟消費有關。你能不能幫助設置這些變化出現的水平？然後在 NRR 上，看起來像使用舊方法一樣，這個數字確實繼續下降了一點。那麼也許走過你在那裡看到的東西？在今年餘下的時間裡，你在擴張方面有什麼假設？

NRR change really impacts our cloud business. Prior to making the change, we had a commit-based NRR calculation, which didn't really capture the underlying momentum of our cloud business.

NRR 變化確實影響了我們的雲業務。在做出改變之前，我們有一個基於提交的 NRR 計算，它並沒有真正捕捉到我們雲業務的潛在動力。

With the consumption change to the NRR calculation, we're now capturing really the consumption-based strength of our business. It's better reflective of the actual underlying growth drivers, and it's also very consistent with what our peer group companies are doing that have a consumption-based model. So think of MongoDB, Datadog, Snowflake, they all have moved to a consumption-based NRR.

隨著 NRR 計算的消費變化，我們現在真正捕捉到我們業務的基於消費的實力。它更好地反映了實際的潛在增長動力，也與我們的同行集團公司正在做的基於消費的模型非常一致。所以想想 MongoDB、Datadog、Snowflake，它們都已經轉向基於消費的 NRR。

So where it shows up is in our cloud business and then also in our hybrid customer NRR cohort, because those hybrid customers are running both Confluent Platform and Confluent Cloud. Confluent Platform will continue to be on the -- like the older methodology, which is the committed contract basis. But for the portion of their business that is Confluent Cloud, we'll calculate it using the commit basis.

因此，它出現在我們的雲業務中，然後出現在我們的混合客戶 NRR 隊列中，因為這些混合客戶同時運行 Confluent Platform 和 Confluent Cloud。 Confluent Platform 將繼續使用——就像舊的方法一樣，這是承諾的合同基礎。但是對於他們的 Confluent Cloud 業務部分，我們將使用提交基礎來計算它。

So -- and as far as the older methodology, we did come in just slightly below the 125% metric that we established as a goal for total NRR. And what we saw the underlying driver is the gross retention of our business continues to be very strong, above 90%. But considering the current macro environment, we just saw less expansion driving -- that was driving through like the committed contract part of the business. But what we did see and what's better reflected in the new methodology is the consumption patterns of our customers are exceeding the committed contract spend.

所以——就舊方法而言，我們確實略低於我們為總 NRR 設定的 125% 指標。我們看到的潛在驅動因素是我們業務的總保留率仍然非常強勁，超過 90%。但考慮到當前的宏觀環境，我們只是看到較少的擴張驅動力——這就像業務的承諾合同部分一樣正在推動。但我們確實看到並且在新方法中更好地反映的是我們客戶的消費模式超過了承諾的合同支出。

And so those are some of the dynamics at play. And going forward, where we will be reporting a consumption-based NRR metric, and that is, again, better reflective of the underlying performance of the business.

因此，這些是一些動態因素在起作用。展望未來，我們將報告基於消費的 NRR 指標，這再次更好地反映了業務的基本績效。

That's super useful detail. If I can just follow on with just a quick point on what you're mentioning, Steffan. I think sometimes, the visibility you have into cloud consumption patterns is maybe underappreciated. So the commentary is consistent around sequential improvement on the cloud side throughout the course of the year. Just any color you can provide around what visibility you have and what provides confidence in that progression continuing.

這是非常有用的細節。 Steffan，如果我可以繼續快速說明你提到的內容。我認為有時候，您對雲消費模式的可見性可能被低估了。因此，關於全年雲方面的連續改進的評論是一致的。您可以提供的任何顏色都可以圍繞您所擁有的可見性以及使您對繼續前進的信心充滿信心。

We've taken great steps at organizing our business around a consumption-based approach. And that starts with our sales and go-to-market motion. Our sales folks have a consumption-based element to their quota. We've been a cloud-first company in terms of development cycles. And then we've done a lot of instrumentation around systems and process around forecasting.

我們已採取重大步驟圍繞基於消費的方法組織我們的業務。這從我們的銷售和上市行動開始。我們的銷售人員在他們的配額中有一個基於消費的元素。就開發週期而言，我們一直是雲優先的公司。然後我們圍繞系統和預測流程做了很多檢測。

So as we look through the balance of the year, what we said at the beginning of the year still holds up. We see net sequential revenue add for Confluent Cloud each quarter throughout the balance of the year, even in a tougher macro environment. And so we feel really good about our ability to drive roughly about 48% to 50% of total revenues coming from Confluent Cloud exiting the year. And that gives us the confidence to put that stake in the ground.

因此，當我們回顧今年的餘額時，我們在年初所說的話仍然成立。我們看到 Confluent Cloud 在全年的每個季度都增加了淨連續收入，即使在更艱難的宏觀環境中也是如此。因此，我們對我們在今年退出 Confluent Cloud 的總收入中推動大約 48% 到 50% 的能力感到非常滿意。這讓我們有信心將股份放在地上。

We'll take our next question from Rob Owens with Piper Sandler, followed by TD Cowen. Rob?

下一個問題是 Rob Owens 和 Piper Sandler，然後是 TD Cowen。搶？

Steffan, I know you just spoke to it to some degree, but you called out gross retention rates. And you've said they are above 90%. Can you walk us back a couple of years, the last time we saw disruption around COVID. Talk about what the experience with retention was then versus now. And is this becoming a much stickier application at this point?

Steffan，我知道你只是在某種程度上談到了它，但你提到了總保留率。你說他們超過 90%。你能不能讓我們回到幾年前，也就是我們最後一次看到圍繞 COVID 的破壞。談談當時與現在的留存體驗。在這一點上，這是否會成為一個更具粘性的應用程序？

It definitely is a much thicker application today than it was a couple of years ago. A couple of years ago, the product that we had in the marketplace, while it was good, it didn't necessarily have all of the matured feature of functionality that we do today. The amount of innovation, our product and development organization has driven over the last couple of years, there's a marked difference between our product today versus what it was 2 years ago. And so a couple of years ago, the gross retention rates were lower. The net retention rates were lower. Now we have really healthy net retention rates and gross retention rates due to the product maturity.

與幾年前相比，今天的應用程序肯定要厚得多。幾年前，我們在市場上擁有的產品雖然很好，但不一定具有我們今天所做的所有成熟功能。在過去幾年中，我們的產品和開發組織推動了創新的數量，我們今天的產品與 2 年前相比有顯著差異。因此，幾年前，總保留率較低。淨保留率較低。由於產品成熟度，現在我們擁有非常健康的淨保留率和總保留率。

And then also, if you layer into the equation, the improvements we've made to our go-to-market organization, we have this customer growth go-to-market journey that we've socialized with the investment community.

然後，如果你將我們對進入市場組織所做的改進納入方程式，我們將與投資界進行社交，從而實現客戶增長進入市場的旅程。

And how we land customers is very important and then how we develop them over time through the progression that they start with from PayGo, all the way up through a fully mature implementation of our solution. It just has become much more sticky.

我們如何吸引客戶非常重要，然後我們如何通過他們從 PayGo 開始的進程隨著時間的推移發展他們，一直到我們解決方案的完全成熟實施。它只是變得更加粘稠。

And because we're an infrastructure play, this is not something that can be easily ripped and replaced or downgraded to the open source version. There's a vast difference between our Confluent Cloud offering and anything that you could get in open source. And therein lies the big differential.

而且因為我們是一家基礎設施公司，所以這不是可以輕易撕掉和替換或降級到開源版本的東西。我們的 Confluent Cloud 產品與您可以通過開源獲得的任何產品之間存在巨大差異。這就是最大的區別。

Great. I guess taking the other side of that for Jay, maybe talk a little bit about customer acquisition right now. And just what's convincing new customers to move in this environment?

偉大的。我想從 Jay 的另一面來看，也許現在就談談客戶獲取。是什麼說服了新客戶在這種環境中遷移？

Yes. I think it's a number of things. I mean, it starts with the kind of mission-critical applications. I think those are the ones that tend to move forward in this environment.

是的。我認為這是很多事情。我的意思是，它從任務關鍵型應用程序開始。我認為這些是在這種環境下傾向於前進的。

The second aspect is the TCO that I talked about and ultimately, the feature set of the product. And I think that combination of being attached to a project, which is going to be important enough to continue forward, retain its funding even in organizations that are potentially cutting budget, trimming staff, et cetera, I think that's critical. And then I think bringing to bear something that is a better solution and a better deal, I think that's critical as well.

第二個方面是我談到的 TCO，最終是產品的功能集。而且我認為，即使在可能削減預算、裁員等的組織中，與一個項目的結合，這將非常重要，足以繼續前進，保留其資金，我認為這很關鍵。然後我認為帶來更好的解決方案和更好的交易，我認為這也很關鍵。

We'll take our next question from Derrick Wood with TD Cowen, followed by Guggenheim.

我們將從 Derrick Wood 和 TD Cowen 那裡回答下一個問題，然後是 Guggenheim。

Congrats on a strong Q1. Just picking up on that, Jay, I thought you did a really good job outlining the advantages of cloud and what you guys are doing versus on-prem. And I wanted to talk about, there's a lot of Kafka DIY out there, ranging from very large cluster deployments from tens of thousands of companies in the long tail. And obviously, you guys have some really compelling TCO and ROI figures. Is the macro tipping point to drive more conversion? And when you look at kind of the top end of the pyramid and the bottom end, are you focused on one end or the other more in this environment to drive more open source conversions?

祝賀 Q1 表現強勁。 Jay，我認為你在概述雲的優勢以及你們在做什麼與本地部署方面做得非常好。我想談談，那裡有很多 Kafka DIY，從來自長尾數万家公司的非常大的集群部署不等。顯然，你們有一些非常引人注目的 TCO 和 ROI 數據。宏觀臨界點是否會推動更多轉化？當您查看金字塔的頂端和底端時，您是在這個環境中更專注於一端還是另一端以推動更多的開源轉換？

Yes, I think it is ultimately helpful. The initial impact of some downturn is not helpful, right? Customers are reprioritizing, people are being laid off, things are changing, that's not a helpful environment to do business in. And the additional scrutiny that we've talked about is exactly the factor.

是的，我認為這最終是有幫助的。一些低迷的最初影響是沒有幫助的，對吧？客戶正在重新排序，人們正在被解僱，事情正在發生變化，這不是一個有利於開展業務的環境。我們談到的額外審查正是這個因素。

Over time, I do think that there's a mindset shift that's happening in technology where, to some extent, the more tech-forward organizations were kind of copying Google model from some decade ago where you would build out these internal infrastructure platforms in-house and staff them up, and that was going to be a kind of lever for success. And I think the modern way is just to get a managed service, and that, that's ultimately better and more cost effective. And I think that, that mindset shift is really important and is an important tailwind for us.

隨著時間的推移，我確實認為技術領域正在發生一種思維轉變，在某種程度上，技術更先進的組織在某種程度上複製了十年前的谷歌模式，你可以在內部構建這些內部基礎設施平台，為他們配備人員，這將成為成功的一種槓桿。而且我認為現代方式只是獲得託管服務，而這最終會更好且更具成本效益。而且我認為，這種心態轉變非常重要，對我們來說是一個重要的推動力。

So when I talked about that, hey, what is the penetration that's possible for a company into the open source user base? I think that's ultimately the big driver, right? It's both about us having good-enough cost structure, having that TCO, making that true. It's not inherently true of every cloud product, right? That's something we've done a ton of work to make true.

所以當我談到這個時，嘿，一家公司對開源用戶群的滲透率是多少？我認為這最終是最大的驅動力，對吧？這都是關於我們擁有足夠好的成本結構，擁有那個 TCO，使之成為現實。並不是每個雲產品都天生如此，對吧？這是我們為實現這一目標所做的大量工作。

And then it's about people really kind of internalizing that and understanding it and acting on it, which doesn't happen immediately, but it is happening now.

然後是關於人們真正將其內化並理解並採取行動，這不會立即發生，但現在正在發生。

And so yes, when you talk about where on the journey are we focused? We do look at that full journey, right? For us, because customers progress, you start with one use case. It spreads to broader in the organization and becomes a big platform. It doesn't make sense to start at only one place. If you did that, maybe you might focus at the beginning of the journey, but customers would -- as they got to large scale, you wouldn't have the features and functionality to really support them. They would migrate off, right? That wouldn't be good.

所以是的，當你談論我們在旅途中關注的地方時？我們確實看到了完整的旅程，對嗎？對於我們來說，因為客戶在進步，所以您從一個用例開始。它在組織中傳播到更廣泛的地方，成為一個大平台。只從一個地方開始是沒有意義的。如果你這樣做，也許你可能會專注於旅程的開始，但客戶會——隨著他們規模的擴大，你將沒有真正支持他們的特性和功能。他們會遷徙，對吧？那可不好。

Only focusing on the very largest customers and not getting the next 100,000 Kafka users who are just starting now, that wouldn't make sense either, right? It makes most sense to start with them as they go.

只關注最大的客戶，而不是獲得下一個 100,000 個剛剛開始的 Kafka 用戶，這也沒有意義，對吧？在他們進行時從他們開始是最有意義的。

So the reality is, both in terms of the TCO and the customer experience, you have to be good all along the way. That's why it's actually so hard for these cloud products. It's why it's not a trivial thing to do. You have to be very easy to use and a better deal for that first app, 1 developer kicking the tires. And you have to be something that can be deployed at scale and used across a large organization effectively. And has the right controls and governance of data, et cetera, as you get to scale.

所以現實情況是，無論是在 TCO 還是在客戶體驗方面，您都必須始終保持良好狀態。這就是為什麼這些雲產品實際上如此困難。這就是為什麼這不是一件微不足道的事情。您必須非常易於使用，並且對於第一個應用程序來說是一個更好的交易，一個開發人員踢輪胎。而且您必須能夠大規模部署並在大型組織中有效使用。隨著規模的擴大，對數據等進行正確的控制和治理。

I think that's why it's a deep area of investment to really do this well. And that's the journey we've been on. And I think the cool thing about where we're at with our cloud product right now is we have substantial customer usage at each spot along that. And indeed, we're kind of going out to the open source users and converting them over to this now, whatever stage on that journey they happen to be on right now.

我認為這就是為什麼真正做好這件事是一個深層次的投資領域。這就是我們一直在進行的旅程。而且我認為我們現在使用我們的雲產品所處的位置很酷，因為我們在每個地方都有大量的客戶使用。事實上，我們正在接觸開源用戶並將他們轉變為現在，無論他們現在正處於那個旅程的哪個階段。

Great. Great color. And Steffan, just wanted to -- last quarter, you talked about kind of less urgency from buyers at the end of the quarter, and you had deals slipped. Just wondering, did those -- the slipped deals kind of close as expected? And did it feel like the -- that kind of headwind end-of-quarter dynamic that you saw in Q4 faded a little bit in Q1? Because it didn't seem like you had any big surprises, but just wanted to get a sense for how end of quarter compared sequentially.

偉大的。很棒的顏色。 Steffan，只是想——上個季度，你談到了本季度末買家的緊迫性有所降低，而且你的交易有所下滑。只是想知道，那些 - 下滑的交易是否像預期的那樣接近？感覺你在第四季度看到的那種逆風季末動態在第一季度有所消退嗎？因為看起來您似乎沒有什麼大驚喜，只是想了解一下季度末的順序比較情況。

Majority of the deals that had slipped from Q4 did close in Q1, which was great. We still are seeing the same dynamic that we've been calling out for the last several quarters candidly. Where customers are taking more time to evaluate purchases, it's elongating deal cycles. We've been able to execute through that and set guidance appropriately. And so we did see similar dynamics in -- at the end of the quarter. And we're anticipating that, that dynamic is going to be factored throughout the balance of the year. So that's really the dynamic at play.

大多數從第四季度下滑的交易在第一季度就完成了，這很好。我們仍然看到我們在過去幾個季度中坦率地呼籲的相同動態。如果客戶花更多時間來評估購買，就會延長交易週期。我們已經能夠執行並適當地設置指導。因此，我們確實在本季度末看到了類似的動態。我們預計，這種動態將在今年餘下的時間裡得到體現。所以這真的是動態在起作用。

We'll take our next question from Howard Ma with Guggenheim, followed by Barclays.

我們將接受霍華德馬與古根海姆的下一個問題，然後是巴克萊銀行。

Jay, so dovetailing on some of your comments about TCO and the value prop of both platform features and fully managed, which I think it helps address an ongoing debate in the investor community about the mission criticality of Confluent. And how susceptible Confluent is to optimizing both overall IT and cloud spending. But can you give some more specific examples from a vertical-specific use case about expansion -- both expansion and new use cases that give you confidence in achieving your targets this year?

Jay，與您關於 TCO 的一些評論以及平台功能和完全管理的價值支持非常吻合，我認為這有助於解決投資者社區正在進行的關於 Confluent 的任務關鍵性的爭論。 Confluent 對優化整體 IT 和雲支出的影響有多大。但是，您能否從有關擴展的垂直特定用例中給出一些更具體的示例——擴展和新用例讓您有信心實現今年的目標？

Yes, absolutely. I mean you would see this across virtually every industry. The one that we called out in the earnings was this large expansion in financial services. Yes, that's an industry that obviously, a lot is happening in. And so the willingness to make big bets on this in the cloud, right? These are organizations that are very sensitive about security, about compliance, et cetera, really do a thorough job of betting.

是的，一點沒錯。我的意思是你會在幾乎所有行業中看到這一點。我們在收益中提到的是金融服務的大規模擴張。是的，這是一個顯然正在發生很多事情的行業。因此願意在雲中對此下大賭注，對嗎？這些是對安全性、合規性等非常敏感的組織，他們確實做得非常徹底。

The willingness to make a big bet in this area is really one of a small number of third-party cloud infrastructure of vendors. I think that speaks to how critical this area is. And you could probably come up with a similar example in any other industry of interest, whether that's retail, insurance, automotive, public sector, really exciting things happening in each of those.

願意在這方面下大賭注的確實是少數第三方雲基礎設施廠商之一。我認為這說明了這個領域的重要性。你可能會在任何其他感興趣的行業中想出一個類似的例子，無論是零售、保險、汽車、公共部門，每個行業都發生了令人興奮的事情。

Okay. Great. That's helpful. And I have a follow-up for Steffan. Steffan, can you comment on your go-to-market priorities this year? Your investment priorities in particular, I guess, with respect to hiring more reps, bolstering customer retention efforts, building out -- further building out the channel ecosystem? And do -- has anything changed in the last few months that would require you to invest more in any of these fronts that would, I guess, derail or impede the plans to reach breakeven exiting year-end?

好的。偉大的。這很有幫助。我有一個關於 Steffan 的跟進。 Steffan，您能否評論一下您今年的上市優先事項？我想，您的投資重點尤其是關於僱用更多代表、加強客戶保留工作、構建 - 進一步構建渠道生態系統？並且做 - 過去幾個月有什麼變化需要你在任何這些方面進行更多投資，我猜這會破壞或阻礙在年底實現盈虧平衡的計劃？

We established a plan at the beginning of the year that focused on a number of investment priorities in the sales and go-to-market organization. And a lot of that is based off of "capacity" that we want to ensure that we have across the world. And we will continue to be hiring in areas that showed the most promise and that have the most potential ROI for us. We will continue to make investments in our customer success organization, ensuring that the experience for the customer continues to be excellent, that will both bolster our gross retention rates.

我們在年初制定了一項計劃，重點關註銷售和上市組織中的一些投資重點。其中很多是基於我們希望確保我們在世界各地擁有的“能力”。我們將繼續在最有希望和對我們有最大投資回報率的領域進行招聘。我們將繼續投資於我們的客戶成功組織，確保客戶體驗持續出色，這都將提高我們的總保留率。

Nothing has changed relative to our major investment priorities for the year. In fact, I've been very pleased with the performance of how the groups are operating in a very choppy environment. If you look at the growth in RPO -- if you look at the growth at in CRPO in particular, we had an acceleration in CRPO this quarter. And that's in part due to the great work that the sales organization and the go-to-market organization is doing.

與我們今年的主要投資重點相比，沒有任何變化。事實上，我對這些團隊在非常動蕩的環境中的運作方式感到非常滿意。如果你看一下 RPO 的增長——如果你特別看一下 CRPO 的增長，我們本季度的 CRPO 有所加速。這在一定程度上要歸功於銷售組織和上市組織所做的出色工作。

So to answer your question, no real changes relative to our plans that we outlined at the beginning of the year. And as I said in my prepared remarks, we're on track to achieve breakeven in Q4.

因此，為了回答您的問題，與我們在年初概述的計劃相比，沒有真正的變化。正如我在準備好的發言中所說，我們有望在第四季度實現收支平衡。

Okay. That's great. And the CRPO acceleration is certainly encouraging.

好的。那太棒了。 CRPO 的加速當然令人鼓舞。

We'll take our next question from Raimo Lenschow with Barclays, followed by Mizuho.

我們將從巴克萊銀行的 Raimo Lenschow 和 Mizuho 接聽下一個問題。

Congrats. Great start to the year. I have 2 questions. First on cloud. There's -- obviously, there's a big discussion going on with cloud consumption, optimization, et cetera, and we talked about it a little bit. Jay, like in what respect are you guys part of that? Can people kind of buy you through the marketplace now, and that's kind of a little bit of a headwind? Or is it more like people not doing -- now like there's a finite number of new projects starting in this environment. And then so, that's kind of more what's kind of creating the headwind for you?

恭喜。開年大吉。我有兩個問題。先上雲。很明顯，關於雲消費、優化等方面的討論正在進行中，我們對此進行了一些討論。傑伊，你們在哪些方面參與其中？人們現在可以通過市場購買你嗎，這有點不利？或者它更像是人們不做的——現在好像在這種環境中開始的新項目數量有限。那麼，這更像是什麼給你製造了逆風？

Yes.

是的。

And the next question for Steffan. If you think about it, like you obviously outperformed Q1. Well done. You kept the full year guidance. That kind of is either more uncertainty or there's more of a buffer in the year. Can you just talk a little bit about the puts and takes that took your kind of guidance for the full year?

Steffan 的下一個問題。仔細想想，像你顯然跑贏了Q1。做得好。你保持了全年的指導。這種要么是更多的不確定性，要么是今年有更多的緩衝。你能談談你全年指導的看跌期權和看跌期權嗎？

Yes. I'll start with the first question. I think it's ultimately like, hey, to what extent are we subject to optimization, cloud optimization, which is a topic in every user of the public cloud, including us. And to what extent are we impacted by potentially fewer net new software projects that are occurring?

是的。我將從第一個問題開始。我認為最終就像，嘿，我們在多大程度上受到優化，雲優化，這是包括我們在內的每個公共雲用戶的話題。正在發生的可能更少的淨新軟件項目對我們的影響有多大？

Yes, I would say the latter is probably the most significant factor, right? So our expansion is driven by new projects coming on, adding their data streams, using the technology, taking it out to new use cases. The rate of that is certainly an important variable for us in growth. In addition to how active we are at converting those use cases, which is about the TCO in comparison to open source, et cetera, right? So those 2 variables are very important.

是的，我想說後者可能是最重要的因素，對吧？因此，我們的擴張是由新項目推動的，添加他們的數據流，使用技術，將其用於新的用例。這當然是我們增長的一個重要變量。除了我們在轉換這些用例方面的積極性之外，這是關於與開源等相比的 TCO，對嗎？所以這兩個變量非常重要。

Is it possible to optimize the usage of Confluent? Yes, of course, right? It's possible to optimize the use of any SaaS product, right? And this shows up quicker in products that have a consumption revenue model. It shows up that very quarter. But obviously, companies are going through and cutting seats and looking at who really needs the access to that tool.

是否可以優化 Confluent 的使用？是的，當然，對吧？可以優化任何 SaaS 產品的使用，對嗎？這在具有消費收入模型的產品中表現得更快。它出現在那個季度。但很明顯，公司正在審查並削減席位，看看誰真正需要使用該工具。

And of course, all the layoffs and any other trimming of staff slow down to seat-based models, doing exactly the same way. So yes, I think there's optimization happening. Everywhere, you just see it faster in the consumption models.

當然，所有的裁員和任何其他裁員都會放慢到基於座位的模型，以完全相同的方式進行。所以是的，我認為正在發生優化。無處不在，您只是在消費模型中更快地看到它。

Within those products, of course, it's wildly different how much optimization is possible. And that has everything to do with what the product actually does, right? How much do you actually need, the thing that you bought? Is it, in fact, a mission-critical thing that you're going to keep running? Or is it something where you can just turn off if you don't need it? And that's an area where I think we have it very good. We're a mission-critical part of the production application stack. Those applications typically come fairly well optimized. Of course, you can go rewrite your applications to try to be more efficient, send less data, whatever. But that's a lot of work, and it usually has already been done in the kind of building and deployment process.

當然，在這些產品中，可以進行多少優化是截然不同的。這與產品的實際功能息息相關，對吧？你實際需要多少錢，你買的東西？實際上，它是您要繼續運行的關鍵任務嗎？還是不需要時可以關閉的東西？這是我認為我們非常擅長的領域。我們是生產應用程序堆棧的關鍵任務部分。這些應用程序通常經過相當好的優化。當然，您可以重寫您的應用程序以嘗試提高效率、發送更少的數據等等。但這是很多工作，而且通常已經在構建和部署過程中完成了。

And so we certainly see that, but we don't see as much of it. And so typically, as we have kind of consumption coming online, it's kind of mostly pre-optimized. There may be further optimizations that will happen. But of course, that all folds up into that overall net retention rate.

所以我們當然看到了，但我們沒有看到那麼多。因此，通常情況下，當我們有某種在線消費時，它大多是預先優化的。可能會發生進一步的優化。但是，當然，所有這些都包含在整體淨保留率中。

And we haven't seen any big changes in that in the last few quarters. Customers, of course, are trying to optimize, but they're also adding new projects, which drives expansion, what you see as kind of the combination of those 2 factors, which I think, in the end, is quite strong.

在過去的幾個季度裡，我們沒有看到任何大的變化。當然，客戶正在嘗試優化，但他們也在添加新項目，這推動了擴張，你所看到的是這兩個因素的結合，我認為這最終是非常強大的。

And then turning to your question on guidance. Our point of view on the full year remains unchanged from last quarter. The demand environment remains healthy, even though it's a tough macro out there. So we're reaffirming our guide for the full year, growing revenue at 30% and plan to achieve breakeven on a non-GAAP operating margin basis in Q4.

然後轉向你關於指導的問題。我們對全年的看法與上一季度保持不變。需求環境保持健康，儘管這是一個艱難的宏觀環境。因此，我們重申全年的指導方針，收入增長 30%，併計劃在第四季度實現非 GAAP 營業利潤率的盈虧平衡。

We did not flow through the amount of the overperformance we had in the top line this quarter to the full year guide, which is really a byproduct of the macro environment and factors I've called out before, which we're trying to prudently take into consideration while formulating guidance.

我們沒有將本季度收入中的超額表現轉化為全年指南，這實際上是宏觀環境和我之前提到的因素的副產品，我們正試圖謹慎對待這些因素在製定指導意見時予以考慮。

You asked for some puts and takes. We expect cloud to continue its growth momentum with the highest NRR and an increase in sequential revenue add every quarter for the remainder of the year. And then the CRPO growth that I pointed out before, it continues to be robust. NRR remained healthy. And both of those things support the growth and the overall business plan.

你問了一些看跌期權。我們預計雲將以最高的 NRR 繼續其增長勢頭，並且在今年剩餘時間裡每個季度的連續收入都會增加。然後是我之前指出的 CRPO 增長，它繼續保持強勁。 NRR 保持健康。這兩件事都支持增長和整體業務計劃。

We'll take our next question from Gray (inaudible) with Mizuho, followed by Deutsche Bank.

我們將與瑞穗一起接受格雷（聽不清）的下一個問題，然後是德意志銀行。

I guess, first for Jay. At your Investor briefing last October, I think it was Erica who mentioned that on average, you were taking customers who made a significant commit, about 6 months, for their annualized consumption to match their commitment levels. Obviously, the macro has gotten tougher since then. So I was just curious kind of where that stands today.

我想，首先是傑伊。在去年 10 月的投資者簡報會上，我想是埃里卡提到的，平均而言，你接受了做出重大承諾的客戶，大約 6 個月，他們的年化消費量與他們的承諾水平相匹配。顯然，從那時起，宏觀政策變得更加強硬。所以我只是好奇今天的情況。

Yes, we haven't seen a huge change in the ramp-up of customers. That's more determined by how long it takes them to build their applications, get them online, get them fully consuming, roll them out, which is the average of companies who are moving very fast and companies who move slower. So I'd say that has less impact from the macro. We have seen a little bit of change in the behavior of customers and how they use the commits.

是的，我們沒有看到客戶增加的巨大變化。這更多地取決於他們構建應用程序、讓它們上線、讓它們完全使用、推出它們需要多長時間，這是移動速度非常快的公司和移動速度較慢的公司的平均值。所以我想說這對宏觀的影響較小。我們已經看到客戶的行為以及他們使用提交的方式發生了一些變化。

Steffan called out a little bit of compression in the multiyear stuff. In general, I think customers are just being thoughtful about the amount that they're committing to. And the plus side of that is we've seen very strong consumption against those committed amounts, which is great. That's what we want to see. We don't want customers buying a lot that remains unused or anything like that. And so that kind of above-100% utilization is a good thing.

Steffan 呼籲對多年的東西進行一些壓縮。總的來說，我認為客戶只是在考慮他們承諾的金額。好的一面是，我們已經看到對這些承諾金額的消費非常強勁，這很好。這就是我們想要看到的。我們不希望客戶購買大量未使用或類似的東西。因此，這種超過 100% 的利用率是一件好事。

All right. Great. And then I know the commercial segment has been very resilient for Confluent. Did that continue this quarter? Or are you starting to see some weakness?

好的。偉大的。然後我知道商業領域對 Confluent 來說非常有彈性。這在本季度繼續嗎？或者你開始看到一些弱點？

Yes. It did continue this quarter. We've been watching it closely because I think that segment obviously has a lot of these private tech companies that I think are a bit fragile under very significant pressure. And so we kind of have expected to see some hit there, and have not. I would describe that primarily to the fact that there's just a lot of untapped opportunity. So of course, there is pressure. Of course, that is a countervailing force, but there's also just a lot of open source kind of usage to grow into. And so the fact that we hadn't paid as much attention to that segment until later at the life of the company and have now gone after it means there's still a lot of opportunity there.

是的。它確實在本季度繼續。我們一直在密切關注它，因為我認為該領域顯然有很多這樣的私營科技公司，我認為這些公司在非常大的壓力下有點脆弱。所以我們有點期待在那裡看到一些打擊，但沒有。我主要將其描述為這樣一個事實，即有很多未開發的機會。所以當然有壓力。當然，這是一種抵消力量，但也有很多開源用途需要發展。因此，事實上我們直到公司成立後期才對這個細分市場給予如此多的關注，現在已經開始關注它，這意味著那裡仍然有很多機會。

(Operator Instructions) I think we're still waiting for Deutsche to join the room. Ryan, let's go to Eric Heath from KeyBanc. Hey, Eric?

（操作員說明）我想我們還在等待德意志加入房間。 Ryan，我們去找 KeyBanc 的 Eric Heath。嘿，埃里克？

I'm in here now. Thanks, Shane. So Steffan, just on the cloud revenue side, I think you altered your guidance a little bit to 48% to 50% of Confluent Cloud -- of revenue coming from Confluent Cloud in 4Q. Just curious if that's more so a function of new use cases being brought online being a little bit slower than you expected? Or is it growth of existing use cases moderating a little bit?

我現在在這裡。謝謝，謝恩。所以 Steffan，就雲收入方面而言，我認為你將你的指導略微調整為 48% 到 50% 的 Confluent Cloud——第四季度來自 Confluent Cloud 的收入。只是好奇這是否更像是在線新用例的功能比您預期的要慢一點？還是現有用例的增長有所放緩？

It's a little bit of a combination of both. And then as we think about just the mix of business, we did have a strong Q1 for Confluent Platform. And we look at the overall mix for the year. And so we modestly shaped the guide for our cloud business. Originally, we said approximately 50% for the year. We basically gave a range, widened it a little bit to 48% to 50%.

這是兩者的結合。然後當我們考慮業務組合時，我們確實有一個強大的 Confluent Platform 第一季度。我們著眼於今年的整體組合。因此，我們謙虛地制定了雲業務指南。最初，我們說的是一年大約 50%。我們基本上給出了一個範圍，稍微擴大到 48% 到 50%。

I will say that given the run rate that we have with Confluent Cloud, we're almost at a $300 million run rate, growing at 89%. And the consumption of Confluent Cloud continues to be robust. So when we think about use case expansion opportunities, there is a natural network effect with the consumption business that we're seeing. In this environment, sometimes it does take companies longer to deploy new workloads, et cetera. So that was factored into the 48% to 50% comment that I made earlier.

我要說的是，考慮到我們使用 Confluent Cloud 的運行率，我們的運行率幾乎達到 3 億美元，增長率為 89%。 Confluent Cloud 的消費量繼續強勁。因此，當我們考慮用例擴展機會時，我們看到的消費業務會產生自然的網絡效應。在這種環境下，有時公司確實需要更長的時間來部署新的工作負載等等。所以這被納入了我之前發表的 48% 到 50% 的評論中。

Got it. And Jay, if I could just ask you a question. I might have missed it at the beginning, apologies. But just on generative AI, I mean, Kafka and Flink are challenging technologies, and finding people with those skill sets is kind of difficult. Just curious if there's an opportunity to leverage generative AI to basically democratize access to those technologies? And if that's something that could bring more users onto the platform?

知道了。傑伊，如果我可以問你一個問題。一開始我可能錯過了，抱歉。但就生成人工智能而言，我的意思是，Kafka 和 Flink 是具有挑戰性的技術，找到具備這些技能的人有點困難。只是好奇是否有機會利用生成 AI 來基本上使對這些技術的訪問民主化？如果這可以為平台帶來更多用戶？

Yes, absolutely. Like I did address this briefly, but the answer focused more on what's the role we provide in generative AI architectures. The flip side of that is what are the use cases for us? And of course, to the extent that software engineers can become more productive in building applications around this, through tools like copilot and things like that. Obviously, we become more efficient building our products, but also our customers actually can be much faster at consuming our products. And that's a phenomenal thing.

是的，一點沒錯。就像我確實簡要地解決了這個問題，但答案更多地集中在我們在生成 AI 架構中扮演的角色上。另一方面是我們的用例是什麼？當然，在某種程度上，軟件工程師可以通過諸如 Copilot 之類的工具來提高圍繞此構建應用程序的效率。顯然，我們生產產品的效率提高了，而且我們的客戶實際上也可以更快地消費我們的產品。這是一件了不起的事情。

We'll have to see how it all plays out. Like I think the full impact of this and then how it plays out, as it happens in all companies is really hard to kind of estimate the second-order effects of what all that means. But I think it's net-net, a very positive thing for us.

我們得看看結果如何。就像我認為這一切的全部影響以及它如何發揮作用一樣，因為它發生在所有公司中，所以很難估計這一切意味著什麼的二階效應。但我認為這是 net-net，對我們來說是一件非常積極的事情。

All right. Thanks, Eric. We'll take our next question from Rudy Kessinger with D.A. Davidson. Rudy?

好的。謝謝，埃里克。我們將接受 D.A. Rudy Kessinger 的下一個問題。戴維森。魯迪？

Steffan, gross margins the last couple of quarters, certainly trending a bit above your midterm target, more so in the range of your long-term target. How should we expect those to trend near term? Why are you seeing the outperformance there? And when we look at the guide, you reiterated the revenue, but you took up the operating margin a bit. And is the gross margin outperformance the primary source of that upside in the operating margins? Because it sounds like you're keeping hiring plans pretty much the same.

Steffan，過去幾個季度的毛利率肯定會略高於您的中期目標，在您的長期目標範圍內更是如此。我們應該如何期待它們在近期內的趨勢？你為什麼看到那裡的表現出色？當我們看指南時，你重申了收入，但你稍微提高了營業利潤率。毛利率是否是營業利潤率上升的主要來源？因為聽起來您的招聘計劃幾乎沒有變化。

Well, gross margin has been a bright spot for us, especially given the dynamics at play where we've had an increase in Confluent Cloud revenue really go exponential over the last, call it, 2 years. 2 years ago, it accounted for 18% of revenue. And today, it accounts for 42% of revenue. And it comes at a lower gross margin profile than Platform. And we've made a lot of progress on the unit economic -- unit economics there. And we've seen really, really strong growth.

好吧，毛利率一直是我們的一個亮點，特別是考慮到我們的 Confluent Cloud 收入在過去兩年中確實呈指數級增長的動態，稱之為 2 年。 2年前，它佔收入的18%。如今，它佔收入的 42%。而且它的毛利率低於平台。我們在單位經濟方面取得了很大進展——那裡的單位經濟學。我們已經看到了非常非常強勁的增長。

So as we look towards what the future holds, we feel comfortable with the 70% to 72% range, because we think the cloud business will continue its upward trajectory. Longer term, we think it will be in the -- call it the mid-70s. The rate and pace of us being able to expand there is going to be dependent upon a lot of the engineering work that we're doing, the price discipline that we have and the value that we're bringing to our customers.

因此，當我們展望未來時，我們對 70% 到 72% 的範圍感到滿意，因為我們認為雲業務將繼續保持上升趨勢。從長遠來看，我們認為它會在 - 稱之為 70 年代中期。我們能夠在那裡擴張的速度和步伐將取決於我們正在進行的大量工程工作、我們擁有的價格紀律以及我們為客戶帶來的價值。

And then as it relates to how our overall guidance worked for not only Q2, but for the balance of the year, we are anticipating being at the higher end of our near-term range of 70% to 72% in gross margin. We're definitely letting that flow through the bottom line, but we're also seeing the efficiency work that we've been really focused on across all OpEx line items paying off.

然後，由於它涉及到我們的整體指導如何不僅適用於第二季度，而且適用於今年餘下時間，我們預計毛利率將處於 70% 至 72% 的近期範圍的較高端。我們肯定會讓它流過底線，但我們也看到我們一直專注於所有 OpEx 訂單項的效率工作得到回報。

And so our operational cadence around efficient growth is playing out. We have -- that work is never done. And we're laser-focused on delivering it. But we're very happy that we're able to deliver top line revenue growth that is in what we call high-growth mode and dramatically improve operating margin on our path to get to breakeven in Q4.

因此，我們圍繞高效增長的運營節奏正在發揮作用。我們有 - 工作永遠不會完成。我們非常專注於交付它。但我們很高興我們能夠實現我們所謂的高增長模式的收入增長，並在第四季度實現盈虧平衡的道路上顯著提高營業利潤率。

That's helpful. And then was there anything in particular that drove the Platform strength in the quarter? I know it's certainly by 2 things. I mean, one, most of the revenue upside came from the Platform versus your guide. And then secondly, I know in Q4, cloud was 70% -- over 70% of new bookings, and it was over 50% this quarter. So obviously, the new bookings mix trend in more terms Platform. Anything in particular that you think drove that strength?

這很有幫助。然後是什麼特別推動了本季度平台的實力？我知道這肯定是兩件事。我的意思是，第一，大部分收入增長來自平台而不是您的指南。其次，我知道在第四季度，雲佔新預訂的 70%——超過 70%，本季度超過 50%。很明顯，新的預訂組合趨勢更多地體現在平台上。您認為有什麼特別推動了這種力量？

You called out the strength in the public sector vertical, that tends to be Confluent Platform business. And those also tend to be 1-year deals. And it was actually the best Q1 in public sector that the company has ever had. So that really drove the strength in the Platform overperformance. And because of that strength, we did see a mix shift from an ACV standpoint. While cloud was greater than 50%, it did come down from a mix standpoint given just the strength in Confluent Platform.

您指出了公共部門垂直領域的優勢，這往往是 Confluent Platform 業務。這些也往往是 1 年期交易。這實際上是該公司有史以來最好的公共部門第一季度。因此，這確實推動了平台超額表現的實力。由於這種優勢，我們確實看到了從 ACV 的角度來看的混合轉變。雖然雲超過 50%，但考慮到 Confluent Platform 的優勢，它確實從混合的角度來看有所下降。

I will say that Confluent Cloud, we've had now 6-plus quarters in a row of greater than 50% of net new ACV being Confluent Cloud. So that businesses still continues to grow at a very rapid pace. It was just that Confluent Platform deals tend to be lumpy, and they can be seasonal also, and that's what we saw play out this quarter.

我會說 Confluent Cloud，我們現在已經連續 6 個多季度超過 50% 的淨新 ACV 是 Confluent Cloud。因此，企業仍然繼續以非常快的速度增長。只是 Confluent Platform 的交易往往是不穩定的，而且它們也可能是季節性的，這就是我們在本季度看到的情況。

Got it. That's helpful. Congrats again on the good numbers here.

知道了。這很有幫助。再次祝賀這裡的好數字。

Thanks, Rudy. We'll take our last question from Shebly with FBN Securities.

謝謝，魯迪。我們將接受 Shebly 與 FBN Securities 的最後一個問題。

So what was your headcount number for Q1? Did you complete the 8% headcount reduction that you announced? And do you anticipate further headcount reductions as the year progresses?

那麼第一季度的員工人數是多少？您是否完成了您宣布的 8% 裁員計劃？隨著時間的推移，您是否預計會進一步裁員？

Yes. Do you want to take the headcount question, Steffan?

是的。 Steffan，你想回答人數問題嗎？

Yes. So we substantially completed our restructuring. It's not 100% done, but it's substantially complete. We haven't disclosed the actual ending Q1 headcount before. So yes, I can say it's below what it was last -- at the end of Q4, for obvious reasons, due to the restructuring. And we are continuing to be focused on driving operational efficiency throughout the year. And so, Jay, I'm happy to turn it over to you to answer any other part of the question.

是的。因此，我們基本上完成了重組。它不是 100% 完成的，但基本上已經完成了。我們之前沒有披露實際結束的第一季度員工人數。所以是的，我可以說它低於去年第四季度末的水平，原因很明顯，由於重組。我們將繼續專注於提高全年的運營效率。所以，Jay，我很高興將它交給你來回答問題的任何其他部分。

Yes, yes. Yes, we're not planning for any further reductions at this point.

是的是的。是的，我們目前不打算進一步削減。

Okay. And I get that your Cloud gross margin declined 2 points sequentially in Q1, the first time that's happened in my model. If I assume like your Platform gross margin is like 88% or high 80s, you get around 65% for the cloud in Q1 from 67% in Q4. First of all, did that happen? Was there a gross margin decline in cloud for the first time sequentially? Why did that happen? And what's your outlook going forward?

好的。我知道你們的雲毛利率在第一季度連續下降了 2 個百分點，這是我的模型中第一次出現這種情況。如果我假設您的平台毛利率是 88% 或 80 多歲，那麼您在第一季度的雲計算毛利率將從第四季度的 67% 提高到 65% 左右。首先，那件事發生了嗎？雲計算的毛利率是否首次連續下降？為什麼會這樣？您對未來有何展望？

Well, we don't guide on the specific componentry of platform versus cloud gross margins. But what I will tell you is that the -- and I know it's hard to model from outside-in, but the dynamic that you described actually it didn't happen. We saw nice improvements in our margin structure for the components that go into our subscription margins.

好吧，我們不指導平台與雲毛利率的具體組成部分。但我要告訴你的是——我知道很難從外到內建模，但你描述的動態實際上並沒有發生。我們看到我們的訂閱保證金組成部分的保證金結構有了很大的改善。

All right. That concludes today's earnings call. Thank you all very much for joining us. We look forward to seeing many of you at our upcoming conferences and our Investor Day in June. Take care.

好的。今天的財報電話會議到此結束。非常感謝大家加入我們。我們期待在我們即將召開的會議和 6 月的投資者日見到你們中的許多人。小心。

Thanks all.

謝謝大家。