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 Confluence 2023 年第一季財報電話會議。我是投資者關係部的謝恩·謝（Shane Xie），共同創辦人兼執行長傑伊·克雷普斯（Jay Kreps）也加入其中。和財務長史蒂芬‧湯姆林森 (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.

在今天的電話會議中，管理階層將就我們的業務、營運、財務表現和未來前景做出前瞻性陳述，包括有關我們2023 年第二季和2023 財年財務指引的陳述。風險和不確定性，這可能導致實際結果與這些陳述預期的結果有重大差異。

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資​​訊包含在我們最近向 SEC 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 facilitate the 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，今天電話會議中使用的某些財務指標是在非公認會計準則基礎上表示的，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公認會計準則財務指標，以促進對我們的財務和業務趨勢的分析以及內部規劃和預測的目的。這些非公認會計原則財務指標具有局限性，不應孤立地考慮或取代根據公認會計原則準備的財務資訊。

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 財務指標之間的調整包含在我們的收益新聞稿和補充財務資訊中，您可以在我們的投資者關係網站 Investors.confluence.io 上找到這些資訊。

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 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。該節目還將在我們的 IR 網站上進行網路直播，時間為下午 1 點開始。東部時間。

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

這樣，我就把電話轉給傑伊。

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。歡迎參加我們的第一季財報電話會議。我很高興地報告第一季的強勁表現，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.

總營收成長 38%，達到 1.74 億美元。 Confluence Cloud 營收成長 89%，達到 7,400 萬美元，非 GAAP 營業利潤率提高了 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盪的宏觀經濟環境中的堅定執行力。

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 this show which products have true durability and which are simply fads or nice-to-have. I wanted to take the opportunity to explore what drives this durability for Confluent.

去年，儘管經濟環境發生了重大變化，包括利率突然變化、經濟放緩、私人科技公司融資大幅下降以及近期面臨的挑戰，Confluence 仍繼續表現出非常強勁的毛保留率。像這樣的環境顯示哪些產品具有真正的耐用性，哪些產品只是時尚或值得擁有的產品。我想藉此機會探索是什麼推動了 Confluence 的耐用性。

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 this 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 Confluence 為任務關鍵型客製化軟體應用程式提供服務。這些是客戶投入昂貴的軟體工程資源的高價值項目。我們經常聽到客戶說應用程式不僅持續數年，而且持續數十年。當然，這些應用程式使用的底層資料平台往往會隨之持續存在。

The second factor is that unlike a database, Confluent isn't just a platform for 1 app, but acts as 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，與資料庫不同，Confluence 不僅僅是一個應用程式的平台，而且充當多個團隊和應用程式之間的交換平台。這是該技術的核心用例所固有的，即發布資料流，以便多個其他應用程式和團隊可以使用這些流。這種多團隊、多應用程式的平台隨著使用量的增加而變得越來越黏性，並且與每個應用程式可以獨立選擇或放棄的平台表現出截然不同的動態。

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.

原因非常明顯。遷移到另一個平台需要多個團隊同時協調努力，隨著越來越多的生產者和消費者針對平台中的資料流進行構建，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.

透過類比，想想切換到新的不相容電話系統的成本。挑戰不在於購買新手機，而是讓所有朋友同時做同樣的事情，這樣你仍然可以打電話給他們。這種跨團隊互動和跨應用程式互動的模式是資料流的獨特且積極的特徵，大多數其他資料系統都沒有共享。

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的雲端產品固有的 TCO 優勢。我將詳細討論這個因素，因為它對於理解 Confluence 建構的深入技術說明至關重要。

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，客戶在面臨預算壓力時可能會希望從雲端資料服務遷移回開源。開源畢竟是免費的。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。我們在先前的財報電話會議中詳細討論了這一點。但您可以想像，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。雲端資料服務不僅有機會比開源產品更好，而且便宜得多。要理解這一點，重要的是要了解是什麼驅動了自我管理資料系統的成本結構。這是我們經常進行的分析，因為我們提供自我管理的軟體產品和雲端服務。我們與數千名本地和雲端客戶合作，分析和比較完全託管雲端服務中開源自我管理軟體的成本結構。我將逐步完成此分析並展示我們巨大的 TCO 優勢來自何處。

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.

圍繞自我管理的軟體系統有兩個易於量化的支出領域。第一個是運行 Kafka 的雲端基礎設施。這涵蓋計算、儲存、網路以及保持 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 的軟體工程師和維運人員。與任何資料系統一樣，特別是與任何大規模分散式資料系統一樣，Kafka 需要全職人員來管理它。這些人員的成本是巨大的，特別是對於管理 Kafka 的人員。

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 的 2022 年研究將 Kafka 列為薪酬第五高的技術技能。這對於從事 Kafka DevOps 的工程師來說非常好，但對於僱用具有將 Kafka 作為生產資料系統操作經驗的團隊的公司來說就不太好了。這些成本將隨著系統的使用而增加。圍繞開源 Kafka 建立重要串流平台的大型科技公司擁有由 20 名或更多工程師組成的團隊負責其資料流平台。

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.

雲端服務降低這些成本並非不可避免。畢竟，如果我們運行相同的開源軟體並以相同的方式操作，我們的成本將與他們沒有什麼不同。然而，Confluence 從頭開始重新思考了這個問題，並建立了一個深度差異化的堆棧，能夠在這兩個領域推動引人注目的節省。

I'll start with infrastructure savings. Confluent's 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。 Confluence 的雲端以一種專為雲端原生建構的方式重新思考並重新實現了資料流的核心協議，以顯著節省成本。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 rearchitecture, 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.

首先，多租戶。多租戶是 SaaS 利潤的關鍵，但許多投資者沒有意識到，雲端中的大多數數據系統，尤其是雲端供應商圍繞開源提供的服務，實際上不具備多租戶操作的能力。我們的產品為絕大多數客戶提供多租戶服務。這是一個非常重要的重新架構，幾乎涉及堆疊的每一層，使我們能夠將數千名客戶集中在共享基礎設施上，以提高無伺服器體驗的利用率。

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

其次是彈性。我們在記憶體、本地儲存和物件儲存之間的智慧資料分層有助於管理儲存資料的成本並允許即時可擴展性，從而提高運算資源的利用率。

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 in the routing of traffic to maximize performance, utilization and cost.

接下來是我們用於複雜資料平衡的設施。 Confluence 使用我們客戶群的即時效能資料來智慧優化流量路由中的資料放置，以最大限度地提高效能、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，網路和資料複製。 Confluence 優化了網路堆疊路由資料中的資料複製，以降低網路成本，這是串流媒體雲端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。 Confluence 現在的規模比我們大多數客戶都大，我們能夠為我們的工作負載提供折扣。

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，再加上堆疊每一層的數千個小型持續優化，有助於推動我們在營運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增長的人已經在工作中吸收了這種持續的進步，因為隨著雲端已成為我們收入基礎中越來越大的一部分，我們不斷推動額外的技術改進並提高多租戶營運的利用率。

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

接下來，我想討論我們的創新和規模化營運帶來的優勢。 Confluence 使用一套與我們的客戶截然不同的工具和實踐來經營我們的車隊。

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，我們的基礎設施改善在這裡發揮雙重作用。我之前概述的改進大大提高了利用率，因此，我們管理的伺服器數量比其他方式少了一個數量級。但我們營運的最大區別在於它是由軟體完成的，而不是人。

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.

我們透過複雜的回饋驅動系統來協調部署，可以在數小時內在數千台機器上安全部署。我們能夠自動偵測並修復大規模常見的罕見問題。我們對系統完整性的各個方面進行即時監控和檢查。這些能力為我們在人力管理成本方面提供了巨大的優勢。

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 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，Confluence 僅有不到 5 位 Kafka 工程師隨時為我們數以萬計的生產 Kafka 叢集服務。這為我們提供了一個我們認為比客戶低 1,000 倍以上的營運成本結構。

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 large-scale central nervous system.

基礎設施和營運方面的這些節省的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，尤其是在這樣的時期。我們竭盡全力確保我們在整個客戶旅程中（從他們的第一個用例到大規模的中樞神經系統）都保持 TCO 積極。

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。這是那些希望將本地開源模型與雲端進行類比的投資者經常忽略的一點，事實上，兩者有很大不同。

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.

傳統的本地開源商業模式提供優質的產品、更好的功能以及更多的錢。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，雲端產品不僅取代免費軟體。它也取代了昂貴的基礎設施和人力成本。這正在推動軟體工程師和 IT 部門的普遍思維方式轉變，他們越來越多地首先尋求託管服務，並盡可能避免持續營運。

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，我們認為有機會從對數十萬開源 Kafka 用戶的適度滲透發展到更全面的覆蓋範圍。這種更高的轉換率已經顯而易見。儘管是較新的產品，儘管雲端服務的成熟度要高得多，但如今，使用 Confluence Cloud 的客戶數量已經是我們的自我管理軟體產品 Confluence Platform 的 6 倍以上。

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 [on their own].

事實上，我們對這個價值主張非常有信心，因此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，以向他們證明選擇 Confluence 將是比自營式開源 Kafka 更經濟的決定。的]。

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.

Confluence 在客戶旅程的早期階段為客戶帶來的 TCO 優勢的一個很好的例子是基於 SaaS 的計費新創公司，它可以幫助公司擴展其消費、訂閱和混合定價模式。該客戶的數據和計費平台基於 Kafka 構建，可以即時計算數百萬最終客戶的使用情況和發票，並且正在快速擴展以適應預期的增長。但他們很快就發現管理開源 Kafka 成本高昂，並且將昂貴的工程人才從創新轉向低階基礎設施管理。

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 Kafka.

借助 Confluence Cloud，他們能夠重新分配至少 60% 的工程師管理 Kafka 的時間，以提供新產品創新，而無需過度配置基礎設施。因此，他們將部署時間從幾個月縮短到幾週，同時降低了管理開源 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.

另一方面是與一家美國十大銀行的第一季大型交易。 Confluence 為該客戶數百個團隊的數千個應用程式提供支持，涵蓋數位、詐欺、付款、分析等領域。該銀行現在全力投入雲端運算，進行大規模的雲端遷移，以提高營運效率並更快地向客戶推出新的創新。

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.

為了加速雲端遷移，他們達成了一項價值 7 位數的 Confluence Cloud 交易，將其資料從本地環境連接到雲端。儘管銀行業出現動盪，該客戶仍透過 Confluence 加速了雲端轉型，這是許多用例的另一個例子，這些用例使資料流成為現代組織的關鍵工具，即使在宏觀不確定的情況下也是如此。隨著金融服務業轉向雲端，我們對其他客戶有類似擴張的機會感到非常興奮。

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處於有利地位，能夠利用 Kafka 的數十萬用戶，我們的產品比開源產品好 10 倍以上，而且價格便宜得多。這些動態使我們成為 600 億美元市場機會的領導者，處於令人羨慕的地位。

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，除此之外，我們將更深入地探討推動我們平台成功的重大產品創新。

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

這樣，我會將電話轉給 Steffan，讓其了解財務狀況。

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 財年伊始就超越了我們的指導指標，在第一季實現了高收入成長和強勁利潤率改善。這些結果顯示我們的團隊在更嚴峻的經濟環境中又維持了四分之一的持續執行力。

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。第一季的 RPO 為 7.426 億美元，成長 35%。目前的 RPO（預計為 RPO 的 64%）為 4.77 億美元，成長 44%，較上季有所加快。 RPO 的成長雖然健康，但受到平均合約期限縮短的影響；額外的預算審查，這延長了我們的交易週期；與一年前完成的 8 位數 TCV 交易相比，這是一個艱難的競爭。

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，我們的 Confluence Cloud 轉向基於消費的 NRR，這可以更好地調整和洞察我們雲端業務的潛在消費趨勢。第一季的總 NRR 高於 130%，總留存率高於 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%.

雲端和混合客戶的NRR仍然高於公司平均水平，其中雲端的NRR最高。我們淨新增 160 名新客戶，本季末客戶總數約為 4,690 名，成長 14%。在用例擴展的推動下，我們龐大的客戶群持續強勁成長。我們增加了 60 名 ARR 為 10 萬美元或以上的客戶，使客戶總數達到 1,075 名，成長了 34%。這些大客戶貢獻了本季總營收的85%以上。我們還增加了 8 名 ARR 達到或超過 100 萬美元的客戶，使客戶總數達到 135 名，成長 53%。

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

我們在網站上的 IR 簡報中包含了與 ARR 方法變更相關的 NRR 和客戶數量的歷史結果。

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。總營收成長 38%，達到 1.743 億美元。訂閱收入成長 41%，達到 1.606 億美元，佔總營收的 92%。在訂閱業務中，Confluence 平台營收成長了 16%，達到 8,690 萬美元，佔總營收的 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.

Confluence 平台的表現超出了我們的預期，並受到公共部門垂直領域強勁表現的推動。 Confluence Cloud 連續第六個季度超過新 ACV 預訂總量的 50%。雲端營收成長 89%，達到 7,360 萬美元，季增 530 萬美元，超出了我們的預期。

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.

雲端佔總收入的 42%，而上季為 41%。雲端收入組合相對於歷史趨勢的小幅成長是由於本季 Confluence 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.

轉向收入的地理組合。來自美國的收入成長了 32%，達到 1.039 億美元。來自美國以外的收入成長了 49%，達到 7,040 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.

繼續看損益表的其餘部分。除非另有說明，我將指的是非公認會計準則的結果。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效益和雲端產品規模的持續改善所推動的，但收入結構持續向雲端轉移所抵銷。

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.

轉向獲利能力和現金流。營業利潤率提高了 18 個百分點，達到負 23.1%，這是我們連續第三個季度實現超過 10 個百分點的改善。第一季的營業利潤率是由我們的收入表現出色（我們將其轉化為利潤）以及我們持續專注於提高整個公司的效率所推動的。

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.

我們推動了營運支出各個類別的改善，其中銷售和行銷方面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計算，每股淨虧損為負 0.09 美元。庫存股法下的完全稀釋股份數量約為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所預期和討論的那樣，第一季的自由現金流受到與我們的重組、Immerok 收購、ESPP 和公司獎金支付相關費用的負面影響。第四季末，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。資料流和我們向市場提供的解決方案的需求環境仍然強勁，即使在動盪的宏觀環境中，完成交易需要更長的時間。去年年中，我們很早就指出了商業環境波動性的增加，並將這些動態納入我們的展望中。

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.

展望第二季和今年剩餘時間，我們期望兌現我們在上次電話會議中概述的承諾。我們假設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得到改善。我們將繼續積極分配資本以推動高效成長，並管理投資的速度和節奏。

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.

2023年第二季度，我們預計營收將在1.81億美元至1.83億美元之間，成長30%至31%；雲端連續收入將在 750 萬美元至 800 萬美元之間。我們繼續預計，在 2023 年剩餘時間內，雲端運算的連續收入將每季增加。

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 GAAP 營運利潤率約為負 16%；根據約 2.97 億股加權平均計算，非 GAAP 每股淨虧損將在負 0.08 美元至負 0.06 美元之間。

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.

2023年全年，我們預計營收將在7.6億至7.65億美元之間，成長30%至31%；非 GAAP 營業利潤率約為負 14% 至負 13%；根據約 3 億股加權平均計算，非 GAAP 每股淨虧損為負 0.20 美元至負 0.14 美元。此外，對於 23 年第 4 季度，我們預計總收入的 48% 至 50% 來自雲，並實現非 GAAP 營運利潤率的損益平衡。自由現金流損益平衡的時間將大致反映我們營業利益率的時間。

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。展望未來，我們仍專注於推動高效成長和建立獲利業務。

Now Jay and I will take your questions.

現在傑伊和我將回答你們的問題。

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桑吉特辛格，其次是富國銀行。桑吉特，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?

恭喜您在相當困難的環境中取得了非常紮實的成果。就這一點而言，Steffan，我想知道您是否可以向我們介紹本季度的進展情況，特別是在矽谷之後，您在預訂趨勢和客戶參與度方面看到了哪些趨勢？從四月到五月，早期的閱讀情況如何？

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，我們看到了大多數第一季都會出現的典型線性模式。一月份一開始就很典型，通常有點慢，然後從預訂的角度來看，它有所增加，我們在第三個月表現強勁。

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3月下半月雲端業務的一些消費趨勢受到了一些影響。我們看到這在金融垂直領域中得到了體現。不過，我們在四月確實看到了良好的反彈。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，我不知道您是否還有其他要補充的內容？

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 organizations.

我認為這是一個很好的總結，是的。總的來說，結果並不太令人驚訝，儘管我認為在某些客戶中，無論是在科技領域還是在金融服務領域，組織中都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，我很欣賞這一點。聽到三月後金融服務消費的趨勢是很有意義和令人鼓舞的。

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，您出色地解釋了 Confluence Cloud 的價值主張以及 Confluence 在市場上帶來的 TCO 優勢。

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?

我想我們試著更好地理解硬幣的另一面是產生人工智慧的影響。我的意思是，如果您正在考慮應用程式的類別和這些應用程式的接口，您認為這對即時串流媒體有什麼影響？就操作而言，這是否是該類別的強制加速器？或者說這是一個潛在的阻力？

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，這絕對是一個加速器。我的意思是，正如您所期望的那樣，就生產部署而言還處於早期階段。但我們已經有客戶真正這樣做了，其中包括一家大型旅遊公司，該公司正在建立即時上下文數據並使用該數據為其客戶提供聊天介面。我預計這將成為更常見的模式。

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，當資料可能需要流向一個新的主要領域時，這對 Confluence 來說是一件很強大的事情。新事物越多，對我們來說就越好。所以我知道在某些領域，它實際上是一種破壞性的力量。但對我們來說，這其實是一件很強大的事。我們在該架構中的角色是幫助客戶組裝即時上下文數據，這些數據將用於提出正確的問題，支援正確的查詢，將正確的上下文放入介面中，這就是我們融入該架構的地方。

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.

當然，與任何企業公司一樣，內部有許多有趣的用例。我們有許多組織，無論是支援、工程還是法律，都有大量的工作基本上是文字輸入和文字輸出，所有這些團隊都有可能提高生產力，提高他們的遊戲水平。 。

If I could just clarify and get your feedback on this sort of logic, when 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?

如果我能澄清一下並得到你們對這種邏輯的回饋，當我們與這些問答類型的介面互動時，對吧，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，我們正在處理過時的數據，對吧，以及潛在的靜態數據和其他用例？ Confluence 要做的就是提供最新的數據，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。這些架構的架構都是通常完全由中心化公司完成的一定程度的培訓，例如開放人工智慧的案例，然後可能對特定於該客戶的資料進行一定程度的預培訓，然後最重要的是，收集有關的正確資訊提問時的特定客戶，對吧？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，這些方式將具有有關他們的特定背景，必須納入任何回應中。

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

謝謝，桑吉特。我們將接受富國銀行邁克爾特林 (Michael Turrin) 的下一個問題，然後是派珀桑德勒 (Piper Sandler)。

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.

第一季的業績表現不錯。 Steffan提到了ARR聲明。看來是和消費有關係的。您能否協助設定這些變更出現的位置？然後，在 NRR 上，看起來使用舊方法，這個數字確實繼續下降了一點。因此，也許可以回顧一下您在那裡看到的情況以及您對今年剩餘時間的擴張方面的假設。

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 的變化確實影響了我們的雲端業務。在做出改變之前，我們進行了基於提交的 NRR 運算，但它並沒有真正捕捉到我們雲端業務的潛在動力。

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 運算中的消費變化，我們現在正在真正捕捉基於消費的業務實力。它更好地反映了實際的潛在成長動力，也與我們的同行集團公司基於消費的模式所做的事情非常一致。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，它出現在我們的雲端業務中，然後也出現在我們的混合客戶 NRR 佇列中，因為這些混合客戶同時執行 Confluence Platform 和 Confluence Cloud。 Confluence 平台將繼續採用舊方法，即承諾的合約基礎。但對於他們的 Confluence Cloud 業務部分，我們將使用提交基礎來計算。

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.

因此，就舊方法而言，我們確實略低於我們為總 NRR 目標制定的 125% 指標。我們看到的根本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，我們看到的擴張驅動力有所減弱，而擴張驅動力就像業務的承諾合約部分一樣。但我們確實看到並且新方法中更好地反映的是我們客戶的消費模式超出了承諾的合約支出。

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

這些都是發揮作用的一些動力。展望未來，我們將報告基於消耗的 NRR 指標，這也能更好地反映業務的基本績效。

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.

這是超有用的細節。斯特凡，我可以簡單地談談你提到的內容嗎？我認為有時，您對雲端消費模式的可見性可能被低估了。因此，全年圍繞雲端連續改進的評論是一致的。您可以提供任何顏色來圍繞您擁有的可見性以及為持續進展提供信心的顏色。

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.

我們已經採取了重大措施，圍繞著基於消費的方法來組織我們的業務。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，我們一直是一家雲端優先的公司。然後我們圍繞預測的系統和流程做了很多檢測。

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，即使在更嚴峻的宏觀環境下，Confluence Cloud 在全年剩餘時間內每季的淨連續收入都會增加。因此，我們對今年總收入的 48% 至 50% 來自 Confluence Cloud 的能力感到非常滿意。這讓我們有信心將這根樁落地。

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

我們將回答 Rob Owens 和 Piper Sandler 提出的下一個問題，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，我知道您剛才在某種程度上談到了這個問題，但您提到了總保留率。你也說過他們超過了90%。您能否帶我們回顧幾年前，我們上次看到新冠疫情造成的破壞。談談當時和現在的保留體驗。現在這是否會成為一個更具黏性的應用程式？

It definitely is a much stickier 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.

今天它絕對是一個比幾年前更具黏性的應用程式。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。我們的產品和開發組織在過去幾年中推動了創新的數量，今天的產品與兩年前的產品之間存在顯著差異。因此，幾年前，總保留率較低。淨保留率較低。現在，由於產品的成熟度，我們擁有非常健康的淨保留率和毛保留率。

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，如果你將我們對上市組織所做的改進放在等式中，我們就有了與投資界進行交流的客戶成長上市之旅。

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，然後我們如何隨著時間的推移透過他們從 PayGo 開始的進展，一直到我們解決方案的完全成熟的實施來開發他們。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.

而且因為我們是基礎設施遊戲，所以這不是可以輕易刪除和替換或降級到開源版本的東西。我們的 Confluence Cloud 產品與您可以從開源中獲得的任何產品之間存在巨大差異。這就是巨大的差異。

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。我想從傑伊的另一面來看，也許現在可以談談客戶獲取的問題。到底是什麼說服新客戶在這種環境下搬家呢？

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。我認為有很多事情。我的意思是，它從關鍵任務應用程式開始。我認為那些人往往會在這種環境下前進。

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.

第二個面向是我談到的 TCO，最終是產品的功能集。我認為，即使在可能削減預算、裁員等的組織中，與專案的結合對於繼續前進來說也足夠重要，保留其資金，我認為這是至關重要的。然後我認為提出更好的解決方案和更好的協議，我認為這也很重要。

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

我們將接受德里克伍德 (Derrick Wood) 和 TD Cowen 提出的下一個問題，然後是古根漢 (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?

恭喜第一季表現強勁。 Jay，我剛開始了解這一點，我認為你們做得非常好，概述了雲端的優勢以及您相對於本地正在做的事情。我想談談有很多 Kafka DIY，從長尾數萬家公司的超大型集群部署。顯然，你們有一些非常引人注目的 TCO 和 ROI 數字。宏觀轉折點是否會推動更多轉換？當您查看金字塔的頂端和底端時，您是否在這種環境中更關註一端或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。一些經濟衰退的最初影響並沒有什麼幫助，對嗎？客戶正在重新調整優先順序，人員正在被解僱，事情正在發生變化，這不是一個有利於開展業務的環境。

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 a 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'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思維方式的轉變，在某種程度上，技術更先進的組織有點複製十年前的谷歌模式，在谷歌內部構建這些內部基礎設施平台並為他們配備人員，這將成為成功的一種槓桿。我認為現代的方法就是獲得託管服務，最終會更好、更具成本效益。我認為，這種心態轉變非常重要，對我們來說是一個重要的動力。

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.

所以當我談到這個問題時，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推動因素，對吧？關鍵在於我們擁有足夠好的成本結構和 TCO，從而實現這一目標。並非所有雲端產品本質上都是如此，對吧？為了實現這一目標，我們做了大量工作。

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.

然後是人們真正內化這一點並理解它並採取行動，這不會立即發生，但現在它正在發生。

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焦點時？我們確實看到了整個旅程，對嗎？對我們來說，隨著客戶的進步，您可以從一個用例開始。它在組織中傳播得更廣泛，成為一個大平台。僅從一個地方開始是沒有意義的。如果您這樣做，也許您可能會在旅程的開始階段就集中精力，但是當客戶規模擴大時，您將沒有真正支持他們的特性和功能。他們會遷移出去，對嗎？那就不好了。

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.

只專注於最大的客戶，而不關注現在才剛開始的接下來的 100,000 個 Kafka 用戶，這也沒有意義，對嗎？從他們開始做起是最有意義的。

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.

所以現實是，無論是在整體擁有成本還是客戶體驗方面，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小事。您必須非常易於使用，並且對於第一個應用程式來說更划算，需要一名開發人員開始工作。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，對資料等進行正確的控制與治理。

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入的投資領域。這就是我們一直以來的旅程。我認為我們目前的雲端產品最酷的一點是我們在每個地方都有大量的客戶使用。事實上，我們正​​在向開源用戶伸出援手，並將他們轉變為現在的開源用戶，無論他們現在正處於這趟旅程的哪個階段。

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。顏色很棒。斯特凡（Steffan）只是想 - 上個季度，您談到季度末買家的緊迫性有所降低，並且交易有所下滑。只是想知道，那些失敗的交易是否如預期完成了？您在第四季看到的季末逆風動力是否在第一季減弱？因為您似乎沒有什麼大的驚喜，而只是想了解季度末的連續比較情況。

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.

第四季下滑的大部分交易都在第一季完成，這很棒。我們仍然看到過去幾季我們一直坦言的同樣的動態。如果客戶花更多時間評估購買狀況，就會延長交易週期。我們已經能夠執行該計劃並適當地制定指導。因此，我們確實在本季末看到了類似的動態。我們預計，這種動態將在今年剩餘的時間裡得到考慮。這就是真正的動態。

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

我們將接受古根漢的霍華德·馬提出的下一個問題，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，因此，與您對TCO 以及平台功能和完全託管的價值支撐的一些評論相吻合，我認為這有助於解決投資者社區中關於Confluence 的任務關鍵性以及Confluence 對優化兩者的敏感性的持續爭論整體 IT 和雲端支出。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——無論是擴展還是新用例，都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 vetting.

是的，絕對是。我的意思是，幾乎每個行業都會看到這種情況。我們在財報中指出的一點是金融服務的大規模擴張。是的，這個行業顯然正在發生很多事情。這些組織對安全性、合規性等非常敏感，確實做了徹底的審查工作。

The willingness to make a big bet in this area is really one of a small number of third-party cloud infrastructure 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.

願意在這一領域下大賭注的確實是少數第三方雲端基礎設施廠商之一。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舉出類似的例子，無論是零售、保險、汽車、公共部門，每個行業都發生著令人興奮的事情。

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。我還有一個關於斯特凡的後續行動。 Steffan，您能評論一下今年您的市場優先事項嗎？我想，您的投資重點尤其是僱用更多代表、加強客戶保留工作、建立—進一步建立通路生態系統？在過去的幾個月裡，是否有任何變化需要您在這些方面進行更多投資，我猜這會破壞或阻礙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 quota 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，重點是銷售和上市組織中的一些投資優先事項。其中很大一部分是基於我們希望確保在全球範圍內擁有的配額容量。我們將繼續在最有前途、對我們來說最具潛在投資回報率的領域進行招募。我們將繼續對客戶成功組織進行投資，確保客戶的體驗持續出色，這都將提高我們的毛保留率。

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 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.

我們今年的主要投資重點沒有任何變化。事實上，我對這些團體在非常不穩定的環境中運作的表現感到非常滿意。如果你看看 RPO 的成長——特別是 CRPO 的成長，你會發現本季我們的 CRPO 有所加速。這在一定程度上要歸功於銷售組織和市場推廣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，回答你的問題，與我們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，我們預計在第四季實現損益平衡。

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

好的。那太棒了。 CRPO 的加速發展無疑令人鼓舞。

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

我們將接受巴克萊銀行 Raimo Lenschow 和瑞穗銀行的下一個問題。

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。今年的良好開端。我有 2 個問題。首先在雲上。顯然，關於雲端消費、最佳化等方面正在進行大量討論，我們對此進行了一些討論。傑伊，你們在哪方面參與其中？現在人們可以透過市場購買你的產品嗎？或者更像是人們沒有做——現在在這種環境下啟動的新項目數量有限，然後，這更多的是給你帶來了阻力？

Yes.

是的。

And then 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?

然後對於 Steffan，如果你仔細想想，你的表現顯然優於 Q1。幹得好。你保留了全年指引，要么有更多的不確定性，要么有更多的緩衝。您能否簡單談談您全年指導中的看跌期權和看跌期權？

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。我認為最終的問題是，嘿，我們要在多大程度上進行最佳化，雲端優化，這是每個公有雲用戶（包括我們）的一個主題。正在發生的淨新軟體專案可能會減少，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，我們的擴張是由新專案推動的，添加他們的資料流，使用技術，將其應用到新的用例中。這個速度對於我們的成長來說無疑是一個重要的變數。除了我們在轉換這些用例方面的積極程度之外，這還關係到與開源等相比的 TCO，對嗎？所以這兩個變數非常重要。

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 Confluence 的使用？是的，當然，對吧？優化任何 SaaS 產品的使用都是可能的，對嗎？這在具有消費收入模式的產品中表現得更快。它在那個季度就出現了。但顯然，該公司正在仔細研究並削減席位，看看誰真正需要使用該工具。

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

當然，所有裁員和任何其他人員削減都以完全相同的方式流向基於座位的模型。所以，是的，我認為優化無處不在，你只是在消費模型中看到它更快。

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 this something where you can just turn off if you don't need it?

當然，在這些產品中，可以進行的最佳化程度有很大不同。這與產品的實際用途密切相關，對嗎？你實際上需要多少你買的東西？事實上，這是您要繼續運行的關鍵任務嗎？或者如果不需要的話可以關閉它？

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.

我認為我們在這方面做得非常好。我們是生產應用程式堆疊中的關鍵任務部分。這些應用程式通常經過相當好的優化。當然，您可以重寫您的應用程式以嘗試提高效率，發送更少的數據，等等。但這是一項大量的工作，而且通常已經在建置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這一點，但我們沒有看到那麼多。通常，當我們有某種在線消費時，它基本上是預先優化的。可能還會發生進一步的優化。當然，這一切都會影響到整體淨保留率。

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.

在過去的幾個季度中，我們沒有看到任何重大變化。當然，客戶正在努力優化，但他們也在添加新項目，這推動了擴張，你認為這兩個因素的結合，我認為最終是相當強大的。

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季保持不變。儘管宏觀形勢嚴峻，但需求環境依然健康。因此，我們重申全年的指導方針，營收成長 30%，並計劃在第四季度實現非 GAAP 營運利潤率的盈虧平衡。

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.

我們沒有將本季度的超額業績納入全年指南，這實際上是宏觀環境和我之前指出的因素的副產品，我們正在努力謹慎對待這些因素制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 continues to be robust. NRR remained healthy. And both of those things support the growth and overall business plan.

你要求一些看跌期權。我們預計雲端運算將繼續其成長勢頭，並在今年剩餘時間內每季保持最高的 NRR 和環比收入成長。然後我之前指出的 CRPO 成長持續強勁。 NRR 保持健康。這兩件事都支援成長和整體業務計劃。

Thanks, Raimo. We'll take our next question from Gregg Moskowitz with Mizuho, followed by Deutsche Bank.

謝謝，雷莫。我們將接受瑞穗銀行格雷格·莫斯科維茨（Gregg Moskowitz）和德意志銀行的下一個問題。

I guess, first for Jay. At your Investor briefing last October, I think it was Erica who mentioned that on average, it was 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 月的投資者簡報中，我認為 Erica 提到，平均而言，做出重大承諾的客戶需要大約 6 個月的時間才能實現每年消費量才能達到他們的承諾水平。顯然，自那以後宏觀政策變得更加嚴厲。所以我只是好奇今天的狀況。

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，我們還沒有看到客戶數量的成長發生巨大變化。這更取決於他們建立應用程式、上線、充分使用、推出應用程式所需的時間，這是發展速度很快的公司和發展速度較慢的公司的平均時間。所以我想說這對宏觀的影響較小。我們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 commit 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.

斯特凡呼籲對多年的事情進行一點壓縮。總的來說，我認為客戶只是考慮了他們承諾的金額。有利的一面是，我們看到這些承諾金額的消耗非常強勁，這很棒。這就是我們希望看到的。我們不希望客戶購買大量未使用的東西或類似的東西。因此，利用率超過 100% 是件好事。

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 Confluence 來說非常有彈性。本季這種情況繼續嗎？還是你開始發現一些弱點？

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 in the life of the company and have now gone after it means there's still a lot of opportunity there.

是的。本季這種情況確實持續了。我們一直在密切關注，因為我認為該領域顯然有很多私人科技公司，我認為這些公司在非常大的壓力下有點脆弱。因此，我們預計會在那裡看到一些成功，但沒有。我主要將其描述為存在大量未開發的機會。所以當然有壓力。當然，這是一種抵消力量，但也有很多開源類型的用途需要發展。因此，事實上，直到公司發展的後期我們才對這個細分市場給予足夠的關注，而現在我們已經開始關注它，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.

（操作員指示）我認為我們仍在等待德意志銀行加入房間。 Ryan，我們請來自 KeyBanc 的 Eric Heath 發言。

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?

因此，Steffan，就雲端收入而言，我認為您將指導方針稍微調整為 Confluence Cloud 的 48% 至 50%（佔第四季度 Confluence Cloud 營收的 48% 至 50%）。只是好奇這是否更多是因為新用例上線的速度比您預期的要慢一些？或者現有用例的成長是否有所放緩？

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，我們的 Confluence 平台確實在第一季表現強勁。讓我們來看看今年的整體組合。因此，我們謙虛地制定了雲端業務指南。最初，我們說今年大約是 50%。我們基本上給了一個範圍，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.

我想說的是，考慮到我們 Confluence Cloud 的運作率，我們的運作率幾乎達到 3 億美元，成長率為 89%。 Confluence Cloud 的消費持續強勁。因此，當我們考慮使用用例擴展機會時，我們看到的消費業務存在自然的網路效應。在這種環境中，有時公司確實需要更長的時間來部署新的工作負載，等等。所以我之前發表的 48% 到 50% 的評論中都考慮到了這一點。

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，我可以問你一個問題嗎？可能一開始我就錯過了，抱歉。但就生成式人工智慧而言，我的意思是 Kafka 和 Flink 都是具有挑戰性的技術，要找到具備這些技能的人才有點困難。只是好奇是否有機會利用生成式人工智慧基本上實現這些技術的民主化，以及這是否可以吸引更多用戶進入該平台。

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，絕對是。就像我確實簡單地解決了這個問題一樣，但答案更集中在我們在生成人工智慧架構中提供的角色。另一方面是我們的用例。當然，在某種程度上，軟體工程師可以透過copilot 這樣的工具來圍繞此提高建立應用程式的效率，顯然，我們建立產品的效率會更高，而且我們的客戶實際上可以更快地消費我們的產品。

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.

我們得看看這一切會如何發展。就像我認為這件事的全部影響，以及它在所有公司中發生的情況，真的很難估計這一切意味著什麼的二階效應。但我認為這是網絡，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。我們將回答魯迪·凱辛格和 D.A. 提出的下一個問題。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.

史蒂芬，過去幾季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。我們應該如何預期這些近期趨勢？為什麼你會看到那裡的優異表現？當我們查看指南時，您重申了收入，但您佔用了一點營業利潤率。毛利率的優異表現是營業利益率上升的主要來源嗎？因為聽起來你們的招募計畫幾乎保持不變。

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.

嗯，毛利率對我們來說是一個亮點，特別是考慮到我們的 Confluence Cloud 收入在過去兩年中確實呈指數級增長。 2年前，它佔收入的18%。如今，它佔收入的 42%。而且它的毛利率比平台低。我們在單位經濟方面取得了巨大進展。我們看到了非常非常強勁的成長。

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 -- its 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，因為我們認為雲端業務將繼續其向上的軌跡。從長遠來看，我們認為這將是在 70 年代中期。我們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、我們的價格規則以及我們為客戶帶來的價值。

And then as it relates to how our overall guidance works 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，由於它不僅關係到我們對第二季以及今年剩餘時間的整體指導，我們預計毛利率將處於近期範圍的高端，即 70% 至 72%。我們肯定會讓這一點貫穿底線。但我們也看到我們一直在所有營運支出項目中真正關注的效率工作取得了回報。

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，我們圍繞著高效成長的營運節奏正在發揮作用。我們的工作永遠不會完成。我們專注於交付它。但我們非常高興能夠實現我們所謂的高成長模式的營收成長，並大幅提高營業利潤率，從而在第四季度實現盈虧平衡。

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 trended more in terms of Platform. Anything in particular that you think drove that strength?

這很有幫助。那麼，有什麼特別的因素推動了本季平台的實力嗎？我知道這肯定有兩件事。我的意思是，第一，大部分收入成長來自平台而不是指南。其次，我知道在第四季度，雲端佔新預訂的 70%——超過 70%，本季超過 50%。顯然，新的預訂組合在平台方面的趨勢更加明顯。您認為有什麼特別的因素推動了這種力量嗎？

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，這往往是融合平台業務。這些也往往是一年期的交易。這實際上是該公司有史以來公共部門最好的第一季。因此，這確實推動了平台表現的強勁。由於這種優勢，我們確實從 ACV 的角度看到了混合轉變。雖然雲的比例超過 50%，但考慮到 Confluence Platform 的優勢，從混合的角度來看，它確實有所下降。

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.

我想說的是 Confluence Cloud，我們已經連續 6 個多季超過 50% 的淨新 ACV 是 Confluence Cloud。因此企業仍然繼續以非常快的速度成長。只是 Confluence 平台的交易往往是不穩定的，而且也可能是季節性的，這就是我們本季看到的情況。

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

知道了。這很有幫助。再次恭喜這裡的好數字。

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

謝謝，魯迪。我們將回答 FBN 證券公司 Shebly 提出的最後一個問題。

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?

那麼第一季的員工人數是多少呢？你們宣布的8%裁員計畫完成了嗎？隨著時間的推移，您預計員工數量會進一步減少嗎？

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

是的。斯特凡，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。這樣我們就基本上完成了重組。雖然還沒有 100% 完成，但已經基本完成了。我們之前沒有透露第一季末的實際員工人數。所以，是的，我可以說它低於去年第四季末的水平，原因很明顯是重組。我們全年將持續致力於提高營運效率。因此，傑伊，我很高興將其交給您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。我發現你們的雲毛利率在第一季連續下降了 2 個百分點，這是我的模型中第一次發生這種情況。如果我假設您的平台毛利率約為 88% 或 80%，那麼您的雲端業務在第一季的毛利率約為 65%，而第四季為 67%。首先，這件事發生了嗎？雲端業務的毛利率是否首次較上季下降？為什麼會發生這種事？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.

嗯，我們不會對平台與雲毛利率的具體組成部分進行指導。但我要告訴你的是——我知道很難從外到內建模，但你所描述的動態實際上並沒有發生。我們看到我們的訂閱利潤組成部分的利潤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。我們期待在即將舉行的會議和六月的投資者日見到你們。小心。

Thanks all.

謝謝大家。