Confluent Inc (CFLT) 2021 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Confluent Q2 2021 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 2021 年第二季財報電話會議。我是投資者關係部的 Shane Xie，和我一起的是共同創辦人兼執行長 Jay Kreps；以及財務長 Steffan Tomlinson。

During today's call, management will make forward-looking statements, including statements regarding our financial outlook for the third quarter and full year 2021, the expected performance of our product offering, increased adoption of our platform, growth in our customer base, our market opportunity, our ability to capitalize on the shift to cloud, growth in Confluent Cloud revenue, our long-term growth and our overall future prospects. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, some of which are beyond our control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated by these statements. Additional information on risk factors that could cause actual results to differ is included in our SEC filings, including our IPO prospectus dated June 23, 2021, and Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2021, that will be filed with the SEC today. We assume no obligation to update any statements after today's call, except as required by law.

在今天的電話會議上，管理層將做出前瞻性陳述，包括有關我們對 2021 年第三季和全年財務前景的陳述、我們產品的預期表現、我們平台的採用率的提高、我們客戶群的成長、我們的市場機會、我們利用向雲端轉變的能力、Confluent Cloud 收入的成長、我們的長期成長以及我們整體未來前景的陳述。這些前瞻性陳述受風險和不確定性的影響，其中一些超出我們的控制範圍，可能導致實際結果與這些陳述預期的結果有重大差異。有關可能導致實際結果不同的風險因素的其他資訊包含在我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件中，包括我們於 2021 年 6 月 23 日提交的 IPO 招股說明書和截至 2021 年 6 月 30 日的季度的 10-Q 表，這些文件將於今天向美國證券交易委員會提交。除非法律要求，否則我們不承擔今天電話會議後更新任何聲明的義務。

As a reminder, certain financial measures used on today's call are expressed on a non-GAAP 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. 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.

提醒一下，今天電話會議上使用的某些財務指標是以非 GAAP 為基礎表示的。我們在內部使用這些非公認會計準則財務指標來促進我們財務和業務趨勢的分析以及用於內部規劃和預測目的。這些非 GAAP 財務指標具有局限性，不應孤立地考慮或取代根據 GAAP 編制的財務資訊。這些 GAAP 和非 GAAP 財務指標之間的對帳包含在我們的收益新聞稿和補充財務報表中，可在我們投資者關係網站 investors.confluent.io 上找到。

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

說完這些，我會把電話交給傑伊。

Thanks, Shane. Welcome to our second quarter earnings, and this will be our first earning call as a public company. I'm excited to be here today, and I want to start by thanking our employees, our customers, our partners and our investors, all of whom helped us get here. I appreciate the support, and I look forward to what's ahead.

謝謝，肖恩。歡迎了解我們的第二季收益，這將是我們作為上市公司的首次收益電話會議。我很高興今天能來到這裡，首先我要感謝我們的員工、客戶、合作夥伴和投資者，是他們幫助我們走到了今天。我感謝大家的支持，並期待未來的發展。

I'm pleased to report that we began our life as a public company with strong second quarter results. Revenue growth in the second quarter accelerated to 64% year-over-year totaling $88.3 million. Confluent Cloud revenue continued to outpace growth of our overall business with growth of 200% year-over-year. This is a significant acceleration from the trailing 12-month growth rate of 134%. Confluent Cloud now accounts for 22% of total revenue. I'm extremely pleased with the results our team delivered, and we're well positioned for the quarters ahead.

我很高興地報告，我們作為一家上市公司，第二季取得了強勁的業績。第二季營收年增 64%，達到 8,830 萬美元。 Confluent Cloud 營收持續超過我們整體業務的成長，年增 200%。這較過去 12 個月 134% 的成長率有顯著加速。 Confluent Cloud 目前佔總營收的 22%。我對我們團隊所取得的成績感到非常滿意，並且我們為未來幾季做好了充分的準備。

Before I get into the details of the quarter, I think it would be helpful to provide an overview of our business for those new to the story as well as some perspective on the factors driving the rise of data in motion.

在介紹本季度的細節之前，我認為為那些不熟悉的人提供我們業務的概述以及推動動態數據崛起的因素的一些觀點會很有幫助。

We're living in a digital-first world. The role of software has fundamentally changed how companies operate and how they engage with customers. Software has moved from applications around the edge of a company to the very core of how companies do business. This is really an end-to-end reimagining of companies from the front-end customer interactions to the back-end operations that drive how companies produce and deliver their products and services. And this is happening across companies of all sizes in all geographies in virtually every industry.

我們生活在一個數位優先的世界。軟體的作用從根本上改變了公司的運作方式和與客戶的互動方式。軟體已經從公司邊緣的應用程式轉變為公司業務的核心。這實際上是對公司的端到端重塑，從前端客戶互動到後端運營，推動公司如何生產和交付其產品和服務。幾乎每一個產業、每一個地區、各種規模的公司都出現了這樣的情況。

The change in the role of software is driving a corresponding change in the role of data. Historically, companies operated on a paradigm of data at rest, where data was stored in disparate databases across the IT stack. This was sufficient when the applications using this data operated largely as disconnected islands, mostly outside the core operations of the business. However, modern software applications need to integrate and work together to drive cohesive real-time operations of experiences. This need to connect disparate systems and move operations into real-time has driven a need for data in motion.

軟體角色的變化正在推動數據角色的相應變化。從歷史上看，公司採用靜態資料範式運營，其中資料儲存在整個 IT 堆疊中的不同資料庫中。當使用這些數據的應用程式大部分以斷開連接的孤島形式運行時，這已經足夠了，而且大多數都在業務的核心操作之外。然而，現代軟體應用程式需要整合並協同工作，以推動體驗的凝聚性即時操作。這種連接不同系統和即時移動操作的需求推動了對動態數據的需求。

With data in motion, organizations have ubiquitous access to data in real time as it's generated. This enables all the disparate systems in a company to react and respond to whatever is happening. Data in motion represents a major new category in the world of data infrastructure, one that my co-founders and I pioneered starting during our time at LinkedIn with the development of Apache Kafka and continuing on to Confluent where we built the modern platform for harnessing data in motion. This new category has gone mainstream. Confluent is now helping to power use cases in virtually every industry and with companies of all sizes, including cloud-native companies like Square, Grab, Xero and many more.

透過資料流動，組織可以在資料生成時隨時隨地即時存取資料。這使得公司內所有不同的系統能夠對正在發生的任何事情做出反應和回應。動態數據代表了數據基礎設施領域的一個重要的新類別，我和我的聯合創始人在 LinkedIn 工作期間率先開發了 Apache Kafka，後來我們繼續在 Confluent 上建立了利用動態數據的現代平台。這個新類別已經成為主流。 Confluent 目前正幫助幾乎所有產業和各種規模的公司支援用例，其中包括 Square、Grab、Xero 等雲端原生公司。

In addition, Walmart is using data in motion to build real-time inventory updates. The CDC uses data in motion to stream data from health care and testing facilities across the U.S. for accurate insights into the state of the COVID-19 pandemic. Citigroup combines historical and real-time data to provide sophisticated analytics to equity traders.

此外，沃爾瑪正在利用動態數據來建立即時庫存更新。疾病預防控制中心使用動態數據從美國各地的醫療保健和檢測機構傳輸數據，以準確了解 COVID-19 疫情的狀況。花旗集團結合歷史數據和即時數據，為股票交易員提供複雜的分析。

Confluent sits at the center of the rise of data in motion. Our goal is to create a central nervous system for organizations by connecting applications and infrastructure around real-time data streams. We believe this central nervous system is easily the most strategic part of the emerging next-gen data stack.

Confluent 處於行動資料崛起的中心。我們的目標是透過連接即時資料流周圍的應用程式和基礎設施來為組織創建一個中樞神經系統。我們相信，這個中樞神經系統很容易成為新興的下一代資料堆疊中最具策略性的部分。

I'd also like to address why Confluent has emerged as a leader in this space and our strategy for continuing that leadership. A primary reason is the unique differentiation in our product offering. The combination of moving first in our space, getting to scale the investment earlier, having a more complete vision and working with the best customers has helped us build a product for data in motion that has significant advantages over open-source Kafka or any other competitive solution. I'd like to use the call to give an overview of these advantages as well as some of the new features we've launched in Q2. We think of ourselves as building around 3 key pillars of differentiation: being cloud native, being complete and being everywhere. I'll address each of these in turn and discuss some of the recent updates in each of these areas.

我還想談談為什麼 Confluent 能夠成為該領域的領導者，以及我們繼續保持領先地位的策略。主要原因是我們提供的產品具有獨特的差異化。在我們的領域中率先行動、更早擴大投資、擁有更完整的願景以及與最佳客戶的合作，這些因素相結合幫助我們建立了一款動態數據產品，該產品比開源 Kafka 或任何其他競爭解決方案具有顯著優勢。我想利用這次電話會議概述一下這些優勢以及我們在第二季推出的一些新功能。我們認為我們的建構圍繞著三大關鍵差異化支柱：雲端原生、完整性和無所不在。我將依次討論每一個問題，並討論每個領域的一些最新更新。

First, cloud native. We've taken open-source Kafka and built something that's completely redesigned as a cloud native service. There is a fundamental difference between software solutions that are designed for an on-premise environment and put in the cloud versus platforms that are built to operate as elastically scalable, multi-tenant cloud services. This distinction cuts right to the heart of how these systems are built, and it's incredibly important to customers in selecting the products they use. Our cloud product offers the protocol of Kafka on a platform that is fundamentally rearchitected as this kind of elastic cloud system.

第一，雲端原生。我們採用了開源的 Kafka，並建立了一些完全重新設計為雲端原生服務的東西。專為本地環境設計並置於雲端的軟體解決方案與建構為可彈性擴展的多租戶雲端服務運行的平台之間存在根本區別。這種差異直接體現了這些系統建構方式的核心，對於客戶選擇他們所使用的產品來說，它非常重要。我們的雲端產品在一個從根本上重新架構為這種彈性雲系統的平台上提供了 Kafka 協定。

What that means is that it's serverless. This means customers don't need to think about managing individual servers, their memory or CPU or other low-level characteristics. It's elastic. It can scale up and down as needed with load automatically balancing as the customers' needs and usage patterns change. It also integrates natively with the vast array of cloud networking, security and other technologies in the major cloud providers to help customers manage their data easily and securely.

這意味著它是無伺服器的。這意味著客戶不需要考慮管理單一伺服器、其記憶體、CPU 或其他低階特性。它很有彈性。隨著客戶需求和使用模式的變化，它可以根據需要擴大或縮小規模並自動平衡負載。它還與主要雲端供應商的大量雲端網路、安全性和其他技術本地集成，以幫助客戶輕鬆、安全地管理資料。

In the second quarter, we added several features that strengthen our cloud native capabilities. We added support for Azure Private Link. This is Azure's private networking layer that allows usage of Confluent without additional -- with additional security and control of the connectivity, and it deepens our integration in Microsoft Azure. We also added role-based access control and audit logs within Confluent Cloud, strengthening our security story. These security features enhance the overall value of our platform by enabling customers to spend more time building impactful customer experiences and products versus implementing security controls that are not core to their business.

在第二季度，我們增加了一些增強雲端原生功能的功能。我們增加了對 Azure Private Link 的支援。這是 Azure 的私人網路層，允許使用 Confluent，而無需額外的安全性和連接控制，並加深了我們與 Microsoft Azure 的整合。我們還在 Confluent Cloud 中新增了基於角色的存取控制和稽核日誌，增強了我們的安全性。這些安全功能使客戶能夠花更多時間建立有影響力的客戶體驗和產品，而不是實施非核心業務的安全控制，從而提升了我們平台的整體價值。

A good example of a customer putting our cloud native capabilities into practice is AO.com, which expanded its usage in the second quarter. AO.com is a digital retailer in the U.K., and they leverage data in motion to treat each customer visit as a unique moment, combining real-time digital signals with historical purchase information to give customers a hyper-personalized experience. Confluent Cloud allows AO to deliver capabilities at a rapid pace and to do so with the security features needed by its privacy and compliance regime. Pace became even more crucial during the pandemic because the world moved so rapidly from predominantly in-store shopping to online. The speed at which AO was able to create new use cases that improved the customer journey with Confluent Cloud is helping AO to cement its online market leadership position even as it continues to adapt to ongoing changes.

客戶將我們的雲端原生功能付諸實踐的一個很好的例子是AO.com，它在第二季度擴大了其使用範圍。 AO.com 是英國的數位零售商，他們利用動態數據將每次顧客訪問視為獨特時刻，將即時數位訊號與歷史購買資訊結合，為顧客提供超個人化的體驗。 Confluent Cloud 允許 AO 快速交付功能，同時提供其隱私和合規性所需的安全功能。在疫情期間，節奏變得更加重要，因為世界購物模式迅速從以實體店購物為主轉向線上購物。 AO 能夠快速創建新的用例，並透過 Confluent Cloud 改善客戶旅程，這有助於 AO 鞏固其線上市場領導地位，同時繼續適應不斷發生的變化。

The second pillar of our product differentiation is completeness. Kafka is the foundational layer in the emerging stack for data in motion. But to make harnessing data in motion easy, customers need a complete offering that makes developing in this new paradigm easy. We have hundreds of features that are essential to the modern data in motion stack, and I'll highlight a few key ones which represent significant investment by Confluent.

我們的產品差異化的第二個支柱是完整性。 Kafka 是新興的動態資料堆疊的基礎層。但為了輕鬆利用動態數據，客戶需要一個完整的產品，讓這個新模式的開發變得簡單。我們有數百種對於現代運動資料堆疊至關重要的功能，我將重點介紹一些代表 Confluent 大量投資的關鍵功能。

First, we have over 120 connectors that make it easy to capture or deliver real-time data streams from existing databases, infrastructure layers, SaaS, APIs and cloud services. These connectors mean customers can set their data in motion without spending years writing integration code. Second, we offer advanced stream processing capabilities in a familiar package with ksqlDB. This is a layer that brings SQL, the language of traditional databases, to the new world of data in motion. This lets engineering teams use the skills they have spent years developing to work with data in this new paradigm.

首先，我們擁有超過 120 個連接器，可以輕鬆地從現有資料庫、基礎設施層、SaaS、API 和雲端服務擷取或傳送即時資料流。這些連接器意味著客戶可以啟動他們的數據，而無需花費數年時間編寫整合程式碼。其次，我們在熟悉的 ksqlDB 套件中提供高階流處理功能。這一層將傳統資料庫語言 SQL 帶入了新的動態資料世界。這使得工程團隊能夠利用他們花費多年開發的技能來處理這種新模式下的資料。

In the second quarter, we made great progress extending the completeness of our platform. We announced the availability of the fully managed connectors for MongoDB Atlas as well as Datadog, and we're excited to offer this integration into other best-of-breed platforms. We also launched significant features in ksqlDB that extend the richest of its ability to process data in motion and query the computed results.

第二季度，我們在擴展平台完整性方面取得了巨大進展。我們宣布推出適用於 MongoDB Atlas 和 Datadog 的完全託管連接器，並且我們很高興能夠將這種整合提供給其他最佳平台。我們也在 ksqlDB 中推出了一些重要功能，最大程度地擴展了其處理動態資料和查詢計算結果的能力。

The completeness of our platform was a driver in the second quarter for traction with a new customer, the Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA purchased Confluent in order to modernize the service it provides to veterans and increase the speed of delivery. This effort reduces the reliance on legacy applications, improves the time lines and quality of benefit claims processing and enables the reuse of developed capabilities while reducing rework for the VA. Confluent IP that is critical to the VA includes our Oracle CDC connector, multi-tenant security, FIPS 140-2 compliance. And for example, the VA is modernizing their claims processing application from an offline batch processing job that distributes 1.2 million veteran claims nightly to a real-time processing solution that results in faster and more accurate benefits delivery to veterans.

我們平台的完整性是第二季吸引新客戶退伍軍人事務部的動力。退伍軍人事務部收購 Confluent 是為了使其為退伍軍人提供的服務現代化並提高交付速度。這項工作減少了對遺留應用程式的依賴，改善了福利索賠處理的時間表和質量，並允許重複使用已開發的功能，同時減少了 VA 的返工。對於 VA 至關重要的 Confluent IP 包括我們的 Oracle CDC 連接器、多租戶安全性、FIPS 140-2 合規性。例如，退伍軍人事務部正在對其索賠處理應用程式進行現代化改造，從每晚分發 120 萬份退伍軍人索賠的離線批次作業轉變為即時處理解決方案，以便更快、更準確地向退伍軍人提供福利。

The third pillar of our product differentiation is being everywhere. Just as a central nervous system needs to span all the parts of the body, Confluent needs to span all the environments a modern company operates in and connect them all seamlessly into one fabric for data in motion. This means operating across all 3 major clouds as well as legacy on-premise and private cloud environments. By having one platform that spans these, customers can tap into data locked up in legacy systems on-premise and open that up to modern applications in the cloud, connecting these all seamlessly and securely through Confluent. This capability is a core requirement for our customers' hybrid cloud and multi-cloud strategies, and it's uniquely differentiating for Confluent as we are the only provider in the data in motion space to span all these environments.

我們的產品差異化的第三個支柱是無所不在。正如中樞神經系統需要覆蓋身體的所有部位一樣，Confluent 需要涵蓋現代公司營運的所有環境，並將它們無縫連接到動態資料結構中。這意味著可以在所有 3 個主要雲以及傳統的內部部署和私有雲環境中進行操作。透過擁有涵蓋這些領域的平台，客戶可以利用本地遺留系統中鎖定的數據，並將其開放給雲端中的現代應用程序，並透過 Confluent 無縫、安全地連接這些數據。此功能是我們客戶混合雲端和多雲策略的核心要求，而且它對於 Confluent 來說具有獨特的差異化，因為我們是動態資料領域中唯一涵蓋所有這些環境的供應商。

A perfect example of this is BMW. By adding Confluent Cloud and extending the use of Confluent Platform, we're helping BMW Group to optimize all of its production and logistics processes, which encompass everything from the time a car is ordered to when it's delivered. Hundreds of applications that cover these processes will run through Confluent. BMW Group will leverage Confluent to support its IoT environment across its 24 manufacturing plants.

BMW就是一個很好的例子。透過增加 Confluent Cloud 並擴展 Confluent 平台的使用，我們正在幫助寶馬集團優化其所有生產和物流流程，涵蓋從訂購汽車到交付汽車的所有流程。涵蓋這些流程的數百個應用程式將透過 Confluent 運行。寶馬集團將利用 Confluent 為其 24 家製造工廠的物聯網環境提供支援。

In the second quarter, we strengthened our everywhere story with the launch of Confluent for Kubernetes or CFK. CFK lets customers get many of the cloud-native benefits of Confluent Cloud in Kubernetes-based private cloud environments on-premise. It provides a complete API-driven experience for deploying and self-managing Confluent Platform. We also expanded to 6 new cloud regions, making Confluent Cloud available in a total of 59 regions across AWS, GCP and Azure. We also launched Health+, which provides real-time visibility to customers to ensure the health of their data in motion infrastructure in on-premise environments.

第二季度，我們推出了 Confluent for Kubernetes（簡稱 CFK），進一步加強了我們無所不在的故事。 CFK 讓客戶可以在基於 Kubernetes 的私有雲環境中獲得 Confluent Cloud 的許多雲端原生優勢。它為部署和自我管理 Confluent 平台提供了完整的 API 驅動體驗。我們也擴展到 6 個新的雲端區域，使得 Confluent Cloud 可在 AWS、GCP 和 Azure 的總共 59 個區域使用。我們還推出了 Health+，它為客戶提供即時視覺性，以確保其內部環境中行動基礎設施資料的健康狀況。

Traditional on-premise infrastructure support is a slow process of reactively diagnosing issues, working with the vendor support team, involving lots of painful back and forth and often protracted downtime while diagnosing issues. In order to operate the thousands of clusters in Confluent Cloud, however, Confluent has developed advanced capabilities for continuously monitoring thousands of Kafka clusters and using algorithms to make these operations reliable, efficient and proactive. With Health+, we are now beginning to extend these cloud-based capabilities to our on-premise customers, allowing them to send a continuous stream of monitoring data from their on-premise environments into Confluent Cloud and plugging into the same data in motion platform that powers our cloud operations to help them optimize, monitor and ensure the availability of Confluent in their on-premise environments.

傳統的內部部署基礎設施支援是一個緩慢的過程，需要被動地診斷問題，與供應商支援團隊合作，在診斷問題時需要進行大量痛苦的反复，並且經常會導致長時間的停機。然而，為了營運 Confluent Cloud 中的數千個集群，Confluent 開發了先進的功能，可以持續監控數千個 Kafka 集群，並使用演算法使這些操作可靠、高效和主動。借助 Health+，我們現在開始將這些基於雲端的功能擴展到我們的本地客戶，允許他們將來自其本地環境的連續監控資料流發送到 Confluent Cloud，並插入支援我們的雲端運營的相同動態資料平台，幫助他們優化、監控並確保 Confluent 在其本地環境中的可用性。

The importance of Confluent to hybrid and multi-cloud architectures was further highlighted by the growing relationships that we have with the major cloud providers. Just last month, we were named a Google Cloud Partner of the Year for the third year in a row. Google Cloud has recognized our leadership as a technology partner for smart analytics, highlighting our commitment to customer success and delivery of innovative and impactful solutions on Google Cloud.

我們與主要雲端供應商之間日益密切的關係進一步凸顯了 Confluent 對混合和多雲架構的重要性。就在上個月，我們連續第三年被評為年度 Google Cloud 合作夥伴。 Google Cloud 已經認可了我們作為智慧分析技術合作夥伴的領導地位，凸顯了我們對客戶成功的承諾以及在 Google Cloud 上提供創新且有影響力的解決方案。

These 3 pillars, being cloud native, being complete and being everywhere, are what we've built around for many years now and would have led us to have the leading product in this emerging space. We think we're in the very early innings of a large opportunity ahead of us, and we're really excited to continue executing on this strategy to become the industry standard for setting data in motion.

我們多年來一直圍繞著這三大支柱：雲端原生、完整性和無所不在，並因此而擁有了這一新興領域的領先產品。我們認為，我們正處於巨大機會的早期階段，我們非常高興繼續執行這項策略，以成為數據驅動的行業標準。

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

說完這些，我將把電話轉給史蒂芬 (Steffan)，讓他介紹一下我們的財務狀況。

Thanks, Jay. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm pleased to be here with such a great team. In Q2, we successfully completed our IPO and delivered strong operating results. Since this is our first earnings call, I'll provide an overview of our differentiated business model.

謝謝，傑伊。大家下午好。我很高興能來到這裡與這麼優秀的團隊合作。第二季度，我們成功完成IPO，並取得了強勁的營運表現。由於這是我們的第一次財報電話會議，我將概述我們的差異化商業模式。

We designed our business model to empower customers to harness data in motion everywhere their data and applications reside. We sell our software platform as 2 subscription offerings, Confluent Cloud and Confluent Platform. Confluent Cloud is a fully managed cloud native SaaS offering available on AWS, Azure and GCP. Customers can either purchase credits as part of a committed contract or sign up with a credit card under our pay-as-you-go model. Revenue is recognized based on consumption. Confluent Platform is an enterprise-ready, self-managed software offering that can be deployed in our customers' on-prem, private cloud and public cloud environments. A portion of revenue is recognized upfront as license, and a substantial majority is recognized ratably over the contract term.

我們設計了我們的商業模式，使客戶能夠在其數據和應用程式所在的任何地方利用行動數據。我們以兩種訂閱產品的形式銷售我們的軟體平台，Confluent Cloud 和 Confluent Platform。 Confluent Cloud 是完全託管的雲端原生 SaaS 產品，可在 AWS、Azure 和 GCP 上使用。客戶既可以作為承諾合約的一部分購買信用額度，也可以在我們的即用即付模式下使用信用卡簽約。收入是根據消費確認的。 Confluent 平台是一款企業級、自管理的軟體產品，可部署在客戶的內部部署、私有雲和公有雲環境中。部分收入預先確認為許可證，絕大部分收入則在合約期間內按比例確認。

Confluent Cloud and Confluent platform together make up our subscription revenue, which typically accounts for 85% to 90% of total revenue. The remaining 10% to 15% comes from our services offering, which is attached to our subscriptions. Services revenue is recognized as delivered.

Confluent Cloud 和 Confluent 平台共同構成了我們的訂閱收入，通常佔總收入的 85% 到 90%。剩下的 10% 到 15% 來自我們提供的服務，這些服務與我們的訂閱相關。服務收入於交付時確認。

Given the various revenue components and billing terms in our model, remaining performance obligations or RPO and current RPO, rather than billings, are important metrics to measure the health of the business. RPO provides insight into the organic momentum of our business as it represents contractually committed revenue to be recognized in the future regardless of billing terms and variability in cloud consumption patterns.

考慮到我們模型中的各種收入組成部分和計費條款，剩餘履約義務或 RPO 和當前 RPO（而不是帳單）是衡量業務健康狀況的重要指標。 RPO 提供了我們業務有機發展勢頭的洞察，因為它代表了合約承諾的收入，無論計費條款和雲端消費模式的變化如何，未來都會得到確認。

Now let's turn to the results. Q2 was a robust quarter with strong customer momentum and accelerated top line growth and net retention rate, demonstrating the power of our platform in our land-and-expand strategy. I'll start with the customer momentum we saw in the quarter. Leveraging the self-service motion and pay-as-you-go arrangements and our Confluent Cloud offering, we've been able to significantly broaden our number and reach of customers in both the enterprise and commercial segments.

現在我們來看看結果。第二季表現強勁，客戶成長動能強勁，營收成長與淨留存率加速，彰顯了我們平台在「登陸與擴張」策略中的強大力量。我將從本季我們看到的客戶發展勢頭開始。利用自助服務動作和即用即付安排以及我們的 Confluent Cloud 產品，我們能夠大幅擴大企業和商業領域的客戶數量和覆蓋範圍。

In Q2, we added approximately 290 net new customers, bringing our total customer count to 2,830, up 104% year-over-year. As customers see the value of our offering for their initial use cases, they often expand into more use cases and other lines of business across the organization. This expansion effect is reflected in the strong growth of our large customer base. We ended the second quarter with 617 customers with at least $100,000 in ARR, up 51% year-over-year, and 70 customers with at least $1 million in ARR, up 112% year-over-year.

第二季度，我們淨增加約 290 名新客戶，使客戶總數達到 2,830 名，年增 104%。當客戶看到我們產品在其初始用例中的價值時，他們通常會擴展到更多用例和組織內的其他業務線。這種擴張效應體現在我們龐大客戶群的強勁成長。截至第二季度，我們擁有 617 位客戶的 ARR 至少為 100,000 美元，年增 51%，擁有 70 位客戶的 ARR 至少為 100 萬美元，年增 112%。

Another key metric of customer success is dollar-based net retention rate, or NRR. In Q2, NRR was above 130% compared to 117% in the prior quarter. The robust improvement was driven by strong renewals and expansions across both our subscription offerings. We've seen quarterly fluctuations in NRR in the past, and we expect the fluctuation to continue due in part to the timing of large initial deal sizes expanding in the first year, the transition of our cloud business to usage-based billing and churn. We're operationally focused on driving NRR consistently above 120% in the near term, and our goal longer term is to drive it consistently above 130%. Going forward, on a quarterly basis, we plan to report NRR relative to our near-term target threshold of 120%.

客戶成功的另一個關鍵指標是基於美元的淨保留率（NRR）。第二季度，NRR 超過 130%，而上一季為 117%。這一強勁增長得益於我們兩項訂閱服務的強勁續約和擴張。我們過去曾看到 NRR 的季度波動，我們預計這種波動將持續下去，部分原因是第一年大型初始交易規模擴大，以及我們的雲端業務向基於使用情況的計費和客戶流失的轉變。我們的營運重點是短期內將 NRR 持續保持在 120% 以上，而我們的長期目標是將其持續保持在 130% 以上。展望未來，我們計劃按季度報告相對於近期目標門檻 120% 的 NRR。

Turning to revenue. We saw growth acceleration across all of our revenue components. Total revenue was $88.3 million, growing 64% year-over-year, a significant acceleration from Q1. Subscription revenue was $78.5 million, up 67% year-over-year and accounted for 89% of total revenue. The 2 components of our subscription revenue continued to exhibit strong growth. Confluent Platform revenue was $58.8 million, accelerating to 46% growth year-over-year and accounted for 67% of total revenue. Confluent Cloud revenue was $19.7 million, accelerating to 200% growth year-over-year and accounted for 22% of total revenue, up 4 percentage points sequentially and up 10 percentage points from a year ago. As more organizations extend their data in motion platform to the cloud, we believe we're positioned to capitalize on the secular trend of cloud migration.

談到收入。我們看到所有收入組成部分的成長都在加速。總營收為 8,830 萬美元，年增 64%，較第一季有顯著成長。訂閱收入為7,850萬美元，年增67%，佔總營收的89%。我們的訂閱收入的兩個部分繼續呈現強勁成長。 Confluent 平台營收為 5,880 萬美元，年增 46%，佔總營收的 67%。 Confluent Cloud 營收為 1,970 萬美元，年增 200%，佔總營收的 22%，較上季成長 4 個百分點，較去年同期成長 10 個百分點。隨著越來越多的組織將其行動數據平台擴展到雲端，我們相信我們有能力利用雲端遷移的長期趨勢。

From a geographic mix standpoint, we continue to see strong demand for our offerings around the world. Revenue from the U.S. grew 58% year-over-year to $56.8 million, representing 64% of total revenue. Revenue from outside the U.S. grew 77% year-over-year to $31.5 million, representing 36% of total revenue, up 3 percentage points from a year ago. We're still in the early innings of our international expansion, and we see a significant opportunity in front of us. We'll continue to invest in local operations in the highest propensity countries where we see increasing Kafka adoption. We expect these targeted investments to drive our international revenue mix higher over time.

從地理組合角度來看，我們持續看到全球對我們的產品有著強勁的需求。來自美國的營收年增58%至5,680萬美元，佔總營收的64%。來自美國以外地區的營收年增77%至3,150萬美元，佔總營收的36%，比去年同期上升了3個百分點。我們的國際擴張仍處於初期，我們看到眼前存在著重大機會。我們將繼續在 Kafka 採用率不斷提高的最高國家/地區投資本地營運。我們預計這些有針對性的投資將隨著時間的推移推動我們的國際收入結構走高。

Turning to remaining performance obligations. We ended the second quarter with $327.2 million in RPO, up 72% year-over-year. Current RPO, which we estimate to be 69% of RPO, was approximately $224.6 million, up 63% year-over-year. As a reminder, our current RPO is an estimate and could fluctuate due to the variability of consumption patterns of our cloud customers. Our growth acceleration in RPO was driven by the broad-based momentum across our product offerings with Confluent Cloud's triple-digit growth being the largest driver. RPO also benefited from a large multiyear expansion deal. While the deal had a modest impact on Q2 revenue, it increased the growth rate differential between RPO and current RPO.

轉向剩餘的履約義務。我們第二季的 RPO 營收為 3.272 億美元，年增 72%。我們估計目前的 RPO 為 2.246 億美元，年增 63%，約 69%。提醒一下，我們目前的 RPO 是一個估計值，並且可能會因為雲端客戶的消費模式變化而波動。我們的 RPO 成長加速得益於我們所有產品的廣泛發展勢頭，其中 Confluent Cloud 的三位數成長是最大的推動力。 RPO 也受益於一項多年的大型擴張協議。雖然交易對第二季的營收影響不大，但卻增加了 RPO 與目前 RPO 之間的成長率差異。

Before turning to gross margins and profitability, I'd like to note that I'll be discussing non-GAAP results, unless otherwise noted. Q2 total gross margin was 70.1%, up from 68.7% a year ago. Subscription gross margins, which include Confluent Cloud and Confluent Platform, were 77%, up from 76.1% a year ago. The majority of the increase is attributed to realizing efficiencies in infrastructure cost, the increasing mix of multi-tenant hosting and product optimizations for Confluent Cloud. Confluent Cloud has lower gross margins than Confluent Platform as we're in the early stages of achieving leverage and scale for the infrastructure that supports our cloud offering. And as Confluent Cloud continues to scale and account for a larger share of total revenue, we anticipate gross margins to fluctuate in the future.

在談到毛利率和獲利能力之前，我想指出，我將討論非 GAAP 結果，除非另有說明。第二季總毛利率為 70.1%，高於去年同期的 68.7%。包括 Confluent Cloud 和 Confluent Platform 在內的訂閱毛利率為 77%，高於一年前的 76.1%。大部分成長歸因於實現基礎設施成本的效率、多租戶託管的不斷增加以及 Confluent Cloud 的產品優化。 Confluent Cloud 的毛利率低於 Confluent Platform，因為我們仍處於實現支援我們的雲端產品的基礎設施的槓桿和規模的早期階段。隨著 Confluent Cloud 不斷擴大規模並佔據總收入的更大份額，我們預計未來毛利率將會出現波動。

Turning to profitability. Operating loss was negative $36.8 million, representing operating margin of negative 41.7% compared to negative 37.9% a year ago. Free cash flow margin was negative 51.4% compared to negative 42.2% a year ago, and net loss per share was negative $0.31 using 118.6 million basic and diluted weighted average shares outstanding. The year-over-year decline in profitability was primarily driven by our plan to catch up with hiring in FY '21 as well as continuing to invest for growth. As a reminder, we hit the pause button on hiring at the front end of the pandemic in FY '20, and we didn't resume hiring in earnest until late Q3. Given the size of our addressable market and the strong unit economics inherent in our model, we believe it's critical to invest in scale across all organizational functions to capture our market opportunity.

轉向盈利能力。營業虧損為負 3,680 萬美元，營業利益率為負 41.7%，去年同期為負 37.9%。自由現金流利潤率為負 51.4%，而去年同期為負 42.2%，以 1.186 億股基本和稀釋加權平均流通股計算，每股淨虧損為負 0.31 美元。獲利能力較去年同期下降主要是因為我們計劃在 21 財年趕上招聘以及繼續投資以實現成長。提醒一下，我們在 20 財年疫情爆發初期就暫停了招聘，直到第三季末才正式恢復招聘。考慮到我們目標市場的規模以及我們模型固有的強大單位經濟性，我們認為在所有組織職能中進行規模投資對於抓住市場機會至關重要。

Moving on to the balance sheet. We ended the second quarter with $1.04 billion in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, which includes the $786.6 million in net proceeds from our IPO.

繼續討論資產負債表。截止第二季度，我們的現金、現金等價物和有價證券總額為 10.4 億美元，其中包括首次公開發行 (IPO) 帶來的 7.866 億美元淨收益。

Turning now to guidance. Starting this quarter, we're providing quarterly and annual guidance on total revenue, non-GAAP operating loss or income and non-GAAP net loss or earnings per share. For the third quarter of 2021, we expect revenue to be in the range of $89 million to $91 million, representing growth of 45% to 48% year-over-year; non-GAAP operating loss in the range of negative $62 million to negative $60 million; and non-GAAP net loss per share in the range of negative $0.24 to negative $0.23, using approximately 259 million weighted average shares outstanding, which includes the full quarter weighted impact of shares post-IPO.

現在轉向指導。從本季度開始，我們將提供有關總收入、非公認會計準則營業虧損或收入以及非公認會計準則淨虧損或每股收益的季度和年度指引。 2021年第三季度，我們預計營收在8,900萬美元至9,100萬美元之間，年增45%至48%；非公認會計準則經營虧損在負 6,200 萬美元至負 6,000 萬美元之間；非公認會計準則每股淨虧損在負 0.24 美元至負 0.23 美元之間，使用約 2.59 億股加權平均流通股，其中包括 IPO 後股票的整個季度加權影響。

For fiscal year 2021, we expect revenue to be in the range of $347 million to $351 million, representing growth of 47% to 48% year-over-year; non-GAAP operating loss in the range of negative $199 million to negative $195 million; and non-GAAP net loss per share in the range of negative $1.07 to negative $1.05, using approximately 188 million weighted average shares outstanding.

對於 2021 財年，我們預計營收在 3.47 億美元至 3.51 億美元之間，年增 47% 至 48%；非公認會計準則經營虧損在負 1.99 億美元至負 1.95 億美元之間；非公認會計準則每股淨虧損在負 1.07 美元至負 1.05 美元之間，使用約 1.88 億股加權平均流通股。

I'd also like to provide some modeling points. We expect FY '21 non-GAAP taxes to be in the range of $2 million to $ 3 million and FY '21 capital expenditures and amounts capitalized for internal use software cost to be approximately 2% to 3% of total revenue.

我還想提供一些建模要點。我們預計 21 財年非 GAAP 稅收在 200 萬美元至 300 萬美元之間，21 財年資本支出和內部使用軟體成本資本化的金額約佔總收入的 2% 至 3%。

In closing, our strong second quarter results underscore our ability to execute against a large market opportunity. As a category-creating company, we're just getting started, and we're well positioned to drive durable growth and profitability over the long term.

最後，我們強勁的第二季業績凸顯了我們抓住巨大市場機會的能力。作為一家開創性公司，我們才剛起步，但我們已做好準備，實現長期可持續的成長和獲利。

With that, Jay and I will take your questions.

下面，傑伊和我將回答大家的問題。

Thank you, Steffan. (Operator Instructions) And with that, we'll take our first question from Sanjit Singh of Morgan Stanley. And he will be followed by Mark Murphy. Sanjit?

謝謝你，史蒂芬。 (操作員指示) 接下來，我們將回答摩根士丹利的 Sanjit Singh 提出的第一個問題。接替他的是馬克·墨菲。桑吉特？

Okay. Sorry about that, Shane. Congrats to the team on a really strong debut as a public company. The results were really impressive on -- particularly on both the Confluent Platform and the Confluent Cloud side. I want to talk a little bit about Confluent Cloud. And why are we sort of seeing the escape velocity in that part of the business today? If I look at your cloud mix last year, it was only up 3 points year-on-year. The last few quarters, the cloud mix is about up 600 basis points and up 10 points this most recent quarter. So Jay, I was wondering if you could just sort of expand on like why now on Confluent Cloud? Is it sort of feature parity? Is it just the strong customer adds? Why are we seeing that business really start to take off?

好的。很抱歉，肖恩。祝賀團隊作為上市公司首次亮相就取得如此強勁的成績。結果確實令人印象深刻——特別是在 Confluent 平台和 Confluent 雲端。我想稍微談談一下 Confluent Cloud。那麼為什麼我們今天會看到該部分業務的逃逸速度呢？如果我看一下您去年的雲端組合，它僅比去年同期上漲了 3 個百分點。過去幾個季度，雲端運算組合上漲了約 600 個基點，最近一個季度上漲了 10 個基點。所以傑伊，我想知道你是否可以詳細解釋為什麼現在要使用 Confluent Cloud？這算是某種功能奇偶校驗嗎？這只是強大的客戶添加嗎？為什麼我們看到業務真正開始起飛？

Yes, it's a great question, and it's really a couple of different things that contribute to that. The first is the product differentiation. I talked about that like really getting each of those pillars to be meaningful to customers. Being cloud native, being complete, being everywhere, I think that matters a lot. I think secondly, really getting the foundations of a cloud product to be incredibly solid. The security story, how you work with us, et cetera, I think that unlocks a lot of customers that may have been skeptical of managed cloud infrastructure, especially with a smaller company.

是的，這是一個很好的問題，而且實際上有幾件不同的事導致了這個結果。第一是產品的差異化。我談論的是真正讓每個支柱對客戶有意義。雲端原生、完整、無所不在，我認為這非常重要。我認為其次，雲端產品的基礎必須非常堅實。安全故事、您如何與我們合作等等，我認為這可以打消很多可能對託管雲端基礎設施持懷疑態度的客戶，尤其是小公司的客戶。

And then finally, I think it's the maturing of our go to market, really learning how to take advantage of the capabilities of a cloud product. We've gone through a transition to a usage-oriented model that really helps. I think we're still in the early days of taking advantage of that. So I think we're just getting started, but that's been a big adjustment for us over the last year plus to really sell like a SaaS company. And so I think all of those things contributed significantly.

最後，我認為是我們進入市場的成熟，真正學會如何利用雲端產品的功能。我們已經經歷了使用導向模型的轉變，這確實很有幫助。我認為我們仍處於利用這一優勢的早期階段。所以我認為我們才剛起步，但在過去的一年裡，這對我們來說是一個巨大的調整，真正像 SaaS 公司一樣進行銷售。所以我認為所有這些都做出了重大貢獻。

That's super helpful. And then thirdly, my next question was sort of around the velocity in terms of adoption. I think on the road show, you guys were talking about Confluent is a way about reimagining how applications and the data infrastructure interact with each other. And the -- that's exciting on one hand, but the other part is new. And sometimes new means friction. And maybe it's sort of related to Confluent Cloud. But in terms of greasing a wheel, so to speak, to drive that adoption, is Confluent Cloud kind of the key lever to pull here? Or are there other things that you guys can do to get customers to buy into the architectural...

這非常有幫助。第三，我的下一個問題是關於採用的速度。我想在路演中，你們談到了 Confluent，這是一種重新想像應用程式和資料基礎設施如何相互作用的方式。一方面這令人興奮，但另一方面也是新的。有時，新意味著摩擦。或許它與 Confluent Cloud 有點關係。但從推動這種採用的角度來看，Confluent Cloud 是否是這裡需要發揮的關鍵槓桿作用？或者你們可以做其他事情來讓客戶購買建築物......

Yes, that's a great question. So there's really 2 dimensions, right? One, we started the company with something that was -- an idea that was very powerful and companies who want it. But as you said, it was hard at that point to do it. And that is absolutely friction. And so the project for Confluent is make it easy, make it easy to get the value. And there's -- I do think there's 2 dimensions to that. One is operations. Is it easy to just run a net new massive distributed platform at scale with production quality? And the cloud is really the solution there. That really just takes that problem away. We obviously have a set of product features that help on-premise. But the cloud, we can just do it for you. So 30 seconds later, you're world-class at this new capability.

是的，這是一個很好的問題。那麼實際上存在二維，對嗎？首先，我們創立這家公司時，有一個非常強大的想法，並且有公司想要這個想法。但正如你所說，當時做到這一點很困難。這絕對是摩擦。因此，Confluent 計畫的目標是讓一切變得簡單，讓獲取價值變得容易。而且——我確實認為這有兩個面向。一是營運。運行一個規模大、品質好的全新分散式平台是否容易？而雲端確實是解決方案。這確實解決了這個問題。我們顯然有一系列有助於內部部署的產品功能。但是雲，我們可以為您做到。 30 秒後，您就掌握了這項新功能，並且達到了世界一流水準。

But the other side is the development side, how easy or hard is it to build applications against this. Kind of the core of Kafka is this almost low-level primitive for reimagining these kind of applications. But what we've really focused on is making it easier and easier. So having over 100 different connectors that allow you to just capture streams with no code that you have to write, you just plug in and the data flows. And then ksql is a huge part of this, making it really easy to take the very high efficiency language of traditional databases, the thing that software engineers all kind of know and understand and apply it to data in motion. That makes it much easier for people to just get going.

但另一方面是開發方面，針對此建立應用程式有多容易或多難。 Kafka 的核心是用於重新構想此類應用程式的幾乎低階原語。但我們真正關注的是讓事情變得越來越容易。因此，擁有超過 100 種不同的連接器可以讓您捕獲流，而無需編寫任何程式碼，只需插入，資料就會流動。然後 ksql 是其中很重要的一部分，它使得採用傳統資料庫的高效語言（軟體工程師都知道和理解的東西）並將其應用於運動資料變得非常容易。這使得人們能夠更輕鬆地開始行動。

I think there's a lot more we can do in this direction. I don't think we're done in making it easy to be able to get the value out for different use cases, making it more and more efficient to develop in this new way. But we're -- I think we're seeing that acceleration in the open-source adoption and in the underlying business and in the results that we're showing.

我認為我們在這個方向上還可以做很多事情。我認為，我們還沒有完成讓從不同用例中輕鬆獲得價值的工作，並且讓以這種新方式進行開發變得越來越有效率。但我認為，我們看到開源採用、基礎業務和我們展示的結果正在加速發展。

Well, great to see the first quarter results and congrats on a great start.

好吧，很高興看到第一季的業績，並祝賀我們有一個良好的開端。

We'll take our second question from Mark Murphy of JPMorgan. And Mark will be followed by Kash Rangan. Mark?

我們將回答摩根大通的馬克墨菲提出的第二個問題。繼馬克之後，卡什·蘭甘 (Kash Rangan) 也將登場。標記？

Okay. Yes. I want to add my hearty congratulations on just a stellar operating performance in the quarter. Steffan, I wanted to ask you, it's a little rare to see net retention move in such a large increment that way in a single quarter. Could you just describe the -- whether it's the math underlying it? Is it not a last 12-months average in your definition or is it? And then maybe what's the customer behavior that just changed so materially there in a single quarter?

好的。是的。我要對本季出色的營運業績表示衷心的祝賀。史蒂芬，我想問你，淨留存率在一個季度內出現如此大幅度的增幅是比較罕見的。您能否描述一下——它背後的數學原理是什麼？您的定義裡這不是過去 12 個月的平均值嗎？那麼，是什麼讓客戶行為在一個季度內發生如此重大的變化呢？

Well, for starters, it's a trailing 12-month metric for ARR. And the underlying drivers of the strength were really, we saw great improvement in gross retention for both Confluent Cloud and Confluent Platform. We saw a really healthy expansion. But one of the things that was a real bright spot in the quarter was for customers who are running both Confluent Cloud and Confluent Platform in the same environment, the net retention rate is meaningfully higher than the average net retention rate for the company. And so we're starting to see the network effect really take hold.

嗯，首先，這是過去 12 個月的 ARR 指標。而實力的根本驅動因素其實是，我們看到 Confluent Cloud 和 Confluent Platform 的總留存率都有了很大的提升。我們看到了真正健康的擴張。但本季真正的亮點之一是，對於在同一環境中同時執行 Confluent Cloud 和 Confluent Platform 的客戶來說，淨留存率明顯高於公司的平均淨留存率。因此我們開始看到網路效應真正發揮作用。

And I get that dynamic because it's important to understand some of the underlying drivers. As you remember, on our IPO, we talked about we're operationally focused on driving NRR to be consistently above 120% in the near term and in the long term, above 130%. So this quarter was a great proof point that we've got above 130%. We're going to see fluctuations along the way. But we're -- we've put in the operational rigor and focus through the sales and go-to-market organization, through the product organization. And we're really seeing that pay off. So we're very pleased with that.

我理解這種動態，因為了解一些潛在的驅動因素很重要。您還記得，在我們的 IPO 中，我們談到了我們在營運上的重點是推動 NRR 在短期內持續保持在 120% 以上，在長期內保持在 130% 以上。所以本季是一個很好的證明，證明我們的成長率已經超過 130%。我們將會看到一路上的波動。但是，我們透過銷售和市場組織以及產品組織，投入了營運嚴謹性和專注度。我們確實看到了回報。我們對此非常滿意。

Okay. And Jay, as a follow-up for you, I'm interested in what you think are the most important steps that you can take just in order to be highlighting the -- all the differentiated features in a Confluent offering versus when people look at the plain vanilla version of Apache Kafka so that you can be maximizing the value of the subscription relationship.

好的。 Jay，作為對您的後續提問，我感興趣的是您認為您可以採取的最重要的步驟是什麼，以便突出 Confluent 產品中的所有差異化功能（與人們查看普通版本的 Apache Kafka 相比），以便您可以最大化訂閱關係的價值。

Yes, it's a great question. I mean, those kind of 3 pillars of differentiation, really making sure that, that's clear and that customers are experiencing that as a critical project for us. So the underlying foundation of that is making sure each of those pillars is really strong, which I think we've done a great job of.

是的，這是一個很好的問題。我的意思是，這三大差異化支柱確實確保了這一點很明確，並且客戶將其視為我們的一個關鍵項目。因此，最根本的基礎是確保每個支柱都非常堅固，我認為我們在這方面做得很好。

The next is really making that broadly known and I think making sure that people are signing up and trying the cloud product, making that easy is critical. We've made really significant hires in the marketing organization over the last 6 months or so, which I think is a big part of that as well. And so all of that, I think, is going to help us kind of take that story out more broadly and have it proceed any discussion we have with potential customers.

下一步就是真正讓大家廣泛了解這一點，我認為確保人們註冊並嘗試雲端產品，讓這一點變得簡單至關重要。在過去六個月左右的時間裡，我們在行銷部門進行了非常重要的招聘，我認為這也是其中很重要的一部分。所以，我認為，所有這些都將幫助我們更廣泛地傳播這個故事，並讓它繼續我們與潛在客戶的討論。

Our next question comes from Kash Rangan of Goldman Sachs. And Kash will be followed by Brad Sills.

下一個問題來自高盛的卡什·蘭根 (Kash Rangan)。繼卡什 (Kash) 之後，布拉德·西爾斯 (Brad Sills) 也將登場。

Congratulations again on your first quarter as a public company. First one for Jay. So Jay, really impressive cloud numbers here. I wonder if you could dissect the strength of the cloud business into how much of that was incentivization on the go-to-market front versus maybe landing points for cloud customers are higher than where there were a couple of years, like meaning that the first decision to go with Confluent starts with the Confluent Cloud product itself. Maybe there's a little bit of consideration or maybe there is another factor. Maybe existing Confluent Platform customers decided to do more in the cloud. If you could just dissect what is driving the strength of the cloud business from a product mix and go-to-market perspective, that will be great.

再次恭喜貴公司上市後的第一個季度。第一個是傑伊。傑伊，這裡的雲數量確實令人印象深刻。我想知道您是否可以分析一下雲端業務的優勢，其中有多少是市場進入方面的激勵，或者雲端客戶的著陸點可能比幾年前更高，這意味著採用 Confluent 的第一個決定始於 Confluent Cloud 產品本身。也許是有一點考慮，也可能有其他因素。也許現有的 Confluent Platform 客戶決定在雲端做更多的事情。如果您能從產品組合和市場進入的角度分析一下推動雲端業務實力的因素，那就太好了。

And Steffan, I do have one for you. To the extent that the cloud accelerates on a sustainable basis, what do the economics of the business look like? Is the LTV to CAC of the cloud business materially different or about the same as the core business? And to the extent you have accelerated transition to the cloud, what should we be thinking about as far as the implications of the Confluent business model longer term?

史蒂芬，我確實有一個給你。如果雲端運算持續加速發展，那麼業務的經濟效益會是怎麼樣的？雲端業務的 LTV 與 CAC 比率與核心業務有實質差異還是大致相同？在您加速向雲端過渡的範圍內，我們應該考慮 Confluent 商業模式的長期影響嗎？

Yes, it's a great question. So this is one of these multifactor things where you can't boil it down to just one thing that changed. So what got better? Yes, the product got significantly better. I think people underestimate how large a lift it is to build a really world-class cloud infrastructure product. Just doing that at scale across every cloud, across every region, having a full suite of networking technologies, the underlying security capability, it's a lot. And until you kind of have that, you're really not ready to work with the best customers. And I do think we've kind of crossed that threshold there that starts to have us really see that unlock. And that may be surprising given the amount of time we've invested in our cloud offering. This is something we've worked on for years, but it is actually a big deal to do something that's properly cloud native and do that right. And I think that's starting to pay off.

是的，這是一個很好的問題。所以，這是一個多因素影響的事情，你不能把它歸結為僅僅一件事發生了變化。那麼有什麼好轉嗎？是的，產品明顯變得更好了。我認為人們低估了建構真正世界一流的雲端基礎設施產品的推動力。只要在每個雲端、每個區域大規模地做到這一點，擁有一整套網路技術和底層安全能力，這就夠了。除非你具備這種素質，否則你還沒準備好與最好的客戶合作。我確實認為我們已經跨過了那個門檻，開始讓我們真正看到解鎖。考慮到我們在雲端產品上投入的時間，這可能令人驚訝。這是我們多年來一直致力於的事情，但做一些真正雲端原生的事情並做好它實際上是一件大事。我認為這已經開始產生回報了。

I talked a little bit about just the evolution and sophistication of the go-to-market organizations really adapting to this usage model and starting to take advantage of that. I think that's paying off as well. I think part of it is also a larger shift in the world around us. There are -- the movement to cloud is much more broad-based, and people are much more open to the realization that there's going to be a set of independent cloud data systems beyond just the cloud provider. They're going to be absolutely critical to their architecture, and they're starting to place bets against that. And I think that, that kind of growing awareness helps us as well.

我稍微談論了行銷組織如何真正適應這種使用模式並開始利用這種模式的演變和成熟度。我認為這也是有回報的。我認為部分原因也是我們周遭世界發生了更大的轉變。雲端運算的遷移範圍更廣泛，人們也更樂於接受這樣的認知：除了雲端供應商之外，還會有一套獨立的雲端資料系統。他們對自己的架構絕對持批評態度，並且開始對此下注。我認為，這種日益增強的意識也對我們有幫助。

And so for a lot of these customers, they want to get out of running open-source things themselves. They want to put their best engineers in the best place. And they're looking for companies that can help them do that, that can actually give them the kind of world-class product that they need to be great in these areas. So it's all of those things. I wish it was just one simple thing, but it all ends up adding up to be that.

因此，很多客戶都希望自己不再運作開源軟體。他們希望把最好的工程師放在最好的位置。他們正在尋找能夠幫助他們實現這一目標的公司，能夠為他們提供在這些領域取得成功所需的世界級產品的公司。所以這就是所有這些事情。我希望這只是一件簡單的事情，但最終卻變成這樣了。

And on the second question, Kash, this is a multiple year kind of point of view. So don't read it for quarter-by-quarter. But just thematically, with cloud being a bigger component of our business, and we see it trending higher over time, for sure, it has lots of positive impacts on a longer-term basis. So we believe that the NRR profile of our cloud customers should be a lot higher than just, call it, the traditional set of customers who are running CP. From a revenue visibility standpoint and a consumption-based standpoint, we see that as having a positive read through the business longer term.

關於第二個問題，卡什，這是一個多年的觀點。因此，不要按季度閱讀。但從主題上看，雲端運算是我們業務的重要組成部分，而且我們看到它隨著時間的推移呈現上升趨勢，因此，從長期來看，它肯定會產生許多積極影響。因此，我們相信，我們的雲端客戶的 NRR 概況應該比運行 CP 的傳統客戶高得多。從收入可見性和基於消費的角度來看，我們認為這對長期業務有正面的影響。

Our gross margins will definitely fluctuate given the gross margin profile of cloud is in the more nascent stage than Confluent Platform. We're on a multiyear journey, and we've seen great improvement so far, but that will provide a little bit of fluctuation. And then when it goes to unit economics, we think the LTV to CAC profile of our Confluent Cloud business should be growing over time. And so that will be a positive tailwind for the business.

鑑於雲端運算的毛利率狀況比 Confluent 平台處於更早的階段，我們的毛利率肯定會波動。我們已經進行了多年的旅程，到目前為止我們已經看到了很大的進步，但這會帶來一點波動。然後，當談到單位經濟時，我們認為 Confluent Cloud 業務的 LTV 與 CAC 比率應該會隨著時間的推移而成長。這對於業務來說將是一個積極的推動力。

And then lastly, I'll say, on the R&D side of the house, and I can't underscore this anymore, but the complexity of the engineering organization in terms of being able to service on all 3 major cloud providers plus doing more integrations, et cetera, the investments we're making in the product organization are very much tailored to becoming a cloud-first company, but really plugging into the whole central nervous system aspect of the dynamic because in order to serve our customers, we have to be on-prem and in cloud. And so there's just more engineering investment related to being the central nervous system, but cloud is definitely like our first priority.

最後，我想說，在研發方面，我不能再強調這一點了，但工程組織的複雜性在於能夠為所有 3 個主要雲端供應商提供服務，並進行更多整合等等，我們在產品組織方面所做的投資非常適合成為一家雲端優先公司，但真正插入了動態的整個中樞神經系統方面，因為為了服務我們的客戶，我們必須在本地和雲端。因此，與中樞神經系統相關的工程投資更多，但雲端運算絕對是我們的首要任務。

We'll take our next question from Brad Sills with Bank of America, and Brad will be followed by Michael Turrin.

下一個問題將由美國銀行的布拉德·西爾斯 (Brad Sills) 提出，之後邁克爾·圖林 (Michael Turrin) 將回答布拉德的問題。

Congratulations on a nice quarter as a -- first quarter as a public company. Great to hear from you guys. My question is really on one of the metrics that stands out to me, which is that customer count greater than $1 million in ARR, real strong result this quarter, more than doubling year-over-year. My question is, what is the point in which a customer crosses a certain threshold when they become more -- they look at Confluent as more of a strategic partner and really start to accelerate that expansion across the organization, start to use Confluent in a more meaningful way such that they get to that size of a customer? Is there a certain catalyst that you see or common theme when a customer hits that point? And what is that? And how are you driving that?

恭喜您作為上市公司在第一季取得了良好的業績。很高興收到你們的來信。我的問題實際上是關於一個令我印象深刻的指標，即客戶數量的 ARR 超過 100 萬美元，本季度的業績非常強勁，同比增長了一倍多。我的問題是，當客戶將 Confluent 視為策略夥伴並真正開始加速其在整個組織的擴張，開始以更有意義的方式使用 Confluent 以達到這一規模時，客戶跨越某個門檻的點是什麼？當客戶達到這一點時，您是否看到某種催化劑或共同主題？那是什麼？您是如何駕駛的？

Yes, that's a fantastic question. So yes, we look at the adoption as kind of having 3 phases. There's kind of early developer interest. People are getting in. It's more experimental. It's maybe attaching to early development. There's a phase where there's kind of disparate production application. So it's used in this part of the company for something. It's used in that part of the company for something. And then really, this third phase is really important. This is the beginning of that central nervous system where it starts to connect across. And it starts to be thought as a kind of default way that data is exchanged between applications, a default way that data flows.

是的，這是一個非常好的問題。是的，我們認為採用分為三個階段。早期的開發人員對此有一定的興趣。人們正在加入進來。它可能與早期發展有關。在某個階段，存在著各種不同的生產應用。所以它被公司的這個部分用來做某件事。它被公司的那個部門用來做某件事。那麼實際上，第三階段非常重要。這是中樞神經系統的起點，在這裡，各個部分開始連結。它開始被認為是應用程式之間交換資料的一種預設方式，一種資料流動的預設方式。

I wouldn't use that $1 million-plus customer as kind of a proxy for later-stage customers. Now obviously, if you have one really big use case, you could pay more early on. But typically, at that point, you have very significant usage. And it is our goal to be the best in the world at taking customers down that journey. We want the most people possible to start and experiment in as low friction a way with our cloud product as possible. We want as many of them to get into production successfully with applications. We want that to grow and really become a foundational part of their data architecture over time.

我不會把那個價值 100 多萬美元的客戶當作後期客戶的代理。現在很明顯，如果您有一個非常大的用例，您可以儘早支付更多費用。但通常情況下，在那時，你的使用量會非常大。我們的目標是成為世界上最好的服務供應商，帶領客戶踏上這段旅程。我們希望盡可能多的人能夠以盡可能低的摩擦方式開始使用和試驗我們的雲產品。我們希望盡可能多的應用程式能夠成功投入生產。我們希望它隨著時間的推移能夠發展並真正成為其資料架構的基礎部分。

And so there's a million and one things we do to try and accelerate that. At scale, that's about having the right relationship in -- across the different parts of the organization, making sure they kind of see the value of the direction that they're in any way heading as this technology takes off and really kind of take the relationship to the next level. And I think it's a very healthy development to see that. That's our goal for all of our accounts.

因此，我們做了無數的事情來嘗試加速這個進程。從規模上看，這意味著要在組織的不同部分之間建立正確的關係，確保他們能夠看到隨著這項技術的起飛他們所走方向的價值，並真正將這種關係​​提升到一個新的水平。我認為這是一個非常健康的發展。這是我們對所有帳戶的目標。

That's great to hear. And one more follow-up, if I may. When you think of Confluent, we think of the company as really riding that adoption of next-generation applications, really the infrastructure for applications that require that real-time capability at scale and integration of the data. But when we talk to customers, we also hear that they're looking to Confluent to help modernize legacy applications, that even those need some of this real-time capability. So I guess my question is, how much of that replacement cycle do you see has driven the results so far? Do you see that coming in increasingly? Obviously, you're very well positioned for modern next-gen applications. But what about the legacy? There's a lot of that, that could move to Confluent, I would imagine.

我很高興聽到這個消息。如果可以的話，我還要問一個問題。當您想到 Confluent 時，我們認為該公司真正地採用了下一代應用程序，真正為需要大規模即時功能和數據集成的應用程式提供了基礎設施。但當我們與客戶交談時，我們也聽到他們希望 Confluent 能夠幫助他們實現遺留應用程式的現代化，甚至這些應用程式也需要一些即時功能。所以我想我的問題是，您認為到目前為止更換週期對結果的影響有多大？您是否發現這種現像日益增多？顯然，您已經為現代下一代應用程式做好了充分準備。但遺產怎麼辦？我想，其中很多都可以轉移到 Confluent。

Yes, that's exactly right. It's subtle, but I think it's one of the really powerful things about how this product works. There's many technology products which kind of come in and say, "Hey, rebuild everything on us, and it will be great." And the problem is that there often isn't really the ROI to rebuild major systems running part of the business. And yet there is pressure and the business has to adapt and do new things and work in new ways. And so the challenge is how can you do that?

是的，完全正確。這很微妙，但我認為這是該產品真正強大的功能之一。很多科技產品的出現都會讓人覺得，“嘿，重建我們的一切，這會很棒。”問題在於，重建運作部分業務的主要係統通常並沒有真正的投資回報。然而，壓力依然存在，企業必須適應並嘗試新事物、以新的方式開展工作。所以挑戰在於你如何做到這一點？

New applications, they're not islands. They don't stand alone. They plug into a larger business and system that they have to be a part of, and that's really the power of what we're doing. When we talk about the central nervous system, it's both connecting up to the old systems, the relational databases and mainframes and old ERP systems that have core parts of the business in them and allowing that data to flow out continuously in real-time, trigger action and activity in the new stuff that may be out in the cloud that's built on new platforms and vice versa, right? And this is actually really a core requirement to be able to enable these kind of new applications.

新的應用程式並不是孤島。他們並不是孤獨的。他們融入了更大的業務和系統，他們必須成為其中的一部分，而這才是我們所做工作的真正力量。當我們談論中樞神經系統時，它既連接舊系統、關聯式資料庫和大型主機以及包含業務核心部分的舊 ERP 系統，又允許這些資料即時地連續流出，觸發可能存在於新平台上構建的雲端中的新內容的動作和活動，反之亦然，對嗎？這實際上是實現此類新應用的核心要求。

Typically, the challenge isn't, do you want to be on a mainframe? It's how can you pull apart the new things and allow them to be built if they have to integrate back into the old stuff. And that's the challenge for a lot of enterprise customers. That's why you see this so commonly bridging. And so it isn't really greenfield versus brownfield. It's actually kind of both and often both even at the same time for the same application. The next-generation customer experience front end has to bridge back and be fed by data in some of the older operational systems. These things need to change a bit at a time. This is a key part of what makes that possible.

通常來說，挑戰不在於你想使用大型主機嗎？如果新事物必須重新融入舊事物中，那麼如何才能將它們拆開，然後再重新建構呢？這對許多企業客戶來說是一個挑戰。這就是為什麼你經常會看到這種橋接現象。因此，這其實並不是綠地與棕地之間的對比。實際上，對於同一個應用程序，兩者通常都會同時出現。下一代客戶體驗前端必須回接一些較舊的作業系統並接受其中的資料。這些事情需要一點一點改變。這是實現這一目標的關鍵部分。

And I think it is key that it is ultimately the architecture companies want to get to, right? It is -- the new Silicon Valley tech companies are starting this way as well. So it's not just a transitionary thing. It really is how they want to get there, but works with both.

我認為關鍵在於這最終是建築公司想要達到的目標，對嗎？確實如此──矽谷的新興科技公司也是這樣起步的。所以這不僅僅是一個過渡的事情。這確實是他們想要達到的目的，但需要雙方共同努力。

Our next question comes from Michael Turrin with Wells Fargo, and Karl Keirstead is on deck.

我們的下一個問題來自富國銀行的 Michael Turrin，接下來是 Karl Keirstead。

Congrats on another milestone here with the first earnings report. Jay, Confluent was named GCP Tech Partner of the Year for a third year in a row. Can you maybe expand on positioning with the major cloud providers? How important is agnostic positioning for Confluent customers? And is there a competitive or cooperative dynamic you can shed light on there for investors?

恭喜我們透過第一份收益報告取得了另一個里程碑。 Jay，Confluent 連續第三年被評為年度 GCP 技術合作夥伴。您能否擴展與主要雲端供應商的定位？不可知論定位對 Confluent 客戶來說有多重要？您能為投資人闡明其中是否存在競爭或合作的動態嗎？

Yes. The cooperation is actually really strong, and it's not just with Google. It really is with all 3 of the cloud providers. And part of it is what I just said in the previous question, that bridging to enable the new applications is really, really critical for them to get that next new workload up and operational in the cloud in many cases. And that's why they're excited about this. This is why you would see reference architectures that have Confluent feeding BigQuery and feeding these other cloud systems. That's what makes the cloud providers excited about what we're doing.

是的。這種合作實際上非常強大，而且不僅僅與谷歌合作。這三家雲端供應商確實都是如此。其中一部分是我在上一個問題中所說的，在許多情況下，橋接以啟用新的應用程式對於它們在雲端啟動和運行下一個新工作負載確實非常關鍵。這就是他們對此感到興奮的原因。這就是為什麼您會看到 Confluent 為 BigQuery 和這些其他雲端系統提供資訊的參考架構。這就是讓雲端提供者對我們所做的事情感到興奮的原因。

That said, they have -- each cloud provider has a handful of different products in their environment that we would compete with. And that's -- it's certainly a complicated dynamic. I think it's well handled now in all 3 of the major clouds. The limitations of a lot of these offerings is kind of in that cloud-native, complete-everywhere basket. A lot of them don't really have the complete story. And most of these are just in that one cloud provider. It doesn't bridge into the other clouds. It doesn't bridge into on-premise. And so that larger story isn't necessarily possible with what they're doing. And that's why I think they want to work with us.

話雖如此，每個雲端供應商在其環境中都有一些不同的產品與我們競爭。這確實是個複雜的動態現象。我認為現在所有 3 個主要雲層都處理得很好。許多此類產品的限制在於雲端原生、全面覆蓋。他們中的很多人實際上並沒有完整的故事。其中大多數僅在一個雲端提供者。它並沒有與其他雲層相連。它無法橋接內部部署。所以，透過他們所做的事情，這個更大的故事不一定能實現。我認為這就是他們想與我們合作的原因。

Great. And Steffan, you're providing an outlook for both Q3 and the full year. Can you comment on the degree of visibility you have in the model, whether the mix of cloud affects that at all? Or maybe just comment on the overall approach to guidance here as well.

偉大的。史蒂芬，您提供了第三季和全年的展望。您能否評論一下模型中的可見度，雲的混合是否對其有影響？或者也許只是對這裡的整體指導方法進行評論。

We take several items into consideration when constructing guidance. We look at our pipeline. We look at our sales forecast. We also look at the visibility we have for revenue coming off of the balance sheet. And so from a revenue standpoint, because the revenue model is a mix of ratable upfront in consumption, the ratable piece gives us really good visibility. And we continue to fine-tune our consumption forecasting and modeling. But we feel very good about, just high confidence level, I should say, in our guidance, and that's based off of the attributes I just walked you through.

在製定指導時，我們會考慮幾個因素。我們正在觀察我們的管道。我們來看看我們的銷售預測。我們也會關注資產負債表上收入的可見性。因此，從收入的角度來看，由於收入模式是消費中按比例預付的混合，因此按比例部分為我們提供了非常好的可見性。我們也會繼續調整我們的消費預測和模型。但我們對我們的指導感到非常滿意，應該說，我們對此充滿信心，這是基於我剛才向您介紹的屬性。

We'll take our next question from Karl Keirstead with UBS, and Karl will be followed by Derrick Wood.

下一個問題將由瑞銀的 Karl Keirstead 提出，之後是 Derrick Wood。

Congrats on this first quarter, a good way to start. So maybe I'll start with Steffan. Steffan, was there anything unusual about the results in the quarter to call out? You had mentioned in a quick comment that maybe that large multiyear extension provided at least a modest boost to revenues. Maybe you could characterize that? And then also, was there anything funky in terms of deals slipping? I remember during the IPO process that you had an occasion where some 4Q deals slipped into 1Q. Anything like that occur in the second quarter that's worth calling out?

恭喜第一季取得如此好的成績，這是一個好的開始。因此我可能要從斯蒂芬 (Steffan) 開始。史蒂芬，本季的業績有什麼需要指出的異常嗎？您曾在簡短評論中提到，或許這份多年的大規模續約合約至少會適度增加收入。也許您可以這樣描述一下？另外，在交易下滑方面是否有什麼異常狀況？我記得在 IPO 過程中，曾經出現過一些第四季交易延後到第一季的情況。第二季是否還發生了一些值得關注的事情？

Yes. Good question. So on the large deal that we called out in the script, it didn't really have a material impact on revenue. But it did impact RPO because it was a multiyear deal. And if you look at the growth rate between RPO and current RPO, it did have an impact there. I can tell you that it was a great expansion opportunity for us. We viewed it as a very big vote of confidence. And we also had other large deals in the quarter 2, but we wanted to call that one out in particular.

是的。好問題。因此，對於我們在腳本中提到的大交易而言，它實際上並沒有對收入產生實質影響。但它確實對 RPO 產生了影響，因為這是一項多年期協議。如果您查看 RPO 和當前 RPO 之間的成長率，它確實產生了影響。我可以告訴你，這對我們來說是一個很好的擴張機會。我們認為這是一次非常大的信任投票。我們在第二季還有其他大交易，但我們想特別提到這筆交易。

And then as far as anything else going on in the quarter that was unique, it was just a very solid quarter kind of across the base. If you look at the metrics around $100,000 ARR customers, $1 million-plus ARR customers, net retention was clearly a bright spot for us. And that's been a point of focus for us over the last year, just continuing to drive NRR performance. And you think about things that like Erica Schultz has done in terms of operationalizing NRR throughout the field sales organization and we think about what Ganesh has done from an engineering standpoint around product feature, functionality, velocity to improve the stickiness, I can tell you the gross retention in the quarter was very healthy. And that's a great indicator for us as well.

至於本季發生的其他獨特事情，從總體來看，這是一個非常穩健的季度。如果您查看 100,000 美元 ARR 客戶和 100 萬美元以上 ARR 客戶的指標，淨留存率顯然是我們的亮點。這是我們過去一年來關注的重點，只是繼續推動 NRR 的性能。您可以想想 Erica Schultz 在整個現場銷售組織中實施 NRR 方面所做的事情，想想 Ganesh 從工程角度圍繞產品特性、功能、速度為提高粘性所做的事情，我可以告訴您，本季度的總保留率非常健康。對我們來說這也是一個很好的指標。

Okay. Great. And then maybe a follow-up, one of the metrics we haven't spoken about yet, which I tend not to focus on too much, is overall customer count because that can sometimes get skewed by the long tail of SMBs. But doubling your customer count in the quarter is impressive. And so I wanted to ask to what extent, Jay and Steffan, you look at that as a good leading indicator?

好的。偉大的。然後也許是後續問題，我們還沒有談到的一個指標，我傾向於不會過多關注它，那就是總體客戶數量，因為它有時會受到中小企業長尾效應的影響。但本季客戶數量翻倍令人印象深刻。所以我想問一下，傑伊和史蒂芬，你們在多大程度上認為這是一個好的領先指標？

And then secondly, was the cloud version of the product sort of a disproportionate catalyst for new customer growth? In other words, if cloud was 22% of revenues, did it have a much larger effect on bringing in new customers?

其次，該產品的雲端版本是否對新客戶成長產生了不成比例的催化劑作用？換句話說，如果雲端運算佔收入的 22%，那麼它對吸引新客戶的影響是否更大？

Yes, it's a great question. So yes, the cloud offering is definitely the foundation of how we're getting out to customers at scale. And so the vast majority of customers are on Confluent Cloud numerically, right? So yes, when we're looking at growth in total customers, that is what's going to predominate, and it is very much that kind of self-service low friction.

是的，這是一個很好的問題。所以是的，雲端產品絕對是我們大規模服務客戶的基礎。那麼從數量上看，絕大多數客戶都在使用 Confluent Cloud，對嗎？所以是的，當我們看總客戶數的成長時，這就是主導的，而且它就是那種自助服務的低摩擦。

Now as you said, you can come in and buy $1.50 worth of Confluent. And that may not be an indication of a long-term journey with us or it may be the beginning of something great, right? And so yes, it is a stack that's going to fluctuate quarter-to-quarter as we change some of our marketing techniques, where we're putting spend, remove friction from the onboarding process. You're going to see changes as we do that. We obviously look at that full journey, what are customers doing? Are they becoming active? Do we have continual usage of the product, et cetera? So to answer your question, strategically, I think it's very important. Quarter-to-quarter, there will be fluctuations in that as we change our techniques and approach and system for offering credits and incentives and so on.

現在正如您所說，您可以進來購買價值 1.50 美元的 Confluent。這也許不代表我們將踏上漫長的旅程，或許是偉大事業的開始，對嗎？是的，隨著我們改變一些行銷技巧、投入資金的地方以及消除入職過程中的摩擦，這個堆疊會每季都會波動。當我們這樣做時，你會看到改變。我們顯然會關注整個旅程，客戶在做什麼？他們變得活躍了嗎？我們是否持續使用該產品等等？所以回答你的問題，從策略上講，我認為這非常重要。由於我們改變提供信貸和激勵措施等的技術、方法和系統，因此每季都會出現波動。

Our next question comes from Derrick Wood with Cowen, and Derrick will be followed by Rob Owens.

我們的下一個問題來自 Cowen 的 Derrick Wood，之後是 Rob Owens。

Really great job out of the gate. I wanted to ask on the go-to-market. You guys have been building out new go-to-market teams over the last year. Just wanted to get a sense to what the maturity of those efforts look by region, U.S., EMEA, APAC. Kind of where do we stand with standardizing sales playbooks, driving up sales capacity? And how do you see that progressing through the year?

一開始就做得非常好。我想要詢問有關上市的問題。去年，你們一直在組建新的行銷團隊。只是想了解這些努力在美國、歐洲、中東和非洲地區、亞太地區等各地區的成熟度。我們在標準化銷售手冊、提升銷售能力方面處於什麼位置？您認為今年的進度如何？

Yes, it's a great question. I would say, first of all, we remain a young company, right? So in that overall arc, I still think there's a ton that's happening in there. As Steffan alluded, I think Erica and the rest of the team has done an amazing job, and they brought in good talent in every region. We've seen great performance across the board from the team. So I think we've made huge steps. I think there's still a lot that we're doing that will make it even better. I don't know if there's anything you would add to that, Steffan.

是的，這是一個很好的問題。我想說，首先，我們仍然是一家年輕的公司，對嗎？因此，在總體情節中，我仍然認為其中發生了很多事情。正如史蒂芬所提到的，我認為艾莉卡和團隊的其他成員做得非常出色，他們為每個地區引進了優秀人才。我們看到整個團隊都表現出色。所以我認為我們已經取得了巨大的進步。我認為我們還可以做很多事情來讓它變得更好。我不知道您是否還有什麼要補充，史蒂芬。

I have a couple of things. One is we started in the U.S., and we've expanded in EMEA and most recently in APAC. And so to answer your question, Derrick, we're still in the early stages of growth in all 3 major theaters. I can tell you that we had paused hiring last year prudently because of COVID, and we've caught up on hiring. And we're catching up on hiring. And from a -- just a head count standpoint, we're on track relative to hiring the sales talent that we need.

我有幾件事。一是我們從美國起步，然後向歐洲、中東和非洲地區擴張，最近又向亞太地區擴張。德里克，回答你的問題，我們在所有 3 個主要影院仍處於發展的早期階段。我可以告訴你，去年由於疫情的影響，我們謹慎地暫停了招聘，現在我們已經趕上了招聘的步伐。我們正在加快招募步伐。從人數角度來看，我們在招募所需銷售人才方面進展順利。

In 2021, we have more ramping reps than ramped reps. And in '22, given the fact that we have a 12-month onboarding process and ramp process, we're going to have proportionally more ramped people in '22 than in '21. So that gives you a little bit of color commentary on the geography and then also just hiring progress.

2021 年，我們的提升代表數量多於提升代表數量。而在'22年，鑑於我們擁有為期12個月的入職流程和晉升流程，因此在'22年，我們晉升的人員比例將比'21年更多。這樣您就可以對地理位置和招募進度有一點了解。

Perfect. And then, Steffan, a couple of quick tactical questions really. From an internal comp perspective, have you made any changes to incentives to sell cloud versus platform? And are there 2 different incentives? And then when it comes to the cloud engagements, how much is pay-as-you-go versus committed contracts? And is that shifting at all as we progress through the year?

完美的。然後，史蒂芬，我來問幾個快速的戰術問題。從內部補償角度來看，您是否對銷售雲與平台的激勵措施做出任何改變？是否有兩種不同的激勵措施？那麼，當談到雲端運算服務時，現用現付與承諾合約的比例是多少？那麼，隨著時間的推移，這種狀況是否會改變呢？

On the compensation side of the house at the start of this year, we did put in, call it, slightly more incentives for folks to sell Confluent Cloud. And so that's in place. And that's paying off, which is good. And as far as the mix between pay-as-you-go and committed contracts, the vast majority of the revenue is committed contracts. Pay-as-you-go is growing off of a small base. So like the percentage growth rates are very high. But if you look at just the proportions, committed contracts are a vast majority of revenue at this point.

在今年年初的薪酬方面，我們確實為銷售 Confluent Cloud 的人們提供了更多的激勵措施。這就是一切就緒了。這是有回報的，這是好事。就現收現付和承諾合約的組合而言，絕大部分收入來自承諾合約。現收現付模式正在小規模發展。因此百分比成長率非常高。但如果僅從比例來看，已承諾的合約目前佔據了收入的絕大部分。

And we'll take our next question from Rob Owens with Piper Sandler, and Rob will be followed by Raimo Lenschow.

下一個問題將由 Piper Sandler 的 Rob Owens 提出，之後由 Raimo Lenschow 回答。

I guess for starters, Steffan, as we contemplated Q2, there was the thought that the Codecov breach could potentially impact that top line. And did that play out whatsoever in terms of customers or any pushouts?

我想首先，史蒂芬，當我們考慮第二季時，我們認為 Codecov 漏洞可能會對營收產生影響。這對客戶或推廣有什麼影響嗎？

The way that the company handled the Codecov breach, I thought it was very well received by the customer base. We were out in front of it. We're very clear with what we're doing, how we're responding. And so it literally had very little to no impact as far as the results came through. And if you look at just the cloud revenue growth, the 200%, the overall revenue growth and also the growth in RPO, all of those played out, I think, better than we had expected. And so hopefully, that gives you some color commentary.

我認為該公司處理 Codecov 漏洞的方式受到了客戶群的熱烈歡迎。我們就在其前面。我們非常清楚我們在做什麼、如何應對。所以就結果而言，它實際上影響很小甚至沒有影響。如果你只看雲端收入成長、200% 的整體營收成長以及 RPO 的成長，我認為所有這些都比我們預期的要好。希望這能給你一些有用的評論。

Sure. And I guess to that end then, as you contemplated guidance and you gave some commentary earlier, but you have a history of being conservative, and I have a history of pushing you on that, how are you thinking about this third quarter than relative to some of those different puts and takes? And what could actually happen to influence a flattish type of a sequential number? I know it's up a couple of million. But given the strength that you've seen in all the leading indicators, we would think that might be even stronger this quarter.

當然。我想，為此，正如您所考慮的指導方針，並且在之前給出了一些評論，但您一直比較保守，而我也一直在向您施壓，那麼您如何看待第三季度相對於一些不同的利弊呢？那麼究竟會發生什麼事來影響序列數的扁平類型呢？我知道這個數字已經上升了幾百萬。但考慮到所有領先指標的強勁表現，我們認為本季的表現可能會更加強勁。

Well, we're very pleased with the fact that we can basically raise guidance relative to consensus. We're looking at 45% to 48% year-over-year growth in total revenue. And there is a seasonality component a little bit to our business. Our salespeople have semiannual comp plans for this year. And so Q2 and Q4 tend to be seasonally stronger than Q1 and Q3 just by the nature of how the comp plans work. And so we also took that into consideration while constructing guidance. But we felt very good about not only the guide for the quarter, but the guide for the year being 47% to 48%. And so hopefully, again, that gives you some confidence and some clarity.

嗯，我們很高興能夠基本上提高相對於共識的指導。我們預計總收入將年增 45% 至 48%。我們的業務有一定的季節性因素。我們的銷售人員今年有半年的薪資計畫。因此，從補償計畫的運作方式來看，第二季和第四季的季節性表現往往比第一季和第三季更強勁。因此，我們在製定指導時也考慮到了這一點。但我們不僅對本季的指導方針感到非常滿意，而且對全年的指導方針也感到非常滿意，即 47% 到 48%。所以希望這能再次帶給你一些信心和一些清晰的認識。

We'll take our next question from Raimo Lenschow with Barclays.

我們將回答巴克萊銀行的 Raimo Lenschow 提出的下一個問題。

Congrats from me as well. Jay, I know the question is going to look out a little bit more into the future. But if you look at other vendors like Mongo that kind of went towards the cloud, they started out with the 3 kind of clouds that you're kind of working on with -- but then they started thinking more east towards Asia. And then the big Chinese clouds came up. What's your thinking there around that going forward in terms of that and in terms of a white label? What's the market opportunity there? And then I have one follow-up for Steffan.

我本人也對此表示祝賀。傑伊，我知道這個問題將會更加關注未來。但是如果你看看像 Mongo 這樣的其他供應商，他們也開始涉足雲端運算，他們一開始使用的是你正在開發的三種雲端 - 但後來他們開始更多地考慮東方，即亞洲。然後大片中國雲朵出現了。您對這一問題以及白標問題的未來發展有何想法？那裡的市場機會是什麼？然後我對斯蒂芬 (Steffan) 有一個後續問題。

Yes. I think we're early in that process. We have watched what some of the other companies have done. I think those are great options. Obviously, our first priority is building just a world-class product in these first 3 major clouds.

是的。我認為我們尚處於這一進程的早期階段。我們觀察了其他一些公司所做的事情。我認為這些都是很好的選擇。顯然，我們的首要任務是在前三大雲中建構世界一流的產品。

Was there a follow-up? Did we lose you there, Raimo?

還有後續行動嗎？我們把你丟在那裡了嗎，雷莫？

Raimo, we can't hear you.

雷莫，我們聽不到你的聲音。

Okay. Sorry, my internet connection is unstable, I'd say. Steffan, the -- and the question for me is like going back to Mark Murphy's question from earlier. Those changes in NRR in one quarter is pretty remarkable. I've actually never seen something like that before. It -- could that -- like how do you think about that going forward? Do you think it's going to be more stable going forward? And well, like what could be factors here?

好的。抱歉，我的網路連線不穩定。史蒂芬，對我來說，這個問題就像回到之前馬克墨菲提出的問題。一個季度內 NRR 的變化相當顯著。我之前確實從未見過這樣的事情。那 — — 那可能嗎 — — 您對未來有什麼看法？您認為未來會更穩定嗎？那麼，這裡的因素可能有哪些呢？

Yes. So one additional point I'll make on NRR is because it's a trailing 12-month metric, if you look at the historical patterns for NRR, we called out that Q2 of last year, we actually had some churn based off of -- Q2 and Q3, candidly, we had some churn because of COVID, et cetera. The Q2 churn is now out of the equation. So that's also a tailwind to NRR. But the bigger components were definitely just the better gross retention and the expansion opportunities that we saw play out.

是的。因此，我要就 NRR 指出的另一點是，由於它是一個過去 12 個月的指標，如果您查看 NRR 的歷史模式，我們會發現去年第二季度，我們實際上有一些客戶流失——基於第二季度和第三季度，坦率地說，我們因為 COVID 等原因有一些客戶流失。第二季的客戶流失已經不再考慮。所以這對 NRR 來說也是一個順風。但更大的組成部分肯定只是更好的總保留率和我們看到的擴張機會。

We do think that there's going to be fluctuation. We've been very consistent on that point. And where NRR lands in a particular quarter, it's always hard to forecast, which is why we're not guiding on it. But what we are saying is we are committed to driving NRR consistently above 120%. And we were very pleased that in this quarter, we were actually above 130%. So those are -- that's an additional comment that I wanted to make on how NRR, there was a slight benefit because some of the churn that happened a year ago is now out of the base. So hopefully, that gives you a little bit of extra color commentary.

我們確實認為會出現波動。我們在這一點上的觀點始終一致。而 NRR 在某個季度的表現如何，總是很難預測，這就是我們不對此提供指導的原因。但我們要說的是，我們致力於將 NRR 持續保持在 120% 以上。我們非常高興，本季度我們的成長率實際上超過了 130%。所以這些是 — — 這是我想對 NRR 做出的額外評論，它有一點好處，因為一年前發生的一些流失現在已經超出了基礎。所以希望這能給你帶來一些額外的彩色評論。

Perfect. Yes, very strong quarter, though. Congratulations.

完美的。是的，但是本季表現非常強勁。恭喜。

This concludes our Q&A section. Thank you very much for your questions and participation. I will now turn it back to Jay for closing remarks.

我們的問答部分到此結束。非常感謝您的提問與參與。現在我將請傑伊作最後發言。

Well, thanks, everyone, for your time today. We feel the quarter represents one more step forward on our larger journey. And so a huge thanks to our team, our customers and our investors for making this possible. Take care.

好吧，謝謝大家今天抽出時間。我們認為本季代表著我們更大的旅程又向前邁進了一步。因此，非常感謝我們的團隊、客戶和投資者，是他們讓這一切成為可能。小心。