Cerence Inc (CRNC) 2024 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good day and welcome to Cerence's fourth-quarter 2024 earnings call at this time. (Operator instructions) As a reminder, this call may be recorded.

美好的一天，歡迎此時參加 Cerence 的 2024 年第四季財報電話會議。（接線生說明）謹此提醒，此通話可能會被錄音。

I would like to turn the call over to Jason Gold, Investor Relations at Cerence. Please go ahead.

我想將電話轉給 Cerence 投資者關係部門的 Jason Gold。請繼續。

Welcome to Cerence's fourth-quarter of fiscal year 2024 conference call. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that this call may involve certain forward-looking statements. Any statements that are not statements of historical fact, including statements related to our expectations, estimates, assumptions, beliefs, outlook, strategy, goals, objectives, targets and plans should be considered to be forward-looking statements.

歡迎參加 Cerence 2024 財年第四季電話會議。在我們開始之前，我想提醒您，本次電話會議可能涉及某些前瞻性陳述。任何非歷史事實陳述的陳述，包括與我們的預期、估計、假設、信念、前景、策略、目的、目的、指標和計劃相關的陳述，均應被視為前瞻性陳述。

Cerence makes no representations to update those statements after today. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties which may cause actual results to differ materially from such statements as described in our SEC filings including the form 8-K with the press release preceding today's call, our form 10-K filed on November 29, 2023 and our most recent form 10-Q.

塞倫斯今天之後沒有發表任何更新這些聲明的聲明。這些聲明存在風險和不確定性，可能導致實際結果與我們在SEC 文件中描述的聲明之間存在重大差異，包括今天電話會議之前新聞稿中的8-K 表格以及我們於2023 年11 月29 日提交的10-K 表格以及我們最新的 10-Q 表格。

In addition, the company may refer to certain non-GAAP measures, key performance indicators and pro forma financial information during this call. Please refer to today's press release for further details of the definitions, limitations and uses of those measures and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to the closest GAAP equivalent. The press release is available in the IR section of our website.

此外，本公司可能會在本次電話會議中參考某些非公認會計準則衡量標準、關鍵績效指標和預估財務資訊。請參閱今天的新聞稿，以了解有關這些衡量標準的定義、限制和用途的更多詳細信息，以及非公認會計準則衡量標準與最接近的公認會計準則同等衡量標準的調節。新聞稿可在我們網站的投資者關係部分取得。

Joining me on today's call are Brian Krzanich, CEO of Cerence; and Tony Rodriguez Interim CFO of Cerence. Please note that the slides with further context are available in the investor section of our website.

參加今天電話會議的還有 Cerence 執行長 Brian Krzanich；托尼·羅德里格斯 (Tony Rodriguez) 是 Cerence 的臨時財務長。請注意，我們網站的投資者部分提供了包含更多背景資訊的幻燈片。

Now on to the call, Brian?

現在開始通話，布萊恩？

Thank you Jason and good morning, everyone and welcome to the Q4 2024 Cerence earnings call. I'm excited to talk to you this morning as Cerence's new CEO. Well, Tony will walk you through the details of our Q4 and fiscal year '24 earnings. I'm very proud of what the organization has delivered for Q4.

謝謝 Jason，大家早安，歡迎參加 2024 年第四季 Cerence 財報電話會議。今天早上我很高興能作為 Cerence 的新任執行長與大家交談。好吧，托尼將向您介紹我們第四季度和 24 財年收益的詳細資訊。我對該組織在第四季度交付的成果感到非常自豪。

The top line revenue of $54.8 million and adjusted EBITDA of negative 41.9 million, both exceeded the high end of our guidance. They couldn't be more proud of what the team has accomplished and the head start This gives us for 2025.

營收為 5,480 萬美元，調整後 EBITDA 為負 4,190 萬美元，均超過了我們指導的上限。他們對團隊所取得的成就以及 2025 年帶來的領先優勢感到非常自豪。

before I give you our forecast for 2025, I'd like to spend a few minutes now to talk to you about my vision for Cerence, which also gives you insight into why I chose to come to the company. Cerence is at the forefront of the revolution that is occurring in the automotive industry. As AI, specifically generative AI and large language models grow in use and importance. Cerence already has a large footprint in the automotive space with a broad range of products that bring voice assistance to the vehicle, including 28 design wins in fiscal year '24.

在向您提供 2025 年的預測之前，我想花幾分鐘時間與您談談我對 Cerence 的願景，這也讓您深入了解我選擇加入該公司的原因。Cerence 處於汽車產業革命的前沿。隨著人工智慧，特別是生成式人工智慧和大型語言模型的使用和重要性不斷增長。Cerence 已經在汽車領域佔據了很大的份額，擁有為車輛帶來語音輔助的廣泛產品，其中包括 24 財年的 28 項設計勝利。

Our vision moving forward is that every product in our solution portfolio will have artificial intelligence and specifically large language models built into them to bring simplicity and convenience to in car interaction. And this is not a transition that will happen far out in the future, but rather one that has already begun in earnest.

我們未來的願景是，我們解決方案組合中的每一款產品都將內建人工智慧和特定的大型語言模型，為汽車互動帶來簡單和便利。這並不是一種在遙遠的將來才會發生的轉變，而是一種已經認真開始的轉變。

This is evidenced by the strong momentum we've seen for our generative AI solutions with 10 customer wins and 6 program launches for these products in fiscal year '24, including Volkswagen, Renault, Skoda, Audi and Smart. And importantly, more gen AI programs shift than any of our competitors and key wins across our solution portfolio with automakers like BMW, Great Wall Motor and Ziker.

我們的生成式人工智慧解決方案的強勁勢頭就證明了這一點，在 24 財年，這些產品贏得了 10 個客戶並推出了 6 個項目，其中包括大眾、雷諾、斯柯達、奧迪和 Smart。重要的是，我們的新一代人工智慧專案比我們的任何競爭對手都多，並且在我們與寶馬、長城汽車和 Ziker 等汽車製造商的解決方案組合中取得了關鍵勝利。

And it's worth mentioning that in these deals we've signed so far, our generative AI solutions are commanding unit economics that meaningfully exceed the rest of our portfolio, fueling PPU growth on the cloud side. These first deployments also show an increase in overall usage and adoption, and this is based on a small sample size and short time frame. But we are encouraged by these results.

值得一提的是，在我們迄今為止簽署的這些交易中，我們的生成式人工智慧解決方案的單位經濟效益顯著超過了我們產品組合的其他產品，從而推動了雲端 PPU 的成長。這些首次部署也顯示了總體使用率和採用率的增加，這是基於較小的樣本量和較短的時間框架。但我們對這些結果感到鼓舞。

This quarter, we also signed our first customer deal for the first generation of our new AI platform, which is based on a proprietary family of language models. By the fourth quarter of this year, we will launch the second generation of this platform, which leverages large language models across the entire solution and allows us to greatly simplify and speed up how we bring new products to the market.

本季度，我們也簽署了第一代新人工智慧平台的第一份客戶協議，該平台基於專有的語言模型系列。到今年第四季度，我們將推出該平台的第二代，該平台在整個解決方案中利用大型語言模型，使我們能夠大大簡化和加快將新產品推向市場的速度。

In fact, just last week, we introduced calm edge, which builds on our strength in embedded solutions as the first LLM running an automotive on the edge allowing for advanced and simplified voice interaction with the vehicle, even when not connected. We did this in collaboration with Microsoft. We selected Cerence as their preferred automotive industry partner as they announced their adapted AI models ahead of this week's ignite conference.

事實上，就在上週，我們推出了Calm Edge，它建立在我們在嵌入式解決方案方面的優勢之上，作為第一個在邊緣運行汽車的法學碩士，即使在未連接的情況下，也可以與車輛進行進階和簡化的語音互動。我們與 Microsoft 合作完成了這項工作。我們選擇 Cerence 作為他們的首選汽車行業合作夥伴，因為他們在本週的 ignite 會議之前宣布了他們的適應人工智慧模型。

Microsoft is partnering with Cerence and other industry leaders like (inaudible) and Siemens to create finetune models pretrained using industry specific data, to address customers top use cases as was highlighted in the Microsoft, CEO Satya Nadella's keynote earlier this week in their ignite conference. The implementation of LLMs is an important transition for voice in the vehicle. And I want to spend a moment explaining why.

微軟正在與Cerence 以及（聽不清楚）和西門子等其他行業領導者合作，創建使用行業特定數據進行預訓練的微調模型，以滿足客戶的首要用例，正如微軟首席執行官Satya Nadella 本週早些時候在ignite 會議上發表的主題演講中所強調的。法學碩士的實施是車輛語音的一個重要轉變。我想花點時間解釋一下原因。

In most cars today, in order to interact with the various systems in the vehicle, you have to use very specific commands. For example, to enter an address, to use navigation or to operate systems within the vehicle like air conditioning or windows. With the implementation of LLMs, we remove the need for script, for interaction and the system's ability to understand complex and multi step commands in natural human language becomes virtually limitless. The vehicle now becomes an assistant that saves you time and simplifies your life.

在當今的大多數汽車中，為了與車輛中的各個系統進行交互，您必須使用非常具體的命令。例如，輸入地址、使用導航或操作系統（如空調或車窗）。隨著法學碩士的實施，我們不再需要腳本、交互，系統理解自然人類語言的複雜和多步驟命令的能力幾乎變得無限。現在，車輛成為您的助手，可以節省您的時間並簡化您的生活。

In addition to our deep technical expertise, the world's leading automakers and tier one suppliers love to work with Cerence because we're uniquely neutral and highly specialized supplier, living and breathing, automotive and speaking the same language as our customers unlike our competitors.

除了我們深厚的技術專業知識之外，世界領先的汽車製造商和一級供應商都喜歡與Cerence 合作，因為我們是獨特的中立且高度專業化的供應商，與我們的客戶生活和呼吸，汽車和使用相同的語言，這與我們的競爭對手不同。

As auto OEMs face the threat of commoditization much like what was seen in the mobile handset industry years ago, they are becoming increasingly focused on the in cabin experience as a differentiator from their competitors, as well as the main touch point between their drivers and their brand. And they're also choosing to partner with Cerence to drive their in car experiences forward.

由於汽車原始設備製造商面臨商品化的威脅，就像幾年前手機行業所看到的那樣，他們越來越關注車內體驗，將其作為與競爭對手的差異化因素，以及駕駛員與乘客之間的主要接觸點。他們還選擇與 Cerence 合作，推動他們的車內體驗向前發展。

Now, looking at fiscal year 2025, we're issuing initial fiscal year '25 revenue guidance of $236 million to$ 247 million with related adjusted EBITA in the range of $15 million to $26 million and free cash flow in the range of $20 million to $30 million.

現在，展望 2025 財年，我們發布的 25 財年初始收入指引為 2.36 億至 2.47 億美元，相關調整後 EBITA 為 1500 萬至 2600 萬美元，自由現金流為 2000 萬至 2000 萬美元。 。

And this anticipates a return to profitability represents both our strong market position, partnerships with vehicle OEMs and the hard work the organization has already done in terms of cost reductions, which Tony will cover in detail in a few minutes.

這項預期的獲利恢復既代表了我們強大的市場地位、與汽車原始設備製造商的合作夥伴關係，也代表了該組織在降低成本方面已經做出的努力，托尼將在幾分鐘內詳細介紹這一點。

For fiscal year 2025, we will transition from doing broad cost cutting to simplifying and streamlining our organization and our structure to continue taking cost and spending out of Cerence.

在 2025 財年，我們將從廣泛削減成本轉向簡化和精簡我們的組織和結構，以繼續降低 Cerence 的成本和支出。

It's been my observation that Cerence has been burdened by the operational and business process and complexities that resulted from the company's 2019 spin from nuance. With a new set of eyes. I believe that I can provide a perspective to find more efficient and productive ways to accomplish the same task, while also finding the opportunities to vastly improve our speed to market and get exceptional products into the hands of our customers at a more rapid and competitive pace.

據我觀察，Cerence 因公司 2019 年的細微調整而導致營運和業務流程以及複雜性的負擔。用一雙新的眼睛。我相信我可以提供一個視角，找到更有效率、更有成效的方法來完成同樣的任務，同時也找到機會大大提高我們的上市速度，並以更快、更有競爭力的速度將卓越的產品交到我們的客戶手中。

This is my first earnings call as CEO of Cerence, and I hope you see the vision and potential of the company that I do, and that led me to joining the company.

這是我擔任 Cerence 執行長的第一次財報電話會議，我希望您能看到我所從事的公司的願景和潛力，這促使我加入了該公司。

Cerence is bringing AI and large language model capabilities to the vehicle now, not just in the future. Fiscal year 2025 will be a year of execution, streamlining the company and bringing these industry leading products to our partners in the market. Our fiscal year 2025 plan is to return to Cerence to profitability.

Cerence 現在正在將人工智慧和大型語言模型功能引入車輛中，而不僅僅是在未來。2025 財年將是執行的一年，精簡公司並將這些行業領先的產品帶給我們市場上的合作夥伴。我們的 2025 財年計畫是讓 Cerence 恢復獲利。

A critical step to fuel the future growth. Cerence is a strong company with an exciting path ahead. It's now my job to turn the strong company into a great business.

這是推動未來成長的關鍵一步。Cerence 是一家實力雄厚的公司，前方的道路令人興奮。現在我的工作就是把一家強大的公司變成一家偉大的企業。

With that. I'll turn it over to Tony go through the details of our quarterly numbers, our guidance and our restructuring activities. Tony?

就這樣。我會將其交給托尼，詳細介紹我們的季度數據、指導和重組活動。托尼？

Thanks Brian. Today, I'll be covering three major topics. First, I'll review our Q4 and full year 2024 results. Then I'll go into some details of our restructuring. Lastly, I'll provide some guidance for fiscal Q1 and the full fiscal year of 2025.

謝謝布萊恩。今天，我將討論三個主要主題。首先，我將回顧我們的第四季和 2024 年全年業績。然後我將詳細介紹我們重組的一些細節。最後，我將為第一財季和 2025 年整個財年提供一些指導。

Let's get into the Q4 and full year 2024 figures. At the top, we achieved Q4 revenue of $54.8 million which exceeded our high end of our guidance range of $50 million. Revenue ahead of guidance this quarter was aided by approximately $5 million in license royalty true ups for two of our OEM customers.

讓我們來看看第四季和 2024 年全年的數據。我們第四季的收入最高為 5,480 萬美元，超出了 5,000 萬美元的指導範圍上限。本季營收超出預期得益於我們兩個 OEM 客戶的約 500 萬美元的授權使用費真實上漲。

Our customers self report royalty volumes that approximate their auto shipments that include our technology each quarter and periodically true up to actual. This is not uncommon and we will call this out whenever we believe it is meaningful to the numbers. Our gross margin of 64% in Q4 also exceeded our high end of our guidance of 60%.

我們的客戶每季自行報告約其汽車出貨量（包括我們的技術）的特許權使用費數量，並定期與實際情況保持一致。這種情況並不罕見，只要我們認為這對數字有意義，我們就會指出這一點。第四季我們的毛利率為 64%，也超過了 60% 的指導上限。

Approximately 4 points of this were due to the drop through benefit of the noted revenue true ups. Moving down our income statement, our adjusted EBITDA loss of $1.9 million well exceeded our guidance of a loss of $13 million. This was driven by the improved gross profit from the higher than expected revenue and decreased operating expenses from the accelerated restructuring efforts during the quarter of approximately $6 million.

其中約 4 個百分點是由於所提及的收入真實成長所帶來的收益下降所致。向下看我們的損益表，我們調整後的 EBITDA 損失為 190 萬美元，遠遠超過了我們指導的 1300 萬美元的損失。這是由於本季收入高於預期而導致毛利提高，以及加速重組工作導致營運費用減少約 600 萬美元。

As compared to prior year, Q4 revenue declined by $26 million or 32%. This highlights some of the noise in our P&L that makes year-over-year comparison somewhat difficult. The two biggest drivers of the year-over- year decline were that in Q4 of last year, we signed $12.8 million of fixed license revenue during the quarter, and had $9.2 million of revenue associated with the legacy connected services contract with Toyota.

與去年同期相比，第四季營收下降了 2,600 萬美元，即 32%。這凸顯了我們損益表中的一些噪音，使得逐年比較有些困難。年比下降的兩個最大驅動因素是去年第四季度，我們在該季度簽署了 1280 萬美元的固定許可收入，以及與豐田遺留的互聯服務合約相關的 920 萬美元的收入。

You may remember that this contract was acquired by Nuance in 2013, and that Toyota decommissioned the solution in Q1 of 2024. After Q1 of 2025, we expect that the full year-over-year comparison for our quarterly results will be more meaningful.

您可能還記得，該合約是 Nuance 於 2013 年收購的，豐田於 2024 年第一季停用了該解決方案。2025 年第一季之後，我們預期季度業績的全面年比比較將更有意義。

Our non-GAAP operating expenses were $39.5 million for Q4 compared to $44.5 million for the same quarter in fiscal '23. The decrease of $5 million or 11%, represents some of the in quarter savings from the Q4 restructuring efforts.

第四季我們的非 GAAP 營運費用為 3,950 萬美元，而 23 財年同一季度的營運費用為 4,450 萬美元。減少 500 萬美元或 11%，是第四季重組工作節省的部分費用。

We ended the quarter with $130.4 million of cash and marketable securities, up 4.1 million versus Q3. Our free cash flow during the quarter was $4.7 million. With Q4 in the books, we landed at full year revenue of $331.5 million or $244.9 million excluding the legacy revenue of $86.6 million.

本季末，我們擁有 1.304 億美元的現金和有價證券，比第三季增加 410 萬美元。本季我們的自由現金流為 470 萬美元。考慮到第四季度，我們的全年收入為 3.315 億美元，即 2.449 億美元，不包括 8,660 萬美元的遺留收入。

Full year adjusted EBITDA was $80.6 billion. Adjusting for the impact of the non-cash legacy contract, adjusted EBITA would have been negative $6 million highlighting the importance of the Q4 cost restructuring efforts which will, which I will now spend a few more minutes discussing.

全年調整後 EBITDA 為 806 億美元。調整非現金遺留合約的影響後，調整後的 EBITA 將為負 600 萬美元，這凸顯了第四季度成本重組工作的重要性，我現在將再花幾分鐘討論這一問題。

Last quarter, we mentioned that we identified net savings of approximately $35 million to $40 million. We are on track to meet or exceed the upper end of that range. This includes cost reductions across all of our major cost drivers, including headcount and facilities.

上個季度，我們提到我們確定淨節省金額約為 3,500 萬至 4,000 萬美元。我們預計會達到或超過該範圍的上限。這包括降低我們所有主要成本驅動因素的成本，包括員工人數和設施。

We are discussing our savings on a net basis because we have identified cost for removal that exceeded this amount but plan to reinvest a portion of these cost savings back into driving the growth of our next generation products. To help you with your models, the expense base for these net calculations was based on an annual run rate of our non-GAAP operating expenses of $189 million as we entered Q4 of this year. Additionally, we reduced certain professional services cost of goods sold by approximately $9 million.

我們正在以淨額為基礎討論我們的節省，因為我們已經確定拆除成本超過了這一數額，但計劃將這些成本節省的一部分重新投資到推動下一代產品的增長。為了幫助您建立模型，這些淨計算的費用基礎是基於今年進入第四季時我們的非 GAAP 營運費用 1.89 億美元的年運行率。此外，我們還將某些專業服務的銷售成本降低了約 900 萬美元。

We took action to implement much but not all of the cost reduction actions in Q4. We expect to action the balance by the end of Q1. Accordingly, we did realize some of the P&L benefits associated with the cost reduction efforts in Q4, but we expect to see the vast majority of the benefits in our Q1 non-GAAP operating expense exit run rate of approximately $39 million per quarter.

我們在第四季採取了大部分但不是全部成本削減措施。我們預計在第一季末之前實現平衡。因此，我們確實實現了與第四季成本削減工作相關的一些損益效益，但我們預計絕大多數收益將體現在第一季非 GAAP 營運費用退出運行率約為每季 3,900 萬美元。

We identified approximately $16.3 million in onetime costs associated with these actions, split primarily between severance, retention bonuses and consulting fees. We incurred $10.3 million of total restructuring expenses in Q4 and expect to incur another $6 million in Q1.

我們發現與這些行動相關的一次性成本約為 1,630 萬美元，主要分為遣散費、保留獎金和諮詢費。我們第四季的重組費用總額為 1,030 萬美元，預計第一季將再支出 600 萬美元。

Our Q4 free cash flow absorbed $7.5 million of these costs, and the guidance I will give for the fiscal '25 free cash flow will absorb the impact of another $8.8 billion of these one time restructuring costs that we don't expect to incur in future periods.

我們第四季的自由現金流吸收了其中750 萬美元的成本，我將為25 財年自由現金流提供的指導將吸收另外88 億美元的一次性重組成本的影響，我們預計未來不會產生這些成本期間。

We also expect some revenue headwinds from these actions, particularly in our professional services business where we have made the decision to reduce staff and refocus our efforts on projects that we expect will drive long term client engagement.

我們也預期這些行動會帶來一些收入阻力，特別是在我們的專業服務業務中，我們決定減少員工，並將我們的努力重新集中在我們預計將推動長期客戶參與的專案上。

We have reduced our focus on one off projects or those that don't, we don't see having significant long term potential upside. Our revenue guidance for fiscal '25 absorbs the headwinds of approximately $5 million to $7 million related to this.

我們減少了對一次性專案或那些沒有的專案的關注，我們認為沒有重大的長期潛在上行空間。我們 25 財年的收入指引吸收了與此相關的約 500 萬至 700 萬美元的不利因素。

As we look at our revenue breakdown and operating metrics, variable license revenue was $25.3 million, down $5 million or 17% for the same quarter last year, but up from Q3. As planned, there were no fixed license revenue during this quarter. Q4 connected service revenue without legacy was $12.1 million, up $1.3 million or 12% from $10.8 million the same quarter last year. And our professional services revenue was down 6% year-over-year.

當我們查看收入明細和營運指標時，可變授權收入為 2,530 萬美元，比去年同期下降 500 萬美元，即 17%，但比第三季度有所上升。按照計劃，本季度沒有固定的許可收入。第四季不考慮遺留問題的互聯服務收入為 1,210 萬美元，比去年同期的 1,080 萬美元成長 130 萬美元，即 12%。我們的專業服務收入較去年同期下降 6%。

As a reminder when we look at total licenses shipped, pro former license royalties is a license, is an operating measure we use representing the total value of variable licenses shipped in a quarter, including the shipment from fixed licenses where revenue was previously recognized upon contract signing. We refer to these shipments where revenue was recognized in a prior period as fixed license consumption.

提醒一下，當我們查看已發貨的總許可證時，前許可證使用費是一個許可證，是我們使用的一種運營衡量標準，代表一個季度內發貨的可變許可證的總價值，包括先前根據合約確認收入的固定許可證的發貨量簽署。我們將這些在前期確認收入的出貨量稱為固定許可證消耗。

Our pro forma royalties were $42.2 million, which were flat compared to Q4 of last year and up from $39.6 million for Q3. Consumption of our previous fixed license contracts totaled $16.9 million this quarter, higher than the same quarter last year by 9%. However, because the annual value of fixed contracts has been trending down, over time there will be lower consumption of royalties associated with past fixed contracts and correspondingly that will result in variable license growth in future periods.

我們的預估特許權使用費為 4,220 萬美元，與去年第四季持平，高於第三季的 3,960 萬美元。本季我們先前的固定許可合約消耗總額為 1,690 萬美元，比去年同期增長 9%。然而，由於固定合約的年價值一直呈下降趨勢，隨著時間的推移，與過去的固定合約相關的特許權使用費消耗將會減少，相應地，這將導致未來時期的可變許可增長。

We continue to expect our consumption run rate to normalize by the end of fiscal year '26, at which time new fixed contracts should roughly align with the level of consumption during the year. As we review our key performance indicators this quarter, our penetration of global auto production for the trailing 12 months declined slightly to 52% due primarily to weaker production volumes among our top customers.

我們繼續預期我們的消費運作率將在 26 財年末正常化，屆時新的固定合約應大致與年內的消費水準保持一致。當我們回顧本季的關鍵績效指標時，我們在過去 12 個月的全球汽車生產滲透率小幅下降至 52%，這主要是由於我們的頂級客戶的產量疲軟。

We shipped approximately 10.6 million cars with Cerence technology in the quarter down 14% year-over- year, while IHS production for the same period declined 5%. Quarter-over-quarter, we were down 11% while IHS production was also down 3%.

本季度，我們採用 Cerence 技術的汽車出貨量約為 1,060 萬輛，年減 14%，而同期 IHS 產量下降 5%。環比下降 11%，而 IHS 產量也下降 3%。

The number of cars produced that use our connected services increased 16% on a trailing 12 month basis compared to the same metric a year ago as some programs that were previously delayed started ramping in production.

與去年同期相比，使用我們互聯服務生產的汽車數量在過去 12 個月中增加了 16%，因為一些先前被推遲的項目開始增加產量。

Total adjusted billings of $220.7 million adjusted to exclude professional services, prepaid billings and prepaid consumption increased 1 percentage point for the trailing 12 month period this year compared to the previous year.

不包括專業服務、預付費帳單和預付費消費的調整後帳單總額為 2.207 億美元，與去年相比，今年過去 12 個月增加了 1 個百分點。

Our five year backlog metric is currently approximately $969 million.

我們的五年積壓指標目前約為 9.69 億美元。

Now turning to our guidance. Currently, the the street consensus for revenue for the full fiscal year 2025 is $234 million and Q1 is $57 million. As we go through the guidance, please remember that any one quarter can be materially impacted by the level of fixed license revenue signed in the quarter and in Q1, we are not forecasting any fixed license revenue.

現在轉向我們的指導。目前，市場一致認為 2025 財年的營收為 2.34 億美元，第一季的營收為 5,700 萬美元。當我們閱讀指南時，請記住，任何一個季度都可能受到該季度和第一季簽署的固定許可收入水平的重大影響，我們不會預測任何固定許可收入。

For Q1, we currently expect revenue to be in the range of $47 million to $50 million. This absorbs headwinds of approximately $1 million related to the deemphasis of professional service projects I mentioned a moment ago. We currently expect Q1 adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of negative $9 million to negative $6 million and free cash flow to be in the range of negative $4 million to 0.

我們目前預計第一季的營收將在 4,700 萬美元至 5,000 萬美元之間。這吸收了大約 100 萬美元的逆風，這些逆風與我剛才提到的專業服務項目的不重視有關。我們目前預計第一季調整後 EBITDA 將在負 900 萬美元至負 600 萬美元之間，自由現金流將在負 400 萬美元至 0 之間。

This absorbs the impact of approximately $6 million in one time costs associated with our restructuring. For fiscal year '25, we currently expect revenue to be in the range of $236 million to $247 million. This resource headwinds of approximately $5 million to $7 million related to the emphasis of professional service projects as I mentioned. We currently expect adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $15 million to $26 million and expect free cash flow to be in the range of $20 million to $30 million, including the costs associated with our restructuring.

這吸收了與我們重組相關的一次性成本約 600 萬美元的影響。我們目前預計 25 財年的營收將在 2.36 億至 2.47 億美元之間。正如我所提到的，大約 500 萬至 700 萬美元的資源阻力與專業服務項目的重點有關。目前，我們預計調整後的 EBITDA 將在 1,500 萬美元至 2,600 萬美元之間，預計自由現金流將在 2,000 萬美元至 3,000 萬美元之間，其中包括與重組相關的成本。

I'd like to provide some additional factors to help you in understanding our business and how the 2025 model is coming together. At the midpoint of guidance we are currently planning for $20 million of new fixed licenses in fiscal year 2025. Have we planned for fixed licenses comparable to 2024 of $30 million. Fiscal year '25 midpoint revenue guidance would have reflected a 3% growth rate over 2024.

我想提供一些額外的因素來幫助您了解我們的業務以及 2025 模型是如何整合的。在指導方針的中點，我們目前計劃在 2025 財年投入 2,000 萬美元的新固定許可證。我們是否計劃在 2024 年獲得 3000 萬美元的固定許可證？25 財年中點營收指引將反映 2024 年成長率為 3%。

We're also planning for very modest growth in our run rate of connected services line. As a reminder, our new products are all connected in nature. The way we recognize these new contracts in our financial statements is that when units are shipped, we book them into deferred revenue. Then typically over a period of 12 to 20 quarters, we amortize that revenue onto our income statement.

我們也計劃對互聯服務線的運作率進行非常適度的成長。提醒一下，我們的新產品本質上都是相互關聯的。我們在財務報表中確認這些新合約的方式是，當單位出貨時，我們將其計入遞延收入。然後，我們通常會在 12 到 20 個季度的時間內將該收入攤銷到損益表中。

And so as these products begin to gain traction, variable license and connected services billings will increasingly become an indicator of how our business is progressing. As this develops over time, I'll make sure to point out and direct your attention to our leading metrics. For 2025, we took verbal license and connected services billings to increase by high single digits. Our gross margins for fiscal year '25 are expected to be in the range of 67% to 69%.

因此，隨著這些產品開始受到關注，可變許可證和連接服務帳單將越來越成為我們業務進度的指標。隨著時間的推移，這種情況會不斷發展，我將確保指出並引導您專注於我們的主要指標。到 2025 年，我們的口頭許可和連接服務帳單將出現高個位數增長。我們 25 財年的毛利率預計在 67% 至 69% 之間。

Now, I'd like to address our convertible notes. As you may be aware, we have $87.5 million of convertible notes that have gone current and are due in June of 2025. We believe that given our current cash position and positive cash flow expectations for 2025, it is in the best interest of our shares to pay down a portion of these notes when due.

現在，我想談談我們的可轉換票據。如您所知，我們有 8,750 萬美元的可轉換票據已到期，將於 2025 年 6 月到期。我們認為，鑑於我們目前的現金狀況和 2025 年的正現金流預期，在到期時償還部分這些票據符合我們股票的最佳利益。

However, we also believe that refinancing some of the debt could put us in a better position to execute our long term strategic direction of the company, while allowing us to retain cash reserve and be flexible as we move forward. As such, we're actively looking at alternatives for refinancing a portion of these notes and anticipate having more to report in our next earnings call.

然而，我們也相信，對部分債務進行再融資可以使我們能夠更好地執行公司的長期策略方向，同時使我們能夠保留現金儲備並在前進時保持靈活性。因此，我們正在積極尋找對部分票據進行再融資的替代方案，並預計在下一次財報電話會議中報告更多內容。

Overall, we are pleased with the solid results of Q4. As we begin fiscal year '25, we believe we are on the right track to continue to show improvement in our financial performance and to strengthen our balance sheet moving forward.

整體而言，我們對第四季的穩健業績感到滿意。在 25 財年開始之際，我們相信我們正走在正確的軌道上，繼續改善我們的財務業績，並加強我們的資產負債表。

I will now return it back to Brian to close our remarks.

我現在將其返回給布萊恩以結束我們的演講。

Thanks Tony. In closing, we're happy with and motivated by this quarter's results. We remain focused on execution, business process improvement and cost reduction in advancing our generative AI road map. We take our commitments to the Cerence seriously and we are committed to streamlining our reporting so that investors can understand the trends in the business.

謝謝托尼。最後，我們對本季的業績感到滿意並受到激勵。在推進我們的生成式人工智慧路線圖時，我們仍然專注於執行、業務流程改進和成本降低。我們認真對待對 Cerence 的承諾，並致力於簡化我們的報告，以便投資者能夠了解業務趨勢。

We believe in our ability to deliver on our fiscal '25 guidance and fueling in our growth for fiscal '26 and beyond. We look forward to continuing to share our progress.

我們相信我們有能力實現 25 財年的指導並推動 26 財年及以後的成長。我們期待繼續分享我們的進展。

We'll now open it up for questions.

我們現在將開放提問。

(Operator instructions)

（操作員說明）

Jeff Van Rhee, Craig Hallam Capital Group.

Jeff Van Rhee，克雷格哈勒姆資本集團。

Hey guys, thanks. Thanks for taking my questions. Good morning. A few for me, I wanted to start on the AI side. You touched on the economics of AI being more compelling, just curious on the margin because that was one of the questions coming in. Just how the the margins compare on AI related deals. And then you also referenced pricing uplift, I mean without being well be as precise as you're willing, but give us a sense of magnitude of the pricing uplift related to AI.

嘿夥計們，謝謝。感謝您回答我的問題。早安.對我來說，我想從人工智慧方面開始。您談到了人工智慧的經濟學更具吸引力，只是對邊緣感到好奇，因為這是出現的問題之一。人工智慧相關交易的利潤率如何比較。然後，您還提到了價格上漲，我的意思是，雖然我們不會像您願意的那樣精確，但請讓我們了解與人工智慧相關的價格上漲的幅度。

I can start and then Tony can, this is Brian and then Tony can add in some of the details. In general, we don't really give out absolute pricing, but in general, we're seeing a price uplift. And most of the AI models, the generative AI models actually have an equal, relatively equal cost of development, and operations as our current models. So the margins are improving with those applications.

我可以開始，然後托尼可以，這是布萊恩，然後托尼可以添加一些細節。總的來說，我們並沒有真正給出絕對定價，但總的來說，我們看到了價格上漲。大多數人工智慧模型，生成式人工智慧模型實際上與我們目前的模型具有相同的、相對相等的開發和營運成本。因此，這些應用的利潤正在提高。

So we are seeing a margin uplift with those products. Now, it's early as we said, and these are the first kind of deals and POCs that we've started with the product, but it's promising from that perspective. People are seeing the value being able to just speak naturally, hey, my, my seat is cold. Well, the thing realizes that you want the seat heat turned on.

因此，我們看到這些產品的利潤率上升。現在，正如我們所說，現在還為時過早，這些是我們開始使用該產品的第一種交易和概念驗證，但從這個角度來看，它是有前途的。人們正在看到能夠自然說話的價值，嘿，天哪，我的座位冷了。嗯，它意識到你想要打開座椅加熱。

Hey, crack, open the window. It goes in 10% increments and opens up your window and it just knows how to interpret natural language. Much better and people see that value and you can build a system and they can build on to the product.

嘿，裂縫，打開窗戶。它以 10% 的增量打開你的窗口，它只知道如何解釋自然語言。更好的是，人們看到了這種價值，你可以建立一個系統，他們可以在產品上建造。

So in general, we're seeing a better margin and more importantly or as importantly, we're seeing a strong demand for the product and interest by our customers.

因此，總的來說，我們看到了更好的利潤，更重要的是，或者同樣重要的是，我們看到了客戶對產品的強勁需求和興趣。

Yeah, I mean, a couple things on the margins. Yes, they're improving. Remember that these are our connected services products. You'll see that the margin that we're anticipating next year is higher than our margin for 2024 overall.

是的，我的意思是，有一些邊緣的事情。是的，他們正在進步。請記住，這些是我們的互聯服務產品。您會發現我們預計明年的利潤率高於 2024 年的整體利潤率。

Primarily when you take out the legacy revenue and that's really a product mix for next year, more licenses and less professional services. But the connected service in these bookings that we're looking at now with higher margins really won't come into play until the latter half of '25 and into '26 that we'll start seeing connected service margin increase. So we'll really see that benefit in the '26 year and beyond.

主要是當你除去遺留收入時，這實際上是明年的產品組合，更多的許可證和更少的專業服務。但是，我們現在正在考慮的這些預訂中的互聯服務利潤率較高，直到 25 年下半年和 26 年我們才會開始看到互聯服務利潤率增加，才會真正發揮作用。因此，我們將在 26 年及以後真正看到這種好處。

Okay. And I guess just Brian on then on that same topic as it relates to connected. As you inherited the business, obviously connected has been talked about for years, a lot of bookings have been pointed to backlogs, been pointing to, but the revenue stream just hasn't lifted. And I heard your comments about, look, these contracts take time, totally understood. I get the rev rec on it.

好的。我想當時布萊恩就在談論與互聯相關的相同主題。當你繼承了這項業務時，顯然互聯已經被討論了很多年，很多預訂都被指出積壓，但收入流卻沒有增加。我聽到你的評論，看，這些合約需要時間，完全理解。我得到了它的轉速記錄。

But over the last several years, the lack of growth in that line. So just something deeper about the competitive landscape, share loss functionality, maybe just a little deeper sense of what you think your competitive position is and connected and your right to win.

但在過去的幾年裡，該產品線缺乏成長。因此，只需更深入地了解競爭格局、份額損失功能，也許只是更深入地了解您認為自己的競爭地位和聯繫以及獲勝的權利。

And I get it, you just touched on AI like going forward. You think that's going to be a part of it. But curious beyond that, how you would frame the connected opportunity and competitive position?

我明白了，你剛剛談到了人工智慧，就像前進一樣。你認為這將成為其中的一部分。但除此之外，您還想知道您將如何建立互聯的機會和競爭地位？

Hey, this is Tony and I'll start first with a comment on growth and then Brian can take look at the other second part of that question. But, if you look at our, I mean, we've talked about it in and we've mentioned it before in calls that there's a little bit of noise within our P&L as we compare year-year-over year. But if you look fourth quarter of last year and take out the Toyota Legacy, non-cash Legacy revenue from connected last year, a year ago quarter.

嘿，我是托尼，我將首先對增長發表評論，然後布萊恩可以看看該問題的其他第二部分。但是，如果你看看我們的，我的意思是，我們已經討論過這個問題，並且我們之前在電話中也提到過，當我們逐年比較時，我們的損益表中存在一些噪音。但如果你看去年第四季度，並去掉豐田力獅去年（去年同期）來自連網的非現金力獅收入。

We actually grew the connected business 12% year-over-year. So, we see that growing in fiscal '25 as we move forward and then growing beyond that with the new bookings that that were, that are happening, that happened in the fourth quarter of this year, third and fourth quarter this year and as we go into the fourth quarter. So that business is growing and we anticipate it could be a growth area of the business.

事實上，我們的互聯業務年增了 12%。因此，隨著我們的前進，我們看到 25 財年的增長，然後隨著今年第四季度、今年第三和第四季度發生的新預訂的增長而超越這一增長。因此，該業務正在成長，我們預計它可能是該業務的成長領域。

Yeah, and Jeff, let me answer kind of your the second part or another part of your question which was what's our (inaudible) position to be in that business and it's really around one. Our product is quite strong. It's designed and we understand the automotive space. So there's, for example, 23,000 different instructions, you have to be able to understand and manage and put through those large language models to operate the car, right? Everything from windows and seats and charging ports and all kinds of very automotive specific functions that we work with the OEMs to really introduce and that partnership is very strong.

是的，傑夫，讓我回答你問題的第二部分或另一部分，即我們在該業務中的（聽不清楚）地位是什麼，而且實際上是圍繞這一點。我們的產品非常強大。它經過精心設計，我們了解汽車領域。例如，有 23,000 條不同的指令，你必須能夠理解、管理並透過這些大型語言模型來操作汽車，對嗎？從車窗、座椅、充電埠到各種汽車專用功能，我們與原始設備製造商合作真正推出了一切，而且這種合作關係非常牢固。

Second is our willingness and our ability to customize and really create the experience. But the OEM wants that is very different than most of our competitors, especially the big guys. They tend to come in with one answer, one structure, one product. It's connected all the time. We have the ability to be connected, to be local.

其次是我們定制和真正創造體驗的意願和能力。但 OEM 的要求與我們的大多數競爭對手（尤其是大公司）有很大不同。他們往往會提出一種答案、一種結構、一種產品。它始終處於連接狀態。我們有能力進行互聯、在地化。

We will customize around their feature set sometimes, for example, they want to go and look at any kind of a call out to an LLM model and say they want to not have it go to the public LLMs, they want to go to their own private LLM that they have that for whatever business strategy they have, they want to use those models to guide the instruction set that comes back.

有時我們會圍繞他們的功能集進行定制，例如，他們想去看看任何類型的法學碩士模型，並說他們不想讓它去公共法學碩士，他們想要去自己的法學碩士私人法學碩士認為，無論他們擁有什麼業務策略，他們都希望使用這些模型來指導返回的指令集。

We have the ability to structure that so that we can architect where the request goes to, whether it goes to the public search or whether it goes to a private search of the OEM. And our competition tends to only go to the public or where they're preferentially treated.

我們有能力對其進行構建，以便我們可以設計請求的去向，無論是進行公共搜尋還是 OEM 的私人搜尋。我們的競爭往往只針對公眾或他們受到優惠待遇的地方。

So it's all of this customization, the number of languages we can deal with that really gives us much more of a customized experience for the OEM. And that's really where we are strongest and where we perform and why they, they would typically want us for their experience.

因此，正是所有這些定制，我們可以處理的語言數量，真正為我們提供了更多的 OEM 定制體驗。這確實是我們最強大的地方，也是我們表現出色的地方，也是他們通常希望我們提供經驗的原因。

Understood. One last brief one. If I could. Brian, then the, as it relates to the you coming in and taking the reins here and I realize this is somewhat unfair because you just got in and you're getting your hands around what the business is and where we're headed. But if you look over the last handful of years, the proforma royalty number which adjusts for all the prepaids and everything else has been relatively flattish.

明白了。最後一篇簡短的。如果我能。布萊恩，那麼，因為這關係到你進來並掌管這裡，我意識到這有點不公平，因為你剛進來，你正在了解業務是什麼以及我們的發展方向。但如果你回顧過去幾年，根據所有預付費和其他所有內容進行調整的形式特許權使用費數字相對持平。

And clearly, some things have worked, many have not, but you're sizing up the business. Essentially why do you think if you look at the last five years as a company not been able to grow? Is this fundamentally a product market fit? Is it a go to market sales function? Is it something else? Just your early takes on kind of the brief history lesson of what hasn't worked and what you think you can get working?

顯然，有些方法奏效了，但很多方法沒有奏效，但你正在評估業務。從本質上講，如果您回顧過去五年，您認為一家公司無法發展的原因是什麼？這從根本上來說是否適合產品市場？這是進入市場的銷售職能嗎？難道是別的什麼？您的早期經歷是關於什麼沒有奏效以及您認為可以發揮作用的簡短歷史教訓？

Well. I'm still kind of digging into the past and I've been a little hesitant to think too much about the past because, if you take a look at, as you said, where it came from, it was a very different kind of model and experience where they were really focused on driving bookings and just really trying to grow at any cost.

出色地。我仍然在挖掘過去，我一直有點猶豫是否要過多地思考過去，因為，正如你所說，如果你看看它來自哪裡，那是一種非常不同的類型。 他們真正專注於推動預訂，並且不惜一切代價努力實現成長。

And rather than really focusing on what are the products and how do we really differentiate ourselves relative to the competition? So as I look forward, the large language models and the whole AI application and how, there's really two things that are changing.

而不是真正專注於產品是什麼以及我們如何真正在競爭中脫穎而出？因此，當我展望未來時，大型語言模型和整個人工智慧應用以及如何，確實有兩件事正在改變。

One, you're seeing large language models go into the end user experience, right? So we've talked a lot about that, but we haven't talked a lot about is, how those models are going to actually how we create the product. And so there's a our speed of how fast we can put a product into a customer's hands, into their product themselves, into their vehicle has shrunk now from like 8 to 12 months down to 4 months of development work on our part to customize and focus our product to the customer.

第一，您看到大型語言模型進入了最終用戶體驗，對嗎？所以我們已經談論了很多，但我們還沒有談論太多的是，這些模型將如何實際我們如何創建產品。因此，我們將產品交到客戶手中、他們的產品本身、他們的車輛的速度現在已經從 8 到 12 個月縮短到 4 個月，而我們的定制和專注開發工作我們的產品給客戶。

So those are the things that are really changing the business, right? We get paid more for that. We can produce the large language models that make the end user experience much better. But also by driving those models into our own product and how we develop the product. It makes it quicker, it makes it faster, it makes it less expensive for us to develop them and to customize them around the what the customer needs are, and those are things that are really shifting now versus the old models, which were using the standard software where, it's much harder to differentiate and speed up the time to production and all for the customer.

那麼這些才是真正改變業務的事情，對吧？我們因此得到更多報酬。我們可以產生大型語言模型，使最終用戶體驗更好。而且也透過將這些模型應用到我們自己的產品以及我們開發產品的方式。它使它變得更快，它使得它更快，它使我們開發它們並圍繞客戶需求定制它們的成本更便宜，與舊模型相比，這些是現在真正發生變化的事情，舊模型使用的是在標準軟體中，要為客戶實現差異化並加快生產時間要困難得多。

And so when I look at this, we've already seen price increasing and getting paid for these products and we're seeing our costs go down over this time period as it's much quicker and simpler for us to develop the product. So that's what's really changing in my mind.

因此，當我看到這一點時，我們已經看到這些產品的價格上漲並獲得報酬，我們看到我們的成本在這段時間內下降，因為我們開發產品變得更快、更簡單。這就是我的想法真正發生的改變。

Got it. Great. Thanks for the thoughtful answers. I appreciate the detail.

知道了。偉大的。感謝您的深思熟慮的回答。我很欣賞細節。

Colin Langan, Wells Fargo.

柯林‧蘭根，富國銀行。

Oh, great. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just to kick it off, if I look at the, the KPIs, shipments were down actually double digits, year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. What is driving that and sort of what I think, if I sort of scrub out some of the fixed contracts and the exit of some of the professional services underlying growth still seems to be up maybe 5%. What's driving the underlying growth if your shipments are actually underperforming the market?

哦，太好了。感謝您回答我的問題。也許只是為了開始，如果我看看關鍵績效指標，出貨量實際上比去年同期下降了兩位數。是什麼推動了這一趨勢，我認為，如果我剔除一些固定合同，並且退出一些專業服務，潛在的增長似乎仍然會增長 5%。如果您的出貨量實際上低於市場表現，那麼是什麼推動了潛在的成長？

Yeah, so it's really, if we think about this, it's kind of more average PPU. So if we think about our, if we strip out six out of our license a year-over-year, we are down in the license business year-over-year. So that kind of falls in line with some of the volume decreases. But what's interesting is that connected is up. So one of the last questions is again, where are we going in growth?

是的，如果我們考慮一下，這確實是更平均的 PPU。因此，如果我們每年取消 6 個許可證，那麼我們的許可證業務就會逐年下降。因此，這種下降與一些成交量的下降是一致的。但有趣的是，連結已經建立了。所以最後一個問題又是，我們的成長將走向何方？

I think that a couple of things, one is that the the license business will grow in '25 because of that. More that we have less of the fixed license consumption '25. So we're shipping of cars but more that will drop down. So there is growth there.

我認為有幾件事，其中之一是許可證業務將因此在 25 年成長。更多的是我們的固定許可證消耗量較少'25。因此，我們正在運輸汽車，但將有更多的汽車被運輸。所以那裡有成長。

And then the connected services business, the volumes are up with those cars that include our connected service business, there's a growth area there. So as we think about overall volumes being down, it's really kind of bad if you average out the the growth and connected and the higher PPU and connected that provides the growth area in total dollars with volume down.

然後是互聯服務業務，包括我們的互聯服務業務在內的那些汽車的銷量有所增加，那裡有一個成長領域。因此，當我們考慮到總體銷量下降時，如果將成長和連接以及較高的 PPU 和連接（提供總美元增長區域）與銷量下降進行平均，那真的很糟糕。

Got it. And trying to frame the last time you updated the five year backlog. But I think it was something like $1.1 billion last time that you did the analysis. Is that right? And then you know that backlog is shrinking. When should we think about that as inflecting and and that pressure and I guess right from your perspective and what are your priorities? Is it right now just get the costs in line and then focus on revenue or, I mean, how, how do we think about that?

知道了。並試著列出上次更新五年積壓工作的時間。但我認為您上次進行分析時大約有 11 億美元。是這樣嗎？然後你就會知道積壓的訂單正在減少。我們什麼時候應該將其視為影響和壓力，我認為從您的角度來看是正確的，您的優先事項是什麼？現在是先控製成本，然後專注在收入，還是，我的意思是，我們要如何考慮這個問題？

Yeah. So, you know, as we looked at our, our backlog, yes, it's, close to a billion dollars in backlog,. You got to remember a couple things backlog. It's represents our current contracts that are in place, the prices that we have in those contracts with expected volumes through either a contract term or in certain cases where we have a long contract, it could be a particular program of a car and when we expect that particular program will cease.

是的。所以，你知道，當我們查看我們的積壓訂單時，是的，積壓訂單接近 10 億美元。你必須記住一些積壓的事情。它代表了我們目前已簽訂的合同，以及我們在合約期限內預期數量的合約中的價格，或者在我們有長期合約的某些情況下，它可能是汽車的特定計劃，當我們期望時該特定程序將停止。

So it doesn't really reflect the true relationships over time and it's kind of an arbitrary, close of a program where we anticipate that the next program we will pick up. So and then so accordingly, it denigrates over time a little bit because as those dates hit, whether it's contract terms or program end dates. So, I think it's still extremely healthy at close to a billion dollars.

因此，它並不能真正反映隨著時間的推移的真實關係，它是一種任意的、關閉的程序，我們預計我們將選擇下一個程序。因此，隨著時間的推移，它會有點貶低，因為隨著這些日期的到來，無論是合約條款還是專案結束日期。所以，我認為它在接近 10 億美元的情況下仍然非常健康。

And if we look at our '25 numbers, most of all of our revenue for 2025 is represented in backlog. So it's effectively baked as long as we hit the volume expectations that we have. But the next growth of that backlog will be in the next generation connected billings bookings that we anticipate going forward.

如果我們看一下 25 年的數據，我們 2025 年的大部分收入都反映在積壓訂單中。因此，只要我們達到了預期的銷量，它就可以有效地烘烤。但積壓的下一個成長將是我們預計未來的下一代互聯帳單預訂。

Yeah. And those, I mean, just to add to Tony's and I'll answer your other question calling about priorities. You got to remember that's trying to estimate out five years, the volume of any car model and when car models are going to stop and start. And that's just so I look at that with kind of a bit of a grain of salt, it gives us insight into what our revenues and billings will be, but it's not a perfect number.

是的。我的意思是，這些只是對托尼的補充，我將回答您關於優先事項的其他問題。您必須記住，這是在嘗試估計五年內任何車型的銷售以及車型何時停止和啟動。所以我對此持保留態度，它讓我們深入了解我們的收入和帳單，但這不是一個完美的數字。

So as long as it sits around that billion number, I'm okay. What's more important is we have to really look at, what are the actual deals that we're signing? And what are the prices that we've signed up for? And that's really gives to me an insight and then the volumes will be what they are.

所以只要它在十億左右，我就沒事。更重要的是我們必須真正審視我們正在簽署的實際交易是什麼？我們簽約的價格是多少？這確實給了我一個洞察力，然後這些卷就會變成原來的樣子。

So your question on priorities, when I look at '25, we mentioned in the speech that '25 is really a return to profitability. And to me that means execution. And there are, as Tony mentioned in his talk, there are still some things we need to do to continue to cut costs out of the organization. Most of those plans and items have already been identified and it's just a matter of finishing out the execution and continuing to hold those costs in line, not let things creep back in.

所以你關於優先事項的問題，當我看‘25’時，我們在演講中提到‘25’確實是盈利能力的回歸。對我來說，這意味著執行。正如托尼在演講中提到的，我們仍然需要做一些事情來繼續削減組織成本。大多數計劃和項目已經確定，只需完成執行並繼續控制這些成本，而不是讓事情再次發生。

It's finishing the generative AI work. Our first gen model brings gen AI to the end user. Our second gen model which is targeted towards the end of our fiscal year, which is really a kind of like the end of third quarter of the calendar year, next year brings the generative AI is large language models all the way through our product. And as I mentioned earlier, that really simplifies our work and reduces the workload that we have. It's critical that we finish that work.

它正在完成生成人工智慧的工作。我們的第一代模式為最終用戶帶來了新一代人工智慧。我們的第二代模型的目標是在我們的財政年度結束時，這實際上有點像日曆年的第三季末，明年將在我們的產品中引入生成式人工智慧大型語言模型。正如我之前提到的，這確實簡化了我們的工作並減少了我們的工作量。完成這項工作至關重要。

And then the third priority that I'm really starting to focus on with the organization. So, right, first is execution. Finish our products, get the gen AI. Second one is get the gen AI products across the Board. And third is, we have some usages outside of automotive. We're just launched with Garmin, two models of Garmin Watch. We've been working with LG on TVs.

然後是我真正開始關注組織的第三個優先事項。所以，首先是執行。完成我們的產品，獲得一代AI。二是全面推出新一代人工智慧產品。第三，我們在汽車之外還有一些用途。我們剛剛推出了 Garmin，兩款 Garmin 手錶型號。我們一直在電視方面與 LG 合作。

Voice and these products can go into other products. Other usages, we're starting to go and ask ourselves, where can that go and beyond? No, it's not going to really be a '25 impact, but '25 is where we really need to go and figure out the one or two spaces we want to move into beyond automotive as well to continue to grow this company in voice activation.

語音和這些產品可以進入其他產品。對於其他用途，我們開始捫心自問，它還能擴展到哪裡？不，這不會真正對「25」產生影響，但「25」是我們真正需要去弄清楚我們想要進入汽車以外的一兩個領域，並繼續發展這家公司在語音激活方面的發展。

Got it. That's very helpful. Thanks for taking my questions.

知道了。這非常有幫助。感謝您回答我的問題。

Nicholas Doyle, Needham.

尼古拉斯·道爾，李約瑟。

Hey guys, thanks for taking my questions. The first one, professional services was up quarter-over-quarter. I know you mentioned it was down year-over-year. But that comes despite the cuts over the last couple of quarters and then you mentioned $5 million to $7 million, I was just wondering if you could explain what's driving that kind of change quarter-over-quarter. And then you mentioned the $5 million to $7 million headwind in fiscal '25. Is that off the fiscal '24 number? Thanks.

嘿夥計們，謝謝你回答我的問題。第一個是專業服務季增。我知道你有提到它逐年下降。但儘管過去幾個季度進行了削減，然後你提到了 500 萬至 700 萬美元，我只是想知道你是否能解釋一下是什麼推動了這種逐季變化。然後您提到了 25 財年 500 萬至 700 萬美元的逆風。這是 24 財年的數字嗎？謝謝。

So yes, there is a reduction anticipated in PS $5 million, $7 million in in PS in fiscal '25 over '24. So as we look at it year-over-year, it was down. We did have a slight uptick from Q3, but we anticipate that with some of the cost cutting that we've done and head count reductions, there's really a deeper focus within PS that we really are looking at driving those teams to the relationships that are drive most meaningful results to us.

因此，是的，預計 25 財年的 PS 將比 24 財年減少 500 萬美元、700 萬美元。因此，當我們逐年查看它時，它是下降的。我們確實比第三季度略有上升，但我們預計，隨著我們已經完成的一些成本削減和人員數量減少，PS 內部確實有更深入的關注，我們確實正在考慮推動這些團隊建立以下關係：為我們帶來最有意義的結果。

So we anticipate that number will be down year-over-year. And, but remember those, some of those cuts really were Q4. So we really didn't see a lot of that. We saw $1 million of that headwind in Q1, but as we think about it again, year-over-year, but looking at it going forward, it will be a more focused effort.

因此，我們預計該數字將同比下降。而且，但請記住，其中一些削減確實是在第四季度。所以我們確實沒有看到很多這樣的情況。我們在第一季看到了 100 萬美元的逆風，但當我們逐年再次思考時，但展望未來，這將是一項更集中的努力。

Okay. Just clarifying. So I just asking, I guess again, is it was up quarter-over-quarter and I guess we expected it to be flat to down. So any explanation on what drove the strength there this quarter?

好的。只是澄清一下。所以我只是想問，我再次猜測，它是否環比上漲，我想我們預計它會持平或下降。那麼對於是什麼推動了本季的強勢有什麼解釋嗎？

This is Brian, Nicholas. It's just going to be a little bit lumpy from quarter-to-quarter. It's really, as Tony said, we're focusing more on where do we actually add value and where do we get paid for professional services.

這是布萊恩·尼古拉斯。每個季度的情況都會有點不穩定。正如托尼所說，我們確實更關注我們在哪裡真正增加價值以及我們從哪裡獲得專業服務的報酬。

And so when we looked at the business, we said this thing should go down and we went ahead and let some people go and shrunk the organization in professional services to kind of right size it to where we thought the quality business was.

因此，當我們審視業務時，我們說這件事應該停止，然後我們繼續讓一些人離開，並縮小了專業服務部門的規模，以將其規模調整到我們認為優質業務的水平。

Now that said, we've told them, hey, if there's good business and we can get paid for the work, we'll do it. And so you're going to see kind of a lumpiness and as you know, projects come in and somebody wants the professional services because they don't want to do the work or they cannot do the work themselves either way and they're willing to pay us to go do it. We'll do it.

話雖如此，我們已經告訴他們​​，嘿，如果生意好並且我們可以獲得工作報酬，我們就會這樣做。所以你會看到一種混亂，正如你所知，專案進來，有人想要專業服務，因為他們不想做這項工作，或者他們無法自己做這項工作，但他們願意付錢給我們去做。我們會做的。

And so you're just seeing a little bit of that lumpiness of, hey, there's some more work and some quarters, it may be a little bit less than that quarter-over-quarter or year-over-year trend. But when we look at the long term, the full year guidance, we think we've right size, the organization and right size, the amount of work relative to professional services, so that the margin and getting paid for what we do is right. That does that help answer why? Like I wouldn't worry about one quarter.

所以你只是看到了一點點的混亂，嘿，還有更多的工作和一些季度，它可能比季度環比或同比趨勢要少一些。但是，當我們著眼於長期、全年指導時，我們認為我們擁有合適的規模、組織和規模以及與專業服務相關的工作量，因此我們所做的事情的利潤和報酬是正確的。這有助於回答為什麼嗎？就像我不會擔心四分之一一樣。

Yes. Got it. Just a little lumpy and I know (inaudible) about a million dollar change here.

是的。知道了。只是有點凹凸不平，我知道（聽不清楚）這裡大約有一百萬美元的零錢。

It's a good question.

這是一個好問題。

Okay. Thank you. Second question. I think the license average PPU jump to the highest level since fiscal '22. Did those gen those six gen AI rollout this year or the past one or two quarters really drive that much of a change or just any detail on what drove the strength this quarter and the average PPU and thoughts in fiscal '25. Thanks.

好的。謝謝。第二個問題。我認為許可證平均 PPU 躍升至 22 財年以來的最高水準。今年或過去一兩個季度推出的六代人工智慧是否真正推動瞭如此大的變化，或者只是推動了本季度的實力以及 25 財年的平均 PPU 和想法的任何細節。謝謝。

Yeah. And, again, it's hard, right? And we're trying to, Brian and I both have an effort and as we go forward to try and simplify kind of how we describe the business and try to get to P times Q model. But as we do disclose some of the shipments, it is kind of difficult one is that from a license standpoint. Yes, that drops down. You'd have to take out the fixed. But then, if you take out the fixed and then drop that down and look at our our volumes, you can kind of see you calculate an average PPU because those do get recorded in GAAP revenue on shipment.

是的。再說一遍，這很難，對吧？我們正在努力，布萊恩和我都在努力，隨著我們前進，嘗試簡化我們描述業務的方式，並嘗試達到 P 乘 Q 模型。但正如我們確實披露了一些發貨情況一樣，從許可的角度來看，這有點困難。是的，那會下降。你必須把固定的東西拿出來。但是，如果你去掉固定的，然後把它放下來看看我們的銷量，你可以看到你計算出平均 PPU，因為這些確實記錄在發貨時的 GAAP 收入中。

(inaudible) is a little harder because we will build for something and that's one thing and we need to continue to highlight is as a leading metric is our billings which were $80 million this quarter compared to a GAAP revenue [54.5]. But those billings then are deferred and then advertised into revenue over a subscription period.

（聽不清楚）有點困難，因為我們要為某些事情而構建，這是一件事，我們需要繼續強調的是，作為一個主要指標，我們的賬單是本季度的8000 萬美元，與GAAP 收入相比[54.5]。但這些帳單隨後會被推遲，然後在訂閱期間內計入收入。

So it's really hard to look at those connected volumes and try and do an average PPU because you really have some legacy stuff from deferred that's going in there and then the higher PPU for the new next generation products, you really won't see any revenue until future periods. So, and then from a license standpoint, you got it.

因此，查看這些連接量並嘗試執行平均 PPU 確實很困難，因為您確實有一些來自延遲的遺留內容，然後用於新的下一代產品的更高 PPU，您實際上不會看到任何收入直到未來的時期。所以，從許可的角度來看，你明白了。

It's really trying to understand how much of a license or components of a license are being billed within that number. So do we have volumes? What are we shipping and do those shipments have more of our license component? So effectively, an average, higher PPU for those components and or weighted PPU if you will for the components that we're actually selling there. But that's the short answer is that, in the license area is that we have higher PPUs because of effectively higher components within that license that are being built.

它實際上是在嘗試了解在該數字內對許可證或許可證組件的費用進行了多少計費。那我們有捲嗎？我們正在運送什麼？因此，實際上，這些組件的平均較高 PPU 和/或加權 PPU（如果您願意的話）對於我們實際在那裡銷售的組件。但簡短的回答是，在許可證領域，我們擁有更高的 PPU，因為該許可證中正在建立的元件實際上更高。

Thank you.

謝謝。

(Operator instructions)

（操作員說明）

Mark Delaney, Goldman Sachs.

馬克·德萊尼，高盛。

Hi. Yes. Thank you for taking our questions. (inaudible) First, I guess last quarter, you guys provided the framework for fiscal '25 of kind of a flat to low single digit decline for revenue year-on-year excluding the legacy business and midpoint now is showing growth year-on-year. Can you kind of speak to maybe some of the puts and takes that, that drove that and what's driving some of that strength you're seeing?

你好。是的。感謝您接受我們的提問。（聽不清楚）首先，我想上個季度，你們提供了 25 財年的框架，收入同比呈平穩至低個位數下降（不包括遺留業務），現在中點顯示同比增長 -年。您能談談一些看跌期權和看跌期權，它們推動了這一點，以及是什麼推動了您所看到的一些力量？

Yes, certainly. I think we're fairly close. Yeah, we had, we took out the Legacy business. I think we're at that point, we were looking at a framework of mid guidance of 238. And right now we're doing our guidance is 236 to 247. So we are seeing some growth. It's as we look at a couple of things.

是的，當然。我認為我們已經相當接近了。是的，我們有，我們取消了傳統業務。我想我們現在正在考慮 238 的中期指導框架。現在我們的指導是 236 到 247。所以我們看到了一些成長。這是因為我們看一些事情。

One is, on the license side, looking at our volumes and making sure we right size that backlog and the expectation of what will be shipped within the quarter. As we mentioned, professional services will be down, but in line with what we were kind of providing the framework we said that it was going to be down. And then connected services actually being slightly up than what we were thinking about in the framework. So, but overall, I think it's actually very close to what we had guided in the framework last quarter.

一是在許可證方面，查看我們的數量，並確保我們正確調整積壓訂單的規模以及對本季度內發貨量的預期。正如我們所提到的，專業服務將會下降，但根據我們提供的框架，我們說它將會下降。然後連接的服務實際上比我們在框架中考慮的要稍高一些。所以，但總的來說，我認為它實際上非常接近我們上季框架中的指導。

Yeah. Thank you for that color. I appreciate it. And then maybe kind of a higher level one on the AI products and appreciate the context for the first gen versus second gen given that you have kind of the second gen product that that's supposed to be a little simpler to make. How should we think about both AI kind of launches and pipeline going through the year? Are you kind of waiting to get more of that second gen product before you pursue kind of a higher level of, AI wins or how should we think about that pipeline?

是的。謝謝你的那個顏色。我很感激。然後也許是人工智慧產品的更高水平，並欣賞第一代與第二代的背景，因為你有第二代產品，應該更容易製作。我們該如何看待今年人工智慧類型的發布和管道？在追求更高水準的人工智慧勝利之前，您是否正在等待更多第二代產品，或者我們應該如何考慮管道？

No. What's nice is that all of these products from, for the most part Chat Pro through next gen, through next gen one, through next gen two are backward compatible. So we can upgrade people to those products. So we don't slow this down at all and I wouldn't want to do that.

不。令人高興的是，從 Chat Pro 到下一代、下一代一號、下一代二號的所有這些產品大部分都是向後相容的。所以我們可以讓人們升級到這些產品。所以我們根本不會放慢速度，我也不想這樣做。

So if a customer comes in and they see our, whether they want to look at Chat Pro or whether they want to look at the next gen one, whether you want to do Chat Pro and then skip gen one and go to gen two. We're able to manage all of those with them. We show them the various products and where we're headed with them.

因此，如果客戶進來並看到我們的，無論他們想要查看 Chat Pro 還是想要查看下一代產品，無論您是否想要使用 Chat Pro，然後跳過第一代並轉到第二代。我們能夠與他們一起管理所有這些。我們向他們展示各種產品以及我們的發展方向。

And then we help guide them through that selection process, right? And there's a series of things we kind of go through with them as they're going through that. What are the features they want? What is the experience they want? Some of the customers just want a really good operational experience. You can do things in a natural language. Some others want a true assistant in the car.

然後我們幫助指導他們完成選擇過程，對吧？當他們經歷這些的時候，我們會和他們一起經歷一連串的事情。他們想要什麼功能？他們想要什麼樣的體驗？有些客戶只是想要真正好的操作體驗。您可以用自然語言做事。還有一些人希望車內有一個真正的助手。

Renault is a good example of that. We just launched with them, where they have their avatar called, Reno. And that really helps the, it becomes like an assistant and they have plans to move that assistant all the way through their product line and much further beyond even just the auto. In that case, we're working with them to go from what we can do today to looking out at gen two.

雷諾就是一個很好的例子。我們剛剛與他們一起推出，他們的頭像被稱為 Reno。這確實有幫助，它變得像一個助手，他們計劃將該助手一直移動到他們的產品線中，甚至超越汽車。在這種情況下，我們正在與他們合作，從我們今天能做的事情轉向關注第二代。

So you're going to see it's going to be a kind of like a continuum for people as they go through these products. And so it's going to be kind of seamless. You're not going to see breakoffs or we don't have to make a decision of, hey, stop selling Chat Pro because we want everything gen one or stop selling gen one because we want everything gen two.

因此，當人們使用這些產品時，你會發現這將成為一種連續體。所以這將是無縫的。你不會看到中斷，或者我們不必做出決定，嘿，停止銷售 Chat Pro，因為我們想要第一代的所有內容，或者停止銷售第一代，因為我們想要第二代的所有內容。

We can seamlessly move between those and we can upgrade people even upgrade their cars with down the wire upgrades if they want to upgrade everybody's experience later on. So we have all of that ability in these products.

我們可以在這些之間無縫移動，如果人們想稍後升級每個人的體驗，我們甚至可以透過線下升級來升級他們的汽車。所以我們在這些產品中擁有所有這些能力。

Does that help you understand, kind of the product portfolio?

這有助於您了解產品組合嗎？

Yeah, that was super helpful. Thank you very much.

是的，這非常有幫助。非常感謝。

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the call back over to Brian for any closing remarks.

謝謝。我目前沒有提出任何進一步的問題。我想將電話轉回給布萊恩，讓其結束語。

Okay. So, I just want to thank everybody for attending the call this morning. I thought the questions were excellent and I really appreciate the interest in our business. I hope you see from Tony and [I's] remarks that we're really excited about where the business is headed. For 2025, our priorities, as we said, one, it's execution. Execution in order to achieve the numbers we talked about this morning to return the company to profitability.

好的。所以，我只想感謝大家參加今天早上的電話會議。我認為這些問題非常好，我非常感謝大家對我們業務的興趣。我希望您從托尼和[我]的言論中看到，我們對業務的發展方向感到非常興奮。對於 2025 年，我們的首要任務，正如我們所說，第一，是執行。執行是為了實現我們今天早上談到的數字，使公司恢復盈利。

Tony mentioned that we're have plans in place to work through the debt and we think we'll have answers for you by the next quarter's update. And, I think the organization overall, we've made through this transition. And we're all really excited about our next generation products. So that's the other real focus for 2025 is execution of those and really getting our customers to see and feel the experience that we're able to generate.

托尼提到，我們已經制定了解決債務問題的計劃，我們認為我們將在下個季度的更新中為您提供答案。而且，我認為整個組織，我們已經完成了這個轉變。我們都對我們的下一代產品感到非常興奮。因此，2025 年的另一個真正重點是執行這些內容，並真正讓我們的客戶看到並感受到我們所能產生的體驗。

And so with that, I just want to thank everybody again for attending this morning. And we look forward to seeing you at the end of the next quarter and showing you the progress we've made so far. So, thank you very much.

因此，我想再次感謝大家今天早上的出席。我們期待在下個季度末見到您，並向您展示我們迄今為止所取得的進展。所以，非常感謝。

Thank you for your participation. This does conclude the program and you may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.

感謝您的參與。這確實結束了程序，您現在可以斷開連接。大家，祝你有美好的一天。