思科 (CSCO) 2024 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Welcome to Cisco's First Quarter Fiscal Year 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. At the request of Cisco, today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect.

歡迎參加思科 2024 財年第一季財務業績電話會議。應思科的要求，今天的會議正在錄製中。如果有異議可以斷開連接。

Now I would like to introduce Sami Badri, Head of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

現在我想介紹投資者關係主管 Sami Badri。先生，您可以開始了。

Welcome, everyone, to Cisco's First Quarter Fiscal Year '24 Quarterly Conference Call. This is Sami Badri, Cisco's new Head of Investor Relations, and I'm joined by Chuck Robbins, our Chair and CEO; and Scott Herren, our CFO. Having followed Cisco on the sell side for 10 years, I couldn't be more excited to join the company, and I look forward to engaging with you all in my new role.

歡迎大家參加思科 24 財年第一季季度電話會議。我是思科新任投資者關係主管薩米‧巴德里 (Sami Badri)，與我一起發言的還有我們的董事長兼執行長查克‧羅賓斯 (Chuck Robbins)；以及我們的財務長 Scott Herren。我在思科的銷售部門工作了 10 年，我非常高興能夠加入這家公司，並期待在新的職位上與大家一起合作。

By now, you should have seen our earnings press release. A corresponding webcast with slides, including supplemental information, will be available on our website in the Investor Relations section following the call.

現在，您應該已經看到我們的收益新聞稿了。電話會議結束後，我們的網站將在投資者關係部分提供相應的網路直播和幻燈片，其中包括補充資訊。

As a reminder, we have simplified how we report product and service revenue and customer markets. Starting this quarter, we are reporting revenue in the following 5 categories: Networking, Security, Collaboration, Observability and Services. And we are reporting customer markets in the following 3 categories: Enterprise, Public Sector and Service Provider and Cloud.

提醒一下，我們簡化了報告產品和服務收入以及客戶市場的方式。從本季開始，我們將報告以下 5 個類別的收入：網路、安全、協作、可觀察性和服務。我們報告的客戶市場分為以下 3 類：企業、公部門、服務供應商和雲端。

Also, as is customary in Q1, we have made certain reclassifications to prior period amounts to conform to the current period's presentation. Income statements, full GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliation information, balance sheets, cash flow statements and other financial information can also be found in the Financial Information section of our Investor Relations website.

此外，按照第一季的慣例，我們對前期金額進行了某些重新分類，以符合本期的呈現方式。損益表、完整的 GAAP 與非 GAAP 調節資訊、資產負債表、現金流量表和其他財務資訊也可以在我們的投資者關係網站的財務資訊部分找到。

Throughout this conference call, we will be referencing both GAAP and non-GAAP financial results, and we'll discuss product results in terms of revenue and geographic and customer results in terms of product orders, unless stated otherwise. All comparisons made throughout this call will be on a year-over-year basis.

在整個電話會議過程中，我們將參考 GAAP 和非 GAAP 財務結果，並且我們將從收入方面討論產品結果，從產品訂單方面討論地理和客戶結果，除非另有說明。本次電話會議中的所有比較都將以同比為基礎。

The matters we will be discussing today include forward-looking statements, including the guidance we will be providing for the second quarter and full year of fiscal 2024. They are subject to the risks and uncertainties that we discuss in detail in our documents filed with the SEC, specifically the most recent report on Form 10-K, which identify important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements.

我們今天將要討論的事項包括前瞻性陳述，包括我們將為 2024 財年第二季和全年提供的指引。它們受我們在提交給美國證券交易委員會 (SEC) 的文件中詳細討論的風險和不確定性的影響，特別是最新的 10-K 表格報告，其中確定了可能導致實際結果與前瞻性陳述中的結果存在重大差異的重要風險因素。

With respect to guidance, please also see the slides and press release that accompany this call for further details. Cisco will not comment on its financial guidance during the quarter, unless it is done through an explicit public disclosure.

關於指導，請參閱本次電話會議附帶的幻燈片和新聞稿以了解更多詳細資訊。思科不會對本季的財務指引發表評論，除非透過明確的公開揭露。

I will now turn it over to Chuck.

現在我將把發言權交給查克。

Thanks, Sami, and welcome to Cisco. I hope everyone is doing well, and thanks for joining us today. We delivered a solid start to fiscal 2024 with the strongest first quarter results in Cisco's history in terms of revenue and profitability. Our Q1 revenue was at the upper end of our guided range. EPS exceeded the high end of our guidance, driven by strength in gross margins and expense control, resulting in strong operating leverage.

謝謝，薩米，歡迎來到思科。我希望大家一切順利，感謝大家今天的加入我們。我們為 2024 財年取得了良好的開端，第一季的營收和獲利能力創下了思科史上最強勁的業績。我們第一季的收入處於指導範圍的上限。受毛利率和費用控制強勁的推動，每股收益超過了我們預期的高端，從而產生了強勁的經營槓桿。

Our disciplined expense management and the tailwinds from our business model transformation resulted in our highest non-GAAP gross margin in over 17 years and record non-GAAP operating margin. We also returned $2.8 billion in Q1 via cash dividends and share repurchases, delivering on our capital return commitments to our shareholders. As we continue to transform our business towards more software and recurring revenue streams, fueled by accelerated innovation, we remain committed to driving operating leverage and shareholder returns.

我們嚴格的費用管理以及商業模式轉型帶來的順風，使我們的非公認會計準則毛利率達到了 17 年來的最高水平，非公認會計準則營業利潤率也創下了歷史新高。我們也在第一季透過現金股利和股票回購返還了 28 億美元，兌現了對股東的資本回報承諾。隨著我們繼續將業務轉向更多軟體和經常性收入來源，在加速創新的推動下，我們仍然致力於提高營運槓桿和股東回報。

Now turning to the demand environment. After 3 quarters of exceptionally strong product delivery, our customers are now focused on installing and implementing these unprecedented levels of products. The bottleneck that we previously saw in the supply chain has now shifted downstream to implementation by our customers and partners. Our order lead times and backlog have largely returned to normal levels.

現在轉向需求環境。經過三個季度異常強勁的產品交付後，我們的客戶現在專注於安裝和實施這些前所未有的產品水平。我們之前在供應鏈中看到的瓶頸現在已經轉移到下游由我們的客戶和合作夥伴實施。我們的訂單交付週期和積壓訂單已基本恢復到正常水準。

As deliveries rose, the channel inventory we track at our distributors also steadily declined during this time. Simply put, customers are now taking time to onboard and deploy these heightened product deliveries. While the macro challenges we have discussed still exist, we believe this implementation phase is the primary reason for the slowdown in new orders. We saw it mostly with our larger enterprise, service provider and cloud customers, and it was most pronounced in October.

隨著交付量的增加，我們在分銷商處追蹤的通路庫存在此期間也穩步下降。簡而言之，客戶現在需要花時間來接受和部署這些增強的產品交付。雖然我們討論過的宏觀挑戰仍然存在，但我們認為實施階段是新訂單放緩的主要原因。我們主要在大型企業、服務供應商和雲端客戶中看到這種情況，並且在十月最為明顯。

Based on our analysis, we believe this phase is temporary and estimate there is an additional 1 to 2 quarters' worth of shipped orders in customers' hands still waiting to be deployed. This has near-term consequences for revenue, and our outlook for the next couple of quarters, which Scott will discuss shortly. However, it does not change our longer-term confidence.

根據我們的分析，我們認為這一階段是暫時的，並估計客戶手中還有另外 1 到 2 個季度的發貨訂單仍在等待部署。這對收入和未來幾季的前景會產生短期影響，而斯科特很快就會對此進行討論。但這不會改變我們的長期信心。

We expect product order growth rates to increase in the second half of the fiscal year. We also remain very confident in the foundational strength of our business and future growth opportunities, given the criticality of our technologies. Overall, our win rates are stable, cancellation and return rates remain below pre-pandemic levels, and we have gained market share, all of which are testaments to the strength of our portfolio and how it aligns to our customers' most pressing needs.

我們預期本財年下半年產品訂單成長率將會上升。鑑於我們技術的關鍵性，我們對我們的業務基礎實力和未來成長機會仍然非常有信心。總體而言，我們的成功率保持穩定，取消率和退貨率仍低於疫情前的水平，並且我們的市場份額有所增長，所有這些都證明了我們產品組合的實力以及它如何滿足客戶最迫切的需求。

As we look to enhance our capabilities in higher-growth areas, in the first quarter of fiscal '24, we announced our intent to acquire Splunk. The combination of Cisco and Splunk will create an end-to-end data platform to enhance our customers' digital resiliency with our complementary capabilities in AI, security and observability. The combination of Cisco and Splunk also directly supports our strategic objectives around driving higher levels of growth, software capabilities and ARR. Together, we will bring trusted innovation leadership, an outstanding go-to-market engine and a world-class culture that will help our customers achieve their technology outcomes with innovative products and solutions.

為了增強我們在高成長領域的能力，我們在 24 財年第一季宣布了收購 Splunk 的意圖。思科和 Splunk 的結合將創建一個端到端資料平台，透過我們在人工智慧、安全性和可觀察性方面的互補能力來增強客戶的數位彈性。思科和 Splunk 的結合也直接支持了我們推動更高水準的成長、軟體能力和 ARR 的策略目標。我們將共同帶來值得信賴的創新領導力、卓越的市場進入引擎和世界級的文化，幫助我們的客戶透過創新的產品和解決方案實現他們的技術成果。

Now let me comment on our quarterly performance. As I previously mentioned, we delivered strong revenues in Q1, which was broad-based across our product portfolio and driven by our customers' investments in generative AI, cloud, security and full-stack observability. As expected, we continued to gain market share with the release of the calendar Q2 results, recording another quarter of year-over-year gains in 3 of our largest networking markets: campus switching, wireless LAN and SP routing. In web scale, we see continued momentum in AI with 3 of the top 4 customers deploying our hyperscale Ethernet AI fabric. We also already have line of sight to over $1 billion in orders for AI infrastructure from major cloud providers in fiscal year '25.

現在讓我評論一下我們的季度業績。正如我之前提到的，我們在第一季實現了強勁的收入，這得益於我們整個產品組合，以及客戶對產生人工智慧、雲端、安全性和全端可觀察性的投資。正如預期的那樣，隨著第二季業績的發布，我們的市場份額繼續增長，在三大網路市場（校園交換、無線區域網路和 SP 路由）中再次實現同比增長。在網路規模方面，我們看到人工智慧持續發展勢頭，前四大客戶中有三家部署了我們的超大規模乙太網路人工智慧結構。我們也預計，25 財年各大雲端供應商的人工智慧基礎設施訂單將超過 10 億美元。

To help advance AI, we are working with key GPU and storage partners to create solutions, including Ethernet technologies, GPU-enabled infrastructure and joint-tested and validated reference architectures with a commitment to open networking for AI. Collectively, we believe there is a great opportunity for a broad set of innovations in compute, GPU, networking, software and services to support core and edge AI infrastructure.

為了推動人工智慧的發展，我們正在與主要的 GPU 和儲存合作夥伴合作創建解決方案，包括乙太網路技術、支援 GPU 的基礎設施以及經過聯合測試和驗證的參考架構，並致力於為人工智慧開放網路。總的來說，我們相信，在運算、GPU、網路、軟體和服務領域進行廣泛的創新，為支援核心和邊緣 AI 基礎設施提供了巨大的機會。

According to the 650 Group, the AI switching market is forecasted to exceed $10 billion in 2027. Our scalable fabric for AI, coupled with the proven power-saving capabilities of Cisco Silicon One, put us in a needed for AI clusters, and we are laser-focused on winning in this space.

根據 650 Group 預測，到 2027 年，人工智慧交換市場規模將超過 100 億美元。我們針對人工智慧的可擴展結構，加上思科 Silicon One 久經考驗的節能功能，使我們成為人工智慧集群所需的產品，我們正專注於在這一領域取得勝利。

Moving to Security. We continue to execute against our product road map and strengthen our unified security platform. Since our Cisco XDR solution became available this summer, we have added recovery to the response process, giving security teams the ability to snapshot and restore their business-critical data at the first sign of a ransomware attack.

轉向安全。我們將繼續執行我們的產品路線圖並加強我們的統一安全平台。自從我們的 Cisco XDR 解決方案於今年夏天推出以來，我們在回應過程中添加了復原功能，使安全團隊能夠在出現勒索軟體攻擊的第一個跡象時快照並恢復其業務關鍵資料。

With our 3 new offers around XDR, Cisco Secure Access and Multicloud Defense, we already have over $500 million in the pipeline across over 1,000 customers. We also launched our new Cisco security firewall solution this quarter. We are actively engaged in competitive sales with all these products and expect to see meaningful positive results in the coming quarters. In our Collaboration portfolio, we recently introduced a range of truly game-changing AI capabilities spanning the entire Webex suite as well as new devices for reimagined workspaces at our WebexOne event.

憑藉我們圍繞 XDR、思科安全存取和多雲防禦的 3 項新服務，我們已經為 1,000 多家客戶帶來了超過 5 億美元的資金。本季我們也推出了新的思科安全防火牆解決方案。我們積極參與所有這些產品的競爭性銷售，並期望在未來幾季看到有意義的正面成果。在我們的協作產品組合中，我們最近在 WebexOne 活動上推出了一系列涵蓋整個 Webex 套件的真正改變遊戲規則的 AI 功能以及用於重新構想的工作空間的新設備。

Before I turn it over to Scott, let me briefly summarize 3 key takeaways. First, as we consider where we're at today, the primary issue with demand is that customers are taking time to onboard and deploy heightened product deliveries. While we are not immune to the macro, we believe this is temporary as our customers and partners continue to tell us that our portfolio is stronger than ever, and we have continued to see share gains in key markets.

在交給史考特之前，讓我先簡單總結一下 3 個關鍵要點。首先，當我們考慮目前的情況時，需求的主要問題是客戶需要時間來接受和部署更嚴格的產品交付。雖然我們無法免受宏觀經濟的影響，但我們相信這只是暫時的，因為我們的客戶和合作夥伴繼續告訴我們，我們的產品組合比以往任何時候都更加強大，而且我們在主要市場的份額繼續增長。

Second, we remain confident in our future. With the incremental multibillion-dollar AI infrastructure opportunity, the increasing criticality of security and observability and what we believe Cisco and Splunk can do together for our customers, is truly exciting. Lastly, you can always count on us to take a disciplined approach, regardless of the environment. We remain committed to operating leverage, capital allocation and expense management.

第二，我們對未來充滿信心。隨著數十億美元的人工智慧基礎設施機會的增加，安全性和可觀察性的重要性日益增加，我們相信思科和 Splunk 可以共同為我們的客戶做些什麼，這確實令人興奮。最後，無論環境如何，您始終可以相信我們採取嚴謹的態度。我們仍然致力於經營槓桿、資本配置和費用管理。

I'll now turn it over to Scott to provide more detail on the quarter and our outlook.

現在我將把時間交給史考特，讓他提供有關本季和我們展望的更多細節。

Thanks, Chuck. We delivered solid results in Q1 driven by the prior strategic actions we took to mitigate the supply chain constraints. For the quarter, we reported strong revenue growth and a record non-GAAP operating margin. Total revenue was $14.7 billion, up 8% year-over-year, at the high end of our guidance range. Non-GAAP net income was $4.5 billion, up 28%. And non-GAAP EPS was $1.11, up 29%, exceeding the high end of our guidance range.

謝謝，查克。在我們為緩解供應鏈限製而採取的先前策略行動的推動下，我們在第一季取得了穩健的業績。本季度，我們報告了強勁的收入成長和創紀錄的非公認會計準則營業利潤率。總收入為 147 億美元，年增 8%，處於我們預期範圍的高點。非公認會計準則淨收入為 45 億美元，成長 28%。非公認會計準則每股收益為 1.11 美元，成長 29%，超過了我們預期範圍的高端。

Looking at our Q1 revenue in more detail. Total product revenue was $11.1 billion, up 9%. And service revenue was $3.5 billion, up 4%. Networking, our largest product category, drove the increase with 10% growth. Within networking, the growth was driven by switching, where campus and data center were both up double digits on the strength of our Catalyst 9000 and Nexus 9000 offerings. This was partially offset by a decline in wireless.

更詳細地了解我們的第一季收入。總產品收入為 111 億美元，成長 9%。服務收入為 35 億美元，成長 4%。我們最大的產品類別網路推動了 10% 的成長。在網路領域，成長主要由交換驅動，其中校園和資料中心在我們的 Catalyst 9000 和 Nexus 9000 產品的幫助下均實現了兩位數的成長。但無線業務的下滑部分抵消了這一成長。

Security was up 4%, driven by our Zero Trust and threat intelligence, detection and response offerings. Collaboration was up 3%, driven by growth in calling and contact center, partially offset by a decline in meetings. Observability was up 21%, driven by growth across the portfolio, including double-digit growth in ThousandEyes and AppDynamics.

受零信任和威脅情報、偵測和回應產品的推動，安全性提高了 4%。協作成長了 3%，這得益於呼叫和聯絡中心的成長，但會議數量的減少部分抵消了這一增長。可觀察性成長了 21%，這得益於整個投資組合的成長，其中包括 ThousandEyes 和 AppDynamics 的兩位數成長。

We continue to make progress in our transformation to more recurring revenue-based offerings and saw solid performance in our ARR of $24.5 billion, which increased 5%, with product ARR growth of 10%. Total software revenue was $4.4 billion, a 13% increase, with software subscription revenue also up 13%. 85% of our software revenue was subscription-based.

我們在向更多基於經常性收入的產品轉型方面繼續取得進展，我們的 ARR 表現穩健，達到 245 億美元，成長 5%，產品 ARR 成長 10%。總軟體營收為 44 億美元，成長 13%，其中軟體訂閱收入也成長了 13%。我們的軟體收入的 85% 都是基於訂閱的。

Total subscription revenue increased 10% to $6.5 billion, which represents 44% of Cisco's total revenue, an increase of 1 percentage point over last year. RPO was $34.8 billion, up 12% year-over-year. Product RPO increased 14% and service RPO increased 11%. In total, short-term RPO was up 8% to $17.6 billion.

總訂閱收入成長 10%，達到 65 億美元，佔思科總營收的 44%，比去年增加了 1 個百分點。 RPO 為 348 億美元，年增 12%。產品RPO增加了14％，服務RPO增加了11％。整體而言，短期 RPO 成長 8%，達到 176 億美元。

Looking at our product orders by geographic segment. Year-over-year, overall product orders declined 20%, with the Americas down 19%, EMEA down 13% and APJC down 38%. In our customer markets, service provider and cloud was down 38%, enterprise was down 26% and public sector was up slightly at 2%.

按地理區域查看我們的產品訂單。與去年同期相比，整體產品訂單下降了 20%，其中美洲下降了 19%，歐洲、中東和非洲地區下降了 13%，亞太及日本地區下降了 38%。在我們的客戶市場中，服務供應商和雲端運算下降了 38%，企業下降了 26%，公共部門小幅上漲了 2%。

Total non-GAAP gross margin came in at 67.1%, up 410 basis points year-over-year and 110 basis points above the high end of our guidance range. Product gross margin was 66.5%, up 550 basis points. The increase was driven primarily by productivity improvements with lower freight, logistics and component costs. Favorable mix and positive pricing also contributed to the year-over-year improvement.

非公認會計準則總毛利率為 67.1%，比去年同期成長 410 個基點，比我們的預期最高值高出 110 個基點。產品毛利率為66.5%，上升550個基點。成長主要得益於生產力的提高以及運費、物流和零件成本的降低。良好的產品組合和積極的定價也促進了同比增長。

Service's non-GAAP gross margin was 69%, up slightly. Our non-GAAP operating margin came in at 36.6%, up 480 basis points and exceeding the high end of our guidance range. This improved leverage was driven by both our strong non-GAAP gross margin and ongoing disciplined cost management.

服務業務的非公認會計準則毛利率為 69%，略有上升。我們的非公認會計準則營業利潤率為 36.6%，上漲 480 個基點，超過了我們預期範圍的高端。槓桿率的提高得益於我們強勁的非公認會計準則毛利率和持續嚴格的成本管理。

Shifting to the balance sheet. We ended Q1 with total cash, cash equivalents and investments of $23.5 billion. We had operating cash flow for the quarter of $2.4 billion, down 40% primarily due to the $2.8 billion tax payment related to prior quarters, which was associated with the IRS tax relief due to the California floods.

轉向資產負債表。我們第一季的現金、現金等價物和投資總額為 235 億美元。本季我們的營運現金流為 24 億美元，下降 40%，主要原因是與前幾季相關的 28 億美元稅款支付，這筆稅款與加州洪水導致的國稅局稅收減免有關。

This quarter, we returned $2.8 billion to shareholders comprised of $1.6 billion for our quarterly cash dividend and $1.3 billion of share repurchases. Consistent with our capital allocation strategy, we are committed to increasing shareholder returns through greater operating leverage, maintaining a higher level of annual share repurchases and growing our dividend. We continue to invest organically and inorganically in our innovation pipeline.

本季度，我們向股東返還了 28 億美元，其中包括 16 億美元的季度現金股利和 13 億美元的股票回購。與我們的資本配置策略一致，我們致力於透過提高經營槓桿、維持更高水準的年度股票回購和增加股利來增加股東回報。我們將繼續以有機和無機的方式投資於我們的創新管道。

During Q1, we announced our intent to acquire Splunk, which we expect to close by the end of the third quarter of calendar year 2024, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions, including approval by Splunk shareholders. In Q1, we also closed several acquisitions, all of which are highly complementary to our internal R&D, and in line with our strategy to strengthen our position in cloud, security, observability and AI with targeted strategic M&A.

在第一季度，我們宣布了收購 Splunk 的意向，預計該交易將在 2024 年第三季末完成，但需獲得監管部門的批准和慣例成交條件，包括 Splunk 股東的批准。在第一季度，我們也完成了幾項收購，這些收購都與我們的內部研發高度互補，並符合我們透過有針對性的策略併購加強我們在雲端、安全、可觀察性和人工智慧領域的地位的策略。

To summarize, we delivered a solid quarter, highlighted by top line growth and increased operating leverage that resulted in stronger-than-anticipated earnings per share. We continue to make progress in our business model shift to more recurring revenue. We remain focused on disciplined expense management without losing sight of the strategic investments necessary to innovate and capitalize on growth opportunities.

總而言之，我們本季業績表現穩健，營收成長和營運槓桿提高是亮點，每股收益高於預期。我們在業務模式轉變為更多經常性收入方面繼續取得進展。我們仍然專注於嚴格的費用管理，同時又不忽視創新和利用成長機會所需的策略投資。

Turning to our financial guidance. As Chuck outlined, the bottleneck that we previously saw in the supply chain has now shifted downstream to implementation by our customers and partners. Most of the supply chain constraints are now behind us, and both shipment lead times and backlog have largely returned to normal levels. Q1 product orders declined 20% as our largest customers are implementing elevated levels of product shipments from prior quarters as we delivered orders from our historically high backlog levels.

轉向我們的財務指引。正如查克所概述的，我們之前在供應鏈中看到的瓶頸現在已經轉移到下游由我們的客戶和合作夥伴實施。目前，大多數供應鏈限制都已消失，出貨前置時間和積壓訂單也已基本恢復到正常水準。第一季產品訂單下降了 20%，因為我們最大的客戶正在實施比前幾季更高的產品出貨量，而我們交付的訂單量是歷史最高水準的積壓訂單。

As Chuck mentioned, we believe there are 1 to 2 quarters worth of shipped orders awaiting implementation by our customers. Our revenue guidance assumes 1 to 2 quarters of lower revenue and then a return to more typical sequential growth rates. Consequently, for Q2, we expect revenue to be in the range of $12.6 billion to $12.8 billion.

正如查克所提到的，我們相信有 1 到 2 個季度的已發貨訂單正在等待我們的客戶實施。我們的收入預期是，未來 1 至 2 個季度的收入會有所下降，然後恢復到更典型的連續成長率。因此，我們預計第二季的營收將在 126 億美元至 128 億美元之間。

We anticipate the non-GAAP gross margin to be in the range of 65% to 66%. Non-GAAP operating margin is expected to be in the range of 31.5% to 32.5%. And non-GAAP earnings per share is expected to range from $0.82 to $0.84. For fiscal year 2024, our guidance is updated as follows: we expect revenue to be in the range of $53.8 billion to $55 billion; non-GAAP earnings per share is expected to be in the range of $3.87 to $3.93. In both our Q2 and full year guidance, we're assuming a non-GAAP effective tax rate of 19%.

我們預計非公認會計準則毛利率將在 65% 至 66% 之間。非公認會計準則營業利潤率預計在 31.5% 至 32.5% 之間。非公認會計準則每股收益預計在 0.82 美元至 0.84 美元之間。對於 2024 財年，我們的指引更新如下：我們預計收入在 538 億美元至 550 億美元之間；非公認會計準則每股收益預計在 3.87 美元至 3.93 美元之間。在我們的第二季和全年指引中，我們都假設非 GAAP 有效稅率為 19%。

I'd like to thank our teams for their focus and execution this quarter. We remain confident in the strength of the business and our ability to capitalize on the key growth opportunities ahead. I'll now turn it back to Sami, so we can move into the Q&A.

我要感謝我們團隊本季的專注和執行。我們仍然對業務實力和利用未來關鍵成長機會的能力充滿信心。現在我將把話題交還給薩米，這樣我們就可以進入問答環節了。

Thanks, Scott. Michelle, let's go ahead and queue up for questions.

謝謝，斯科特。米歇爾，我們繼續排隊提問。

Tal Liani with Bank of America.

美國銀行的 Tal Liani。

Tal, are you there?

塔爾，你在嗎？

Yes. Sorry, I was on mute. Now I can hear me. What is your assumption on the growth seasonality after the next quarter? Are we back in your assumptions to normal seasonality? Or do you expect kind of different seasonality than previous years?

是的。抱歉，我靜音了。現在我能聽到我自己的聲音了。您對下一季之後的成長季節性有何假設？按照您的假設，我們是否又回到了正常的季節性？或者您預計今年的季節性與往年有何不同？

Yes, Tal, it's a great question. As I said in the -- when we talked about 1 to 2 quarters of, basically, inventory, but shipped product that's at our customers, that's not yet been installed, I expect the impact to be greatest in Q2 and in Q3. But when you look at order growth, we do see a return to order growth in the second half of the year, both sequentially and year-on-year as we get there.

是的，塔爾，這是一個很好的問題。正如我所說的那樣 - 當我們談論基本上 1 到 2 個季度的庫存，但已運送到客戶手中但尚未安裝的產品時，我預計影響將在第二季度和第三季度最大。但當你觀察訂單成長時，我們確實看到下半年訂單將恢復成長，無論是環比成長還是同比成長。

So in terms of revenue recognition, you expect 3Q to -- the 2Q to 3Q sequentials, that was my question. Do you expect 3Q to be weaker than previous seasonality? Or do you expect it to be the same as previous seasonality?

因此，就收入確認而言，您預計第三季至第二季至第三季的連續收入，這是我的問題。您是否預計第三季的表現會比前一季更弱？或者您預計它會與之前的季節性相同？

No. From a revenue standpoint, we don't guide bookings, Tal. But from a revenue standpoint, I do see sequential increase Q2 to Q3.

不，從收入的角度來看，我們不指導預訂，塔爾。但從營收的角度來看，我確實看到第二季至第三季的連續成長。

Thank you, Tal.

謝謝你，塔爾。

Meta Marshall with Morgan Stanley Investment Research.

摩根士丹利投資研究部的 Meta Marshall。

Great. Maybe just a question on if you see the investment categories kind of changing, maybe free the orders that you've seen, and then when you see them come back in a couple of quarters. I guess I'm just trying to get a sense of how much of the orders we've seen over the last year have been catch-up investments, like campus and data center, and then areas of investment will change as we come back? Or is this really just inventory digestion and the investment categories and kind of investment prioritization will stay the same with customers?

偉大的。也許只是一個問題，如果您看到投資類別發生變化，也許會釋放您所看到的訂單，然後當您看到它們在幾個季度後回來時。我想我只是想了解一下，去年我們看到的訂單有多少是追趕投資，例如校園和資料中心，然後隨著我們回來，投資領域會改變？或者這真的只是庫存消化，而投資類別和投資優先順序對客戶來說將保持不變？

Yes, Meta, thanks for the question. I think your latter comment is probably the closest to the truth. We don't anticipate a big difference. Although, I think with the improvements that we've seen in our portfolio in Security, we should see Security accelerate. Obviously, we'll continue to update you on the AI opportunity that's out there. We think that's going to continue to be a driver over the next couple of years. But in general, I think it will look more normal once we get through this.

是的，Meta，謝謝你的提問。我認為你的後一條評論可能是最接近事實的。我們預計不會有太大的差異。不過，我認為隨著我們在安全領域投資組合的改進，我們應該會看到安全方面的加速發展。顯然，我們將繼續向您通報現有的人工智慧機會。我們認為這將繼續成為未來幾年的驅動力。但總的來說，我認為一旦我們度過難關，一切就會變得更加正常。

Thank you, Meta.

謝謝你，Meta。

Amit Daryanani with Evercore.

Evercore 的 Amit Daryanani。

I guess, Chuck, one of the things I've been having trouble to understand is the conviction you have that this is an implementation pause and not a macro- or demand-centric weakness. So I'd love to just understand whether you can talk about and why you're so convinced this is a 1- to 2-quarter implementation pause rather than enterprise demand is just getting weaker. Anything on that front would be helpful. And then I just want to clarify this part. You folks said $1 billion in AI orders. That's 2x the number you gave last time. Is that correct?

我想，查克，我一直難以理解的事情之一是，你堅信這是一個實施暫停，而不是宏觀或需求為中心的弱點。所以我很想了解您是否可以談談，為什麼您如此確信這是一個 1 到 2 個季度的實施暫停，而不是企業需求正在減弱。在這方面的任何事情都會有幫助。然後我只想澄清這一部分。你們說的是 10 億美元的人工智慧訂單。這是您上次給出的數字的 2 倍。對嗎？

Amit, thank you. So if you'll be patient with me, I'll give you a few data points and some context around why we think this is an inventory issue that's sitting with our customers. First of all, our customers and our sales organizations have been very clear with us over the last 90 days that this is the issue, particularly our large enterprise and our large -- and our service providers. We talked about that with the service providers prior, but it shifted into the enterprise space in a big way.

阿米特，謝謝你。因此，如果您能耐心等待，我將向您提供一些數據點和一些背景信息，說明為什麼我們認為這是客戶面臨的庫存問題。首先，在過去的 90 天裡，我們的客戶和銷售組織已經非常清楚地向我們表明了這個問題，特別是我們的大型企業和大型服務提供者。我們之前與服務提供者討論過這個問題，但它已經大規模轉移到企業領域。

The other thing is we had our Partner Summit last week and some of our largest partners, unsolicited, began their conversations with me by talking about this very issue, which, candidly, I knew that customers had talked about it and our sales teams have talked about it. I was actually surprised to hear it so consistently at that Partner Summit. So that's sort of the subjective view.

另一件事是，我們上週舉行了合作夥伴高峰會，我們的一些最大的合作夥伴主動與我談論了這個問題，坦白說，我知道客戶已經談論過這個問題，我們的銷售團隊也談論過這個問題。事實上，我很驚訝在合作夥伴高峰會上如此頻繁地聽到這種說法。這是一種主觀觀點。

And then we've done some analysis, and there's 3 things I'd point out. The first is that, in certain parts of our portfolio, we actually can see the time frame from shipment of a product until the product begins to connect to the cloud, back to the cloud like Meraki. And what we've seen is a 1- to 2-quarter delay versus what historically you would see when these products get shipped, how long it takes for them to be activated and connect to the Meraki Cloud. So that's the first piece.

然後我們做了一些分析，我想指出三件事。首先，在我們產品組合的某些部分，我們實際上可以看到從產品出貨到產品開始連接到雲端，再回到雲端的時間範圍，就像 Meraki 一樣。我們看到的是，與歷史上這些產品發貨時相比，延遲了 1 到 2 個季度，它們需要多長時間才能啟動並連接到 Meraki Cloud。這是第一部分。

The second is, we had a very strong quarter in federal -- U.S. Federal from an orders perspective. And so we looked into why a big customer like the U.S. government Department of Defense would not have this same issue. And the reality is, is that they have special clauses in their contracts that give them most favored nation status when we're actually making shipment decisions. And certainly, with the Department of Defense, we prioritized them during the supply chain crisis, so they never had a big influx. They had a very steady flow of products across, which explains why their order numbers looked fairly normal.

第二，從訂單角度來看，我們在聯邦——美國聯邦——本季度表現非常強勁。因此，我們研究了為什麼像美國政府國防部這樣的大客戶不會遇到同樣的問題。事實是，他們的合約中有特殊條款，當我們實際做出裝運決定時，賦予他們最惠國地位。當然，在供應鏈危機期間，我們與國防部一起優先考慮了他們，因此他們從未出現大量湧入。他們的產品流通非常穩定，這也解釋了為什麼他們的訂單數量看起來相當正常。

The third point I'd say is that we noticed a serious uptick in Q1 in our transactional advanced services, which is loosely translated to the implementation services, where that grew almost 20%, and the forecast for Q2 is almost double digits again. So it's clear that customers are asking us to come help them get this done.

我想說的第三點是，我們注意到第一季我們的交易高級服務出現了大幅增長，這大致可以理解為實施服務的增長，增長了近 20%，而第二季度的預測幾乎再次達到兩位數。很明顯，客戶要求我們來幫助他們完成這項工作。

And I'll give you one final subjective data point, and then I'll talk about the AI stuff. We had one big partner tell us that they have literally hired 200 people in the last 90 days solely focused on implementing technology for their customers. So there are just so many things that we've learned over the last 90 days. Clearly, this surprised us, but I think we feel pretty good right now.

我將為您提供最後一個主觀數據點，然後我將討論人工智慧方面的內容。我們的一個大合作夥伴告訴我們，他們在過去 90 天內僱用了 200 名員工，專門負責為客戶實施技術。在過去的 90 天裡，我們學到了很多。顯然，這讓我們感到驚訝，但我認為我們現在感覺很好。

I'll make a comment about why I don't think it's macro. Candidly, it might have been easier for me to say it was macro. But as we've discussed prior, we have -- the traditional service provider has been tough, and it remains that way. We've talked about elongated sales cycle. They remain. We've talked about the -- in some cases, the need for extra signatures, which is pretty normal. That's remained. But we didn't see it get materially worse in the quarter. And so all of that -- and I'm sorry for the long answer, but I wanted to be thorough. All of that is really what led us to believe that this is a consumption issue with our customers. So I'm going to pause there.

我將評論為什麼我不認為它是宏觀的。坦白說，對我來說，說它是宏觀的可能更容易。但正如我們之前討論過的，傳統服務提供者一直很強大，而且仍然如此。我們討論過延長銷售週期。它們仍然存在。我們已經討論過——在某些情況下，需要額外的簽名，這是很正常的。那就剩下了。但本季我們並未發現情況出現實質惡化。所有這些——很抱歉回答得這麼長，但我希望回答得徹底一點。所有這些都讓我們相信，這是一個客戶的消費問題。所以我要在這裡暫停一下。

And then I'm going to answer your AI question. What we gave last time was orders to date. We have taken orders for over $500 million for infrastructure to support AI networks, AI GPUs inside the cloud players. And I'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment.

然後我將回答你的人工智慧問題。我們上次給的是迄今為止的訂單。我們已經獲得了超過 5 億美元的訂單，用於支援 AI 網路和雲端播放器內部的 AI GPU 的基礎設施。稍後我將進一步討論這一點。

The numbers that we gave today is a forward-looking set of numbers that say, in fiscal year '25, which is when we said we believe that the broad Ethernet build-out would occur underneath GPUs. We have already seen -- we have line of sight to $1 billion-plus of orders that our teams feel pretty good that we're going to get and/or we've been designed in already. So that's just sort of a forward-looking set of orders that we've identified for fiscal '25, okay?

我們今天給出的數字是一組前瞻性的數字，即在 25 財年，我們相信廣泛的乙太網路建設將在 GPU 之下發生。我們已經看到——我們已經看到了超過 10 億美元的訂單，我們的團隊感覺我們將會獲得這些訂單，並且/或我們已經在設計中了。所以這只是我們為 25 財年確定的一組前瞻性訂單，好嗎？

I will also just cover real quickly. We are now -- we now have our Ethernet fabric deployed underneath GPUs in 3 of the 4 hyperscalers, major hyperscalers in the United States. We also are working very closely with AMD, Intel and NVIDIA to create solutions, including Ethernet technologies, GPU-enabled infrastructure, jointly tested and validated reference architectures.

我也會很快地介紹一下。現在，我們已經在美國 4 個超大規模資料中心中的 3 個（主要的超大規模資料中心）的 GPU 下方部署了乙太網路結構。我們也與 AMD、英特爾和 NVIDIA 密切合作，創建解決方案，包括乙太網路技術、支援 GPU 的基礎架構、聯合測試和驗證的參考架構。

And I will say, even this week, yesterday, Jensen from NVIDIA and 4 of his -- 4 or 5 of his executives came over to see us, and we spent 90 minutes together with my executive team. And we believe we have a great opportunity to actually build some integrated solutions between our technology and their technology to actually take to the enterprise.

我要說的是，就在本週，昨天，NVIDIA 的 Jensen 和他的 4 到 5 名高管過來見我們，我們與我的執行團隊一起度過了 90 分鐘。我們相信，我們有很好的機會在我們的技術和他們的技術之間建立一些整合解決方案，並真正將其應用於企業。

So we're beginning to see the use cases in the enterprise evolve. And we think that a partnership with NVIDIA, in that case, with our underlying technology and our strength of go-to-market, we think will be a winning combination. So we're working on that as well. So there's a lot going on in the AI space.

因此，我們開始看到企業中的用例不斷發展。我們認為，在這種情況下，與 NVIDIA 的合作，憑藉我們的基礎技術和市場競爭力，將是一個成功的組合。所以我們也在努力做到這一點。人工智慧領域正在發生很多事情。

Thank you, Amit.

謝謝你，阿米特。

Simon Leopold with Raymond James.

西蒙·利奧波德和雷蒙德·詹姆斯。

I wanted to see if maybe you'd be willing to unpack the networking segment a little bit in terms of the trends. And really, what I'm trying to get at is understand sort of what's doing better, what's doing worse in that. I suspect it's data center, sounds to us pretty good, whereas maybe campus is a bit weaker and declining. And hopefully, during this transition to a new segmentation, you could give us a little bit more color within networking.

我想看看您是否願意從趨勢的角度稍微分析一下網路部分。實際上，我想了解的是，哪些方面做得更好，哪些方面做得更糟。我懷疑它是資料中心，這聽起來相當不錯，而校園可能有點弱而且正在衰退。希望在向新的細分領域過渡的過程中，您能為我們提供更多有關網路方面的資訊。

Simon, thanks for that. I would say the bigger variance that we're seeing -- I mean, right now, obviously, the demand signal is a little bit tough because of the amount of inventory that's out in the field. And we have normalized lead times at this point. We knew that would happen sometime in the first half. It's now happened. Our lead times are back to where they were prepandemic.

西蒙，謝謝你。我想說的是，我們看到的差異更大——我的意思是，現在，顯然，由於現場庫存量很大，需求訊號有點強。目前我們已經將交貨時間標準化。我們知道這會在上半場的某個時候發生。現在已經發生了。我們的交貨時間已恢復到疫情前的水準。

And our backlog has shipped. The supply chain team has done a terrific job getting product out the door. That's what's kind of moved the bottleneck from our level down to our customers' level. But when you start to unpack within networking, we're not seeing, at this point, a huge difference between, for example, data center or campus networking. What we are seeing is a little more field-based inventory on wireless access points. That's been slightly slower than what we've seen just because of the amount of product that's been shipped out than what we've seen in the rest of the networking.

我們的積壓訂單已出貨。供應鏈團隊在產品出貨方面做得非常好。這就是將瓶頸從我們層面轉移到客戶層面的原因。但是當你開始在網路內部解包時，我們目前還沒有看到資料中心或校園網路之間有巨大的差異。我們看到的是更多基於現場的無線接入點庫存。這比我們所見的要稍微慢一些，因為運送的產品數量與我們在其他網路中看到的相比要少一些。

Thank you, Simon.

謝謝你，西蒙。

Thanks, Simon.

謝謝，西蒙。

Ben Reitzes with Melius Research.

Ben Reitzes 的 Melius Research。

I wanted to ask about your share repurchase cadence. Stock, obviously, could get hit here. We have been talking about $5 billion in buybacks or so for the year. I know some of that's to offset dilution. If you guys are confident in the second half pickup, is there any potential that you would be more aggressive in the upcoming quarter? And how are you thinking about share repo this year, given current dynamics with the Splunk deal coming?

我想詢問一下你們的股票回購節奏。顯然，股票可能會受到打擊。我們一直在談論今年約 50 億美元的回購。我知道其中一些是為了抵消稀釋。如果你們對下半年的成長充滿信心，那麼是否有可能在下一季採取更積極的措施？考慮到 Splunk 交易即將到來這一現狀，您如何看待今年的股票回購？

Yes, Ben, as we said on the Splunk transaction, it's going to be -- outside of the transactional cost, it's going to be cash flow-positive from the first year forward. So the Splunk transaction is not, in any way, having an effect on our capital return, either through the dividend or through the -- through share buybacks.

是的，本，正如我們在 Splunk 交易中所說的那樣，除了交易成本之外，從第一年開始它將產生正現金流。因此，Splunk 交易不會以任何方式對我們的資本回報產生影響，無論是透過股息還是透過股票回購。

We expect to continue at higher level and consistent higher level of share buybacks and to continue to show increases in our dividend. We also will obviously look at the opportunity at the chance to be opportunistic on the share buyback. I don't -- I'm not going to commit to that at this moment, but that is something that we'll obviously take a look at.

我們預計將繼續以更高的水平持續進行股票回購，並繼續增加股利。我們顯然也會尋找機會進行股票回購。我現在不會對此做出承諾，但我們顯然會考慮這一點。

Thank you, Ben.

謝謝你，本。

Samik Chatterjee with JPMorgan.

摩根大通的 Samik Chatterjee。

I guess, if I can just clarify one thing first. I think, Chuck, in your prepared remarks, you did say you saw the more pronounced impact on the orders in the month of October. I think that's what I heard you say. I mean just curious, are you implying that you did see an improvement in orders in the sort of first couple of weeks of November itself? And that's maybe part of your confidence, and that it's a bit more temporary than a longer pause from the customers?

我想，如果我可以先澄清一件事的話。查克，我想，在你準備好的發言中，你確實說過，你看到十月份的訂單受到了更明顯的影響。我想這就是我聽到你所說的話。我只是好奇，您是否暗示在 11 月的頭幾週您確實看到訂單有所改善？這也許是您信心的一部分，而且這比客戶的長時間停頓更暫時，對嗎？

And then you did mention large partners really being the ones that are facing this sort of inventory installation problem. What gives you sort of color that SMBs or smaller customers are sort of not going to face a similar issue? Or are you also baking that in, in terms of your sort of next couple of quarters of headwinds that you're thinking about on the revenue side?

然後您確實提到大型合作夥伴確實面臨這種庫存安裝問題。您怎麼知道中小型企業或小客戶不會面臨類似的問題？或者您是否也考慮到了這一點，就您考慮的未來幾季的收入方面的不利因素而言？

Thanks, Samik. I think my point with October was that if you go back to the end of Q4, we talked about on the last call that we had a fair amount of momentum as we exited the quarter, which is one of the reasons we didn't expect to see this. And we had our normal year-end sales -- moving accounts around, moving territories around and getting sort of the sales start-up process that happens in the first, say, 6 weeks of the fiscal year, which we went through.

謝謝，薩米克。我認為我在十月份談到的觀點是，如果回顧第四季度末，我們在上次電話會議上談到，我們在結束本季度時擁有相當大的發展勢頭，這是我們沒有預料到會出現這種情況的原因之一。我們有正常的年終銷售——轉移帳戶，轉移地區，並進入財政年度前 6 週的銷售啟動過程，我們經歷了這個過程。

So what we tend to look for is the middle of the quarter, and then into October is when we expect to see the actual quarter materialize and everything kind of come together, and it just didn't. And that's what -- that was what the comment about -- that it was primarily -- we really -- it was really clear to us in October that this was going to be the situation.

因此，我們傾向於尋找的是季度中期的結果，然後到 10 月份，我們期望看到實際季度結果實現並且所有事情都匯集在一起，但事實並非如此。這就是 — — 這就是評論的內容 — — 主要是 — — 我們真的 — — 十月份我們就很清楚會出現這種情況。

Relative to [SMB], they're the ones who are having the consumption issue because they have the most inventory. You asked how we -- what confidence will we have, it's not SMB. If you look at orders, we look at a subsegmentation within enterprise now and within service provider, et cetera, and SMB was fine. And in fact, the smaller the customer we had, the better their order performance for us in the quarter was. So it just followed the trend that the consumption issue was upmarket and the small to midsized customers didn't feel it.

相對於[SMB]，他們是面臨消費問題的人，因為他們擁有最多的庫存。你問我們如何——我們有什麼信心，這不是 SMB。如果你查看訂單，我們現在會查看企業內部和服務提供者內部的細分，等等，而 SMB 表現很好。事實上，我們的客戶越小，他們在本季的訂單表現就越好。所以這只是順應了消費問題高端化、中小型客戶感受不到的趨勢。

Thank you, Samik.

謝謝你，薩米克。

David Vogt with UBS.

瑞銀的 David Vogt。

Scott, maybe this is for you. I just want to unpack maybe one of the comments that you made, and I know you don't guide to orders. But I think in your prepared remarks, you said backlog is back at normal levels at the end of the quarter. So are we to assume that the guide for 2Q and the rest of the year doesn't include backlog conversion into revenue?

斯科特，也許這適合你。我只是想解釋一下您提出的其中一條評論，我知道您沒有指導訂單。但我認為在您準備好的發言中，您說過積壓訂單在本季度末恢復到了正常水平。那麼，我們是否可以假設第二季和今年剩餘時間的指南不包括積壓訂單轉化為收入？

And then if that's the case, to your comment about orders accelerating in the second half, I know you don't guide specifically to orders. But you did make a comment that revenue is going to be up, I think, sequentially in the third quarter year-over-year and in the fourth quarter sequentially and year-over-year. Doesn't that suggest like a pretty steep order acceleration, not just an acceleration, but significant positive order trajectory in the fourth quarter and the third quarter? I know it's easy comps, but just some more color there would be helpful.

如果是這樣的話，對於您關於下半年訂單加速的評論，我知道您並沒有具體指導訂單。但您確實說過，我認為第三季的營收將比去年同期有所成長，第四季的營收也將比去年同期和第三季有所成長。這難道不顯示訂單成長速度相當快，不僅是加速，而且第四季和第三季的訂單軌跡明顯呈正成長嗎？我知道這很簡單，但是多一些顏色會更有幫助。

Yes, yes. David, we did say that. I do -- we are expecting sequential improvement in the second half of the year, in both Q3 and in Q4. And both -- and again, we don't guide this, but in both orders and revenue, as you'd expect. Backlog is normalized at this point. We knew that would happen in the first half. I think the supply chain team did a great job getting those orders in the hands of our customers. We would now need them to implement them, but we've got the orders in the hands of our customers. So we do see sequential increases.

是的，是的。大衛，我們確實這麼說過。是的——我們預計今年下半年，第三季和第四季的情況都會有所改善。而且 — — 再說一次，我們不會對此進行指導，但正如您所期望的那樣，訂單和收入都是如此。此時積壓已正常化。我們知道這會在上半場發生。我認為供應鏈團隊在將這些訂單送到客戶手中方面做得非常出色。我們現在需要他們來實施這些計劃，但我們已經把訂單交給客戶了。因此我們確實看到了連續的成長。

And as you said, as you noted, from a booking standpoint or order standpoint, the second half has easier compare points. Obviously, the reverse is true on revenue. The second half revenue will have very difficult compare points to last year.

正如您所說，從預訂或訂單的角度來看，下半部更容易比較。顯然，收入的情況正好相反。下半年的收入將很難與去年同期相比。

Thank you, David.

謝謝你，大衛。

Matt Niknam with Deutsche Bank.

德意志銀行的 Matt Niknam。

Maybe just to dovetail one follow-up to the prior question. I have just another one on margins. Just on the prior one, is the expectation for a second half improvement in a 1- to 2-quarter digestion, does that vary at all across the 3 different customer sets you outlined?

也許只是為了與前一個問題相吻合。我還有另一個關於邊緣的內容。就前一個問題而言，預計下半年的消化情況會在 1 到 2 個季度內有所改善，這在您概述的 3 個不同客戶群中是否存在差異？

And then just on the margins, so 36.6% on op income margins this quarter. I think the guide implies a 400 to 500 basis point dip. Is that due to just the sheer revenue decline sequentially? Or are there other cost items we should consider on either the gross margin or OI margin line?

然後僅就利潤率而言，本季營業收入利潤率為 36.6%。我認為該指南暗示將下降 400 至 500 個基點。這是由於收入連續下降造成的嗎？或者我們是否應該在毛利率或 OI 利潤率上考慮其他成本項目？

Yes. To your second question, it is just based on the -- how the revenues are flowing through the second half of the year. I think gross margins, we've said, will settle in somewhere in this 65% to 66% range. I think at this point, it looks like it will be closer to the higher end of that range for the second part of the year. So that's the way I see the year flowing out. Remind me, Matt, what was the first part of your question?

是的。對於您的第二個問題，這只是基於下半年的收入流動情況。我認為毛利率將穩定在 65% 至 66% 的範圍內。我認為，就目前情況來看，今年下半年的水平似乎將更接近該範圍的高端。這就是我對這一年的看法。提醒我一下，馬特，你的問題的第一部分是什麼？

Just around the expectations for second half improvement in orders, 1 to 2 quarters' worth of installation. Is that broad across the 3 customer sets? Or does it vary across service provider, enterprise and federal?

訂單量預計下半年會有所改善，安裝量預計為1至2季。這涵蓋了 3 個客戶群嗎？或者它是否因服務提供者、企業和聯邦政府的不同而有所差異？

Yes, right. I think we expect -- I certainly would expect service provider to continue to be difficult through the second half of the year. Within service provider, we've got both telco and cable, which has one set of market dynamics going on. I think that will continue to be a difficult space.

是的，對。我認為我們預計——我當然預計服務提供者在今年下半年將繼續面臨困難。在服務供應商中，我們同時擁有電信公司和有線電視公司，它們擁有一套市場動態。我認為這將繼續是一個困難的領域。

On the other side, we have web scale. And we do see the web scale orders. While they've got also inventory to work their way through, we do see line of sight to them beginning to increase their orders again in the second half of the year. So SP is a bit of a mixed bag, but I think it will continue to have probably the greater impact.

另一方面，我們有網路規模。我們確實看到了網路規模訂單。雖然他們還需要處理庫存，但我們確實看到他們在今年下半年開始再次增加訂單。因此 SP 有點混亂，但我認為它可能會繼續產生更大的影響。

Thank you, Matt.

謝謝你，馬特。

George Notter with Jefferies.

傑富瑞 (Jefferies) 的喬治諾特 (George Notter)。

Just continuing on that last question. If I look around the space, companies have been dealing with excess inventories for really 3 quarters now. And I guess, I'm just curious, why is this now becoming more evident at Cisco versus a few quarters ago?

繼續最後一個問題。如果我環顧四周，就會發現公司實際上已經處理過剩庫存三個季度了。我想，我只是好奇，為什麼與幾個季度前相比，這種情況在思科現在變得更加明顯了？

And then also, you mentioned that the issue is spreading more to enterprises. We don't typically think about enterprises as inventorying infrastructure. And so I guess the question for you is, has something changed there? Or is this more distribution channel inventory? Any insight would be great.

而您也提到，這個問題正在蔓延到企業。我們通常不會將企業視為庫存基礎設施。所以我想你的問題是，那裡有什麼改變嗎？或者這是更多的分銷通路庫存？任何見解都很好。

Yes. Thanks, George. I think that the reason it's become relevant now is because -- I mean, we really unloaded our backlog in the last 6 months. I mean -- and it was billions of dollars more than what we would normally ship to customers during that time period. So they -- I think it's just -- and we know that the cloud providers, as an example, had been buying ahead, and they had been doing it for sure, to your point. And all along, we have very sequenced purchasing cycles with those players. So we kind of know when they're going to start placing their next orders.

是的。謝謝，喬治。我認為它現在變得重要的原因是——我的意思是，我們在過去 6 個月確實清理了積壓的工作。我的意思是——這比我們在那段時間內通常運送給客戶的金額多出了數十億美元。所以他們 — — 我認為只是 — — 我們知道，以雲端提供者為例，他們一直在提前購買，而且他們肯定會這樣做，正如你所說。一直以來，我們都與這些玩家保持著非常有序的購買週期。所以我們知道他們什麼時候會開始下一個訂單。

I think on the enterprise, we're talking about the top 200 customers, right? These are the big customers who actually -- if they're doing a refresh of their infrastructure, they might order 400, 500 switches as an example, or they may be doing a branch rollout. And in some cases, to your point, it could be sitting with them, or they could have a partner who's doing the staging, and the partner may be backed up with resources to try to get the staging done. So it varies, but it could be a -- either one of those or a combination of both.

我認為就企業而言，我們談論的是前 200 名客戶，對嗎？這些都是大客戶，如果他們正在更新他們的基礎設施，他們可能會訂購 400、500 台交換機，或者他們可能正在進行分支機構的推廣。在某些情況下，正如您所說，他們可能會坐在一起，或者他們可能有一個合作夥伴在進行準備，而合作夥伴可能會得到資源支持，以嘗試完成準備工作。所以它是多種多樣的，但它可能是其中之一，或者兩者的結合。

And George, just to put some data to that. And you have this data, but I'll repeat it. Our revenue growth, obviously, the quarter we're announcing now, product revenue growth was 9%. But if you go back to Q4, product revenue growth was 20%. And in Q3, it was 17%. So obviously, we get revenue when we can complete a shipment and get it out the door. It gives you a sense of just how much has been pushed out, and as Chuck said, in the last 2 or 3 quarters.

喬治，我只是想提供一些數據。你有這些數據，但我會重複一遍。我們的營收成長顯然是我們現在宣布的季度產品營收成長率為 9%。但如果回顧第四季度，產品收入成長率為 20%。第三季這一比例為 17%。顯然，當我們完成一批貨物並將其運出門時，我們就會產生收入。它讓你了解在過去的 2 或 3 個季度中，有多少事情被推遲了，正如查克所說。

Thank you, George. And then, Michelle, we have time for one last question.

謝謝你，喬治。然後，米歇爾，我們還有時間回答最後一個問題。

Michael Ng with Goldman Sachs.

高盛 (Goldman Sachs) 的麥可吳 (Michael Ng)。

I just have 2. First, on the AI orders, $1 billion. What's the feedback from the hyperscalers on your improving position with these customers relative to a few years ago? Is it selling in a more disaggregated fashion with Silicon One? Is it a desire for silicon diversification?

我只有 2 個。首先，關於人工智慧訂單，10 億美元。與幾年前相比，超大規模企業對於您在這些客戶中的地位有所提升有何回饋？ Silicon One 是否以更細分的方式進行銷售？這是對矽多樣化的渴望嗎？

And then the second question, just as a follow-up on the order slowdown. Was that more concentrated in the campus with wireless LAN and wired or data center or both, just within enterprise, specifically?

然後是第二個問題，只是對訂單放緩的後續關注。具體來說，這是否更集中在具有無線區域網路和有線或資料中心或兩者的校園中，僅在企業內部？

Thanks, Michael. On the AI question relative to the cloud players, I think that -- look, I think early on, we regained our footing there because we listened and we showed flexibility with our willingness to disaggregate if they wanted to do so. And we're in -- I can't even remember, but numerous use cases across the large web scale players. And I think we added over 10 new use cases last quarter alone, where we had been designed in.

謝謝，麥可。關於與雲端運算參與者相關的人工智慧問題，我認為——看，我認為很早就我們重新站穩了腳跟，因為我們傾聽了他們的意見，如果他們願意的話，我們表現出了靈活性和分解意願。我們處於——我什至不記得了，但大型網路規模參與者中有許多用例。我認為光是上個季度我們就增加了 10 多個新的用例，這些用例都是我們設計時考慮到的。

And I think it's -- so I think that the disaggregation and the flexibility and us listening to them and understanding what they wanted was the reason that we got back in. And now the feedback is as long as we're performing, I think they like our products, they like the power savings of Silicon One. It's a massive power -- lower -- massively lower power consumption. I think they do like silicon diversity for sure.

我認為——所以我認為分解和靈活性以及我們傾聽他們的意見並了解他們的需求是我們重新加入的原因。現在的回饋是，只要我們表現出色，我認為他們就會喜歡我們的產品，他們喜歡 Silicon One 的節能效果。這是一種巨大的功率——更低——大幅降低的功耗。我認為他們確實喜歡矽片的多樣性。

And then as you look at the AI infrastructure that's currently primarily being supported via InfiniBand, they just want to move to more of a standard broad-based technology like Ethernet that they can actually have multiple sources. And so we think that's what's driving that now. And now it's just about performing and executing and delivering on what we tell them we're going to do.

然後，當您查看目前主要透過 InfiniBand 支援的 AI 基礎設施時，他們只是希望轉向更標準的廣泛技術，例如以太網，以便他們實際上可以擁有多個來源。所以我們認為這就是現在的推動因素。現在我們只需要履行、執行並兌現我們告訴他們要做的事情。

Scott, do you want to take the second?

史考特，你想擔任第二任職務嗎？

Yes. Michael, I think I touched on this earlier in the -- as the question came up. I think the way to think about it is, first of all, if you're trying to generalize the trend more broadly across the industry, it may be a little difficult because we've cleared our backlog, I think, significantly faster than others have.

是的。邁克爾，我想我之前在問題出現時就談到過這個問題。我認為思考這個問題的方式是，首先，如果你試圖將這一趨勢更廣泛地推廣到整個行業，這可能會有點困難，因為我認為我們清理積壓訂單的速度比其他人快得多。

But where we saw a differentiation was less between big data center infrastructure and campus networking and more between networking and wireless. We did see -- because we've shipped an enormous amount of wireless access points out, we did see that take a little bit more of an impact just because it's -- our customers are sitting on more inventory on hand of that, that they're looking to get installed.

但我們發現，大數據中心基礎設施和校園網路之間的差異較小，而網路和無線之間的差異較大。我們確實看到——因為我們已經運送了大量的無線接入點，我們確實看到這受到了更大的影響，因為——我們的客戶手頭上有更多的庫存，他們希望安裝。

All right. Thank you, Michael, and all right. So we'll go ahead and turn it over to you, Chuck, for some closing remarks.

好的。謝謝你，邁克爾，一切都好。因此，我們將繼續把時間交給你，查克，請你發表一些結束語。

Yes. Thank you, Sami, and welcome again. Listen, we're proud of the team for the performance in Q1. Obviously, a very solid quarter, with the exception of this demand issue that we talked about. We'll always try to be transparent with you and share with you exactly what we're seeing. We know what's going on. We're on top of it, and we do feel that it's temporary.

是的。謝謝你，薩米，再次歡迎你。聽著，我們為團隊在第一季的表現感到自豪。顯然，除了我們談到的需求問題之外，這是一個非常穩健的季度。我們將始終盡力對您保持透明，並與您分享我們所看到的一切。我們知道發生了什麼事。我們已經控制住了局面，而且我們確實覺得這只是暫時的。

At the same time, we're very confident in our opportunities long term. We're confident in the AI opportunity. We're very encouraged by our improving position in security, observability. And we're also very encouraged by the opportunities that will come with the Splunk acquisition. I think many of you know that on Monday night, the waiting period for review under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act in the U.S. expired, meaning that we've effectively pass the antitrust review period in the United States. We're excited about that.

同時，我們對我們的長期機會非常有信心。我們對人工智慧機會充滿信心。我們在安全性和可觀察性方面的地位不斷提高，這讓我們感到非常鼓舞。我們也對 Splunk 收購所帶來的機會感到非常鼓舞。我想很多人都知道，週一晚上，美國《哈特-斯科特-羅迪諾法案》的審查等待期已經到期，這意味著我們實際上已經通過了美國的反壟斷審查期。我們對此感到很興奮。

At our Partner Summit last night -- or last week, the feedback on our portfolio right now was probably as good as it's been in a long time. And I also just want to reiterate our commitment to delivering value to you and our shareholders with the operating leverage, capital allocation and obviously managing our expenses in times when we see challenges like we have right now.

在昨晚或上週的合作夥伴高峰會上，我們目前的產品組合回饋可能是長期以來最好的。我還想重申，我們致力於透過經營槓桿、資本配置以及在面臨當前挑戰時管理我們的費用，為您和我們的股東創造價值。

So thank you for joining us today, and I'll turn it back over to Sami.

感謝您今天加入我們，我將把時間交還給薩米。

Cisco's next quarterly call, which will reflect our fiscal year 2024 second quarter results, will be on Wednesday, February 14, 2024, at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time, 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time.

思科的下一次季度電話會議將於 2024 年 2 月 14 日星期三下午 1:30 舉行，該會議將反映我們 2024 財年第二季的業績。太平洋時間下午 4:30東部時間。

This concludes today's call. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact the Cisco Investor Relations department, and we thank you very much for joining the call today.

今天的電話會議到此結束。如果您有任何其他問題，請隨時聯繫思科投資者關係部，非常感謝您今天參加電話會議。

And thank you for participating on today's conference call. If you would like to listen to the call in its entirety, you may call 1 (800) 834-5839. For participants dialing from outside the U.S., please dial (203) 369-3351. This concludes today's call. You may disconnect at this time.

感謝您參加今天的電話會議。如果您想完整收聽電話會議，請撥打1 (800) 834-5839。對於從美國境外撥打電話的參與者，請撥打 (203) 369-3351。今天的電話會議到此結束。您現在可以斷開連線。