思科 (CSCO) 2024 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Welcome to Cisco's Third 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 財年第三季財務業績電話會議。應思科的要求，今天的會議正在錄製。如果您有任何異議，您可以斷開連接。

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

現在我想介紹一下投資人關係主管薩米‧巴德里(Sami Badri)。先生，您可以開始了。

Welcome, everyone, to Cisco's Third Quarter Fiscal Year '24 Conference Call. This is Sami Badri, Cisco's Head of Investor Relations, and I'm joined by Chuck Robbins, our Chair and CEO; and Scott Herren, our CFO; and given our recently closed acquisition of Splunk, we are also joined by Gary Steele, the former CEO of Splunk, which is now a Cisco company.

歡迎大家參加思科 '24 財年第三季電話會議。我是思科投資者關係主管薩米‧巴德里 (Sami Badri)，我們的主席兼執行長 Chuck Robbins 也加入了我的行列。和我們的財務長 Scott Herren；鑑於我們最近完成了對 Splunk 的收購，Splunk（現為思科旗下公司）前執行長 Gary Steele 也加入了我們的行列。

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.

到目前為止，您應該已經看到了我們的收益新聞稿。電話會議後，我們網站上的投資者關係部分將提供相應的帶有幻燈片的網路廣播，包括補充資訊。

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.

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.

在整個電話會議中，除非另有說明，我們將參考 GAAP 和非 GAAP 財務業績，並且我們將討論收入和地理方面的產品結果以及產品訂單方面的客戶結果。本次電話會議中進行的所有比較都將逐年進行。

The matters we will be discussing today include forward-looking statements, including the guidance we will be providing for the fourth 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 Forms 10-K and 10-Q, which identify important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements.

我們今天將討論的事項包括前瞻性陳述，包括我們將為2024 財年第四季度和全年提供的指導。 。

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，請另參閱本次電話會議隨附的幻燈片和新聞稿，以了解更多詳細資訊。除非透過明確的公開揭露，否則思科不會對其本季的財務指引發表評論。

I will now turn it over to Chuck.

我現在把它交給查克。

Thanks, Sami, and thank you all for joining us today.

謝謝薩米，也謝謝大家今天加入我們。

We delivered a solid performance in Q3, with organic revenue coming in at the high end of our guidance range. Strong operating leverage across our business drove gross margins to exceed the high end of our expectations, resulting in better-than-anticipated earnings per share performance.

我們在第三季取得了穩健的業績，有機收入達到了我們指導範圍的高端。我們整個業務強勁的營運槓桿推動毛利率超出我們預期的上限，從而帶來好於預期的每股盈餘表現。

We once again delivered good growth in annualized recurring revenue, remaining performance obligations and subscription revenue. We have transformed our business model with revenue from subscriptions now accounting for more than half of our total revenue even before the addition of Splunk.

我們再次在年化經常性收入、剩餘履約義務和訂閱收入方面實現了良好成長。我們已經改變了我們的業務模式，即使在 Splunk 加入之前，訂閱收入現在也佔我們總收入的一半以上。

With the success of our transformation, we are well positioned to drive long-term growth, powered by innovation across the organization.

隨著轉型的成功，我們已做好充分準備，在整個組織的創新的推動下推動長期成長。

I want to thank the entire Cisco team as it is through their dedicated efforts that our research and development engine has never been stronger across networking and silicon, observability, security, collaboration and AI.

我要感謝整個思科團隊，透過他們的不懈努力，我們的研發引擎在網路和晶片、可觀察性、安全性、協作和人工智慧方面變得前所未有的強大。

The strength of our core business continues to produce strong cash flows, reinforcing our ongoing commitment to delivering consistent capital returns. In Q3, we returned $2.9 billion in value to our shareholders through share repurchases and cash dividends in the quarter with a total of $8.5 billion in value returned year-to-date.

我們核心業務的實力持續產生強勁的現金流，強化了我們對提供持續資本回報的持續承諾。第三季度，我們透過股票回購和現金股利向股東返還了 29 億美元的價值，年初至今總共返還了 85 億美元的價值。

Q3 was significant for us in two important ways.

第三季對我們來說有兩個重要面向的意義。

First, I couldn't be more excited about the successful close of our Splunk acquisition, Cisco's largest ever. Our acquisition of Splunk was completed midway through our Q3 on March 18, earlier than initially anticipated. Splunk significantly expands our portfolio of software-based solutions, contributing over $4 billion in annualized recurring revenue, and adds to our position as 1 of the largest software companies in the world. We are thrilled to welcome the Splunk team to Cisco and are very excited about what we can deliver for our customers as we integrate our complementary security and observability capabilities. Our unified platform will revolutionize how customers connect and protect their organizations, using data in new ways to enhance their entire digital footprint.

首先，我對 Splunk 收購的成功完成感到無比興奮，這是思科有史以來最大的一筆收購。我們對 Splunk 的收購於 3 月 18 日在第三季中期完成，比最初預期的要早。 Splunk 顯著擴展了我們基於軟體的解決方案組合，貢獻了超過 40 億美元的年經常性收入，並鞏固了我們作為全球最大軟體公司之一的地位。我們很高興歡迎 Splunk 團隊加入思科，並且對我們在整合互補的安全性和可觀察性功能時能為客戶提供的服務感到非常興奮。我們的統一平台將徹底改變客戶連接和保護其組織的方式，以新​​的方式使用資料來增強其整個數位足跡。

Second, we introduced Cisco Hypershield, our most significant new security innovation with a groundbreaking AI-powered approach to highly distributed security, a first of its kind. Combining security and networking in a way only Cisco can, Hypershield is built in the very fabric of the network, bringing the power of hyperscaler security and connectivity to the enterprise.

其次，我們推出了思科 Hypershield，這是我們最重要的新安全創新，採用突破性的人工智慧驅動方法實現高度分散式安全，這在同類產品中尚屬首次。 Hypershield 以思科獨有的方式將安全性和網路結合在一起，建構在網路結構中，為企業帶來超大規模安全性和連接的強大功能。

I will talk more about these developments and our innovation momentum in a few moments, but now I'd like to turn to our performance in Q3 and what we're seeing in terms of customer demand.

稍後我將詳細討論這些發展和我們的創新動力，但現在我想談談我們在第三季的表現以及我們在客戶需求方面看到的情況。

The breadth of our portfolio, together with our many touch points with partners and customers around the world, provides us with differentiated insight into what's happening in our customer base. Based on activations to the cloud, which we track, as well as conversations with our customers and partners, we believe that the products customers have on hand are being steadily deployed in line with the expectations we laid out last quarter, meaning, we currently expect customers to complete the installation of the majority of their inventory by the end of our fiscal year in July.

我們產品組合的廣度，加上我們與世界各地的合作夥伴和客戶的眾多接觸點，為我們提供了對客戶群中發生的事情的差異化洞察。根據我們追蹤的雲端激活情況以及與客戶和合作夥伴的對話，我們相信客戶手頭上的產品正在按照我們上季度提出的預期穩步部署，這意味著我們目前預計客戶將在7 月份財政年度結束前完成大部分庫存的安裝。

At a time where customers are ruthlessly prioritizing their IT investments, we saw product order growth in two of our largest product portfolios, data center switching and campus switching, as well as product order growth in our security and collaboration product categories. Overall, product orders were up 4% and, excluding Splunk, product orders were flat year-on-year.

在客戶無情地優先考慮其 IT 投資的時候，我們看到了我們最大的兩個產品組合（資料中心交換和園區交換）的產品訂單成長，以及我們的安全和協作產品類別的產品訂單成長。總體而言，產品訂單成長了 4%，並且（不包括 Splunk）產品訂單比去年同期持平。

In our customer markets, public sector was strong in EMEA and APJC, but continuing resolution discussions in the U.S. temporarily impacted public sector performance in the Americas. We believe this has since cleared with the subsequent signing of the most recent U.S. federal government funding legislation.

在我們的客戶市場中，公共部門在 EMEA 和 APJC 表現強勁，但美國持續的決議討論暫時影響了美洲公共部門的表現。我們相信，隨著美國聯邦政府最新資助立法的簽署，這一問題已經得到澄清。

While our telco and cable customer demand remained muted worldwide, we are encouraged to see early signs of stabilization and improved performance in web scale in terms of pipeline and orders.

儘管我們的電信和有線電視客戶需求在全球範圍內仍然低迷，但我們很高興看到管道和訂單方面網路規模穩定和性能改善的早期跡象。

Overall, our win rates are stable, and we saw increased strength as we moved through the quarter. This reflects our competitive strength and successful execution and gives us confidence in the long term. We also know that the value of our portfolio is greater than ever as evidenced by recent sell-side research IT spending surveys, which show that Cisco is expected to be the only net share gainer within large network budgets over the next 12 months.

整體而言，我們的勝率穩定，隨著本季的發展，我們的實力有所增強。這反映了我們的競爭實力和成功的執行力，並給了我們長期的信心。我們也知道，我們的投資組合的價值比以往任何時候都更大，最近的賣方研究 IT 支出調查表明，思科預計將成為未來 12 個月內大型網路預算中唯一的淨份額獲得者。

Now let's look at our performance in Q3 in more detail.

現在讓我們更詳細地看看第三季的表現。

We saw revenue growth in security and double-digit growth in observability year-over-year, excluding Splunk, as customers look to enhance their digital resilience with Cisco's technologies. In the past year, we've accelerated our pace of innovation and security, and I'm proud of what our teams have achieved.

隨著客戶希望透過思科的技術增強其數位彈性，我們看到安全性方面的營收年增，可觀察性方面的營收年增兩位數（不包括 Splunk）。在過去的一年裡，我們加快了創新和安全的步伐，我為我們的團隊所取得的成就感到自豪。

As I mentioned earlier, last month, we introduced Cisco Hypershield, the first truly distributed AI-native cybersecurity solution, which will be built into our networking fabric. This new innovation leverages the recently closed Isovalent acquisition to facilitate deployment and software, and the first shipment is scheduled for August this year. This launch furthers our vision for the Cisco Security Cloud, which is expected to deliver the industry's most comprehensive, unified platform with end-to-end solutions, making it easier for our customers to protect against the threats of today and tomorrow.

正如我之前提到的，上個月，我們推出了思科 Hypershield，這是第一個真正的分散式人工智慧原生網路安全解決方案，它將內建在我們的網路結構中。這項新的創新利用最近完成的 Isovalent 收購來促進部署和軟體，首批出貨計畫於今年 8 月進行。此次發布進一步實現了我們對思科安全雲端的願景，該雲端預計將提供業界最全面、統一的平台和端到端解決方案，使我們的客戶能夠更輕鬆地抵禦當今和未來的威脅。

Our newest available security solutions, XDR and Secure Access, continue to ramp quickly with strong customer feedback. Just last week at RSA, we also announced the integration of Cisco XDR with Splunk Enterprise Security, which will give our customers even more value and insights.

我們最新的可用安全解決方案 XDR 和 Secure Access 在強烈的客戶回饋下持續快速發展。就在上週的 RSA 大會上，我們也宣布將 Cisco XDR 與 Splunk Enterprise Security 集成，這將為我們的客戶帶來更多價值和見解。

The closing of the Splunk acquisition in Q3 will also enable us to begin driving revenue synergies in our security and observability markets. Upon closing the deal, we identified 5,000 existing Cisco customers who have the potential to become meaningful Splunk customers, and our sales teams are already making those connections. We also see significant opportunities for revenue synergies by leveraging Cisco's robust partner and customer ecosystem in markets where Splunk had limited or no presence.

第三季完成對 Splunk 的收購也將使我們能夠開始推動安全和可觀測市場的收入綜效。交易完成後，我們確定了 5,000 名現有 Cisco 客戶，他們有潛力成為有意義的 Splunk 客戶，而我們的銷售團隊已經在建立這些連結。我們還看到，在 Splunk 業務有限或沒有業務的市場中，透過利用思科強大的合作夥伴和客戶生態系統，可以實現收入協同效應的重大機會。

Earlier this week, Splunk was ranked as the leader in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for security incident and event management, which is a testament to the strength of the offering and the continued business momentum that Splunk has delivered.

本週早些時候，Splunk 在 Gartner 安全事件和事件管理魔力像限中被評為領導者，證明了 Splunk 的產品實力和持續的業務動力。

We are working on a rapid integration, investing in both product integration and go-to-market resources, starting with aligning our Cisco and Splunk sales forces and accelerating channel enablement processes for cross-selling and upselling our combined solutions.

我們正在致力於快速整合，投資於產品整合和上市資源，首先是協調我們的 Cisco 和 Splunk 銷售隊伍，並加速交叉銷售和追加銷售我們的組合解決方案的通路支援流程。

We also continue to capitalize on the multibillion-dollar AI infrastructure opportunity. In web scale, we continue to see momentum with 3 of the top 4 hyperscalers deploying our Ethernet AI fabric, leveraging Cisco-validated designs for AI infrastructure.

我們也持續利用價值數十億美元的人工智慧基礎設施機會。在網路規模方面，我們繼續看到前 4 名超大規模企業中的 3 家部署我們的乙太網路 AI 結構、利用經過思科驗證的 AI 基礎設施設計的勢頭。

In the past two quarters, Cisco has been granted additional design awards based on our 51.2 terabit G200 Silicon One ASIC. We expect these awards to yield orders in fiscal year '25, reinforcing our confidence in our line of sight to $1 billion of AI product orders in fiscal '25.

在過去的兩個季度中，思科憑藉我們的 51.2 太比特 G200 Silicon One ASIC 獲得了額外的設計獎項。我們預計這些合約將在 25 財年產生訂單，增強我們對 25 財年人工智慧產品訂單達到 10 億美元的信心。

Additionally, for those leading-edge enterprise customers who seek to be the early adopters of AI, our partnership with NVIDIA will offer easy-to-deploy cloud-based and on-prem networking solutions for AI inferencing. We believe we are well positioned to be the key beneficiary of AI enterprise application proliferation with the breadth of our portfolio and the vast amounts of data we see.

此外，對於那些尋求成為人工智慧早期採用者的領先企業客戶，我們與 NVIDIA 的合作將為人工智慧推理提供易於部署的基於雲端和本地網路解決方案。我們相信，憑藉我們廣泛的產品組合和我們看到的大量數據，我們有能力成為人工智慧企業應用程式激增的主要受益者。

Before I turn it over to Scott, I'd like to share one more update. Earlier today, we announced that Jeff Sharritts, our Chief Customer and Partner Officer, is departing Cisco, and that Gary Steele, Splunk's former CEO, has been named Cisco's new President of Go-to-Market. Gary is well known for his operational excellence. And in this new role, he will work closely with me to set and execute against our strategic plans and goals for the company. He will continue to lead the Splunk team through the integration process to ensure a seamless integration into Cisco.

在我把它交給斯科特之前，我想再分享一個更新。今天早些時候，我們宣布我們的首席客戶兼合作夥伴官 Jeff Sharritts 將離開思科，Splunk 前執行長 Gary Steele 被任命為思科新的市場推廣總裁。加里以其卓越的營運能力而聞名。在這個新職位上，他將與我密切合作，制定並執行我們公司的策略計劃和目標。他將繼續領導 Splunk 團隊完成整合過程，以確保無縫整合到思科。

Gary's operational mindset, combined with his intense focus on simplicity and proven ability to drive growth, position him well in this role, and I look forward to working closely with him in this new capacity. I'd also like to take a moment to thank Jeff for all that he's helped Cisco achieve, which is quite a long list of accomplishments in his 24 years here.

加里的營運思維，加上他對簡單性的強烈關注以及久經考驗的推動成長的能力，使他能夠很好地勝任這一職位，我期待著在這一新職位上與他密切合作。我還要花一點時間感謝 Jeff 幫助思科所取得的一切成就，這是他 24 年來取得的一系列成就的一個長長的清單。

Moving back to Q3, let me briefly summarize. While our core product portfolio is trending towards normalization as we continue to see customer deployments of shipped equipment progress, we are pleased that our security and observability portfolios have continued to grow and are significantly enhanced by the acquisitions of Splunk and Isovalent. As our customers adopt and deploy AI, they need the infrastructure to power it, the data to develop it and the security to protect it. And we believe only Cisco can deliver and integrate all 3.

回到第三季度，讓我簡單總結一下。雖然隨著我們不斷看到客戶對發貨設備的部署取得進展，我們的核心產品組合正趨於標準化，但我們很高興我們的安全性和可觀測性產品組合持續增長，並透過收購Splunk 和Isovalent得到顯著增強。當我們的客戶採用和部署人工智慧時，他們需要為其提供動力的基礎設施、用於開發人工智慧的數據以及用於保護人工智慧的安全性。我們相信只有思科能夠提供和整合這三者。

With our unified platform approach, vast global partner ecosystem and ability to support hybrid and multi-cloud environments, we will deliver innovation at an unprecedented pace and scale to organizations around the globe.

憑藉我們統一的平台方法、龐大的全球合作夥伴生態系統以及支援混合和多雲環境的能力，我們將以前所未有的速度和規模為全球組織提供創新。

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

現在我將把它交給斯科特，以提供有關本季和我們的前景的更多詳細資訊。

Thanks, Chuck. Our Q3 results reflect solid execution with strong margins and a stabilization of orders. Both including and excluding Splunk, our revenue, gross margin and non-GAAP earnings per share were at or above the high end of our Q3 guidance range.

謝謝，查克。我們第三季的業績反映出穩健的執行力、強勁的利潤率和穩定的訂單。無論包括或不包括 Splunk，我們的營收、毛利率和非 GAAP 每股盈餘均達到或高於我們第三季指引範圍的上限。

Total revenue was $12.7 billion, down 13% year-over-year. Splunk contributed $413 million in revenue in the partial quarter post close.

總收入為 127 億美元，年減 13%。 Splunk 在部分季度結束後貢獻了 4.13 億美元的營收。

Non-GAAP net income was $3.6 billion, down 14%.

非 GAAP 淨利為 36 億美元，下降 14%。

Non-GAAP earnings per share was $0.88, down 12%.

非 GAAP 每股收益為 0.88 美元，下降 12%。

The interest cost of financing the Splunk acquisition slightly more than offset the positive operating impact of Splunk. The net effect was a negative impact of $0.01 on non-GAAP earnings per share.

收購 Splunk 的融資利息成本略高於抵銷 Splunk 的正面營運影響。淨效應是對非 GAAP 每股盈餘產生 0.01 美元的負面影響。

Looking at our Q3 revenue in more detail. Total product revenue was $9 billion, down 19%, and service revenue was $3.7 billion, up 6%.

更詳細地了解我們第三季的收入。產品總收入為 90 億美元，下降 19%，服務收入為 37 億美元，成長 6%。

Networking, our largest product category, was down 27%. We saw declines across all geographic segments due to the continued implementation of inventory by our customers. Bear in mind that our Q3 2023 networking revenues benefited from significant shipments of excess backlog.

我們最大的產品類別網路下降了 27%。由於客戶持續實施庫存，我們發現所有地理區域的銷售額均出現下降。請記住，我們 2023 年第三季的網路收入受惠於大量超額積壓訂單的出貨。

Security was up 36%, including the benefit received from the Splunk acquisition. Excluding Splunk, Security grew 3% driven by growth in SASE and double-digit growth in our Zero Trust offering.

安全性成長了 36%，其中包括從 Splunk 收購中獲得的收益。不包括 Splunk，在 SASE 成長和零信任產品兩位數成長的推動下，安全性成長了 3%。

Collaboration was flat driven by growth in our cloud calling and contact center offerings, offset by declines in meetings and devices.

我們的雲端呼叫和聯絡中心產品的成長推動了協作持平，但被會議和設備的下降所抵消。

Observability was up 27% driven by growth in ThousandEyes network services and the benefit from the Splunk acquisition. Excluding Splunk, observability grew 14% for the quarter.

由於ThousandEyes 網路服務的成長以及收購Splunk 帶來的收益，Observability 成長了27%。不包括 Splunk，該季度的可觀察性增加了 14%。

As Chuck said, we have successfully transformed our business model. ARR ended the quarter at $29.2 billion, which increased 22% due to continued strong performance and contribution from Splunk. These factors also drove our product ARR growth of 44%. Without Splunk, ARR was $25 billion, up 5%, and product ARR was up 9%.

正如查克所說，我們已經成功地轉變了我們的商業模式。本季末 ARR 達到 292 億美元，由於持續強勁的業績和 Splunk 的貢獻，成長了 22%。這些因素也推動我們的產品 ARR 成長 44%。如果沒有 Splunk，ARR 為 250 億美元，成長 5%，產品 ARR 成長 9%。

Total subscription revenue increased 12% to $6.9 billion which now represents 54% of Cisco's total revenue. Without Splunk, total subscription revenue was up 5%, representing 53% of Cisco's total revenue.

訂閱總收入成長了 12%，達到 69 億美元，目前佔思科總營收的 54%。如果沒有 Splunk，總訂閱營收成長了 5%，佔思科總營收的 53%。

Total software revenue was up 5% at $4.5 billion with software subscription revenue up 17%. Without Splunk, total software revenue was down 4% and software subscription revenue was up 6%. 91% of our total software revenue was subscription-based.

軟體總收入成長 5%，達到 45 億美元，其中軟體訂閱收入成長 17%。沒有 Splunk，軟體總收入下降了 4%，軟體訂閱收入增加了 6%。我們軟體總收入的 91% 來自訂閱。

Total RPO was $38.8 billion, up 21%, due to both strong performance and the Splunk acquisition. Product RPO grew 29%. Total short-term RPO was $20.1 billion, up 19%. Without Splunk, RPO was $35.3 billion, up 10%, with product RPO also growing at 10%.

由於強勁的業績和對 Splunk 的收購，RPO 總額達到 388 億美元，成長 21%。產品 RPO 成長 29%。短期 RPO 總額為 201 億美元，成長 19%。如果沒有 Splunk，RPO 為 353 億美元，成長了 10%，產品 RPO 也成長了 10%。

Q3 product orders were up 4%. Excluding Splunk, product orders were flat year-over-year. We see customer product implementations progressing in line with our expectations and we expect these deployments to be largely complete by the end of our current fiscal year.

第三季產品訂單成長 4%。不包括 Splunk，產品訂單較去年同期持平。我們看到客戶產品的實施進度符合我們的預期，我們預計這些部署將在本財政年度結束時基本完成。

Looking at our geographic segments year-over-year. The Americas was up 6%, EMEA was up 4%, and APJC was down 1%.

逐年檢視我們的地理區域。美洲成長 6%，EMEA 成長 4%，APJC 下降 1%。

In our customer markets, service provider and cloud was up 10%, public sector was up 6%, and enterprise was up 2%.

在我們的客戶市場中，服務供應商和雲端成長了 10%，公共部門成長了 6%，企業成長了 2%。

Total non-GAAP gross margin came in at 68.3%, up 310 basis points year-over-year, and above the high end of our guidance range. Product gross margin was 66.9%, up 240 basis points, of which Splunk contributed 70 basis points. The remaining improvement was driven primarily by favorable product mix and lower freight and other costs.

非 GAAP 總毛利率為 68.3%，較去年同期成長 310 個基點，高於我們指導範圍的上限。產品毛利率為66.9%，成長240個基點，其中Splunk貢獻了70個基點。其餘的改善主要是由有利的產品組合以及較低的運費和其他成本所推動的。

Service gross margin was 71.6%, up 430 basis points.

服務毛利率為71.6%，上升430個基點。

Non-GAAP operating margin came in at 34.2%, up 30 basis points, driven by our continued commitment to disciplined spend management.

在我們持續致力於嚴格支出管理的推動下，非 GAAP 營業利潤率為 34.2%，成長了 30 個基點。

Operating cash flow was $4 billion, down 24%.

營運現金流為 40 億美元，下降 24%。

Shifting to the balance sheet. We ended Q3 with total cash, cash equivalents and investments of $18.8 billion. Uses of cash during the quarter included a net outflow of $27.4 billion related to our acquisition of Splunk.

轉向資產負債表。截至第三季末，我們的現金、現金等價物及投資總額為 188 億美元。本季的現金使用包括與收購 Splunk 相關的 274 億美元淨流出。

In line with our capital allocation strategy, we returned $2.9 billion in value to our shareholders, including $1.6 billion for our quarterly cash dividend and $1.3 billion of share repurchases. Year-to-date, we've returned $8.5 billion in capital to our shareholders.

根據我們的資本配置策略，我們向股東返還了 29 億美元的價值，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。今年迄今為止，我們已向股東返還 85 億美元資本。

To summarize, we successfully completed the acquisition of Splunk, drove strong non-GAAP margins, and increased our operating leverage in the quarter.

總而言之，我們成功完成了對 Splunk 的收購，推動了強勁的非 GAAP 利潤率，並提高了本季的營運槓桿。

Turning to our financial guidance that includes our integration of Splunk. For Q4, our guidance is as follows.

轉向我們的財務指導，包括我們對 Splunk 的整合。對於第四季度，我們的指導如下。

We expect revenue to be in the range of $13.4 billion to $13.6 billion.

我們預計營收將在 134 億美元至 136 億美元之間。

We anticipate the non-GAAP gross margin to be in the range of 66.5% to 67.5%.

我們預計非 GAAP 毛利率將在 66.5% 至 67.5% 之間。

Non-GAAP operating margin is expected to range from 31.5% to 32.5%.

非 GAAP 營業利潤率預計為 31.5% 至 32.5%。

Non-GAAP earnings per share is expected to range from $0.84 to $0.86.

非 GAAP 每股盈餘預計為 0.84 美元至 0.86 美元。

Our Q4 guidance includes $950 million to $1 billion in revenue from Splunk and non-GAAP EPS of negative $0.03 as the interest impact more than offsets the operating benefit.

我們的第四季指引包括來自 Splunk 的 9.5 億至 10 億美元收入，以及非 GAAP 每股收益為負 0.03 美元，因為利息影響超過了營運效益。

In Q4, we're assuming a non-GAAP effective tax rate of approximately 18%.

在第四季度，我們假設非 GAAP 有效稅率約為 18%。

For fiscal year '24, our guidance is as follows.

對於 24 財年，我們的指導如下。

We expect revenue to be in the range of $53.6 million to $53.8 billion.

我們預計收入將在 5,360 萬美元至 538 億美元之間。

Non-GAAP earnings per share guidance is expected to range from $3.69 to $3.71.

非 GAAP 每股盈餘指引預計為 3.69 美元至 3.71 美元。

We're assuming a non-GAAP effective tax rate of approximately 19%.

我們假設非 GAAP 有效稅率約為 19%。

Looking beyond Q4 and into our fiscal 2025, in addition to the top line benefits from the Splunk acquisition, there are a few points to bear in mind as you build your models.

展望第四季和 2025 財年，除了收購 Splunk 帶來的營收收益之外，在建立模型時還需要牢記以下幾點。

First, we expect revenue growth to be in the low to mid-single-digit range next year.

首先，我們預計明年的營收成長將在中低個位數範圍內。

Second is the interest impact from the acquisition, which we expect to be a headwind of approximately $350 million per quarter, including both the foregone interest from cash off the balance sheet and the additional interest payments on debt.

其次是收購帶來的利息影響，我們預計每季將產生約 3.5 億美元的不利影響，包括表外現金所放棄的利息和額外的債務利息支付。

Third, we're working to quickly integrate Splunk into our product offerings, go-to-market engine, and expect to invest in OpEx in fiscal '25 to drive those revenue synergies.

第三，我們正在努力將 Splunk 快速整合到我們的產品、上市引擎中，並預計在 25 財年投資營運支出，以推動收入綜效。

Given these points, we expect fiscal '25 operating margins to be in line with our Q4 guidance.

鑑於這些要點，我們預計 25 財年的營業利潤率將與我們第四季的指引一致。

We'll give more formal guidance as we get to the next earnings call, but I want to make sure you have those three thoughts in mind. And as we've stated, we expect the deal to be non-GAAP earnings per share accretive in fiscal 2016 and beyond.

當我們進行下一次財報電話會議時，我們將提供更正式的指導，但我想確保您牢記這三個想法。正如我們所說，我們預計該交易將在 2016 財年及以後增加非公認會計準則每股收益。

Sami, let's now move into the Q&A.

薩米，我們現在進入問答環節。

Thank you, Scott. (Operator Instructions) Operator, can we move to the first analyst in the queue.

謝謝你，斯科特。 （操作員指示）操作員，我們可以移至佇列中的第一位分析師嗎？

Amit Daryanani with Evercore.

阿米特·達裡亞納尼 (Amit Daryanani) 與 Evercore。

I have two. I'll ask them both at the same time. Chuck, it's really nice to hear about inventory digestion that are being done in order growth, getting back to flat, growing in some of the verticals. Some of the tech companies, I guess, have talked about a softer macro environment that's resulting in some positive spend. I'd love to understand kind of away from the inventory digestion that seems like it's happening, what are you seeing from a macro environment and if that's actually starting to improve as well for you folks?

我有兩個。我會同時問他們兩個。查克，很高興聽到為了訂單增長而進行的庫存消化，恢復持平，以及在某些垂直領域的增長。我想，一些科技公司已經談到了宏觀環境的疲軟導致了一些積極的支出。我很想了解一下，除了似乎正在發生的庫存消化之外，您從宏觀環境中看到了什麼？

And then if I could just follow up on a different side, the $1 billion of AI orders that you believe you can get in fiscal '25, can you just talk about is these other wins more coming from the Silicon One side or Optical or on the switching solution? Just anything on kind of where do you expect to get these wins would be helpful.

然後，如果我可以從另一側跟進，您認為您可以在 25 財年獲得 10 億美元的人工智能訂單，您能談談這些其他勝利更多來自 Silicon One 方面或 Optical 方面還是其他方面嗎？切換解決方案？只要是關於你希望在哪裡獲得這些勝利的任何事情都會有幫助。

Thank you, Amit. I appreciate the questions. So from a macro perspective, what I would say is that ironically, we saw the quarter actually show slight improvement as we move through the quarter. So the end of the quarter was actually a little stronger than the beginning. And look, we obviously believe that our customers now are on track with the inventory digestion that we talked about last quarter. So that's positive. But we saw the Americas, excluding Splunk, was up 2%. So that was a positive sign. And Europe was flat, so that was good. And when you see campus switching and data center switching both positive -- and by the way, data center switching was in the mid-teens growth, so customers are investing in these private data centers, and collaboration being positive, security being high single digits on the order side.

謝謝你，阿米特。我很欣賞這些問題。因此，從宏觀角度來看，我想說的是，諷刺的是，我們看到該季度實際上在整個季度中出現了輕微的改善。所以季度末其實比年初強一些。看，我們顯然相信我們的客戶現在正步入我們上季度談到的庫存消化的軌道。所以這是積極的。但我們看到美洲地區（不包括 Splunk）增加了 2%。所以這是一個正面的訊號。歐洲表現平平，所以這很好。當你看到園區交換和資料中心交換都是積極的時——順便說一句，資料中心交換正處於十幾歲左右的增長，因此客戶正在投資這些私有資料中心，協作是積極的，安全性是高個位數在訂單方面。

But we didn't see any different behavior from our customers during this quarter than we've seen. They still are ruthlessly prioritizing what projects they spend money on, where they spend their IT dollars, but we didn't see any fundamental shift in the macro.

但本季我們的客戶沒有看到任何與我們所看到的不同的行為。他們仍然無情地優先考慮他們花錢的專案、他們把 IT 資金花在哪裡，但我們沒有看到宏觀方面有任何根本性的轉變。

On the second question, on the $1 billion of AI, it is largely driven by the web scale infrastructure. As I said, we've got 3 out of 4 that are running our AI Ethernet fabric, and we also had 2 or 3 more design wins during the quarter, I believe, in the back-end networks inside these web scale players. So it's predominantly that. However, we are beginning to see enterprise pipeline materialize, as I said last quarter. So that's really what it's made up of. And it is both systems as well as optics across those customers.

關於第二個問題，就 10 億美元的人工智慧而言，它主要是由網路規模的基礎設施所驅動的。正如我所說，我們有四分之三正在運行我們的人工智慧乙太網路結構，我相信，在本季度，我們在這些網路規模播放器內部的後端網路中還獲得了2 到3 個設計勝利。所以主要是這樣的。然而，正如我上個季度所說，我們開始看到企業通路的實現。這就是它的組成部分。這些客戶的系統和光學器件都是如此。

Our next caller is Simon Leopold with Raymond James.

我們的下一個來電者是西蒙·利奧波德和雷蒙德·詹姆斯。

Great. I wanted to see if you can give us some metrics or some help trying to extrapolate the 5,000 customer opportunity for Splunk. Just give us a better idea of what that could mean from a dollars perspective if you're able to penetrate it.

偉大的。我想看看您是否可以為我們提供一些指標或幫助來推斷 Splunk 的 5,000 個客戶機會。如果您能夠滲透它，請讓我們更好地了解從美元角度來看這意味著什麼。

And my follow-up is really, I'm trying to seek a little bit more clarification on this $1 billion AI pipeline because there's been a lot of debate in the investment community regarding it. So I want to see if we can get some clarification that when we talk about the context of what's in there, it's explicitly in the back end that there's not some extrapolation to front-end data center applications. So explicitly back end, and I think, Chuck, you were saying that it is mostly switching in the back end with some optics and some Silicon One. I really would like to clarify this because we're getting a lot of questions.

我的後續行動是，我試圖對這條價值 10 億美元的人工智慧管道尋求更多澄清，因為投資界對此存在著許多爭論。因此，我想看看我們是否可以得到一些澄清，即當我們談論其中內容的上下文時，後端明確表示沒有對前端資料中心應用程式的任何推斷。所以明確的後端，我想，查克，你說它主要是在後端用一些光學器件和一些矽一進行切換。我真的很想澄清這一點，因為我們收到了很多問題。

All right. Let me answer the second one first, if you don't mind, since I just went on that one. It's $1 billion of orders that we have line of sight to in next fiscal year is what I had said. And on one of the earlier calls, maybe last call, I think I said our pipeline was roughly 3x that we see, but we believe we have good visibility to $1 billion in orders in FY '25. That is primarily back end, and it is a combination of systems that are based on Silicon One, potentially some stand-alone Silicon One, but mostly systems, and then Optics as well. And then we're beginning to see some enterprise use cases, but it's predominantly back end in the hyperscaler space.

好的。如果您不介意的話，讓我先回答第二個問題，因為我剛剛回答了第二個問題。正如我所說，我們下一財年預計將獲得 10 億美元的訂單。在之前的一次電話會議上，也許是最後一次電話會議上，我想我說過我們的管道大約是我們看到的3 倍，但我們相信我們對25 財年10 億美元的訂單有良好的可見性。這主要是後端，它是基於 Silicon One 的系統的組合，可能是一些獨立的 Silicon One，但主要是系統，然後還有光學系統。然後我們開始看到一些企業用例，但它主要是超大規模領域的後端。

On the 5,000 customers, we basically did an analysis of where we have -- Cisco has super strong relationships and Splunk doesn't have a presence of 5,000 customers, and we've now mapped those to the sales teams.

對於 5,000 名客戶，我們基本上對我們擁有的位置進行了分析 - 思科擁有超強的關係，而 Splunk 沒有 5,000 名客戶，我們現在已將這些客戶映射到銷售團隊。

And Gary, do you want to make a comment on that because you've been involved in that deeply?

加里，你想對此發表評論嗎？

Yes. So we're excited about the fact that basically, we've identified these 5,000 customers where Splunk traditionally has had no footprint. And the goal there is to have the Cisco sellers open the door for the Splunk team. There's also a financial incentive or SPIFF in place to incent the Cisco sellers to support this activity. And that's one aspect of where we see tremendous opportunity. And then second to that, obviously, there's a lot of overlap in our customers where the Cisco team may have hired more strategic relationships, where they can extend our footprint and insist in helping extend our footprint within the existing Splunk base. And we're already seeing that activity right out of the gate. So we feel like we're off to a very good start, and I'm super encouraged by the level of collaboration we've seen so far.

是的。因此，我們感到很興奮的是，基本上，我們已經確定了 Splunk 傳統上沒有足跡的 5,000 個客戶。我們的目標是讓 Cisco 賣家為 Splunk 團隊打開大門。還有一個財務激勵措施或 SPIFF 來激勵思科銷售商支持這項活動。這是我們看到巨大機會的一方面。其次，顯然，我們的客戶有很多重疊之處，思科團隊可能僱用了更多的策略關係，他們可以擴大我們的足跡，並堅持幫助擴大我們在現有 Splunk 基地內的足跡。我們已經看到這種活動一開始就發生了。所以我們覺得我們有了一個非常好的開始，我對我們迄今為止所看到的合作程度感到非常鼓舞。

Our next caller is Tal Liani with Bank of America.

我們的下一個來電者是美國銀行的塔爾·利亞尼 (Tal Liani)。

I'm going to ask my two questions also together, they're linked. You have great motions in security with lots of new products, and you have Splunk introduction to the channel and you have also the AI opportunity for Ethernet. Can you give us a sense of timing? Security grew again only 3% ex Splunk. How long does it take to get all the benefits that you're talking about in these three main areas? Or in general, is it something we're going to see early in '25 or later in '25 or '26? If you can give just a sense of timing of all these initiatives.

我也會一起問我的兩個問題，它們是互相關聯的。您在安全方面有很多新產品的精彩動態，您有 Splunk 對該頻道的介紹，還有乙太網路的人工智慧機會。您能給我們一個時間觀念嗎？安全性再次僅成長 3%（不包括 Splunk）。需要多長時間才能獲得您所說的這三個主要領域的所有好處？或者總的來說，我們會在 25 年初或 25 或 26 年晚些時候看到這種情況嗎？如果您能給所有這些舉措的時機感。

The second part related to it, if I remove Splunk from the numbers, and you give us enough data to completely remove Splunk from '24 and I can take consensus for '25, then your core Cisco, meaning your initial growth expectations for '25 is about 5% because we need to remove also the backlog contribution this year. So Cisco ex backlog contribution should grow 5%. It's higher than before. So the question is, are you comfortable with Cisco growing 5% next year, give or take? And what is the main component of this growth?

與之相關的第二部分，如果我從數字中刪除Splunk，並且您向我們提供足夠的數據以將Splunk 從'24 中完全刪除，我可以就'25 達成共識，然後是您的核心思科，這意味著您對'25 的初始成長預期約為 5%，因為我們還需要取消今年的積壓貢獻。因此，思科前積壓訂單貢獻應成長 5%。比以前高了。所以問題是，您對思科明年成長 5% 感到滿意嗎？這種成長的主要組成部分是什麼？

Tal, thanks for the question. So let's go with the first question. I'll say on the organic Cisco security front, you're right, revenue was up 3%. But as I said, our demand was the highest it's been in probably a couple of years, and it was high single digits. So we're seeing the traction on these new products. They're just ramping, right? They're new. Customers are testing. They're implementing. And by the way, a lot of it is ratable. So you take the orders. And like close to 80% of our security portfolio is ratable, so that actually impacts the time for it to transition into revenue. So that's on the security side.

塔爾，謝謝你的提問。那我們先來說第一個問題。我想說的是，在思科有機安全性方面，你是對的，收入成長了 3%。但正如我所說，我們的需求可能是幾年來最高的，而且是高個位數。所以我們看到了這些新產品的吸引力。他們只是在加速，對嗎？他們是新的。客戶正在測試。他們正在實施。順便說一句，其中很多都是值得評價的。所以你接受命令。我們近 80% 的安全產品組合都是可評級的，因此這實際上會影響其轉變為收入的時間。這是安全方面的。

But I think on the security and Splunk side, I'll talk about it a little bit, and then I'll let Gary comment on some of the integration. But we announced our first integration last week at RSA. Our intent is just to continue pushing innovation out. We'll have more announcements at Cisco Live. So I think that you'll continue to see that happen. I've always said on the security front, even before Splunk, that we had brought in a new team. We've been building new innovation. The team has built 5 new products and solutions from the ground up over the last 12 months, as you alluded to, just done a phenomenal job, and I had always said that in the second half of '24, I expect that you would see an improvement. And then in '25, you'll see it get to where we really need it to be. And I think that still stands.

但我認為在安全性和 Splunk 方面，我會稍微討論一下，然後讓 Gary 對一些整合進行評論。但我們上週在 RSA 宣布了首次整合。我們的目的只是繼續推動創新。我們將在 Cisco Live 上發布更多公告。所以我認為你會繼續看到這種情況發生。在安全方面，我一直在說，甚至在 Splunk 之前，我們就已經引入了一支新團隊。我們一直在進行新的創新。正如您所提到的，該團隊在過去 12 個月內從頭開始建立了 5 個新產品和解決方案，做得非常出色，我一直說在 24 年下半年，我希望您會看到一種提升。然後在 25 年，你會看到它達到了我們真正需要的水平。我認為這一點仍然成立。

Do you want to comment on the Cisco, the integration stuff, Gary?

加里，你想對思科的整合技術發表評論嗎？

You bet. So one of the things I'm super excited about is the progress we've made from an integration standpoint. So last week at RSA, for example, we announced the integration between the Cisco XDR solution and Splunk's Enterprise Security solutions, so bringing high telemetry alerts into Splunk Enterprise Security gives a Splunk customer that much more value in terms of threat detection. And this is just the start of the elements of integration that we can deliver that will ultimately drive growth for the security portfolio broadly, but also Splunk. And as we've described earlier, our integration strategy really is a strong ground game, meaning we want to move the ball 3 yards at a time, and we're going to demonstrate to the industry that we can continue to innovate at a rapid pace as a combined business. And we feel like we're on a really good track to do that.

你打賭。因此，我感到非常興奮的一件事是我們從整合角度取得的進展。例如，上週在 RSA 上，我們宣布了 Cisco XDR 解決方案與 Splunk 企業安全解決方案之間的集成，因此將高遙測警報引入 Splunk Enterprise Security 可為 Splunk 客戶在威脅偵測方面帶來更多價值。這只是我們可以提供的整合元素的開始，這些元素最終將廣泛推動安全產品組合以及 Splunk 的成長。正如我們之前所描述的，我們的整合策略確實是一個強大的地面遊戲，這意味著我們希望一次將球移動 3 碼，我們將向業界證明我們可以繼續快速創新作為一個聯合企業的步伐。我們覺得我們正處於實現這一目標的良好軌道上。

Thanks, Gary. And then on your AI timing question in '25, my suspicion is that that's going to start low at the beginning of the year, and it will ramp as we get through the year. So I would be thinking more back half. But we'll have to see how these pilots go. We'll probably know a more in the next 90 days on that.

謝謝，加里。然後關於你在 25 年提出的人工智慧時機問題，我懷疑這將在年初開始走低，並隨著全年的推移而逐漸上升。所以我會多考慮後半部。但我們必須看看這些飛行員的表現如何。在接下來的 90 天內，我們可能會對此有更多了解。

On your second question, first of all, I appreciate the fact that you recognize that several billion of backlog that we cleared last year because '25 will be a year where we're still going to have strange comparisons because we're just still coming out of the tail end of the supply chain situation and this whole digestion issue and the inventory shipments and everything. So '26 over '25 will be the year where we'll really hopefully get back to real apples-to-apples year-over-year comparisons. And while we aren't giving a breakdown today of the FY '25 Cisco or Splunk contribution, we'll obviously have an Analyst Day in June, and we'll go into more detail there.

關於你的第二個問題，首先，我很欣賞你認識到我們去年清理了數十億積壓訂單，因為 25 年我們仍然會進行奇怪的比較，因為我們仍然會來擺脫供應鏈末端的情況和整個消化問題以及庫存出貨等一切。因此，26 年和 25 年將是我們真正希望能夠回到真正的同類同比比較的一年。雖然我們今天沒有詳細介紹 25 財年思科或 Splunk 的貢獻，但顯然我們將在 6 月舉辦分析師日，我們將在那裡進行更多詳細介紹。

And Scott, do you have anything to add to that? Or is that good?

史考特，你還有什麼要補充的嗎？或者這樣好嗎？

No. I think you said it right. Tal, the fact that you recognize the backlog work-off, it clearly is a headwind on just the core Cisco when you look at year-on-year growth rate into fiscal '25. Bear in mind, too, obviously, Q3 was a tough compare. If you remember, we had those 3 consecutive quarters of revenue growth in the mid- to upper teens Q3 of '23 that we're comparing to now, Q4 and then Q1 of this year. And so in addition to doing the year-on-year growth rates the way you're doing it, you need to think of the backlog impact on the year-on-year growth rates in both this quarter, next quarter and again, a tough compare in Q1 of '25.

不，我認為你說得對。 Tal，您認識到積壓工作的事實，當您查看 25 財年的同比增長率時，這顯然是思科核心業務的逆風。還要記住，顯然，第三季是一個艱難的比較。如果您還記得，我們​​在 23 年第三季的中上十幾季度實現了連續 3 個季度的收入成長，我們將其與現在、今年的第四季和第一季進行比較。因此，除了以現有的方式計算同比增長率之外，您還需要考慮積壓對本季度、下一季和再次的同比增長率的影響， 25 年第一季的艱難比較。

David Vogt with UBS.

瑞銀集團的大衛‧沃格特。

So maybe, Scott, I want to follow up on that line of questioning from Tal. Now I recognize that you have that backlog headwind in '24, but if I just kind of run through what Splunk should be doing versus what they contributed this year, it certainly looks like the backlog headwind is going to cause core Cisco to be down next year. I know you said you're going to hold off on giving numbers. Is that the right math? And so basically, all of the low single to mid-single-digit growth comes from Splunk. And then from a gross margin perspective, obviously, Splunk is going to be a much bigger part of the business, you gave us an operating margin framework, but sort of what do you expect from a gross margin perspective given the stronger margin profile of Splunk, being a bigger part of the business next year versus this year?

斯科特，也許我想跟進塔爾的提問。現在我意識到你在 24 年遇到了積壓的逆風，但如果我只是簡單地回顧一下 Splunk 應該做的事情和他們今年所做的貢獻，那麼看起來積壓的逆風肯定會導致核心思科接下來陷入困境年。我知道你說過你會推遲提供數字。這是正確的數學嗎？因此基本上，所有低個位數到中個位數的成長都來自 Splunk。然後從毛利率的角度來看，顯然，Splunk 將成為業務中更大的一部分，您給了我們一個營業利潤率框架，但考慮到Splunk 更強的利潤率狀況，從毛利率的角度來看，您有何期望，明年與今年相比將在業務中佔據更大的份額？

Yes. Thanks, David. If you remember, Q1 of this current fiscal year, fiscal '24, was really the last quarter where we shipped a lot of, I'll call it, excess backlog, right? There's always an ambient level of backlog, where we had a lot of excess backlog that built up during the supply constraints. So when you think about the growth rate from '24 to '25, clearly, Splunk is a positive on that, obviously, adding that to it. But you also have to think of this year, fiscal '24, having a nonrepeatable bit of excess backlog that was shipped in the first quarter of this year. Remember, first quarter this year, we grew in the mid-teens on revenue. So if you net that out, that's the math that Tal was doing to say the core business is actually growing in those mid-single digits in fiscal '25. And we can walk through, I know there's a lot of moving parts there. David, we can walk through that if you want.

是的。謝謝，大衛。如果你還記得，本財年的第一季（即 24 財年）實際上是我們發貨了很多（我稱之為超額積壓）的最後一個季度，對嗎？總是存在一定程度的積壓，在供應限制期間，我們累積了許多多餘的積壓。因此，當你考慮從 24 世紀到 25 世紀的成長率時，很明顯，Splunk 對此是積極的，顯然，將其添加到其中。但你也必須考慮到今年，也就是 24 財年，今年第一季出貨的積壓貨量是不可重複的。請記住，今年第一季度，我們的收入成長了十幾歲。因此，如果你將其扣除，那就是塔爾所做的數學計算，顯示核心業務實際上在 25 財年以中個位數成長。我們可以步行過去，我知道那裡有很多活動部件。大衛，如果你願意的話，我們可以討論一下。

On the gross margins, I think the way to think about that, we had some benefit in the quarter. Splunk itself is a benefit, of course. We had some benefits in the quarter on product mix and some cost savings that I don't think are repeatable longer term. So I talked about the guide for Q4 being gross margins in the 66.5% to 67.5% range for Q4. I think that's the right range as you think about fiscal '25 as well.

就毛利率而言，我認為從這個角度來看，我們在本季獲得了一些收益。當然，Splunk 本身就是一個好處。本季我們在產品組合和成本節約方面取得了一些成效，我認為這些效益從長遠來看是無法重複的。所以我談到第四季的指引是第四季毛利率在 66.5% 至 67.5% 範圍內。我認為這也是您考慮 25 財年的正確範圍。

Meta Marshall with Morgan Stanley.

摩根士丹利的梅塔·馬歇爾。

Maybe first question, Chuck, if you could just kind of update where your kind of conversations with customers are around AI, either in kind of desire to invest on-premise or invest in kind of Cisco security products for preparedness or just impact to budgets.

也許是第一個問題，查克，您是否可以更新一下您與客戶的對話是圍繞人工智慧進行的，無論是出於投資本地部署的願望還是投資於某種思科安全產品以做好準備或只是影響預算。

And then maybe second question for Scott, just as we think about kind of the OpEx investment that you guys noted for Splunk, how should we think of that versus kind of original targets to have Splunk be kind of accretive 1 year post close?

然後，也許是 Scott 的第二個問題，正如我們思考你們為 Splunk 指出的 OpEx 投資一樣，我們應該如何看待這一點，而不是讓 Splunk 在交易結束後 1 年後實現增值的原始目標？

Thanks, Meta. I would say the conversations, I think the web scaler is pretty well understood, so I'll talk about the enterprise. And I think most enterprises, there are some that are certainly running pilots that are doing some work today. And we actually had a handful of wins in the enterprise space for infrastructure that was supporting AI build-outs. I'd say they're still very, very, very early. We had our global Customer Advisory Board last week in Canada. And I think we had about 60 customers there, and they're all still trying to figure out exactly what their use cases are and how the architecture is going to play out. So I would say it's still super early on the enterprise side.

謝謝，梅塔。我想說的是，我認為網路縮放器已經很好理解了，所以我將談論企業。我認為大多數企業，有些肯定正在運行試點，目前正在做一些工作。實際上，我們在支援人工智慧建置的基礎設施企業領域中取得了一些勝利。我想說他們還非常非常非常早。我們上週在加拿大成立了全球客戶諮詢委員會。我認為我們在那裡有大約 60 個客戶，他們都仍在試圖弄清楚他們的用例是什麼以及架構將如何發揮作用。所以我想說，在企業方面，現在還處於非常早期的階段。

Did you want to add something, Gary?

加里，你想補充什麼嗎？

No.

不。

Go ahead, Scott.

來吧，斯科特。

In terms of the way to think about the OpEx comment that I made, we talked, Meta, when we announced the acquisition of Splunk, that this is much more driven by revenue synergies than cost synergies. There's no question there will be cost synergies as we work our way through this. But we will spend from this point through fiscal '25 ensuring that we get both the product integration right, the organizational integration right. We have to do channel enablement. We have to train their sales team on Cisco, train the Cisco sales team on Splunk. There's investment that goes along with that integration. And this fiscal '25 is the year we'll do that.

就我提出的 OpEx 評論的思考方式而言，當我們宣布收購 Splunk 時，我們談到了 Meta，這更多是由收入協同效應而非成本協同效應驅動的。毫無疑問，當我們努力解決這個問題時，將會產生成本綜效。但從現在到 25 財年，我們將投入大量資金，確保我們實現正確的產品整合和組織整合。我們必須進行通路賦能。我們必須在 Cisco 上培訓他們的銷售團隊，在 Splunk 上培訓 Cisco 銷售團隊。伴隨著整合而來的是投資。我們將在 25 財年實現這一目標。

We said in the first year post acquisition that we would be accretive in cash flow, and we will. That we'll be accretive in gross margin from Splunk, and we will. And that we'll be accretive in earnings per share in the second year, so think of that as fiscal '26. I know this closed a little bit early, and I think there's this perception that it closed 6 months early, so those times ought to be accelerated. We thought the acquisition would close around the end of our fourth quarter. It closed around the middle of our third quarter. So round numbers, it was a little more than a quarter early. So I think the way to think about that is EPS accretive in fiscal '26 but still being cash flow and gross margin accretive in fiscal '25 as we invest in the integration.

我們在收購後的第一年就說過，我們將增加現金流，我們會的。我們將增加 Splunk 的毛利率，我們會的。我們將在第二年增加每股收益，因此將其視為 26 財年。我知道它關閉得有點早，而且我認為有人認為它提前了 6 個月關閉，所以這些時間應該會加快。我們認為收購將在第四季末左右完成。它在我們第三季中期結束。所以數字是整數，比之前早了四分之一多一點。因此，我認為考慮這個問題的方法是，隨著我們投資於整合，26 財年的每股盈餘會增加，但 25 財年的現金流量和毛利率仍然會增加。

James Fish with Piper Sandler.

詹姆斯·菲什和派珀·桑德勒。

I did want to double-click on Meta's question here because this is serious ramp on the OpEx side to get really earnings going down again in '25, if my math is right, somewhere around $3.50 a share. Can you elaborate a little bit further as to why it's going to go be that much? Should we be expecting revenue synergies starting in fiscal '25 with that initial kind of low to mid-single-digit growth rate? Or is that just going to take too much time, another year or so, to really get? And not to layer on the question here, but is some of the OpEx ramp due to the conversion of stock-based comp of Splunk to cash comp? Historically, Splunk and Cisco have had two totally different philosophies on compensation.

我確實想在這裡雙擊 Meta 的問題，因為如果我的數學正確的話，營運支出方面的收益將在 25 年再次下降，約為每股 3.50 美元。您能否進一步詳細說明為什麼會這麼多？我們是否應該期待從 25 財年開始的收入綜效以及最初的低至中個位數成長率？或者這只是需要太多的時間，大約一年左右，才能真正實現？這裡不討論這個問題，但營運支出的成長是否是由於 Splunk 的股票補償轉換為現金補償所致？從歷史上看，Splunk 和 Cisco 在薪資方面有著兩種完全不同的理念。

Yes. Thanks, Jim. On the OpEx ramp, I know the Splunk team didn't put out guidance for this fiscal year, but you can look at where their OpEx was headed and layer that into the OpEx that we had. There is some growth year-on-year. There's some investment. It's not a substantial ramp-up, though, in the investment on integration. It's more a question of just pulling the Splunk team together with ours. As I said, there will be some cost synergies, they're likely to come more in the second half of the year.

是的。謝謝，吉姆。在營運支出方面，我知道 Splunk 團隊沒有為本財年提供指導，但您可以查看他們的營運支出的走向，並將其納入我們的營運支出中。年比有一定成長。有一定的投資。不過，整合投資並沒有大幅增加。更重要的是如何將 Splunk 團隊與我們的團隊團結起來。正如我所說，將會產生一些成本協同效應，它們可能會在今年下半年出現更多。

But this wasn't a deal that was motivated by cost synergies. It was much more motivated by revenue synergies. What you said, I think, is spot-on. We will see those revenue synergies begin to ramp in the second part of fiscal '25 as these are not short sales cycles, as we get our team ramped up on how to sell Splunk, as we get the Splunk team ramped up on how to sell Cisco, and as we get our channel fully enabled to sell that. So yes, you're going to see those revenue synergies, but you'll need to think about them more in the second half of the year.

但這並不是出於成本綜效的交易。它更多地受到收入協同效應的推動。我認為你說的很對。我們將看到這些收入綜效在 25 財年的第二部分開始增加，因為這些銷售週期並不短，因為我們讓我們的團隊加強瞭如何銷售 Splunk，因為我們讓 Splunk 團隊加強瞭如何銷售 Splunk思科，當我們完全啟用我們的管道來銷售它時。所以，是的，你會看到這些收入協同效應，但你需要在今年下半年考慮它們更多。

Yes. And I think the revenue synergies that we're focused on really are driven around the 5,000 accounts that we talked about earlier. The sales cycles on those are 6 to 9 months, and so you're not going to see that immediately, but that work is happening. And we're also seeing tremendous collaboration across the organization where our sales teams are working together to more broadly penetrated accounts. I think you'll start to see that in the first half, but it's going to layer in. You're going to see more momentum as we get to the middle part of the year.

是的。我認為我們所關注的收入協同效應確實是圍繞著我們之前討論過的 5,000 個帳戶驅動的。這些產品的銷售週期為 6 到 9 個月，因此您不會立即看到這一點，但工作正在發生。我們也看到整個組織內的巨大協作，我們的銷售團隊正在共同努力，以實現更廣泛的客戶滲透。我想你會在上半年開始看到這一點，但它會逐漸顯現出來。

Samik Chatterjee with JPMorgan.

摩根大通的薩米克‧查特吉 (Samik Chatterjee)。

I have a couple as well, if I may. I know you're talking about the deployments with your customers, enterprise customers being higher than what you're shipping to, and that implies you'll take a step-up in terms of revenue when that inventory digestion ends. I was just curious on sort of the order trends. You had mentioned you'll be back to a normal seasonality of orders, maybe more in fiscal '25. But how close are you seeing sort of order trends return on a sequential or quarterly basis to more normalized sort of seasonal trends? Is that pointing you in any direction in terms of whether that gap between deployment and your orders are starting to sort of compress?

如果可以的話，我也有一對。我知道您正在談論與客戶的部署，企業客戶高於您要運送的客戶，這意味著當庫存消化結束時，您將在收入方面取得進展。我只是對訂單趨勢感到好奇。您曾提到您將恢復正常的訂單季節性，也許在 25 財年會恢復到更多。但是，您看到訂單趨勢按順序或按季度回歸到更標準化的季節性趨勢有多接近？這是否為您指明了部署和訂單之間的差距是否開始縮小的方向？

And for the second one, just a quick follow-up on the AI order, the $1 billion sort of target here. Just trying to understand if you feel like you need 1 or 2 more big wins in terms of customers or land and expand with the existing ones should be good enough to get you to that $1 million target that you have?

對於第二個目標，只是對人工智慧訂單的快速跟進，這裡的目標是 10 億美元。只是想了解一下，您是否覺得自己需要在客戶方面再取得 1 到 2 個重大勝利，或者在現有客戶的基礎上進行土地和擴張，這應該足以讓您實現 100 萬美元的目標嗎？

Scott, do you want to take the sequential one?

史考特，你想拍連續劇嗎？

Yes. Well, on the enterprise deployments, we are seeing that progress, Samik, and one of the things that's been encouraging, and we've given you some of the data on this, is where we see it moving more quickly, we talked about WiFi and how our wireless business is growing, where the enterprise deployments of all the product that was pushed out has progressed more quickly, we're seeing demand return. Normal seasonality, if you're talking about year-on-year growth rates, is a lot tougher, right? You've got to get to a point where you actually have a normal quarter, which we're headed toward now once we get through this inventory consumption at the end of this quarter, and then you have to lap it by a year. To get to a year-on-year compare, that's an apples-to-apples compare. So think of the normal seasonality in terms of year-on-year growth rates beginning much more in fiscal '26. From a sequential standpoint, you'll see that start to happen in the second half of fiscal '25.

是的。好吧，在企業部署方面，我們看到了進展，Samik，其中一件令人鼓舞的事情，我們已經向您提供了一些這方面的數據，就是我們看到它發展得更快，我們談到了 WiFi以及我們的無線業務如何成長，所有推出的產品的企業部署進展得更快，我們看到了需求的回歸。如果你談論的是同比增長率，正常的季節性要困難得多，對吧？你必須達到一個實際的正常季度的水平，一旦我們在本季度末完成庫存消耗，我們現在就朝著這個目標邁進，然後你必須將其延長一年。為了進行同比比較，這是同類比較。因此，從 26 財年開始的年成長率來看，考慮正常的季節性因素。從順序的角度來看，您會看到這種情況在 25 財年下半年開始發生。

And then on the AI, the $1 billion that we talked about, those are actually identified opportunities that our teams have a high degree of confidence. We didn't set a $1 billion target and tell people to go find deals. They're deals behind the $1 billion, and they're actual wins that we either have already won or we have a high degree of confidence that we will win. There's certainly execution that has to occur between now and when we get them done. We have to get through the pilots. There's a lot of testing that has to take place. There's power consumption testing that goes on. So a lot of that is going on. But based on what we know, this is what our teams believe today. So this is not some aspiration that we have to go find. These are opportunities that have been identified that our teams feel good about.

然後在人工智慧方面，我們談到的 10 億美元，這些實際上是我們團隊非常有信心的已確定的機會。我們沒有設定 10 億美元的目標並告訴人們去尋找交易。它們是 10 億美元背後的交易，它們是我們已經贏得的或我們對獲勝充滿信心的實際勝利。從現在到我們完成任務之間肯定需要執行。我們必須通過試點。必須進行大量測試。正在進行功耗測試。所以很多事情正在發生。但根據我們所知，這就是我們團隊今天所相信的。所以這不是我們必須去尋找的願望。我們的團隊對這些機會感到滿意。

Matt Niknam with Deutsche Bank.

德意志銀行的馬特·尼克南。

One question, one small follow-up, and I think this has been the theme of the call. On the main question, actually for Scott, you've got leverage now that sits just under 1 turn, but the business now has a greater mix of recurring revenue, more visibility that, that naturally lends itself to. So I'm just wondering how you think about optimal leverage for the business and uses of excess cash from here?

一個問題，一個小小的後續行動，我認為這就是這次電話會議的主題。關於主要問題，實際上對於斯科特來說，你現在的槓桿率略低於一回合，但公司現在擁有更多的經常性收入組合，更多的可見性，這自然適合。所以我只是想知道您如何看待企業的最佳槓桿以及多餘現金的使用？

And then just on the follow-up, as we think about low to mid-singles growth next year, well aware of the backlog and the tougher comp that, that creates in fiscal 1Q of next year. Just as we unpack the networking assumptions, are you assuming normal demand and purchasing cadence returns next year once inventories have been digested? Or is there any incremental caution that's embedded there from a macro perspective?

然後就後續行動而言，當我們考慮明年的中低單成長時，我們很清楚明年第一季的積壓和更嚴格的競爭。正如我們解開網路假設一樣，您是否假設明年庫存消化後需求和採購節奏會恢復正常？或者從宏觀角度來看是否存在任何漸進的謹慎？

Scott, do you want to take the first one?

史考特，你想拿第一個嗎？

Yes. I'll talk about cash first, Matt. And yes, we moved obviously, with the acquisition of Splunk. And this data is out there. We raised about $13.5 billion of term debt that's out there. And we actually funded a lot of it with some cash off the balance sheet but also with commercial paper, with the expectation that as rates come down, obviously, commercial paper is a more real-time reflection of those lower rates, so it's a way of saving money on that. Moved to a net debt position for the first time certainly in my career and probably the first time here at Cisco, probably the first time in the last 2 decades here at Cisco.

是的。我先談談現金，馬特。是的，我們顯然採取了行動，收購了 Splunk。這些數據就在那裡。我們籌集了約 135 億美元的定期債務。實際上，我們用資產負債表外的一些現金以及商業票據提供了很多資金，預計隨著利率的下降，商業票據顯然可以更實時地反映這些較低的利率，所以這是一種方式以此來省錢。在我的職業生涯中，這是第一次進入淨債職位，這可能是在思科的第一次，也可能是過去 20 年來在思科的第一次。

The use of cash, though, we talked about Splunk being cash flow accretive in its very first year, which is highly unusual for a transaction of this size. It will be. And so our capital allocation process is not going to change. And just to reiterate what it is, first and foremost, it's to support growth. Right behind that, if that's 1, 1A is, of course, continuing to support the dividend, and you see we've continued to grow the dividend on a year-on-year basis. Return cash to shareholders through share buybacks, that's been at a steady $1.25 billion per quarter for the last now several quarters. We'll continue to do that. And to the extent that we've met those three and there still is excess cash, we'll determine whether it makes sense to take that cash and delever or if it makes more sense to return that to shareholders at that time.

不過，就現金的使用而言，我們談到 Splunk 在第一年就實現了現金流成長，這對於如此規模的交易來說是非常不尋常的。這將是。因此我們的資本配置流程不會改變。重申一下，首先也是最重要的是，它是支持成長。緊隨其後，如果是 1，那麼 1A 當然會繼續支持股息，你會看到我們繼續同比增加股息。透過股票回購向股東返還現金，過去幾季現金返還穩定在 12.5 億美元。我們將繼續這樣做。如果我們已經滿足了這三個條件並且仍然有多餘的現金，我們將確定是否需要拿走這些現金並去槓桿化，或者當時將其返還給股東是否更有意義。

And Matt, on the demand normalization, based on what we see today, I think we would expect, starting in Q1 and beyond, we should see that normalize, obviously, with the caveat that there's a lot of hotspots around the world. There are a lot of potential risks out there that are happening. We've got elections all over the world and the most important one perhaps in the United States. So we're certainly going to have to see how all of this plays out. But so far, based on what we see, I think that's a decent assumption for FY '25.

馬特，關於需求正常化，根據我們今天看到的情況，我認為我們預計，從第一季及以後開始，我們應該看到需求正常化，顯然，但需要注意的是，世界各地存在著許多熱點。那裡正在發生許多潛在的風險。世界各地都在舉行選舉，其中最重要的一次也許是在美國。因此，我們當然要看看這一切將如何進行。但到目前為止，根據我們所看到的情況，我認為這對 25 財年來說是一個不錯的假設。

George Notter with Jefferies.

喬治諾特和傑弗里斯。

I guess I wanted to ask about gross margin impacts from the inventory digestion. As we look around the space, we've seen companies use tools like stock rotation or rebates to try to push inventory through the channel. Sometimes that can certainly have an impact on margins. Are you guys seeing any of that in the gross margin results right now?

我想我想問一下庫存消化對毛利率的影響。當我們環顧整個領域時，我們發現公司使用庫存週轉或回扣等工具來嘗試透過該管道推動庫存。有時這肯定會對利潤產生影響。你們現在在毛利率結果中看到這些了嗎？

No, we're not, George. There's very little inventory in the channel that is something that we continue to own. In other words, when we ship into the channel, it's sold at that point. There's very little stocking that happens inside our channel. So we're not seeing that benefit. What we are seeing is, of course, we've put in place the price increases to help offset the higher costs that we saw coming through the supply chain constraints, and we've lapped those. So there's actually a little bit, you'll see when our Q comes out, a little bit of pricing headwind back to the normal, what it had been kind of pre-pandemic, but big benefits, of course, with the product mix of Splunk coming in and some one-off things that we benefited from during the quarter.

不，我們不是，喬治。我們繼續擁有的渠道庫存很少。換句話說，當我們運送到渠道時，它就在那時被出售。我們通路內的備貨很少。所以我們沒有看到這種好處。當然，我們看到的是，我們已經實施了價格上漲，以幫助抵消我們看到的因供應鏈限製而帶來的更高成本，我們已經接受了這些。因此，當我們的 Q 發佈時，您會看到，實際上有一點定價逆風回到了正常水平，就像大流行前的情況一樣，但當然，產品組合帶來了巨大的好處Splunk 的加入以及我們在本季受益的一些一次性的事情。

Ittai Kidron with Oppenheimer.

Ittai Kidron 與奧本海默。

I had a question for Gary. I guess, off the press, Palo Alto just announced its acquisition of the SIEM business from IBM. Exabeam this morning announced the merger with LogRhythm. So it seems like the market you're operating in is moving at a very fast pace at consolidation. Maybe you can talk about the competitive landscape for your business. And why should we not assume that pricing pressures are going to significantly rise in this environment as everybody is trying to fight for footprint?

我有一個問題想問加里。我猜，Palo Alto 剛剛宣布從 IBM 收購 SIEM 業務。 Exabeam 今天早上宣布與 LogRhythm 合併。因此，您所在的市場似乎正在以非常快的速度進行整合。也許您可以談談您的企業的競爭格局。為什麼我們不應該假設在這種環境下定價壓力會顯著上升，因為每個人都在努力爭取足跡？

Yes. No, great question. There obviously is a lot of activity in this particular market. One of the things that we feel very good about, and Chuck referenced in his prepared remarks earlier, is our position in Gartner's Magic Quadrant where we stood out as the leader in the SIEM market. So we have a very strong established market position and our pace of innovation has fundamentally changed over the last couple of years. We continue to deliver very interesting innovative capability that we think is very high value.

是的。不，很好的問題。顯然，這個特定市場有很多活動。我們感到非常滿意的一件事是我們在 Gartner 魔力像限中的地位，查克在他之前準備的演講中提到了這一點，我們在 SIEM 市場中脫穎而出，成為領導者。因此，我們擁有非常牢固的市場地位，我們的創新步伐在過去幾年中發生了根本性的變化。我們持續提供非常有趣的創新能力，我們認為這些能力非常有價值。

So for example, last week at RSA, we announced what we call Splunk Asset and Risk Intelligence. This is a critical capability to help organizations do self-discovery of assets across their environment and then understand the risks associated with those things. Coupled with that, we're now getting the broad benefit of the Cisco Security product line where we can bring in interesting capabilities like the integration with the XDR solution that we also announced. So we feel like while yes, it is competitive, we feel like we're incredibly well positioned to continue to drive very important innovation. And we've also taken a very different approach than our competitors, and we think broadly about how do you bring together on a single platform the security capabilities that customers want broadly all the way through observability. And it's very difficult across the industry to see anybody taking the position that we have and driving value.

例如，上週在 RSA，我們宣布了 Splunk 資產和風險情報。這是一項關鍵功能，可協助組織在其環境中自我發現資產，然後了解與這些事物相關的風險。除此之外，我們現在還獲得了思科安全產品線的廣泛優勢，我們可以引入一些有趣的功能，例如與我們也宣布的 XDR 解決方案的整合。因此，我們覺得雖然是的，它具有競爭力，但我們覺得我們處於非常有利的位置，可以繼續推動非常重要的創新。我們也採取了與競爭對手截然不同的方法，我們廣泛思考如何透過可觀察性將客戶廣泛想要的安全功能整合到一個平台上。在整個行業中，很難看到有人採取我們的立場並推動價值。

With respect to pricing, we don't have any fundamental change in our pricing strategy. We're very much focused on driving very good adoption across our customer base and ensuring that they feel like they're getting value every day. and the capabilities that we're offering are hard to match in the industry. So we're not shifting gears from a pricing point of view.

在定價方面，我們的定價策略並沒有任何根本性的改變。我們非常注重在客戶群中推動良好的採用，並確保他們感覺自己每天都在獲得價值。我們提供的功能在業界是難以匹敵的。因此，我們不會從定價的角度改變策略。

Ben Reitzes with Melius Research.

Ben Reitzes 的 Melius Research。

In the spirit of the two, I wanted to ask, if we take, I would say, $1 billion to $2 billion of the hit from inventory in 2025 from the prior question, I just want to make sure that I heard it right that you underwrite that the real industry growth, the real networking growth, is in that mid-single-digit range that was mentioned in a prior question.

本著這兩點的精神，我想問，如果我們從上一個問題中提取 2025 年庫存損失中的 10 億至 20 億美元，我只是想確保我沒聽錯。網路成長處於上一個問題中提到的中間個位數範圍內。

And then if that's the case, I guess this is the second one, then does it mean at your Analyst Day, we'll hear more about how 2026 could be a higher single-digit growth business for Cisco overall? I mean you're mixing towards Splunk and software and therefore, the math would have you guys, on a normalized basis, after the organic growth is very muted in 2025, accelerating by several hundred basis points to the higher single digits in 2026, if that's true. Be happy to repeat any of this, but hopefully, you were able to follow that.

如果是這樣的話，我想這是第二個，那麼這是否意味著在您的分析師日，我們將聽到更多有關 2026 年思科整體業務如何實現更高個位數成長的信息？我的意思是，你們正在混合使用Splunk 和軟體，因此，在標準化的基礎上，在2025 年有機增長非常緩慢之後，數學會讓你們在2026 年加速數百個基點，達到更高的個位數，如果這是真的。很高興重複這些內容，但希望您能夠遵循這一點。

Yes, I got it, Ben. And you're asking me now for fiscal '26 guide at the same time. Is that the right takeaway? Just kidding. You're thinking about it right. The underlying business, the core business of Cisco, net out the benefits of the Splunk acquisition when you look at fiscal '25, but also when you take '24, net out the impact of the excess backlog that we shipped early in fiscal '24, mostly in Q1, a small amount in Q2 as well, and you get to that mid-single-digit growth of the core business that we've had. So I think you're thinking about that right. We will talk more. I'm not going to do it on this call, but we will talk more about fiscal '26 and beyond at our Investor Day in June in Vegas. So hopefully, I'll see you there.

是的，我明白了，本。您現在同時向我索取 26 財年指南。這是正確的外帶嗎？只是在開玩笑。你想得對。當您查看25 財年時，基礎業務（即思科的核心業務）會扣除Splunk 收購帶來的收益，而且當您考慮24 財年時，也會扣除我們在24 財年早期發貨的超額積壓訂單的影響，主要是在第一季度，第二季度也有少量，我們的核心業務實現了中個位數的成長。所以我認為你的想法是對的。我們會談論更多。我不會在這次電話會議上這樣做，但我們將在 6 月在維加斯舉行的投資者日上更多地討論 26 財年及以後的情況。希望我能在那裡見到你。

Atif Malik with Citi.

花旗銀行的阿蒂夫‧馬利克。

The first one is for Gary. Gary, Splunk has been using AI/ML for the last 1.5 years with natural language assistant, SPL, and also event detection and response. Can you big picture talk about how Cisco data will improve your AI capabilities?

第一個是給加里的。 Gary, Splunk 在過去 1.5 年裡一直在使用 AI/ML 以及自然語言助理、SPL 以及事件偵測和回應。您能從大局談談思科數據將如何提升您的人工智慧能力嗎？

You bet. And so if you look at the history with Splunk, we were very early driving capabilities with machine learning. We launched the MLTK package in 2017, and we've had 0.25 million users on that. So there's been broad adoption. We then extended that when we brought gen AI into the picture, delivering an SPL assistant, SPL being our proprietary search language, being able to use English to be able to do that. We're also bringing AI directly into the workflow. So think about SOAR as an example and how you can bring AI into the picture to drive better outcomes from a remediation point of view.

你打賭。因此，如果你回顧一下 Splunk 的歷史，你會發現我們很早就透過機器學習來推動功能。我們於 2017 年推出了 MLTK 軟體包，目前已有 25 萬用戶。因此得到了廣泛的採用。然後，當我們將 gen AI 引入其中時，我們擴展了這一點，提供了 SPL 助手，SPL 是我們專有的搜尋語言，能夠使用英語來做到這一點。我們也將人工智慧直接引入工作流程中。因此，以 SOAR 為例，思考如何將人工智慧引入其中，從補救的角度推動更好的結果。

So we've been investing across the product line. You're going to hear and see more announcements from us over at Cisco Live as well as at our user conference, which follows Cisco Live. And the benefit that we're getting, bringing it into Cisco is, Cisco has independently been making a whole set of investments. We get to leverage those assets in addition to the richness of data that we get. So where we benefit from Cisco is the broad, rich data sets that exist across networking. So think lateral movement, how can we leverage that data to do a better job from a detection point of view. And frankly, the data and insights that we have as a combined entity, I think, are second to none in terms of the competitive environment. So we just basically accelerate our AI efforts as part of Cisco and the outcomes we can deliver to be really important.

因此，我們一直在整個產品線進行投資。您將在 Cisco Live 以及 Cisco Live 之後的使用者會議上聽到並看到我們的更多公告。將其引入思科的好處是，思科已經獨立進行了一整套投資。除了我們獲得的豐富數據之外，我們還可以利用這些資產。因此，我們從思科受益的地方是整個網路中存在的廣泛、豐富的資料集。因此，考慮橫向移動，我們如何利用這些數據從偵測的角度做得更好。坦白說，我認為，就競爭環境而言，我們作為一個合併實體擁有的數據和見解是首屈一指的。因此，作為思科的一部分，我們基本上只是加速我們的人工智慧工作，我們可以提供非常重要的成果。

Michael Ng with Goldman Sachs.

高盛 (Goldman Sachs) 的麥可吳 (Michael Ng)。

I just have two as well. First, I think that the guidance this year implies 34% EBIT margins. You commented that fiscal '25 can look like the guide for fiscal 4Q. I think it's about $1 billion of OpEx investment. So I was just wondering if you could kind of qualitatively talk about where most of those OpEx investments will lie.

我也只有兩個。首先，我認為今年的指導意味著息稅前利潤率為 34%。您評論說，25 財年可能看起來像是第四財季的指南。我認為營運支出投資約為 10 億美元。所以我只是想知道您是否可以定性地談論大部分營運支出投資將在哪裡。

And then secondly, last quarter, you characterized the fiscal '24 guidance as conservative, I believe. How would you characterize your initial financial outlook for fiscal '25?

其次，我認為，上個季度，您將 24 財年指引描述為保守的。您如何描述 25 財年的初步財務前景？

Okay. Michael, thanks for the question. The year-on-year, again, I think what you're struggling with on the fiscal '25 look is expectations if you just straight added where the run rate of Cisco spend to what your expectations are on the run rate of the Splunk spend. And I'd say a couple of things to bear in mind. There's some onetime benefits that we had this year in our OpEx for the core Cisco pre-Splunk acquisition, frankly, in our variable comp plans which has been a tough year, and we've come up short of our plan. And so there's some savings in variable comp for this year in fiscal '24 that obviously, I don't plan on repeating those in fiscal '25. Obviously, we'll do a merit increase as well. So there's some small increase that is just kind of the reset of the comp plans and ongoing merit. There is some investment as well in the integration, but it's not even approaching the number with the quick math that you just did. So that's kind of the way to think about that piece.

好的。邁克爾，謝謝你的提問。與去年同期相比，我認為，如果您直接將思科支出的運行率與您對 Splunk 支出的運行率的預期相加，那麼您在 25 財年的外觀上遇到的困難就是預期。我想說一些需要牢記的事情。坦白說，今年我們在思科收購 Splunk 之前的核心營運支出中獲得了一些一次性的好處，在我們的可變薪酬計劃中，這是艱難的一年，我們沒有達到我們的計劃。因此，今年 24 財年的可變補償有一些節省，顯然，我不打算在 25 財年重複這些節省。顯然，我們也會增加功績。因此，有一些小幅成長，這只是補償計劃和持續績效的重置。在整合方面也有一些投資，但它甚至還沒有接近您剛剛做的快速數學計算的數字。這就是思考那件作品的方式。

Now if you look at the guide for next year, kind of how would I say it. What I'd say about the guide for next year is I feel, with a lot of the tailwinds that we're seeing right now, so let's just go back, consumption of all of the inventory that we ship to customers that they were working very hard to get implemented is going in line with our expectation. We think we work our way through that headwind, mostly by the end of this quarter, our fourth fiscal quarter, that's a tailwind for next year. Obviously, the AI opportunity that we've talked about being more second half of fiscal '25, but for the full year, that's a tailwind as we look ahead. Security business is doing what we said it's going to do, right? We've launched new products there even before the acquisition of Splunk, and those products are getting good traction. So that's a tailwind as we look at next year as well.

現在，如果你看看明年的指南，我會怎麼說。關於明年的指南，我想說的是，我覺得，我們現在看到了很多順風車，所以讓我們回到過去，消耗我們運送給他們正在工作的客戶的所有庫存很難實現符合我們的預期。我們認為，我們將努力克服這一逆風，主要是到本季末，也就是我們的第四財季，這將是明年的順風車。顯然，我們談到的人工智慧機會更多是在 25 財年下半年，但對於我們展望全年而言，這是一個順風車。安全業務正在按照我們所說的去做，對嗎？甚至在收購 Splunk 之前，我們就已經在那裡推出了新產品，而這些產品受到了良好的歡迎。因此，從我們明年的角度來看，這也是一輛順風車。

So I think all in all, I feel like it's kind of a down-the-middle view of fiscal '25 at this point. It's not a formal guide. I just wanted to give you a sense of what that looks like, and we'll give you a better feel for what the longer term looks like at our Investor Day in June, and then we'll give you a more fulsome guidance when we get to our Q4 call in August.

所以我認為總而言之，我覺得目前這是對 25 財年的一種中間觀點。這不是正式指南。我只是想讓您了解一下情況，我們將在六月的投資者日讓您更好地了解長期情況，然後當我們請參加 8 月份的第四季度電話會議。

I now want to hand over back to Chuck for some closing remarks.

我現在想把一些結束語交還給查克。

Thanks, Sami, and thanks to all of you for spending time with us today. I guess I'd say I'm pleased that we're getting to the tail end of this supply chain situation that we've been navigating for the last several years, on track to get this consumption issue behind us as we enter FY '25. Feel good about the overall demand environment we saw in Q4, which supports the fact that our customers are getting this digestion done.

謝謝薩米，也謝謝大家今天與我們共度時光。我想我會說，我很高興我們已經進入了供應鏈狀況的尾端，我們在過去幾年中一直在努力解決這個問題，並有望在進入財年時解決這個消費問題。我們對第四季度看到的整體需求環境感到滿意，這支持了我們的客戶正在完成消化的事實。

As we look to the future, we obviously are optimistic about AI, both from an infrastructure perspective, a data perspective as well as a cybersecurity perspective. Security, in general, we believe will continue to improve and obviously, we're super excited about the Splunk integration, and we're committed to deliver for both our customers and for you.

展望未來，無論是從基礎設施角度、資料角度或網路安全角度，我們顯然對人工智慧持樂觀態度。總體而言，我們相信安全性將繼續提高，顯然，我們對 Splunk 整合感到非常興奮，並且我們致力於為我們的客戶和您提供服務。

Also I just want to quickly thank Jeff Sharritts for everything he's done at Cisco and also that we're very excited to have Gary taking on the new role here, and thank you all for being with us today.

另外，我想快速感謝傑夫·沙裡茨 (Jeff Sharritts) 在思科所做的一切，我們非常高興加里 (Gary) 在這裡擔任新職務，並感謝大家今天與我們在一起。

As a reminder, we will be hosting our 2024 Investor Day as part of Cisco Live on June 4, 2024. Cisco's next quarterly call, which will reflect our fiscal year 2024 fourth quarter and full year results, will be on Wednesday, August 14, 2024, at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time, 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time.

謹此提醒，我們將於2024 年6 月4 日舉辦2024 年投資者日活動，作為Cisco Live 的一部分。年第四季和全年業績。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。如果您還有任何其他問題，請隨時聯繫思科投資者關係部門，我們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) 391-9851. For participants dialing from outside the U.S., please dial (203) 369-3268. This concludes today's conference call. You may go ahead and disconnect at this time.

感謝您參加今天的電話會議。如果您想收聽完整的通話內容，可以撥打 1 (800) 391-9851。對於從美國境外撥打的參與者，請撥打 (203) 369-3268。今天的電話會議到此結束。此時您可以繼續並斷開連線。