Commvault Systems Inc (CVLT) 2023 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Commvault Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions)

美好的一天，謝謝你的支持。歡迎來到 Commvault 2023 年第四季度收益電話會議。 （操作員說明）

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mike Melnyk. Please go ahead.

我現在想把會議交給今天的演講者 Mike Melnyk。請繼續。

Thanks, Gerald. Good morning, and welcome to our earnings conference call. I'm Mike Melnyk, Head of Investor Relations, and I'm joined by Sanjay Mirchandani, Commvault's CEO; and Gary Merrill, Commvault's CFO. An earnings presentation with key financial and operating metrics is posted to the Investor Relations website for your reference.

謝謝，杰拉德。早上好，歡迎來到我們的收益電話會議。我是投資者關係主管 Mike Melnyk，Commvault 的首席執行官 Sanjay Mirchandani 也加入了我的行列；和 Commvault 的首席財務官 Gary Merrill。包含主要財務和運營指標的收益報告發佈在投資者關係網站上，供您參考。

Statements made on today's call will include forward-looking statements about Commvault, future expectations, plans and prospects. All such forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Please refer to the cautionary language in today's earnings release and Commvault's most recent periodic reports filed with the SEC for a discussion of the risks and uncertainties that could cause the company's actual results to be different from those contemplated in these forward-looking statements. Commvault does not assume any obligation to update these statements.

在今天的電話會議上發表的聲明將包括有關 Commvault、未來預期、計劃和前景的前瞻性聲明。所有此類前瞻性陳述均受風險、不確定性和假設的影響。請參閱今天的收益發布和 Commvault 向美國證券交易委員會提交的最新定期報告中的警示性語言，以討論可能導致公司實際結果與這些前瞻性陳述中預期的結果不同的風險和不確定性。 Commvault 不承擔任何更新這些聲明的義務。

During this call, Commvault's financial results are presented on a non-GAAP basis. A reconciliation between non-GAAP and GAAP measures can be found on our website.

在此次電話會議中，Commvault 的財務業績是在非 GAAP 基礎上公佈的。可以在我們的網站上找到非 GAAP 和 GAAP 措施之間的對賬。

Thanks again for joining us. Now I'll turn it over to Sanjay for his remarks. Sanjay?

再次感謝您加入我們。現在我將把它交給 Sanjay 聽取他的意見。桑傑？

Thank you, Mike. We delivered strong Q4 results ending the fiscal year with renewed momentum. Let me share some highlights. Total ARR increased 15% year-over-year. Our subscription and SaaS ARR, which represents 71% of total ARR, grew 38% year-over-year. Metallic, our 3-year-old SaaS offering exceeded $100 million in ARR placing it among the fastest-growing SaaS applications in history. We had another strong quarter of new customer additions, adding over 600 subscription and SaaS customers. And we did all of this profitably, delivering 22% EBIT margins while continuing to return cash to shareholders.

謝謝你，邁克。我們以新的勢頭在本財年結束時取得了強勁的第四季度業績。讓我分享一些亮點。總 ARR 同比增長 15%。我們的訂閱和 SaaS ARR 佔總 ARR 的 71%，同比增長 38%。 Metallic，我們推出 3 年的 SaaS 產品的 ARR 超過 1 億美元，使其成為歷史上增長最快的 SaaS 應用程序之一。我們又迎來了一個強勁的季度新增客戶，增加了 600 多個訂閱和 SaaS 客戶。我們實現了所有這些盈利，實現了 22% 的息稅前利潤率，同時繼續向股東返還現金。

Gary will share more details shortly. But today marks the next phase of our strategic evolution to become the leading cloud first data protection company in the industry. Our mission is twofold. First, we will continue to deliver industry-leading data protection to gain share in the mature on-premise market while simultaneously taking share in the rapidly growing SaaS market. Second, we remain intently focused on accelerating our growth in a responsible and lasting way, which should result in continued operating margin expansion over time.

加里將很快分享更多細節。但今天標誌著我們戰略發展的下一階段，成為業內領先的雲第一數據保護公司。我們的使命是雙重的。首先，我們將繼續提供行業領先的數據保護，以在成熟的內部部署市場中獲得份額，同時在快速增長的 SaaS 市場中佔有一席之地。其次，我們仍然專注於以負責任和持久的方式加速我們的增長，這應該會隨著時間的推移持續擴大營業利潤率。

Let's discuss priority number one, strengthening our leadership position. To do this, we are laser-focused on helping customers solve today's biggest IT challenges, manageability, security and cost. As our customers modernize and move to the cloud, they must also protect and manage data that is distributed and fragmented across clouds, regions, applications, services and data centers. In tandem, new SaaS applications are rapidly becoming the mission-critical systems of tomorrow. In fact, IDC recently reported that SaaS spending for enterprise applications is growing at a 17% pace.

讓我們討論第一要務，加強我們的領導地位。為此，我們專注於幫助客戶解決當今最大的 IT 挑戰、可管理性、安全性和成本。隨著我們的客戶實現現代化並遷移到雲端，他們還必須保護和管理分佈在雲、區域、應用程序、服務和數據中心之間的分散數據。與此同時，新的 SaaS 應用程序正迅速成為未來的關鍵任務系統。事實上，IDC 最近報告說，企業應用程序的 SaaS 支出正以 17% 的速度增長。

If managed improperly, these applications will become onerous and costly to manage. Even with this fast SaaS growth, on-premise data will continue to grow and remain an IT priority. You see on-prem and SaaS are not mutually exclusive. They are complementary components of the hybrid cloud. This is why we deliver industry-leading data protection that provides our customers with dynamic choices and best-in-class capabilities through software and SaaS. This is the power of one platform. Unlike our competitors, we don't make misleading claims about our technology leadership. We don't have to. We were rated #1 across all 3 of Gartner's critical capabilities report for data protection, data center, edge and cloud. To enhance manageability and reduce costs, we build automation, intelligence, proactive monitoring and security compliance capabilities deeply into our platform. This gives our customers a more simplified approach to data protection across all workloads, environments and locations.

如果管理不當，這些應用程序將變得繁重且管理成本高昂。即使 SaaS 增長如此迅速，本地數據仍將繼續增長，並且仍然是 IT 的優先事項。您會看到內部部署和 SaaS 並不相互排斥。它們是混合雲的互補組件。這就是為什麼我們提供行業領先的數據保護，通過軟件和 SaaS 為我們的客戶提供動態選擇和一流的功能。這就是一個平台的力量。與我們的競爭對手不同，我們不會對我們的技術領先地位做出誤導性聲明。我們不必。在 Gartner 關於數據保護、數據中心、邊緣和雲的所有 3 份關鍵能力報告中，我們都被評為第一名。為了增強可管理性和降低成本，我們將自動化、智能、主動監控和安全合規功能深入構建到我們的平台中。這為我們的客戶提供了一種更簡化的跨所有工作負載、環境和位置的數據保護方法。

Now let's discuss security. The world of data protection and security are blurring. As a result, CIOs, CSOs, executive teams and boards are making holistic decisions across their entire IT environment, and the wrong decision can have lasting and costly consequences. After all, one is immune to cyber threats that exploit the vulnerability of fragmented environments. We are the only company with a single platform with built-in security to proactively monitor and assess risks, mitigate cyber threats and protect critical workloads.

現在讓我們討論安全性。數據保護和安全的世界正在變得模糊。因此，CIO、CSO、執行團隊和董事會在整個 IT 環境中做出整體決策，而錯誤的決策可能會產生持久且代價高昂的後果。畢竟，人們對利用分散環境的脆弱性的網絡威脅免疫。我們是唯一一家擁有內置安全性單一平台的公司，可以主動監控和評估風險、緩解網絡威脅並保護關鍵工作負載。

It's why more customers are turning to Commvault for their data protection. For example, where security matters most, federal agencies, including U.S. Army Fort Sam and the Department of Veteran Affairs chose Commvault during the quarter to evolve the data protection. And Metallic was also the first data protection SaaS offering to achieve FedRAMP high status. As the only vendor in our space with advanced cyber deception for early ransomware detection, we help customers protect their data before it is compromised. In Q1, we plan to introduce several new capabilities to defend customers from exfiltration risks and dormant threats.

這就是為什麼越來越多的客戶轉向 Commvault 來保護他們的數據。例如，在安全最重要的地方，包括美國陸軍山姆堡和退伍軍人事務部在內的聯邦機構在本季度選擇了 Commvault 來改進數據保護。 Metallic 也是第一個獲得 FedRAMP 高地位的數據保護 SaaS 產品。作為我們領域中唯一擁有用於早期勒索軟件檢測的高級網絡欺騙的供應商，我們幫助客戶在數據受到損害之前保護他們的數據。在第一季度，我們計劃推出多項新功能來保護客戶免受滲漏風險和潛在威脅。

This includes industry-leading integrations with companies like Microsoft Sentinel, CyberArk and others, which brings us to the next fundamental IT challenge. With increasing complexity and risk comes additional costs for constrained organizations. To address this, low-touch as-a-service models like Metallic, solve their IT problems more efficiently, but that's only part of the solution. Automation is critical. We embraced AI several years ago to help our customers manage their costs while also simplifying and enhancing their experience. This helps enable us to deliver a 5x better total cost of ownership than our closest competitor.

這包括與 Microsoft Sentinel、CyberArk 等公司的行業領先集成，這給我們帶來了下一個基本的 IT 挑戰。隨著複雜性和風險的增加，受限組織的成本也會增加。為了解決這個問題，像 Metallic 這樣的低接觸即服務模型可以更有效地解決他們的 IT 問題，但這只是解決方案的一部分。自動化至關重要。幾年前，我們採用人工智能來幫助我們的客戶管理成本，同時簡化和增強他們的體驗。這有助於我們實現比最接近的競爭對手低 5 倍的總擁有成本。

And it is imperative in the future, so we will continue to engineer it into our offerings. This continuous innovation is why customers turn to Commvault for their data protection needs. For instance, we recently displaced the legacy incumbent and increased our footprint at a Fortune 100 retailer with thousands of stores serving millions of customers worldwide and data protection is paramount in their decision. Commvault offer the other vendors could not, a modern and proven data protection solution on one platform managed with a single pane of glass, which brings us to our second strategic priority around lasting and responsible growth.

這在未來勢在必行，因此我們將繼續將其設計到我們的產品中。這種持續創新是客戶轉向 Commvault 來滿足其數據保護需求的原因。例如，我們最近取代了傳統的現任者，並增加了我們在財富 100 強零售商中的足跡，該零售商擁有數千家商店，為全球數百萬客戶提供服務，而數據保護在他們的決策中至關重要。 Commvault 提供了其他供應商無法提供的現代且經過驗證的數據保護解決方案，該解決方案在一個平台上通過單一管理平台進行管理，這將我們帶到了圍繞持久和負責任的增長的第二個戰略重點。

To achieve this, we're accelerating our discrete focus on our land, expand and renew motions while also reallocating investments towards a high-growth areas. Gary will discuss in more detail. We have also been working hard to remove friction across the customer journey to make it even easier and more cost efficient for customers to engage and be successful. Lastly, we're relentlessly focused on our own cost of operations, including people, technology, resources and facilities. While the macro environment remains unsettled in the near term, we believe that our responsible growth strategy enables us to focus on investing in and delivering a data protection platform that elegantly solves our customers' hard problems. We believe this bodes well for accelerating growth in fiscal year 2024.

為實現這一目標，我們正在加速對我們土地的分散關注，擴大和更新議案，同時也將投資重新分配到高增長領域。加里將更詳細地討論。我們還一直在努力消除客戶旅程中的摩擦，讓客戶更輕鬆、更具成本效益地參與並取得成功。最後，我們堅持不懈地關注我們自己的運營成本，包括人員、技術、資源和設施。雖然宏觀環境在短期內仍然不穩定，但我們相信我們負責任的增長戰略使我們能夠專注於投資和交付能夠優雅地解決客戶難題的數據保護平台。我們認為這預示著 2024 財年的加速增長。

Before I turn the call over to Gary, I want to point out a key financial reporting change that he will discuss. We've been in a multiyear evolution, which is paying off. Now with the success of our subscription software and Metallic SaaS offerings, it's time to open the aperture on this part of our business and give you more insight into our progress.

在我將電話轉給加里之前，我想指出他將討論的一項關鍵財務報告變更。我們經歷了多年的發展，正在取得成效。現在，隨著我們的訂閱軟件和 Metallic SaaS 產品的成功，是時候打開我們這部分業務的大門，讓您更深入地了解我們的進展了。

With that, I'll turn it over to Gary to discuss the numbers. Gary?

有了這個，我會把它交給加里來討論這些數字。加里？

Thanks, Sanjay. Good morning, and thank you for joining us. As you saw on Table 5, contained in our earnings press release this morning, we provided supplemental revenue and cost of revenue captions for our P&L as we transition our financial reporting to align with our business model and go-to-market strategy. This new P&L presentation is led by our term license software and SaaS offerings, which are now approaching 50% of total revenue. The revenue from these arrangements will be referred to as subscription and combining them in a single line item will allow the investment community to have an enhanced understanding of our results.

謝謝，桑傑。早上好，感謝您加入我們。正如您在今天上午的收益新聞稿中所載的表 5 中看到的那樣，在我們將財務報告轉變為與我們的業務模型和上市戰略保持一致的過程中，我們為損益表提供了補充收入和收入成本說明。這個新的 P&L 演示文稿由我們的期限許可軟件和 SaaS 產品主導，它們現在接近總收入的 50%。這些安排的收入將被稱為訂閱，並將它們合併到一個項目中將使投資界對我們的結果有更好的了解。

As a reminder, term license software is generally recognized as revenue at the time of the transaction. SaaS revenue, which is recognized ratably over time, has historically been included in services revenue, along with other offerings recognized over time like customer support and professional services. The supplemental financial tables in this morning's earnings press release on Table 5 included a 2-year look back on a quarterly basis to provide business trends using the new revenue and cost of revenue captions. Lastly, we are introducing a new quarterly earnings presentation that can be found on our Investor Relations website.

提醒一下，術語許可軟件通常在交易時確認為收入。 SaaS 收入隨著時間的推移而逐漸確認，歷來被包括在服務收入中，以及隨著時間的推移確認的其他產品，如客戶支持和專業服務。今天上午的收益新聞稿中表 5 中的補充財務表包括按季度回顧 2 年，以使用新的收入和收入成本標題提供業務趨勢。最後，我們推出了一個新的季度收益報告，可以在我們的投資者關係網站上找到。

Now let's discuss our financial results. We are pleased with our Q4 performance, beating all of our guided metrics. Total revenue was $204 million, up 2% year-over-year on a constant currency basis. This includes software revenue of $90 million. Revenue from large software deals, which we define as transactions with greater than $100,000, represented 72% of software revenue in the quarter compared to 73% a year ago. The average deal size in the quarter for large software deals was $347,000. Under our new reporting structure, Q4 subscription revenue, which includes the software portion of term licenses and SaaS increased 9% year-over-year to $95 million and represented 46% of total revenue compared to 42% a year ago.

現在讓我們討論一下我們的財務結果。我們對第四季度的表現感到滿意，超過了我們所有的指導指標。總收入為 2.04 億美元，按固定匯率計算同比增長 2%。這包括 9000 萬美元的軟件收入。來自大型軟件交易的收入（我們定義為超過 100,000 美元的交易）佔本季度軟件收入的 72%，而一年前為 73%。本季度大型軟件交易的平均交易規模為 347,000 美元。根據我們新的報告結構，第四季度訂閱收入（包括定期許可和 SaaS 的軟件部分）同比增長 9% 至 9500 萬美元，佔總收入的 46%，而去年同期為 42%。

Q4 customer support was $77 million compared to $85 million a year ago. Customer support includes software updates, phone and web-based support for our term-based and perpetual software licenses. The year-over-year decline in customer support revenue was driven by foreign exchange headwinds and from the strategic conversion of certain perpetual customers to our subscription offerings. A reconciliation from our current P&L revenue line items through our new reporting is contained on Slides 23 to 26 in our new quarterly earnings presentation.

第 4 季度客戶支持為 7700 萬美元，而一年前為 8500 萬美元。客戶支持包括對我們的基於期限和永久軟件許可的軟件更新、電話和網絡支持。客戶支持收入的同比下降是由外匯逆風和某些永久客戶戰略性轉換為我們的訂閱產品造成的。我們新的季度收益報告中的幻燈片 23 至 26 包含我們當前的 P&L 收入項目通過我們的新報告進行的對賬。

Now I'll discuss ARR. Total ARR in Q4 was $668 million, an increase of 15% year-over-year and 17% in constant currency. In Q4, total subscription ARR, including term-based licenses and SaaS contracts, grew 38% year-over-year to $477 million. Subscription ARR represents 71% of total ARR, up from 59% in Q4 of the prior year. We are quickly nearing a key milestone for the company with subscription ARR approaching $500 million. This includes $101 million of SaaS ARR, which doubled from fiscal year '22. These impressive subscription metrics provide confidence in our future growth opportunity.

現在我將討論ARR。第四季度總 ARR 為 6.68 億美元，同比增長 15%，按固定匯率計算增長 17%。在第四季度，包括基於期限的許可和 SaaS 合同在內的總訂閱 ARR 同比增長 38% 至 4.77 億美元。訂閱 ARR 佔總 ARR 的 71%，高於去年第四季度的 59%。我們正迅速接近公司的一個重要里程碑，認購 ARR 接近 5 億美元。這包括 1.01 億美元的 SaaS ARR，比 22 財年翻了一番。這些令人印象深刻的訂閱指標讓我們對未來的增長機會充滿信心。

From a customer perspective, our land and expand strategy is working as we added over 600 new subscription customers during fiscal Q4. We drove strong net dollar retention numbers of 107% for term-based software licenses and 125% for SaaS. Our Metallic SaaS offerings are a primary driver of customer expansion. Approximately 40% of Metallic customers use Commvault software solutions and 30% of Metallic customers have multiple SaaS offerings. While M365 and our Air Gap storage offerings remain the most popular use cases, we're also seeing broader adoption of our other offerings like Kubernetes and Dynamics Backup and Recovery and ThreatWise.

從客戶的角度來看，我們的土地和擴張戰略正在發揮作用，因為我們在第四財季增加了 600 多個新訂閱客戶。我們推動了基於期限的軟件許可的 107% 和 SaaS 的 125% 的強勁淨美元保留率。我們的 Metallic SaaS 產品是客戶擴展的主要驅動力。大約 40% 的 Metallic 客戶使用 Commvault 軟件解決方案，30% 的 Metallic 客戶擁有多種 SaaS 產品。雖然 M365 和我們的 Air Gap 存儲產品仍然是最受歡迎的用例，但我們也看到我們的其他產品得到更廣泛的採用，例如 Kubernetes 和 Dynamics Backup and Recovery 以及 ThreatWise。

Now I'll discuss expenses and profitability. Fiscal Q4 gross margins were 83.4%, an increase of 40 basis points sequentially and continue to reflect an increased mix of SaaS revenue, which carries a higher cost of sales and software. Fiscal Q4 operating expenses were $123 million, down 3% year-over-year. We ended the quarter with a global headcount of approximately 2,800 employees, down 5% over the past 2 quarters. We are managing our people, facilities and third-party expenses by focusing investment on our most critical priorities. We will continue to evaluate our resource base against the market demand environment. Non-GAAP EBIT for Q4 was $45 million, and non-GAAP EBIT margins were 22.3%, well ahead of our guidance and the strongest EBIT margin results of the fiscal year driven by operating expense discipline and strategic prioritization of resources.

現在我將討論費用和盈利能力。第四財季毛利率為 83.4%，環比增長 40 個基點，繼續反映出 SaaS 收入組合的增加，這帶來了更高的銷售和軟件成本。第四財季運營費用為 1.23 億美元，同比下降 3%。本季度末，我們的全球員工人數約為 2,800 人，比過去兩個季度下降了 5%。我們通過將投資集中在我們最關鍵的優先事項上來管理我們的人員、設施和第三方費用。我們將繼續根據市場需求環境評估我們的資源基礎。第 4 季度的非美國通用會計準則息稅前利潤為 4500 萬美元，非美國通用會計準則息稅前利潤率為 22.3%，遠高於我們的指引，並且在運營支出紀律和資源戰略優先排序的推動下，實現了本財年最強的息稅前利潤率結果。

Now I'll discuss full year fiscal '23 results. On a constant currency basis, software revenue was $355 million, up 4% and total revenue of $785 million increased 6%. Under our new reporting structure, subscription revenue was $348 million, an increase of 30% year-over-year. Within that, term license software increased 15% and SaaS revenue nearly tripled year-over-year. Fiscal year '23 operating expenses were 62% of total revenue compared to 64% in the prior year. We drove operating leverage primarily through sales and marketing, which finished at 38% of total revenue, aligned with our fiscal year '23 target. Full year non-GAAP EBIT was $160 million, and non-GAAP EBIT margins were 20.4%. This includes approximately 250 basis points of gross margin headwinds, primarily from our accelerating SaaS revenue.

現在我將討論 23 財年的全年業績。按固定匯率計算，軟件收入為 3.55 億美元，增長 4%，總收入為 7.85 億美元，增長 6%。在我們新的報告結構下，訂閱收入為 3.48 億美元，同比增長 30%。其中，期限許可軟件增長 15%，SaaS 收入同比增長近兩倍。 23 財年運營支出佔總收入的 62%，而上一年為 64%。我們主要通過銷售和營銷來推動經營槓桿，銷售和營銷佔總收入的 38%，與我們的 23 財年目標一致。全年非 GAAP EBIT 為 1.6 億美元，非 GAAP EBIT 利潤率為 20.4%。這包括大約 250 個基點的毛利率逆風，主要來自我們加速的 SaaS 收入。

Moving to some key balance sheet and cash flow metrics for the quarter. We ended the quarter with no debt and $288 million in cash, $105 million of this balance is in the United States. Free cash flow was $67 million for Q4 and $167 million for the full year fiscal '23. As a reminder, our second half fiscal year '23 cash flows were burdened by approximately $7 million of federal tax payments related to the TCJA capitalization R&D provisions. In Q4, we accelerated our stock repurchases to approximately 1 million shares for $61 million, representing 91% of free cash flows. For the full fiscal year, we repurchased $151 million of our stock, representing 90% of free cash flows, well ahead of our existing 75% target.

轉到本季度的一些關鍵資產負債表和現金流量指標。我們在本季度結束時沒有債務和 2.88 億美元現金，其中 1.05 億美元在美國。第四季度的自由現金流為 6700 萬美元，23 財年全年的自由現金流為 1.67 億美元。提醒一下，我們 23 財年下半年的現金流量因與 TCJA 資本化研發規定相關的大約 700 萬美元的聯邦稅款而負擔重重。在第四季度，我們以 6100 萬美元的價格加快了股票回購至約 100 萬股，佔自由現金流的 91%。在整個財政年度，我們回購了 1.51 億美元的股票，佔自由現金流的 90%，遠超我們現有的 75% 目標。

Now I would like to spend a few minutes to discuss how we are approaching the future. With our subscription software evolution nearly complete, we are focused on our next growth vector, scaling our Metallic SaaS platform while continuing to improve profitability, generate strong free cash flow and provide a capital attractive capital return. We are amplifying our discrete focus on our land and expand opportunities as we scale our growing subscription renewal base. Secondly, we plan to hire additional inside sales reps focused solely on the SaaS velocity market as we refine our segmentation model. We expect that these go-to-market refinements should drive enhanced field sales productivity as we exit the fiscal year.

現在我想花幾分鐘時間討論一下我們如何走向未來。隨著我們的訂閱軟件發展接近完成，我們專注於我們的下一個增長方向，擴展我們的 Metallic SaaS 平台，同時繼續提高盈利能力，產生強大的自由現金流並提供具有資本吸引力的資本回報。隨著我們擴大不斷增長的訂閱續訂基礎，我們正在擴大我們對土地的離散關注並擴大機會。其次，我們計劃在完善我們的細分模型時僱傭更多專注於 SaaS 速度市場的內部銷售代表。我們預計，在我們結束本財年時，這些上市改進將推動現場銷售生產力的提高。

We are also transitioning our financial reporting and guidance towards ARR and free cash flow as primary KPIs of our underlying business momentum. For fiscal Q1, we expect subscription revenue, which includes both the software portion of term-based licenses and SaaS of $95 million to $98 million, representing 10% year-over-year growth at the midpoint. We expect total revenue of $195 million to $199 million. At these revenue levels, we expect Q1 consolidated margins to be 82.5% for gross margin and EBIT margins of approximately 20%. Our projected diluted share count for Q1 is 45 million shares. For the full year fiscal '24, we are expanding our guidance metrics to include ARR and free cash flow.

我們還將我們的財務報告和指導轉向 ARR 和自由現金流，作為我們基本業務勢頭的主要 KPI。對於第一財季，我們預計訂閱收入將達到 9500 萬至 9800 萬美元，其中包括基於期限許可的軟件部分和 SaaS，中間值同比增長 10%。我們預計總收入為 1.95 億美元至 1.99 億美元。在這些收入水平下，我們預計第一季度的綜合利潤率為 82.5%，毛利率和息稅前利潤率約為 20%。我們預計第一季度的稀釋股數為 4500 萬股。對於 24 財年全年，我們正在擴大我們的指導指標，以包括 ARR 和自由現金流。

We expect fiscal year '24 total ARR growth of 13% year-over-year, driven by strong subscription ARR, which we expect to increase 27% year-over-year. As a reminder, subscription ARR includes term-based licenses and SaaS. We expect subscription revenue to be in the range of $420 million to $430 million, growing 22% year-over-year at the midpoint. At these levels, subscription revenue should cross over 50% of total revenue, which we expect to be in the range of $805 million to $815 million. We also expect consolidated gross margins of 82% to 83%, non-GAAP EBIT margin expansion of 50 basis points to 100 basis points year-over-year and free cash flow of $170 million.

我們預計 24 財年的總 ARR 同比增長 13%，這得益於強勁的訂閱 ARR，我們預計其同比增長 27%。提醒一下，訂閱 ARR 包括基於期限的許可證和 SaaS。我們預計訂閱收入將在 4.2 億美元至 4.3 億美元之間，中點同比增長 22%。在這些水平上，訂閱收入應超過總收入的 50%，我們預計總收入在 8.05 億美元至 8.15 億美元之間。我們還預計綜合毛利率為 82% 至 83%，非美國通用會計準則息稅前利潤率同比增長 50 個基點至 100 個基點，自由現金流為 1.7 億美元。

Finally, our Board recently approved a refresh of our stock repurchase authorization for up to $250 million of stock. We expect to continue with our existing practice of repurchasing more than 75% of our annual free cash flow. Before I close, I want to highlight what we believe are the core investment attributes of Commvault, including we are a technology leader in the critical data protection space that remains an IT spending priority even in an unsettled macro environment. We have a large and growing installed base of customers, a recurring revenue model underpinned by approximately $500 million of subscription ARR. We drive consistent profitability with room for margin expansion. We have a debt-free balance sheet, healthy cash flow and a demonstrated history of capital returns.

最後，我們的董事會最近批准更新我們的股票回購授權，最高可達 2.5 億美元的股票。我們希望繼續我們現有的做法，即回購超過 75% 的年度自由現金流。在我結束之前，我想強調我們認為 Commvault 的核心投資屬性，包括我們是關鍵數據保護領域的技術領導者，即使在不穩定的宏觀環境中，該領域仍然是 IT 支出的優先事項。我們擁有龐大且不斷增長的客戶群，這是一種以約 5 億美元的訂閱 ARR 為基礎的經常性收入模式。我們推動穩定的盈利能力，並為利潤率擴張留出空間。我們擁有無債務的資產負債表、健康的現金流和良好的資本回報歷史。

I will now turn the call back to Sanjay for his closing remarks. Sanjay?

我現在將把電話轉回給 Sanjay，聽取他的結束語。桑傑？

Thank you, Gary. We continue to redefine data protection for our customers because it has never been more important for them. The law firm, BakerHostetler, recently published in its data security incident response report, which includes data from 1,160 security ransomware incidents that the firm handled in 2022. The findings showed that 40% of organizations hit with ransomware paid an average ransom of $600,000. But that percentage dropped to just 16% if the targeted organization was able to restore their systems. Data protection has never been more critical. We believe our strategy, roadmap, go-to-market motion and increasing focus on ARR will showcase some momentum in the year ahead. We look forward to updating you along the way.

謝謝你，加里。我們繼續為我們的客戶重新定義數據保護，因為這對他們來說從未如此重要。 BakerHostetler 律師事務所最近發布了其數據安全事件響應報告，其中包括該公司在 2022 年處理的 1,160 起安全勒索軟件事件的數據。調查結果顯示，40% 遭受勒索軟件襲擊的組織平均支付了 60 萬美元的贖金。但如果目標組織能夠恢復其係統，則該百分比將降至 16%。數據保護從未如此重要。我們相信我們的戰略、路線圖、上市行動和對 ARR 的日益關注將在未來一年展示一些勢頭。我們期待著為您更新。

Now we'll take your questions.

現在我們將回答您的問題。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Howard Ma of the Guggenheim Partners.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自古根海姆合作夥伴的霍華德馬。

It is certainly encouraging to see the top line performance as well as the new IR deck and the Metallic disclosures and also the focus on ARR. Sanjay, so given the ongoing delays in IT spending on large projects that's affecting nearly every software company, is there a good way to think about perhaps and maybe perhaps quantify the mix of pipeline that's dependent on large multiyear projects. And since those will carry more uncertainty versus deals that are what I'll call more normal course of business, such as expansions that's levered to just data growth and new logos that are not tied to large projects.

看到頂線表現以及新的 IR 甲板和金屬披露以及對 ARR 的關注當然令人鼓舞。 Sanjay，鑑於影響幾乎所有軟件公司的大型項目的 IT 支出持續延遲，是否有一種好方法可以考慮並量化依賴於大型多年項目的管道組合。而且由於與我稱之為更正常的業務過程的交易相比，這些交易將帶來更多的不確定性，例如僅用於數據增長的擴展和與大型項目無關的新標識。

Sure. That's at the heart of how we've been evolving our forecasting and our pipeline disciplines in the company. The last year has been -- we've had to relearn our models between the way in which the delays in the purchasing, the scrutiny around deals, the size of deals. So we -- I think we've done a decent job of being able to really fine-tune our forecasting models. I think Gary mentioned the size of large deals in our business over the last quarter and the characteristics of that increasing while the average ASP was also higher. So we are keeping a very close eye on deal volume, deal size.

當然。這是我們如何在公司中發展我們的預測和我們的管道紀律的核心。去年是——我們不得不在採購延遲、交易審查和交易規模之間重新學習我們的模型。所以我們 - 我認為我們在能夠真正微調我們的預測模型方面做得很好。我認為 Gary 提到了上個季度我們業務中的大型交易規模以及交易的特徵，同時平均 ASP 也更高。因此，我們正在密切關注交易量和交易規模。

And then as part of our comments, we shared that our discrete focus around the land, expand and renew motions with investments around our velocity business around Metallic are all wheels in motion. These are things that are happening. So I think we've got -- the last year was a good learning year, and we're relearning our -- retraining our models to be more specific around that.

然後作為我們評論的一部分，我們分享了我們對土地的離散關注，通過圍繞我們圍繞 Metallic 的速度業務的投資來擴展和更新動作都是運動的輪子。這些都是正在發生的事情。所以我認為我們已經 - 去年是一個很好的學習年，我們正在重新學習我們的 - 重新訓練我們的模型，使其更加具體。

Okay. That's totally understandable. It's helpful color. I just have a quick follow-up for Gary. Gary, it's nice to see that you guys are now breaking out term and perpetual license separately and also giving the full year guide for total and subscription ARR. Can you double click into the drivers of subscription ARR growth of 27% between Metallic and subscription specifically? And if you could like any comments on your new business expectations around Metallic and subscription would be helpful. And also the rate of decline for perpetual license that we should expect going forward?

好的。這是完全可以理解的。這是有用的顏色。我只是對加里進行快速跟進。加里，很高興看到你們現在分別打破了期限和永久許可，並給出了總計和訂閱 ARR 的全年指南。您能否具體了解 Metallic 和訂閱之間訂閱 ARR 增長 27% 的驅動因素？如果您希望就您對 Metallic 的新業務期望發表任何評論，那麼訂閱將會有所幫助。還有我們應該預期的永久許可證的下降速度？

Yes. Howard, thanks for joining us today. We're now highlighting that subscription revenue in ARR, which combines our term-based software licenses and SaaS because that's also how customers want to buy. And as customers move and continue on their cloud journey, they're looking for that flexibility of the best of software and the best of SaaS, especially related to their cloud journey. As I look out into the guidance that I gave, which was total ARR of about 13% year-over-year growth and subscription ARR, which was 27%. Relative to the 27%, we'll see greater momentum on that ARR related to Metallic.

是的。霍華德，感謝您今天加入我們。我們現在強調 ARR 中的訂閱收入，它結合了我們基於期限的軟件許可和 SaaS，因為這也是客戶想要購買的方式。隨著客戶移動並繼續他們的雲之旅，他們正在尋找最好的軟件和最好的 SaaS 的靈活性，尤其是與他們的雲之旅相關的靈活性。當我查看我給出的指導時，總 ARR 同比增長約 13%，訂閱 ARR 為 27%。相對於 27%，我們將看到與金屬相關的 ARR 的勢頭更大。

Metallic is our fastest contributor to ARR. We nearly -- or we did double ARR year-over-year. We expect to continue on that momentum, especially on the dollar value of the Metallic increase. The Metallic will play the majority of the increase, combined with our new refined focus on that software land, expand and motion.

Metallic 是我們對 ARR 最快的貢獻者。我們幾乎 - 或者我們的 ARR 同比翻了一番。我們預計將繼續保持這種勢頭，尤其是金屬的美元價值上漲。金屬將發揮大部分增長，結合我們對軟件領域、擴展和運動的新改進關注。

Our next question comes from Aaron Rakers of Wells Fargo.

我們的下一個問題來自富國銀行的 Aaron Rakers。

I appreciate you let me ask a question. And I also appreciate all the details with today's announcements with regard to the model changes, et cetera. So a couple of questions, if I can, real quick. So first of all, I just -- I kind of want to go back to kind of just the macro environment, the current demand environment you're seeing. Can you talk about the pace of deal closures throughout the quarter, the linearity of the quarter? Were there any deals that you saw push out? Just trying to get an updated view, let's say, relative to what it was 3 months ago as far as how you're seeing the demand environment shape up?

我很感激你讓我問一個問題。我也很欣賞今天發布的有關模型更改等方面的所有細節。所以有幾個問題，如果可以的話，真的很快。所以首先，我只是 - 我有點想回到宏觀環境，你看到的當前需求環境。你能談談整個季度交易完成的速度，這個季度的線性嗎？你看到有什麼交易被取消了嗎？只是想獲得更新的觀點，比方說，相對於 3 個月前的情況，就您如何看待需求環境的形成而言？

Aaron, it's Gary. I'll take this one, and thanks for joining us. The macro environment, I think, continues to be challenging for a lot of companies. And for us, it's where we see it primarily is really around the scrutiny on the budget and the purchasing decision. We're not losing deals. We just see some of the sales cycles that were reflected of it. Specifically related to your question about which changed kind of quarter-over-quarter. Our business has stabilized nicely in the current quarter. We spoke last quarter about some of that deal lengthening, especially into our Americas. And we're really pleased with the rebound that our Americas had.

亞倫，是加里。我要這個，感謝你加入我們。我認為，宏觀環境對很多公司來說仍然充滿挑戰。對我們來說，我們看到的主要是圍繞預算和採購決策的審查。我們不會失去交易。我們只是看到了反映它的一些銷售週期。具體與您關於哪種季度環比變化的問題有關。我們的業務在本季度穩定良好。我們在上個季度談到了一些交易的延長，尤其是在我們的美洲。我們對美洲的反彈感到非常滿意。

They had a very strong quarter sequentially, where they saw a 20% increase in our Americas business just sequentially. So what it's showing us is the stabilization has occurred. We did not see any further deterioration at all. As Sanjay mentioned, right, we're learning to manage the business with some of the current headwinds that happened around scrutiny. But we're pleased with the performance. We're pleased how the business stabilized. And while we continue to see some push deals, it's reflected in kind of what our guidance suggests in dealing with those time lines. But at this point, we haven't seen any sequential and we're actually figure we're in a good place as we move into fiscal Q1.

他們有一個非常強勁的季度，他們看到我們的美洲業務連續增長了 20%。所以它向我們展示的是穩定已經發生。我們根本沒有看到任何進一步惡化。正如 Sanjay 提到的那樣，我們正在學習如何利用當前圍繞審查發生的一些逆風來管理業務。但我們對性能感到滿意。我們很高興業務如何穩定下來。雖然我們繼續看到一些推動交易，但它反映在我們的指導建議中處理這些時間線的方式。但在這一點上，我們還沒有看到任何連續的情況，我們實際上認為我們在進入第一財季時處於一個好的位置。

Yes. That's great detail. The second question is that I know it's been a couple of years. You guys gave a longer-term model framework a couple of years ago. What I'm particularly interested in is how you're thinking about -- I know you talked about 50 to 100 basis points operating margin expansion this year. I think back a couple of years ago, you talked about kind of driving towards a mid-20%, I want to say it was EBITDA or EBIT number. How do you think about kind of the trajectory of operating margin, maybe not just this year, but as we go forward, do you think that, that mid-20% is still achievable? Or could we see even something more than that over time?

是的。這是很好的細節。第二個問題是我知道已經有幾年了。你們幾年前給出了一個長期模型框架。我特別感興趣的是你是如何思考的——我知道你談到今年營業利潤率增長 50 到 100 個基點。我回想起幾年前，你談到了向 20% 左右的目標邁進，我想說的是 EBITDA 或 EBIT 數字。你如何看待營業利潤率的軌跡，也許不僅僅是今年，但隨著我們的前進，你認為 20% 的中期仍然可以實現嗎？或者隨著時間的推移，我們還能看到更多的東西嗎？

Aaron, good question. So sitting here today, we're not giving kind of that long-term multiyear year guidance. We're really focused on within ahead of us, which is Q1 and fiscal '24. But to give you a little perspective and maybe to set a baseline, we finished FY '23 at about 20.5% and on EBIT margin. And that includes absorbing about 300 basis points of gross margin related to our accelerating Metallic business. So we're relatively pleased with where we're at, considering how much we've absorbed. We're at the OpEx percent of revenue targets that we laid out. We did make a strategic investment in Metallic.

亞倫，好問題。所以今天坐在這裡，我們並沒有給出那種長期的多年指導。我們真正關注的是我們前面的內容，即第一季度和 24 財年。但為了給你一點視角，也許可以設定一個基線，我們以大約 20.5% 的 20.5% 和息稅前利潤率結束了 23 財年。這包括吸收與我們加速的金屬業務相關的約 300 個基點的毛利率。因此，考慮到我們吸收了多少，我們對我們所處的位置相對滿意。我們達到了我們制定的收入目標的 OpEx 百分比。我們確實對 Metallic 進行了戰略投資。

We invested for the future, and we're coming out with the best enterprise SaaS platform that's on the market. So for FY '24, I'm confident that we can deliver that 50 to 100 basis points EBIT margin. But as I think about where we go from here, Metallic margins are improving every year. You can kind of see that now in our revised disclosure on gross margin. So we're getting the lift slowly on Metallic margins. We're still headed towards what we believe is that roughly 70% Metallic margins over the next few years. We can get incremental leverage in the business, especially as the top line improves.

我們為未來投資，我們正在推出市場上最好的企業 SaaS 平台。因此，對於 24 財年，我有信心我們可以實現 50 到 100 個基點的息稅前利潤率。但當我考慮我們從這裡走向何方時，金屬利潤率每年都在提高。您現在可以在我們修改後的毛利率披露中看到這一點。因此，我們正在慢慢提升金屬利潤率。我們仍然朝著我們認為未來幾年大約 70% 的金屬利潤率邁進。我們可以在業務中獲得增量影響力，尤其是隨著收入的提高。

So as I think about Aaron long term and where we can go with the business, we obviously want to continue to grow ARR in that mid-double-digit growth, right? We've had that demonstrated history of doing that. We think we can continue to grow, and we're confident in our ability to keep delivering that mid-teen double-digit ARR growth. And getting to that mid-20% EBITDA margin should also be within our sights as we kind of scale the business year-over-year.

因此，當我長期考慮 Aaron 以及我們可以開展業務的地方時，我們顯然希望繼續以兩位數的中位數增長來增加 ARR，對嗎？我們已經證明了這樣做的歷史。我們認為我們可以繼續增長，並且我們有信心繼續實現中等兩位數的 ARR 增長。隨著我們逐年擴大業務規模，達到 20% 的 EBITDA 利潤率也應該在我們的視線之內。

Yes. That's helpful. Finally, the real quick question is, just as we think about the subscription business growing as we look forward, the other flywheel fact would be is obviously the renewal cycle. Is there anything you could share with us as far as what you're seeing on the renewal of that subscription business, any KPIs or metrics around that? And I'll cede the floor.

是的。這很有幫助。最後，真正的快速問題是，正如我們考慮訂閱業務在我們期待中增長一樣，另一個飛輪事實顯然是續訂週期。就訂閱業務的續訂、任何 KPI 或相關指標而言，您有什麼可以與我們分享的嗎？我將放棄發言權。

Absolutely. So Aaron, a couple of metrics that we also introduced this quarter, which kind of shows the strength of this land, expand, renew motion. One is the net dollar retention for subscription, which was 107%. But the other number that we're very pleased with is the Metallic net dollar retention of 125%, which really strong -- shows that strong renewal motion. Now I think as most of our shareholders and analysts are aware, we have a growing renewal base on the subscription, the term-based license model. And at this point, that's part of our normal business motion. We expect it to be greater in fiscal '24 versus fiscal '23.

絕對地。所以 Aaron，我們在本季度還介紹了一些指標，這些指標顯示了這片土地的實力，擴大，更新運動。一是訂閱的淨美元保留率，為 107%。但我們非常滿意的另一個數字是 125% 的金屬淨美元保留率，這非常強勁——表明了強勁的續約動議。現在我認為，正如我們的大多數股東和分析師都知道的那樣，我們有越來越多的基於訂閱的續訂，即基於期限的許可模式。在這一點上，這是我們正常業務活動的一部分。我們預計它在 24 財年與 23 財年相比會更大。

That will give us some good tailwinds and some predictability in our model. Historically, the average term of those deals is between 2 to 3 years. Historically, it rounded up to 3 years. In the current environment, we see some term length compression, which impacts maybe in-period P&L Aaron. But overall, for ARR, there's no impact, and it actually helps us deliver a stronger velocity. So our average term length is probably closer to 2 years now than 3 years, and we're focused on scaling that. So it will give us some good predictability into FY '24, and it helps us with the confidence we have in our guidance.

這將為我們的模型帶來一些良好的順風和一些可預測性。從歷史上看，這些交易的平均期限為 2 至 3 年。從歷史上看，它長達 3 年。在當前環境中，我們看到一些期限長度壓縮，這可能會影響期間 P&L Aaron。但總的來說，對於 ARR 來說，沒有影響，它實際上幫助我們提供了更強的速度。所以我們的平均任期長度現在可能比 3 年更接近 2 年，我們專注於擴展它。因此，它將為我們提供對 24 財年的良好預測，並幫助我們對我們的指導充滿信心。

Jim Fish from Piper Sandler.

來自 Piper Sandler 的 Jim Fish。

Working a little bit off of Aaron's here. Historically, Commvault, we've seen kind of good growth kind of fits in stops, but how long the visibility do you guys think you have in the business today versus where you may have been a few years ago? Is it now because we're crossing that 50% coming from subscription and SaaS that were less dependent on new term, especially that your visibility to kind of achieve numbers is beyond a few quarters? Or do you still view it as we're working through this and that really, we should think about visibility around 6 months?

在亞倫這里工作一點。從歷史上看，Commvault，我們已經看到了良好的增長，但你們認為與幾年前相比，你們今天在業務中的知名度有多長？現在是不是因為我們超過了 50% 來自訂閱和 SaaS，它們對新術語的依賴程度較低，尤其是您對實現數字的可見性超過了幾個季度？或者您是否仍然認為我們正在努力解決這個問題，真的，我們應該考慮 6 個月左右的可見性？

Jim, it's Gary. It's the former. In today's business model, where we have the subscription business, which combines the software and the SaaS, and I'll break it up. On the term license, we have more visibility now than we've ever had as a company because we now have this for people sales motion on the software relative to what we had a couple of years ago when it was primarily perpetual, and we were starting empty every year. Now we have a nice tailwind that's predictable, and we're focused not just on renewing, but more importantly, expanding it. So it goes beyond just the visibility of the renewal and it goes to the expansion motion, which this year is a key focus on that expansion motion ties that renewal base.

吉姆，是加里。是前者。在今天的商業模式中，我們有訂閱業務，它結合了軟件和 SaaS，我將把它分解。在許可證這個術語上，我們現在比以往任何時候都更有知名度，因為我們現在有這個針對軟件的銷售動議，相對於幾年前它主要是永久性的，我們是每年開始空著。現在我們有一個可以預測的好順風，我們不僅專注於更新，更重要的是，擴展它。因此，它不僅限於更新的可見性，還涉及擴展動議，今年的重點是擴展動議與更新基礎相關聯。

The beauty of as everybody knows on SaaS is the ratable recognition. So now that Metallic revenue, and it was disclosed in our presentation, right, was about $70 million for the year, right? It's about 10% of revenue, which is ratable perspective, which gives us not only visibility of the business, but it gives us much more predictability and to forecast our revenue amounts. So when we combine the subscription and the SaaS together and their individual attributes, it gives us that visibility that as a company, we really never had the point.

眾所周知，SaaS 的美妙之處在於獲得很高的認可度。那麼現在 Metallic 的收入，並且在我們的演示文稿中披露，對吧，今年大約是 7000 萬美元，對嗎？它大約佔收入的 10%，這是一個可評價的角度，它不僅讓我們了解業務，而且給我們更多的可預測性和預測我們的收入金額。因此，當我們將訂閱和 SaaS 以及它們各自的屬性結合在一起時，它給了我們這樣的可見性，即作為一家公司，我們真的沒有意義。

And that's a good segue, Gary, to my next question. We appreciate the breakout that you're giving today, especially term versus Metallic, be it revenue, net retention rate. Is -- how should we think about what metrics that you gave out today that you're going to give quarterly is really what I'm asking about. And how does the net retention rate specifically for subs and Metallic compare to last year at this time?

加里，這是我下一個問題的一個很好的轉折點。我們感謝您今天提供的突破，尤其是與金屬相比，無論是收入還是淨保留率。是——我們應該如何考慮你今天給出的你將每季度給出的指標是我真正要問的。與去年同期相比，subs 和 Metallic 的淨留存率如何？

So the stats that we gave today, especially around the subscription business, which combines the software and the SaaS and the KPI metrics around it, we'll continue to give every quarter. The net dollar retention, we think they're key metrics of the business, right? And we'd expect we continue to talk about our net dollar retention. The Metallic net dollar retention, when you look year-over-year, it's really not comparable because the base last year was so small, right? We were just starting out in basically year 2 of the business. So therefore, now that we're in year 3, we actually have a base that's meaningful, and we have expansion opportunity that's meaningful.

因此，我們今天提供的統計數據，尤其是圍繞訂閱業務，結合了軟件和 SaaS 以及圍繞它的 KPI 指標，我們將繼續每個季度提供。淨美元保留，我們認為它們是業務的關鍵指標，對嗎？我們希望我們繼續談論我們的淨美元保留。金屬淨美元保留率，當你逐年看時，它真的沒有可比性，因為去年的基數太小了，對吧？我們基本上是在業務的第 2 年才開始。因此，現在我們進入了第 3 年，我們實際上擁有一個有意義的基礎，並且我們擁有有意義的擴張機會。

And even within that Metallic net dollar retention of 125%, which is really strong, it even excludes the 40% Metallic customers that are also software customers which is even in a whole another expansion opportunity that we have. So with this growing installed base where 50% of our customers are now subscription SaaS or a combination of both, it really allows us to drive that renew and expand motion, and we'll continue to keep it as part of the forefront -- the forefront. I'll also continue to update the annual guidance, Jim, that I gave to -- give our shareholders a perspective on how we're seeing the full year changes the year goes as well as some of the quarterly guidance as well that we gave today. So virtually everything that you saw today, we'll continue to get on a quarterly basis.

即使在 125% 的 Metallic 淨美元保留率（這非常強勁）中，它甚至不包括 40% 的 Metallic 客戶，這些客戶也是軟件客戶，這甚至是我們擁有的另一個擴展機會。因此，隨著我們 50% 的客戶現在訂閱 SaaS 或兩者結合的不斷增長的安裝基礎，它確實使我們能夠推動更新和擴展運動，我們將繼續保持它作為最前沿的一部分——前沿。吉姆，我還將繼續更新我提供的年度指導——讓我們的股東了解我們如何看待全年的變化以及我們提供的一些季度指導今天。因此，幾乎您今天看到的所有內容，我們將繼續每季度發布一次。

Welcome Thomas Blakey from KeyBanc Capital Markets.

歡迎來自 KeyBanc Capital Markets 的 Thomas Blakey。

Congratulations on the results. I'm going to stick, I guess, with the NDR kind of line of questioning. I love the disclosure, just these products are new. And I'm just wondering, maybe any color in terms of use cases, what's driving expansion? Is this consumption-based and let's do both, right? So what's driving the Metallic NDR expansion, so we understand what that kind of looks like in fiscal '24 and '25. And what do those expansion opportunities look like from a term perspective. When you come back to me as a customer, what are you selling more of to me, and we'll start there.

祝賀結果。我想我會堅持使用 NDR 的提問方式。我喜歡披露，只是這些產品是新的。我只是想知道，就用例而言，可能有任何顏色，是什麼在推動擴展？這是基於消費的，讓我們兩者都做，對嗎？那麼是什麼推動了金屬 NDR 的擴張，所以我們了解了 24 財年和 25 財年的情況。從術語的角度來看，這些擴展機會是什麼樣的。當您作為客戶回到我身邊時，您向我出售的更多是什麼，我們將從那裡開始。

Let me -- Tom, let me take a stab at, this is Sanjay. I'll give you the sort of the broad flows of how I see the expansion and the portfolio mapping to that expansion. Let's pick Metallic. Metallic being one platform and being integrated into our software as well. Customers use our MRR, our Metallic recovery reserve, our air gapped capabilities from the software using Metallic. And so you bring the 2 things together, that's a classic expansion, okay, where they want another copy of their data off-premise.

讓我——湯姆，讓我試一試，這是桑傑。我會給你我如何看待擴張和映射到擴張的投資組合的廣泛流程。讓我們選擇金屬。 Metallic 是一個平台，也被集成到我們的軟件中。客戶使用我們的 MRR，我們的金屬回收儲備，我們使用金屬的軟件的氣隙功能。所以你把這兩件事放在一起，這是一個經典的擴展，好吧，他們想要他們的數據的另一個副本。

You've got customers who start with Office 365 and quickly realized that we can do Kubernetes, and we can do other things around virtual machines, all from the same console. And very quickly, they start embracing new services within the Metallic portfolio. So the uniqueness of our approach is our ability to really take the software platform and the SaaS platform and the power of one platform to be able to give our customers that seamless extensibility. And we're seeing that in not only the number of services, more than one service that a customer has within the Metallic platform, but also the fact that 40% plus of our Metallic customers also have Commvault software.

您的客戶開始使用 Office 365，並很快意識到我們可以做 Kubernetes，我們可以圍繞虛擬機做其他事情，所有這些都來自同一個控制台。很快，他們開始接受 Metallic 產品組合中的新服務。因此，我們方法的獨特之處在於我們能夠真正利用軟件平台和 SaaS 平台以及一個平台的力量，從而能夠為我們的客戶提供無縫的可擴展性。我們不僅在服務數量上看到了這一點，一個客戶在 Metallic 平台內擁有不止一項服務，而且我們 40% 以上的 Metallic 客戶也擁有 Commvault 軟件。

So that's the mutually sort of enhancing capability within our expansion. Now more classic expansion scenarios of capacity or additional capabilities continue to be there in the portfolio as we add security capabilities, as we add data disaster recovery capabilities into our technology. These our software customers can avail of that but just literally with snap-ins into that core platform. So the portfolio strategy we've taken for the last couple of years of making it absolutely seamless for our customers is showing in the numbers, I think that we shared with you today. And I think will continue to be important because as customers are in transition, I said, it's not like the on-premise is going to go away.

這就是我們擴張中相互增強的能力。現在，隨著我們將安全功能添加到我們的技術中，將數據災難恢復功能添加到我們的技術中，更多經典的容量或附加功能擴展場景將繼續存在於產品組合中。我們的這些軟件客戶可以利用這一點，但只是字面意義上的管理單元進入該核心平台。因此，我們在過去幾年中採取的使我們的客戶絕對無縫的投資組合戰略正在數字中顯示出來，我認為我們今天與您分享了。而且我認為這將繼續很重要，因為隨著客戶的轉型，我說，內部部署不會消失。

As they're in transition between their on-premise world and the public cloud world, either hybrid world, they're going to want both sides and they're going to want best of breed on both sides. But you can't do a piecemeal and sort of patchwork of this. It needs to be one uniform platform, and we're the only one to do that.

當他們在內部部署世界和公共雲世界（無論是混合世界）之間過渡時，他們將需要雙方，並且他們將需要雙方的最佳品種。但是你不能把它做成零碎的和拼湊的。它需要成為一個統一的平台，而我們是唯一做到這一點的平台。

That's very helpful, Sanjay. Is there any -- just a follow-up there quickly in terms of breaking out capacity expansions and new services. Is that too granular? Or just some sort of subjective understanding about that 107% or 125%, how much is capacity and how much is new services?

這很有幫助，桑傑。有沒有 - 只是在突破容量擴展和新服務方面的快速跟進。是不是太顆粒了？或者只是對 107% 或 125% 的某種主觀理解，容量是多少，新服務是多少？

I'll jump in. It's too granular to give the specifics, but I'll give you a little bit maybe on the qualitative perspective, especially related to Metallic. It will help it maybe frame. In the 125%, which is very strong, the majority of that is coming from upsell, which what I would say generally more of the same product. So even being able to deliver 125% with the majority coming from that, the number that you'll see that we really have the opportunity to accelerate. And as I mentioned that 30% -- only 30% of our Metallic customers have more than 1 SaaS offering. So we still have a huge opportunity, as Sanjay mentioned, to really expand the number of products and use cases, even now across the Metallic base and to really focus on driving that expansion at the time of renewal, tied to more use cases to work on that 30% multi-product Metallic customer metrics.

我會跳進去。它太細化了，無法給出細節，但我會給你一些定性的觀點，尤其是與金屬相關的。它可能會幫助它構建框架。在非常強勁的 125% 中，大部分來自追加銷售，我通常會說更多的是相同的產品。因此，即使能夠交付 125%，其中大部分來自於此，您也會看到我們確實有機會加速的數字。正如我提到的，30%——只有 30% 的 Metallic 客戶擁有不止一種 SaaS 產品。因此，正如 Sanjay 所提到的，我們仍然有巨大的機會來真正擴展產品和用例的數量，即使現在是整個 Metallic 基礎，並且真正專注於在更新時推動這種擴展，與更多的用例相關聯在那 30% 的多產品金屬客戶指標上。

No, that's very helpful. And that's what you'd want to hear in terms of the majority coming from capacity now and you have a cadre of things to sell to them. Just a last follow-up and I'll cede the floor about gross margin. Solid uptick here on the services and support, the old way of reporting at a 250 basis points. Just, Gary, I always bother you about an update in terms of the scaling of Metallica. We reached the bottom finally here. And just some color there would be helpful.

不，這非常有幫助。這就是你現在想听到的大多數來自產能的信息，你有一批東西可以賣給他們。只是最後一次跟進，我將讓出關於毛利率的發言權。服務和支持穩步上升，舊的報告方式為 250 個基點。只是，加里，我總是打擾你關於 Metallica 縮放方面的更新。我們終於走到了盡頭。只有一些顏色會有幫助。

Yes. We're tracking, I would say, the typical SaaS gross margin trajectory that other companies have gone through now that we're in year 3. We're actually made really significant improvements that you can kind of back into based on the reported results. And we're seeing improvement in our gross margin for Metallic quarter-over-quarter, and we expect that to happen as we kind of march towards that magic maybe 70% mark over the next couple of years. And we'll get that incremental margin expansion on Metallic as we scale it. We're solely focused on infrastructure efficiencies, we're coming out with some new packaging and pricing enhancements.

是的。我們正在跟踪，我想說，其他公司已經經歷的典型 SaaS 毛利率軌跡，現在我們已經進入第 3 年。我們實際上做出了非常顯著的改進，您可以根據報告的結果進行回顧.我們看到金屬的毛利率環比有所改善，我們預計在未來幾年內我們會朝著 70% 的神奇大關進軍。隨著我們的擴展，我們將在 Metallic 上獲得增量利潤擴張。我們只專注於基礎設施效率，我們推出了一些新的包裝和定價改進。

As I mentioned on the net dollar retention as we start to drive on multiple use cases and having customers that are using more than one Metallic product, that will also bring along margin expansion. So I think what you'll see is that continued improvement over the next couple of years on the Metallic specific. That then gives us a little more predictability, I think maybe where you're going on our consolidated gross margin, right? And it reflects kind of the guidance I gave of that 82% to 83%. We're kind of at that point now where we have the opportunity to start to scale. Now that we're that 300 basis points off kind of our whole business model format, and we can now work back towards it.

正如我在淨美元保留中提到的那樣，當我們開始推動多個用例並讓客戶使用不止一種金屬產品時，這也將帶來利潤率的增長。所以我認為你會看到未來幾年在金屬特定方面的持續改進。那給了我們更多的可預測性，我想也許你要去哪裡我們的綜合毛利率，對吧？它反映了我給出的 82% 到 83% 的指導。我們現在正處於那個階段，我們有機會開始擴大規模。現在我們的整個商業模式格式已經下降了 300 個基點，我們現在可以朝著它努力。

Very helpful. Congratulations, guys.

很有幫助。恭喜，伙計們。

(Operator Instructions) Welcome, Eric Martinuzzi from Lake Street Capital Markets.

（操作員說明）歡迎您，來自 Lake Street Capital Markets 的 Eric Martinuzzi。

Yes. You talked about growth initiatives for FY '24. We've dived into the land and expand, but I wanted to explore the hiring on the inside sales reps because it sounds like you're pretty comfortable with where your headcount is the 2,800 employees that you finished out the year with. Do we expect that to go up in FY '24? Or is it going to be kind of we're shifting headcount around to maybe lower-cost areas while growing inside sales reps?

是的。您談到了 FY '24 的增長計劃。我們已經深入到這片土地並進行擴張，但我想探索內部銷售代表的招聘，因為聽起來你對你的員工人數是 2,800 名員工感到非常滿意，你在這一年結束了。我們是否期望它在 24 財年上升？或者我們會在增加內部銷售代表的同時將員工人數轉移到成本較低的地區嗎？

Eric, it's Gary. I can handle that one. I talked a little bit about some of the refinements that we're making. And specifically related to the ISRs on that is what we're looking at is there's a piece of the Metallic velocity market that we think there is a massive opportunity for us. And attacking that from an ISR perspective, driven by velocity motion where we can see time to close, right, just be 1 quarter [and steady] multi-quarters. It's a huge opportunity that will have quite a nice payback.

埃里克，是加里。我可以處理那個。我談到了一些我們正在進行的改進。與 ISR 特別相關的是我們正在研究的是金屬速度市場的一部分，我們認為這對我們來說是一個巨大的機會。從 ISR 的角度來看，在我們可以看到關閉時間的速度運動的驅動下，對，只是 1 個季度 [和穩定的] 多個季度。這是一個巨大的機會，將有相當不錯的回報。

Tied to that, you heard us talk about some more discrete focus on our land and expand business. Generally, what that means is, yes, we're pleased with the headcount levels that we have. And as we combine the resources we have broadly throughout the company, not just in sales and marketing, this is reflective of broadly throughout the company as we try and segment our businesses with discrete focus. We think we can continue to drive productivity metrics in sales and marketing, but also other parts of the businesses as well. And all of that is reflected in the guidance that we gave, especially with our top line relative to the EBIT margin improvement we expect.

與此相關的是，您聽到我們談論了對我們的土地和擴展業務的一些更分散的關注。一般來說，這意味著，是的，我們對我們擁有的員工人數水平感到滿意。當我們結合我們在整個公司廣泛擁有的資源時，而不僅僅是在銷售和營銷方面，這反映了整個公司的廣泛情況，因為我們試圖以離散的重點來細分我們的業務。我們認為我們可以繼續推動銷售和營銷的生產力指標，但也可以推動業務的其他部分。所有這些都反映在我們給出的指導中，特別是我們的收入與我們預期的息稅前利潤率改善相關。

Can you done that down for me? Is headcount going up, down or sideways?

你能幫我完成嗎？員工人數是上升、下降還是橫盤整理？

Yes. Eric, we don't give specific headcount guidance. As I said, we brought our headcount down 5% in the second half. And as we continue to grow revenue at a pace faster than OpEx, that means our headcount, right, is in a relatively good place.

是的。埃里克，我們不提供具體的人數指導。正如我所說，我們在下半年將員工人數減少了 5%。隨著我們繼續以快於 OpEx 的速度增長收入，這意味著我們的員工人數處於相對較好的位置。

Okay. All right. And then the -- there was a source of the services outperformance in Q4. It seemed like there was a jump in the nonrecurring there. Was that tied to any special projects in professional services?

好的。好的。然後 - 第四季度服務表現出色的來源。那裡的非經常性似乎有一個跳躍。這與專業服務中的任何特殊項目有關嗎？

Yes. I'll hit this one again. We had a really strong performance from our professional services. If you go back over the past few years, it was one of our strongest results. As you know now, we're now well out of the pandemic, we were able to really identify and really work through the backlog that we have on the services and really help our customers as they [continue] really drive cost efficiencies in their infrastructure, leveraging our professional services. So it was more just to some good project completion in professional services.

是的。我會再打這個。我們的專業服務表現非常出色。如果你回顧過去幾年，那是我們最強勁的成果之一。正如您現在所知，我們現在已經完全擺脫了大流行，我們能夠真正識別並真正解決我們在服務方面的積壓，並真正幫助我們的客戶，因為他們 [continue] 真正推動其基礎設施的成本效率，利用我們的專業服務。因此，它更多的只是為了在專業服務中完成一些好的項目。

Our next question comes from Aaron Rakers of Wells Fargo.

我們的下一個問題來自富國銀行的 Aaron Rakers。

We talked a lot about the growth in subscription and the recurring revenue contribution. I'm just curious as we look at the revenue for the full year, the guidance that you had given, how do we think about, I guess, the 2 other buckets, the decline that we've continued to see in the perpetual, does that get to a level where that becomes steady state? Is that something you expect over the next year? And on that customer support line, which I think declined around 9% this last quarter, how do we think about that kind of getting to a point as kind of that perpetual burns off and that may be stabilizing at some certain level?

我們談了很多關於訂閱增長和經常性收入貢獻的問題。我只是很好奇，當我們查看全年的收入時，你給出的指導，我們如何考慮，我猜，其他兩個桶，我們在永久中繼續看到的下降，這是否達到穩定狀態的水平？這是你對明年的期望嗎？在客戶支持線上，我認為上個季度下降了 9% 左右，我們如何看待這種情況，因為這種情況會持續消失，並且可能會穩定在某個水平？

Aaron, it's Gary. I can kind of wrap that one up for you. As you kind of think about the other revenue line items, right, we now provide 3 additional line items outside of subscription revenue, the perpetual license. And you can really see -- if you look at some of our recast financials, the transition model that it has, I think that's been declining about $25 million a year. We probably have about another year of that. And I kind of think I do get out to like a $40 million to $50 million run rate over time is probably where it kind of fits maybe long term as we still have an installed base that still buys on that way.

亞倫，是加里。我可以幫你把那個包起來。當你考慮其他收入項目時，對，我們現在在訂閱收入之外提供 3 個額外的項目，即永久許可。你真的可以看到——如果你看一下我們重鑄的財務數據，它所擁有的過渡模式，我認為每年下降約 2500 萬美元。我們可能還有大約一年的時間。而且我有點認為我確實喜歡隨著時間的推移 4000 萬到 5000 萬美元的運行率可能是適合長期的地方，因為我們仍然有一個仍然以這種方式購買的安裝基礎。

But you'll see continued downward movement in that revenue item in FY '24, again, probably at similar levels to FY '20 -- FY '23. The customer support line, which includes both our customer support for both subscription and perpetual. And I think as well for FY '20 -- for '24, you'll see similar trends. You'll see similar trends in that line as well related similar to FY '23. And I think as well, then that should start to stabilize as we get to the point in the base where we have the vast majority of our customers on subscription and SaaS, right? We're about half now.

但是你會再次看到 24 財年該收入項目的持續下降，可能與 20 財年 - 23 財年的水平相似。客戶支持熱線，包括我們對訂閱和永久的客戶支持。而且我認為對於 20 財年 - 對於 24 財年，你會看到類似的趨勢。您會在該行中看到類似的趨勢，並且與 FY '23 相關。而且我也認為，當我們到達我們擁有訂閱和 SaaS 的絕大多數客戶的基地時，這應該開始穩定，對吧？我們現在大約一半。

And I think if you roll that out another year, we'll start to get to a more steady state over time. Perpetual is still roughly a little more than half of that balance on that perpetual maintenance line. So that would just give a little perspective of what the concentration is between subscription and perpetual. The last line, which is the other services. I think as I think about that, I think that number is probably give or take $40 million on an annual basis. We've done a lot of work on product automation and partner leverage. So what that allows us to do is kind of keep that services business optimize. It also helps us drive channel leverage. And a steady state of that business is good for us because it means we're making the enhancements in the product to make our product easier use and also leverage our channel partners more effectively as well.

而且我認為，如果你再推出一年，我們將隨著時間的推移開始進入更穩定的狀態。永久性仍然大約是永久性維護線上餘額的一半多一點。因此，這只是對訂閱和永久之間的集中度有一點看法。最後一行，這是其他服務。當我考慮這個問題時，我認為這個數字可能是每年給予或接受 4000 萬美元。我們在產品自動化和合作夥伴影響力方面做了很多工作。因此，我們可以做的就是讓服務業務保持優化。它還有助於我們推動渠道槓桿作用。該業務的穩定狀態對我們有利，因為這意味著我們正在改進產品，使我們的產品更易於使用，並更有效地利用我們的渠道合作夥伴。

Thank you for your questions. At this time, I would like to turn it back to Mike Melnyk for closing remarks.

謝謝你的問題。現在，我想把它轉回給 Mike Melnyk 作結束語。

Thank you all for joining our call this morning. For your reference, we will be posting an updated version of the earnings presentation inclusive of the Q1 and fiscal year '24 guidance shortly after the conclusion of the call. Thank you for joining. We look forward to following up with you.

感謝大家今天早上加入我們的電話會議。供您參考，我們將在電話會議結束後不久發布包含第一季度和 24 財年指南的更新版收益演示文稿。感謝您的加入。我們期待與您跟進。

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.

感謝您參加今天的會議。這確實結束了程序。您現在可以斷開連接。