Commvault Systems Inc (CVLT) 2022 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. And welcome to Commvault Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2022 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions)

It is now my pleasure to introduce Head of Investor Relations, Mike Melnyk.

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 Brian Carolan, Commvault's CFO.

An infographic with key financial operating metrics is posted on the Investor Relations website for reference. Statements made on today's call will include forward-looking statements about Commvault's 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. During this call, Commvault's financial results are presented on a non-GAAP basis. A reconciliation between the non-GAAP and GAAP measures can be found on our website.

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

Thank you, Mike. Good morning and thank you for joining us today. Fiscal 2022 was the best year in Commvault's history. Our differentiated platform and portfolio are resonating with customers and partners alike. Demand is strong and our team is executing, enabling us to outpace and take share from the competition. We closed the year on a high note, posting record quarterly revenue, EBIT and EPS.

Q4 software revenue of $101 million was a new milestone for the company. And we crossed $200 million in total revenue for the second consecutive quarter. Our growth was driven by the continued traction of our software and SaaS offerings, increased multiproduct adoption and through large deals. Additionally, Metallic continued to scale and contributed meaningfully to our revenue and customer growth.

As we accelerate our recurring revenue journey, we are increasingly focused on ARR as a barometer of our future growth potential. Over 80% of our revenue is now recurring in nature and growing.

At March 31, subscription on SaaS ARR increased 46% year-on-year to $346 million and now represents 59% of total ARR. And I'm pleased to report that in just 6 quarters of commercial availability, Metallic has exceeded $50 million in ARR. Its growth is extraordinary, customers love it and we love it. Brian will discuss the financial highlights in a moment. But let's first discuss the year ahead.

Over the past 3 years, we've assembled a world-class leadership team with deep domain expertise in cloud and SaaS. We transformed the company through our simplification, innovation and execution mantra.

And today's data protection market, especially data management as a service is at a tipping point. This is an incredible tailwind for the company and it is why we firmly believe our time is now. You see it's rare to have 3 critical drivers converging at once. One, our heritage is grounded in solving very hard and complex data problems for customers. This has never been more important. 2, we continuously innovate elegant and industry-leading solutions to these problems in software and SaaS. And 3, our execution engine is humming as we've proven by the results we're sharing today. Commvault has all of this.

Let me discuss these one by one. First, we solve hard problems. Our customers live in a transient world. Data is everywhere on-site, in the cloud, in flights and on remote devices. They're contending with multiple generations of data and new and different workloads. Well-funded bad actors are using ransomware and other threats to take organizations, infrastructures and data hostage. All of which are creating what I call IT collision, putting more pressure on often siloed IT and security teams who are entrusted to protect data while moving to the cloud.

Upstarts, point solutions and companies built through piecemeal acquisitions only create more silos. Customers look to us as a proven and trusted partner to help them on their journey. For 26 years, Commvault has helped solve these hard problems and provided customers a peace of mind that their data is secure and readily available.

That's by government agencies that demand the highest security and capabilities like the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Air Force and Spain's Ministry of Justice all chose Commvault for their data protection needs.

Second, we built elegant world-class solutions to these hard problems. We do this for any workload and any customer environment, one provider, one platform for a multitude of data management needs. Our flexible architecture and single pane of glass removes the rigidity and complexity in their systems.

Additionally, as many of our customers straddle both on-prem and cloud environments, they need a solution that can flex and scale to meet their evolving needs. Having moved several exabytes of customer data to the cloud over the past few years, we enabled this transformation. It is our competitive advantage.

For example, in Q4, we displaced the incumbent vendors, a legacy and an upstart and welcomed Fincantieri, one of the world's largest shipbuilders to our roster. They chose us to protect their on-prem workloads and thousands of VMs, migrate their Office 365 mailboxes to the cloud and provide cloud-based immutable copies of their data against ransomware, all through our unified platform.

And speaking of ransomware, when customers are staring down an unfortunate attack, our teams are there to help them get back to work. For example, when a Fortune 500 materials company was hit by global ransomware attack, it was us that alerted that. Not only did we save their data, but it opened the door to an expanded relationship as we were the only provider to meet the company's ransomware, multi-cloud, automation and integration needs.

But the third and probably the most important reason I believe it is our time is our raise-to-sharp execution. Over the past 2 years, we've delivered consistent revenue growth while accelerating our transition from perpetual to subscription software.

We built a world-class SaaS franchise that has surpassed $50 million in ARR. We self-funded this while delivering 800 basis points of margin expansion. And we've gone from 9 to 29 in our pursuit of the Rule of 40. This is definitive proof we are a well-executing company and is why I believe it is our time.

Now let me take a moment to discuss our portfolio. Today, our software, combined with Metallic, offers customers the unified solutions they need to address the complexity and collision of systems, workloads and competing IT and security priorities. They shouldn't have to choose unnaturally between on-prem software or SaaS.

Depending on where they are in their journey and their various workloads, they will need both. We're the only company that provides them software and SaaS at scale with the flexibility they require. For example, an existing Commvault customer, a multinational software and service provider and services provider recently expanded their on-prem data management capabilities across their entire footprint and added HyperScale X and Metallic to accelerate their cloud transition.

We're now helping them protect thousands of virtual machines, Kubernetes workloads and more than a -- by the data in Azure and they're doing it with one unified platform.

And that is why we win. This is the power of AND. And this is showing up in the financials. This quarter, we saw 80% year-on-year growth in the number of customers with more than one product, which drives higher ASP, higher lifetime value and higher recurring revenue.

This is why we are bullish. We've put in the hard work and we're ready to lean into our future as the cloud management -- sorry, cloud data management company.

Before I turn the call over to Brian to discuss our results, I want to recognize him and the announcement we made today. Brian has enabled us to build a solid foundation we stand on today as a company.

On a personal note, his counsel to me, the leadership team and the Board has been invaluable, and we all wish him well. Gary Merrill's appointment as our new CFO to reflects the deep bench of talent here at Commvault.

Gary has held several senior roles at Commvault, including Chief Accounting Officer and most recently as Chief of Business Operations. Importantly, Gary has been leading our transformation initiatives that allow us to build a modernized business platform and positioned us for accelerated growth.

Now I'll turn the call over to Brian.

Thank you very much, Sanjay. I appreciate that. After more than 21 successful years with Commvault, I have decided that it's the right time for me both professionally and personally to move on.

Commvault is coming off another record year and is well positioned for success. And it gives me great pleasure to hand the CFO reins to Gary, who has been my colleague and partner for the past 16 years. I have great confidence in his ability to lead the team.

Now let's talk about the FY '22 results, the best year in our company's history. We reported record results driven by the power of [AND], with both software and SaaS contributing to our accelerating growth trajectory.

And we closed the year on a high note, Q4 was a record quarter. We exceeded $200 million in total revenue for the second consecutive quarter with total revenue growth of 8% year-over-year to approximately $206 million. Software and products revenue increased 12% year-over-year to approximately $101 million.

Q4 marked the first time in company history that we crossed the $100 million milestone in quarterly software revenue. Software-only growth, excluding appliance pass-through revenue was approximately 15% year-over-year.

Fourth quarter subscription software revenue increased 45% year-over-year to approximately $77 million. Subscription license sales represented 77% of total software revenue, an increase from 71% last quarter and 59% a year ago.

We're clearly benefiting from the tailwinds of our subscription transition and our growing recurring revenue model. Revenue from software transactions over $100,000 increased 19% year-over-year and represented 73% of software revenue.

The volume of these transactions grew 14% year-over-year and the average deal size increased 4% to approximately $327,000. We closed numerous 7-figure deals in the quarter. Subscription and Metallic ARR grew 46% year-over-year to $346 million and now represents 59% of total ARR, up from 55% last quarter and 46% in Q4 '21.

As Sanjay noted earlier, Metallic ARR crossed the $50 million milestone during the quarter. Total ARR increased 13% year-over-year to approximately $583 million. On a constant currency basis, ARR was up 14% year-over-year.

ARR growth is being driven by new subscription customers and Metallic. This is an important proof point in the transformation of our company. We believe ARR is a good measure of the underlying health of the business and is a barometer of our potential for future growth.

Total recurring revenue, which includes subscription software, maintenance support services and SaaS, grew 19% year-over-year to $173 million. Recurring revenue represented 84% of total revenue in the quarter, an increase from 76% a year ago.

Now I'll discuss expenses and profitability. We reported fiscal fourth quarter gross margins of 85%. Consolidated gross margins reflects an increased mix of SaaS revenue, which expectedly carries a higher cost of sales than software.

Total expenses, including both cost of sales and operating expenses increased approximately 4% year-over-year to $157 million. Expense growth reflected a seasonal FICA tax reset, annual merit increases and go-to-market investments.

Q4 expenses also benefited from a $5.5 million net settlement of certain legal matters. This gain is netted with related expenses in G&A. Non-GAAP EBIT increased 20% year-over-year to a record of approximately $47 million and non-GAAP EBIT margins improved 230 basis points year-over-year to 22.6%.

Now I'll discuss cash flows and the balance sheet. For the quarter, we generated approximately $87 million of free cash flow. Growth in free cash flow was driven by strong Q3 performance, growth in deferred revenue related to Metallic and timing of payrolls.

We ended the quarter with no debt and approximately $268 million in cash on the balance sheet, of which over 70% sits overseas. In Q4, we repurchased approximately 600,000 shares of our common stock for $40 million.

Now I'll discuss our financial outlook for Q1 FY '23. We expect Q1 software revenue of approximately $89 million and total revenue of approximately $195 million.

Due to the ongoing geopolitical uncertainty, we are closely monitoring potential risks to our business, particularly customer spending patterns in Europe. Also note, Russian operations previously contributed approximately 1% of total revenue, which is factored into near-term guidance.

We expect total expenses, including cost of sales and operating expenses to be up approximately 8% year-over-year. Q1 expense growth reflects SaaS infrastructure costs and go-to-market investments to support our accelerating revenue profile. We anticipate that this will result in non-GAAP EBIT margins of approximately 20%.

Our projected share count for Q1 is approximately 46 million shares. As we start the new fiscal year, I'll take a moment to update you on our progress towards the targets we laid out during our January 2021 investor event.

At that time, we outlined our plan to transition to a recurring revenue model, characterized by sustainable growth, improved profitability, strong free cash flow and an attractive capital return policy.

I'm happy to report that we've made terrific progress. Our software and total revenue is currently tracking at or above target, while ARR is currently tracking materially above target. And our subscription software mix and recurring revenue mix are comfortably within their targeted ranges.

We ended FY '22 at 29% against the rule of 40. We are very proud of the progress we have made considering we are just 9, 2 years ago. This improvement was driven by accelerating revenue growth and significant margin expansion, all while scaling a hyper-growth SaaS platform.

While SaaS was not a major focal point of the investor event, I'm pleased to report that Metallic is pacing well ahead of expectations.

Factoring in the success and momentum of Metallic, we now believe that FY '23 non-GAAP EBIT margins should be in the low 20% range currently reflected in consensus estimates. We remain focused on making continued progress towards our Investor Day target of 32% against the Rule of 40 in fiscal '23.

From a capital return perspective, since the time of the event through March 31, 2022, we repurchased approximately 5.2 million shares for $367 million. Our Board recently approved a new share repurchase authorization for up to $250 million of stock. In FY '23, we expect to continue with our existing practice to return approximately 75% of free cash flow over time.

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

Thanks, Brian. To recap, fiscal year '22 was a record year for Commvault. And we intend to build on that momentum in fiscal year '23.

Overall market demand is healthy. The power of AND is resonating with customers and partners and our team is executing. In fiscal year '23, we expect to accelerate our growth and lead the cloud data management wave. It is our year, it's our time.

Now we'll open the call up for questions.

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of James Fish with Piper Sandler.

A nice way to end the fiscal year here. Brian, just want to actually clarify something you just said you're reaffirming the goal of 32% for the revenue growth and EBITDA margins for fiscal '23, which was low 20s EBIT would imply you're talking about 9% to 10% revenue growth for the year?

James, it's Brian here. So yes, I mean, we've made great progress towards our targets that we laid out in January 2021. And we're tracking at or above all the top-line ones. Importantly, our ARR is tracking well above the goal that we laid out. At this point, we're not changing 32% as an objective. And our objective is to continue to make progress towards that throughout this fiscal year.

And Brian, it was great to work with you and appreciate all the help over the years. Last one for me. Many infrastructure peers have been seeing pressure on the supply chain. And obviously, you guys have moved the model more towards software. But there's still some hardware element with hyperscale for example. What are you guys seeing regarding any tightening of components for Commvault or indirect impacts from project delays given the supply chain, especially -- it doesn't seem like a whole lot. But noting your lead metrics like billings actually showed material upside estimates.

Well, in the past couple of quarters, we've been keeping a real eye on not just our piece of the deal, but the hardware that supports our software. And so for the past couple of quarters, we've been able to successfully derisk it. But it is a real uncertainty in closure types because software needs the hardware or the storage below it. And the customers don't have delivery time scales, it can matter. So we've been keeping a tight eye on it. After Q2, we've been -- our whole forecasting process has -- takes that into account. It's not a perfect science, but we're keeping a real eye on it. The flip side is if the workload lends itself to a SaaS-based delivery, we've got Metallic and customers leaning on that.

And our next question comes from the line of Aaron Rakers with Wells Fargo.

This is Michael on behalf of Aaron. It looks like -- it sounds like Metallic is doing really well, growing very nicely. You guys are executing on that. I'm just curious, are you able to provide any additional metrics on maybe like the deal size growth you're seeing specifically within Metallic and maybe an update on the customer growth in the quarter.

Well, customer growth, customer growth was just shy of, I think, 500 new customers last quarter. We've also got a great consistent overlap of customers having more than -- having metallic and software. Over 50% of our customers have both. And over 60% of our new customer base was brought in by Metallic. So we're seeing -- if my numbers are right, I think they are. We're seeing a great traction on size of customers, small, medium, large. We're seeing velocity. And we're seeing the power of AND in action. At some point, we will share more details about the deal size and other metrics that you'd be interested in. But we think sharing the $50 million ARR milestone was kind of important.

And our next question comes from the line of Jason Ader with William Blair.

Yes. And first, I want to say, Brian, good luck. These calls are not going to be the same without you and miss you. Second, just to be clear, Brian, you're not saying rule of 32 for FY '23, you're saying that you still have that as a target, but not necessarily for FY '23. I just wanted to double check that.

It's our objective at this point, Jason. I think it's too early to change anything. We're not changing that as an objective right now. I think it really comes down to -- we're seeing great success from Metallic. Obviously, the margins associated with the SaaS business are a little bit different. And we may see a balance that is more pronounced as we shift to more revenue growth and margin growth. But that's -- it's too early in time to change that. We'll update you another time during the year at another investor event.

So it's not guidance. It's still the objective, but it's not guidance. Is that the right way to think about it?

Correct.

And then was there any FX impact in the quarter or the guide? Just curious because of what's going on in EMEA in particular.

Yes, no, great question. So our growth was somewhat dampened by foreign exchange by 200 to 300 basis points with revenue. We're factoring in current FX rates as we speak for this guidance. And so we're keeping an eye on it as well.

And then, lastly, on the services line. I'm just trying to do some quick math. If we just sort of divide by 4 on the $50 million ARR. I know that's not exact, but it's sort of rough let's just say, $10 million to $12 million kind of revenue for Metallic in Q4. I was just going to say, but I subtract that from the services line, then what I'm left is support and professional services, which would be kind of in the low 90s, which basically is flat with like 2 years ago. So is there anything going on in the support and professional services side because software is still growing. Why would support and professional services be kind of flat 2 years later? Or am I thinking about the numbers, right?

I think you're close without being completely exact on that. I know it's not easy to back into all that. But we're seeing an accelerating SaaS growth in terms of the recognized revenue and that's going to carry over the course of time. So $50 million in ARR, I don't know if you can exactly divide by 4 to take that accelerated. And on the rest of the services, what we're doing is, we've been at this for several years now is that we're programmatically and strategically converting many of our perpetual customers to new subscription and SaaS offerings. And that's showing up in the form of just accelerating recurring revenue growth and ARR as well.

And I'll just add something on the PS fees. We keep that right sized. And as we build more automation, as we invest more into our channel, as we do more cloud-enabled delivery, our professional services continues to play an important part, but it's right on.

So we're going to think about like a couple of years from now on the support and professional services, forgetting about Metallic or SaaS, is it right to think about that business sort of kind of flattish over the next couple of years because you're sort of subtracting some stuff and adding some stuff. Just kind of trying to figure out how to model that without metallic -- is that -- do you have any -- can you give us any help there?

I think you're directionally correct in that.

And our next question comes from the line of Eric Martinuzzi with Lake Street.

Yes. You had a small acquisition in the quarter. Wondering what the contribution was revenue-wise.

Well, firstly, I think we closed it early Feb, if memory serves me right. And we've been in the throes of integrating it and making the products more part of the Commvault framework. So that's on track as part of the -- that was our primary focus. The revenue streams that they had the acquisition the company we acquired had continue and it's -- I'd say it's not material.

As we look out here to FY '23, just curious to know kind of enterprise appetite for large IT transformational projects, maybe versus a year ago. Can you give us kind of a 30,000-foot view of that?

Increasing, I'd say if I have to use one word I'd say it's increasing. If you see the number of deals we did in the past couple of quarters, over $100,000 or over $1 million. We see those increasing and we see them being more strategic. They -- I gave 3 examples in my prepared comments about how customers are leveraging the single unified platform for more complex ransomware protection for cloud-based transformations for broader digital transformation, data management. And all of that, we're seeing more and more of that. The conversations are more strategic. The conversations involved. It's just about every conversation and deal involves cloud in some form. And our track record of moving exabytes of data rapidly for customers into the cloud that holds us in good stead.

And then, lastly for me, your investment in human capital to support the plan for FY '23, specifically interested percentage-wise or numbers wise, how are we looking at the investment in sales and customer support?

Eric, we're not going to provide that level of specificity at this point in time. But we're focused on attracting, retaining and building talent.

And if you -- from the numbers you'll see, Eric, is that our -- for us, productivity across the board in the company has been a massive priority over the past 3 years. And that's how we've been able to fund a lot of work we've done and continue to fund a lot of what we wanted to. We're driving productivity. We've got a good season set of leadership that understands that. We're seeing -- we're obviously driving multiproduct adoption, which requires a level of sophistication in the conversations we have with customers. All of that's driving productivity. All of that's helping us resource what we need to do. So without getting into the details, productivity has been our internal calling card.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. And you may now disconnect.