NetApp Inc (NTAP) 2023 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good day, and welcome to the NetApp Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2023 Earnings Call. (Operator Instructions) Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Kris Newton, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

美好的一天，歡迎來到 NetApp 第四季度和 2023 財年收益電話會議。 （操作員說明）請注意正在記錄此事件。我現在想將會議轉交給投資者關係副總裁 Kris Newton。請繼續。

Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining us. With me today are our CEO, George Kurian; and CFO, Mike Berry. This call is being webcast live and will be available for replay on our website at netapp.com. During today's call, we will make a number of forward-looking statements and projections with respect to our financial outlook and future prospects, including without limitation, our guidance for the first quarter and fiscal year 2024, our expectations regarding future revenue, profitability and shareholder returns and other growth initiatives and strategies. These statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, which may cause our actual results to differ materially. For more information, please refer to the documents we file from time to time with the SEC and on our website, including our most recent Form K and Form 10-Q. We disclaim any obligation to update our forward-looking statements and projections. During the call, all financial measures presented will be non-GAAP unless otherwise indicated. Reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP estimates are available on our website.

大家好。感謝您加入我們。今天和我在一起的是我們的首席執行官 George Kurian；和首席財務官 Mike Berry。此電話會議正在進行網絡直播，可在我們的網站 netapp.com 上重播。在今天的電話會議中，我們將就我們的財務前景和未來前景做出一些前瞻性陳述和預測，包括但不限於我們對第一季度和 2024 財年的指導、我們對未來收入、盈利能力和股東的預期回報和其他增長舉措和戰略。這些陳述受各種風險和不確定因素的影響，這可能導致我們的實際結果存在重大差異。如需更多信息，請參閱我們不時向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件以及我們網站上的文件，包括我們最新的 K 表和 10-Q 表。我們不承擔任何更新我們的前瞻性陳述和預測的義務。在電話會議期間，除非另有說明，否則所有提出的財務措施都將是非公認會計原則。我們的網站上提供了 GAAP 與非 GAAP 估計的調節。

I'll now turn the call over to George.

我現在將電話轉給喬治。

Thanks, Kris. Welcome, everyone, to our fourth quarter FY '23 call. Our Q4 results reflect solid execution in the face of ongoing macroeconomic challenges. We delivered revenue above the midpoint of our guidance with disciplined operational management yielding all-time high quarterly operating margin and EPS above expectations. For FY '23, we delivered record high annual operating margin and EPS despite the slow demand environment and relatively flat revenue from fiscal year '22.

謝謝，克里斯。歡迎大家參加我們 23 財年第四季度的電話會議。我們的第四季度業績反映了面對持續的宏觀經濟挑戰時的穩健執行。我們通過紀律嚴明的運營管理實現了高於我們指導的中點的收入，產生了歷史最高的季度運營利潤率和超出預期的每股收益。對於 23 財年，儘管需求環境緩慢且收入與 22 財年相對持平，但我們實現了創紀錄的年度營業利潤率和每股收益。

Even as customers are tightening their budgets in response to the macro, they are not stopping investments in applications and technologies that drive business productivity and growth. Digital transformation projects involving business analytics, AI, data security and application modernization, both on-premises and in the cloud, remain top priorities for IT organizations. This drives our confidence in the health of our market and future growth opportunity despite the temporary macro headwind. We are participating in the areas of priority spending with a modern approach to hybrid multi-cloud infrastructure and data management by providing customers with the ability to leverage data across their entire estate with simplicity, security and sustainability, we increase our relevance and value, and we continue to introduce new innovations to deliver greater customer value, further strengthening our position.

即使客戶為應對宏觀經濟而收緊預算，他們也不會停止對推動企業生產力和增長的應用程序和技術的投資。涉及業務分析、人工智能、數據安全和應用程序現代化的數字化轉型項目，無論是在本地還是在雲端，仍然是 IT 組織的首要任務。儘管存在暫時的宏觀逆風，這仍增強了我們對市場健康和未來增長機會的信心。我們通過為客戶提供在其整個資產中以簡單、安全和可持續的方式利用數據的能力，通過混合多雲基礎設施和數據管理的現代方法參與優先支出領域，我們提高了我們的相關性和價值，並且我們繼續引入新的創新來提供更大的客戶價值，進一步鞏固我們的地位。

On our last call, I outlined our 3 areas of focus to sharpen our execution to better deliver results, while at the same time, positioning ourselves for long-term success. As a reminder, the focus areas are: remain prudent stewards of the business tightly managing the elements within our control, reinvigorate efforts across the company in support of our storage systems business and build a more focused approach to our public cloud business.

在上次通話中，我概述了我們的 3 個重點領域，以加強我們的執行力以更好地交付成果，同時為長期成功做好準備。提醒一下，重點領域是：保持審慎的業務管家，嚴格管理我們控制範圍內的元素，重振整個公司的努力以支持我們的存儲系統業務，並為我們的公共雲業務建立一個更有針對性的方法。

As you can see from our Q4 and FY '23 results, we have demonstrated success in managing the elements within our control and staying flexible to adapt to the ever-changing environment. We remain committed to maintaining operational discipline as we move through FY '24 adjusting as appropriate to drive operating margin expansion and EPS growth while also continuing to invest for the long term.

從我們第四季度和 23 財年的結果中可以看出，我們已經證明在管理我們控制範圍內的元素和保持靈活性以適應不斷變化的環境方面取得了成功。我們將繼續致力於維持運營紀律，因為我們會在 24 財年進行適當調整，以推動營業利潤率擴張和每股收益增長，同時繼續進行長期投資。

Turning to our storage systems business. Q4 Hybrid Cloud segment revenue of $1.4 billion was down 8% year-over-year and up 4% sequentially. Our all-flash array business decreased 4% from Q4 a year ago to an annualized revenue run rate of $3.1 billion. Similar to Q3, headwinds from large enterprises, weighed on our product and AFA revenue. As you've seen, we are reinvigorating our storage portfolio, innovating to deliver greater customer value, reach new customers and better address areas of priority spending and market growth.

轉向我們的存儲系統業務。第 4 季度混合雲部門收入為 14 億美元，同比下降 8%，環比增長 4%。我們的全閃存陣列業務比去年第四季度下降了 4%，年化收入運行率為 31 億美元。與第三季度類似，來自大型企業的不利因素影響了我們的產品和 AFA 收入。正如您所看到的，我們正在重振我們的存儲產品組合，通過創新來提供更大的客戶價值、吸引新客戶並更好地解決優先支出和市場增長領域的問題。

ONTAP AI and FlexPod AI are proven and tested reference architectures to help feed and simplify AI deployments. These solutions are designed around our all-flash arrays which are uniquely suited to meet the performance, multi-protocol and data mobility demands of AI workloads. In Q4, we demonstrated industry-leading performance in the GPU direct benchmark, proof our ability to enable customers to use the full power of GPU technology for AI. Our affinity to AI use cases doesn't stop at performance. ONTAP includes native data management tools that streamline workflows for data science teams and integrate multi-platform, multi-site and multi-cloud data pipeline with new performance and data management features planned in upcoming ONTAP releases, we expect to raise the bar again, not just for performance, but for total workflow solutions that help companies realize the benefits of AI faster and with better results.

ONTAP AI 和 FlexPod AI 是經過驗證和測試的參考架構，可幫助支持和簡化 AI 部署。這些解決方案是圍繞我們的全閃存陣列設計的，這些陣列非常適合滿足人工智能工作負載的性能、多協議和數據移動性需求。在第 4 季度，我們在 GPU 直接基準測試中展示了行業領先的性能，證明我們有能力使客戶能夠將 GPU 技術的全部功能用於 AI。我們對 AI 用例的親和力並不止於性能。 ONTAP 包括原生數據管理工具，可簡化數據科學團隊的工作流程，並將多平台、多站點和多雲數據管道與即將發布的 ONTAP 版本中計劃的新性能和數據管理功能集成在一起，我們希望再次提高標準，而不是只是為了性能，而是為了幫助公司更快地實現人工智能的好處並取得更好結果的整體工作流解決方案。

The new AFF C-Series, our comprehensive portfolio of QLC-based all-flash arrays began shipping late in Q4. We are very pleased with the initial customer response in addition to lots of coding activity we closed a good number of deals in the fourth quarter. One of our early C-Series wins was a $15 million deal at a large financial institution for business-critical workloads in its cloud-ready service level defined environment. We beat the competition with a solution that was significantly denser and more energy efficient.

新的 AFF C 系列是我們基於 QLC 的全閃存陣列的綜合產品組合，已於第四季度末開始發貨。我們對最初的客戶反應非常滿意，此外還有大量編碼活動，我們在第四季度完成了大量交易。我們早期的 C 系列項目之一是在一家大型金融機構獲得 1500 萬美元的交易，用於在其云就緒服務級別定義的環境中處理關鍵業務工作負載。我們通過密度更高、能效更高的解決方案擊敗了競爭對手。

Following this highly successful launch, we introduced the NetApp AFA A-Series early in Q1. The ASA is a new line of SAN specific flash storage systems that deliver high levels of performance, scalability, data availability, efficiency and cloud connectivity with up to 50% lower power consumption and associated carbon emissions and competitive offering. The ASA complements our unified storage offering to address block-only use cases while avoiding the operational and data silos of competitors' products. We are also innovating to improve the customer experience. In Q4, we introduced NetApp Advance, a portfolio of programs, bringing predictability and adaptability including the storage life cycle program for nondisruptive storage upgrade.

在這次非常成功的發布之後，我們在第一季度初推出了 NetApp AFA A 系列。 ASA 是 SAN 專用閃存存儲系統的新系列，可提供高水平的性能、可擴展性、數據可用性、效率和雲連接性，同時功耗和相關碳排放量降低高達 50%，是具有競爭力的產品。 ASA 補充了我們的統一存儲產品，以解決僅塊用例，同時避免競爭對手產品的運營和數據孤島。我們也在不斷創新，以改善客戶體驗。在第 4 季度，我們推出了 NetApp Advance，這是一個程序組合，帶來了可預測性和適應性，包括用於無中斷存儲升級的存儲生命週期程序。

At the start of Q1, we announced ONTAP 1, a simple way to buy and consume all the native software capabilities of ONTAP. We are enhancing the value of these built-in capabilities with our ransomware recovery guaranteed, which leverages ONTAP unique combinations of key built-in security and ransomware protective features to detect, stop and recover from ransomware attacks in real time. In addition to delivering significant innovation, we've also rebalanced our go-to-market efforts, including focusing our broad sales organization on selling flash through compensation plans, and reinstituting a specialist sales team for cloud. We believe these actions will allow the team to better address the large storage TAM.

在第一季度初，我們發布了 ONTAP 1，這是一種購買和使用 ONTAP 所有本機軟件功能的簡單方法。我們通過保證勒索軟件恢復來增強這些內置功能的價值，它利用 ONTAP 關鍵內置安全性和勒索軟件保護功能的獨特組合來實時檢測、阻止勒索軟件攻擊並從中恢復。除了提供重大創新外，我們還重新平衡了進入市場的努力，包括通過補償計劃將我們廣泛的銷售組織重點放在銷售閃存上，並重新組建了一個雲專業銷售團隊。我們相信這些行動將使團隊能夠更好地解決大型存儲 TAM。

Entering FY '24, I'm confident that these actions will enable us to drive product revenue growth and regain share in the all-flash array market. We are seeing early positive signs but the full benefit of these changes will take time to develop and should be a driver for product revenue growth in the second half.

進入 24 財年，我相信這些行動將使我們能夠推動產品收入增長並重新奪回全閃存陣列市場的份額。我們看到了早期的積極跡象，但這些變化的全部好處將需要時間來發展，並且應該成為下半年產品收入增長的推動力。

While we are sharpening our attack on the storage market, we are not taking our eye off the Public Cloud opportunity. Public cloud ARR of $620 million was up 23% year-over-year and ahead of our expectations, driven by strength in Public Cloud storage services. Our Public Cloud business in Q4 was back-end loaded, resulting in softer revenue and lower DBNRR than our ARR results would indicate. Public Cloud revenue for Q4 was $151 million, and DBNRR was 114%. Our Public Cloud services are highly differentiated with a multiyear advantage over our traditional competitors, and they create customer preference for NetApp. The number of total cloud customers, customers using multiple of our Public Cloud services and customers with better than $500,000 of revenue in the quarter, all continue to grow nicely.

雖然我們正在加強對存儲市場的攻擊，但我們並沒有把目光從公共雲機會上移開。受公共雲存儲服務實力的推動，公共雲 ARR 為 6.2 億美元，同比增長 23%，超出我們的預期。我們在第四季度的公共雲業務是後端加載的，導致收入和 DBNRR 低於我們的 ARR 結果所顯示的。第四季度公共雲收入為 1.51 億美元，DBNRR 為 114%。我們的公有云服務與我們的傳統競爭對手相比具有多年優勢，具有高度差異化優勢，它們為 NetApp 創造了客戶偏好。雲客戶總數、使用我們多種公共雲服務的客戶以及本季度收入超過 500,000 美元的客戶都在繼續良好增長。

While like our cloud partners, we see continued cloud optimization, some of the customers whose optimization created significant headwinds for us in FY '23 has kicked off new projects that we expect to scale over the next 18 months. We believe that our first-party storage services, branded and sold by our cloud partners represent our biggest opportunity. We have aligned our sales specialist resources to our cloud partners' customer segmentation and go-to-market structure to tighten our alignment to and improve our execution against this opportunity. Over the course of FY '24, we will scale our customer success team to further improve customer retention and expansion and develop a more focused cloud channel model. Cloud operations remains an important market for us, and we have dedicated go-to-market resources to address this opportunity.

雖然與我們的雲合作夥伴一樣，我們看到了持續的雲優化，但一些在 23 財年優化為我們帶來重大阻力的客戶已經啟動了我們預計在未來 18 個月內擴展的新項目。我們相信，由我們的雲合作夥伴品牌和銷售的第一方存儲服務是我們最大的機會。我們已將我們的銷售專家資源與我們的雲合作夥伴的客戶細分和上市結構相結合，以加強我們對這一機會的協調並提高我們的執行力。在 24 財年期間，我們將擴大我們的客戶成功團隊，以進一步提高客戶保留率和擴展能力，並開發更集中的雲渠道模型。雲運營對我們來說仍然是一個重要的市場，我們有專門的上市資源來抓住這個機會。

We have not wavered in our convictions that public cloud services has the potential to be a multibillion-dollar ARR business for us. While the shift to cloud is experiencing an industry-wide slowdown, the long-term trend in favor of cloud is unchanged.

我們並沒有動搖我們的信念，即公共雲服務有可能成為我們價值數十億美元的 ARR 業務。雖然向雲的轉變正在經歷整個行業的放緩，但有利於雲的長期趨勢並未改變。

In conclusion, while FY '23 was not the year we expected at its outset, our disciplined management enabled us to overcome a number of headwinds to deliver all-time high operating margin and EPS. The fundamentals of our business model are sound and our confidence in our strategy and the health of long-term opportunity is unchanged. We are entering fiscal year '24 with substantially more innovation and a new more focused operating model to attack the areas of priority spending. In this uncertain environment, we will remain agile and continue to be disciplined stewards of the business. We believe our actions will drive margin expansion and earnings growth while yielding top line growth in the back half of the year.

總之，雖然 23 財年不是我們一開始就預期的一年，但我們紀律嚴明的管理使我們能夠克服許多不利因素，實現歷史最高的營業利潤率和每股收益。我們商業模式的基礎是健全的，我們對我們的戰略和長期機會的健康狀況的信心沒有改變。我們正在進入 24 財年，帶來更多的創新和更專注的新運營模式，以攻擊優先支出領域。在這種不確定的環境中，我們將保持敏捷並繼續成為業務的紀律管家。我們相信我們的行動將推動利潤率擴張和盈利增長，同時在今年下半年實現收入增長。

Thank you to the NetApp team for their dedication and focus. I am pleased with our progress, but we recognize our work is not done. We look forward to building on this momentum and driving long-term value for our shareholders.

感謝 NetApp 團隊的奉獻和專注。我對我們的進展感到滿意，但我們認識到我們的工作還沒有完成。我們期待在這一勢頭的基礎上再接再厲，為股東創造長期價值。

I'll now turn the call over to Mike.

我現在將電話轉給邁克。

Thank you, George, and good afternoon, everyone. As George noted, we are laser-focused on managing the elements within our control. Our focus enabled us to deliver strong P&L performance for the full year and Q4.

謝謝喬治，大家下午好。正如 George 指出的那樣，我們非常專注於管理我們控制範圍內的元素。我們的專注使我們能夠在全年和第四季度實現強勁的損益表現。

Before getting into the details, let me quickly highlight the key themes of our results and expectations for fiscal year '24. As a reminder, all numbers discussed are non-GAAP unless otherwise noted. We delivered record-setting operating margin and EPS above our guidance range in both Q4 and fiscal year '23. We will continue to prudently manage the business to position ourselves for long-term success while driving further operating margin expansion and EPS growth in fiscal year '24. We are confident in the strength of our position and alignment to areas of priority spend. However, macro uncertainties and FX headwinds have pressured IT budget and lower spending. We believe these headwinds are temporary and that the spending environment will rebound in time.

在詳細介紹之前，讓我快速強調一下我們對 24 財年業績和預期的關鍵主題。提醒一下，除非另有說明，否則所有討論的數字都是非 GAAP 數據。我們在第四季度和 23 財年都實現了創紀錄的營業利潤率和每股收益，超出了我們的指導範圍。我們將繼續審慎管理業務，為長期成功做好準備，同時推動 24 財年的營業利潤率進一步擴大和每股收益增長。我們對我們的地位和與優先支出領域的一致性充滿信心。然而，宏觀不確定性和外匯逆風給 IT 預算帶來了壓力並降低了支出。我們認為這些逆風是暫時的，消費環境會及時反彈。

We reached our product gross margin target of mid-50s ahead of expectations. In fiscal year '24, we expect to maintain product gross margins at this level and drive improvement of public cloud gross margin. In fiscal year '23, we returned 148% of free cash flow to shareholders and reduced full year share count by 4% from the prior year. We plan to continue a strong policy of shareholder returns in fiscal year '24.

我們提前達到了 50 年代中期的產品毛利率目標。在 24 財年，我們預計將產品毛利率維持在該水平，並推動公有云毛利率的改善。在 23 財年，我們向股東返還了 148% 的自由現金流，全年股票數量比上一年減少了 4%。我們計劃在 24 財年繼續實施強有力的股東回報政策。

Now to the details. Fiscal year '23 billings of $6.41 billion were down 4% from fiscal year '22. Revenue of $6.36 billion was up 1% year-over-year. Adjusting for the headwind from FX, billings would have been down 1% and revenue would have been up 4% year-over-year. Disciplined operational management yielded all-time fiscal year highs for operating margin and EPS. Operating margin was 24.2%, including a 150 basis point headwind from FX. EPS was $5.59 and included $0.57 of year-over-year FX headwinds. Q4 billings of $1.67 billion were down 17% year-over-year, including roughly 2 points of FX headwinds. Revenue came in above the midpoint of our guidance range at $1.58 billion, down 6% from last year or 4% adjusting for FX.

現在到細節。 23 財年的賬單額為 64.1 億美元，比 22 財年下降了 4%。收入 63.6 億美元，同比增長 1%。根據外彙的不利因素進行調整，營業額將下降 1%，收入將同比增長 4%。紀律嚴明的運營管理創造了營業利潤率和每股收益的歷史新高。營業利潤率為 24.2%，包括來自外彙的 150 個基點逆風。每股收益為 5.59 美元，包括 0.57 美元的同比外匯逆風。第 4 季度的營業額為 16.7 億美元，同比下降 17%，其中包括大約 2 個百分點的外匯逆風。收入高於我們指導範圍的中點，為 15.8 億美元，比去年下降 6%，按匯率調整後下降 4%。

The uncertain macro negatively impacted revenue in both our Hybrid Cloud and Public Cloud segment as customers continue to exhibit caution in capital expenditures and look to optimize cloud spend. Public Cloud revenue of $1.43 billion was down 8% year-over-year. Product revenue was $744 million and down 17% from Q4 last year. Support revenue of $598 million increased 1% year-over-year. Public Cloud ARR exited the year ahead of expectations at $620 million up 23% year-over-year. Public Cloud revenue composed 10% of total revenue in Q4 and grew 26% year-over-year to $151 million. We exited fiscal year '23 with $4.31 billion in deferred revenue, an increase of 2% year-over-year.

不確定的宏觀環境對我們混合雲和公共雲部門的收入產生了負面影響，因為客戶繼續對資本支出表現出謹慎態度並尋求優化雲支出。公共雲收入為 14.3 億美元，同比下降 8%。產品收入為 7.44 億美元，比去年第四季度下降 17%。支持收入為 5.98 億美元，同比增長 1%。公有云 ARR 以 6.2 億美元的年增長率超出預期，同比增長 23%。公共雲收入佔第四季度總收入的 10%，同比增長 26% 至 1.51 億美元。我們以 43.1 億美元的遞延收入結束了 23 財年，同比增長 2%。

Growth of deferred revenue is the best leading indicator for recurring revenue growth. Q4 marks the 21st consecutive quarter of year-over-year deferred revenue growth. Q4 consolidated gross margin was 69%, above our guidance. Total Hybrid Cloud gross margin was also 69%. Product gross margin was 55%, well ahead of guidance, driven by lower premiums, better mix and lower FX headwinds. As we've described on previous calls, we expect to retain all of the benefit from the reduction in premiums and will be responsive to market pricing of commodity components. Our recurring support business continues to be highly profitable with gross margin of 92%.

遞延收入的增長是經常性收入增長的最佳領先指標。第四季度是遞延收入連續第 21 個季度同比增長。第 4 季度綜合毛利率為 69%，高於我們的指引。混合云總毛利率也為 69%。產品毛利率為 55%，遠超預期，這主要得益於較低的保費、更好的產品組合和較低的外匯逆風。正如我們在之前的電話會議上所描述的那樣，我們希望保留保費下降帶來的所有好處，並將對商品成分的市場定價做出反應。我們的經常性支持業務繼續保持高利潤，毛利率為 92%。

Public Cloud gross margin was 66%. The Q4 again highlighted the strength of our business model and our operational discipline with operating margin of 26%, an all-time quarterly high. EPS of $1.54 was comfortably above the high end of guidance and included $0.08 of year-over-year FX headwind. In Q4, cash flow from operations was $235 million and free cash flow was $196 million. Free cash flow for fiscal year '23 of $868 million came in below expectations due to lower collections and timing of payments. As we noted on our last call, Q4 cash flow included certain one restructuring and tax payments together totaling approximately $85 million. Inventory turns of 12 were steady from last quarter and last year.

公有云毛利率為 66%。第四季度再次凸顯了我們業務模式的優勢和我們的運營紀律，營業利潤率為 26%，創歷史季度新高。每股收益 1.54 美元遠高於指導的上限，其中包括 0.08 美元的同比外匯逆風。第四季度，運營現金流為 2.35 億美元，自由現金流為 1.96 億美元。由於收款和付款時間減少，23 財年的自由現金流為 8.68 億美元，低於預期。正如我們在上次電話會議中指出的那樣，第四季度現金流包括某些重組和納稅，總計約 8500 萬美元。庫存周轉率為 12，與上一季度和去年相比保持穩定。

During Q4, we repurchased $150 million in stock and paid out $106 million in cash dividends. For the year, we repurchased a total of $850 million in stock and paid out $432 million in cash dividends, representing 148% of free cash flow. Q4 diluted share count of $217 million was down 5% year-over-year. We have approximately $400 million left on our current share repurchase authorization as of the end of fiscal year '23, and today are announcing an additional authorization of $1 billion. Our balance sheet remains very healthy. We closed the year with $3.07 billion in cash and long-term investments.

在第四季度，我們回購了 1.5 億美元的股票並支付了 1.06 億美元的現金股息。全年，我們共回購了 8.5 億美元的股票，並支付了 4.32 億美元的現金股息，佔自由現金流的 148%。第四季度攤薄後的股票數量為 2.17 億美元，同比下降 5%。截至 23 財年末，我們目前的股票回購授權還剩約 4 億美元，今天宣布額外授權 10 億美元。我們的資產負債表仍然非常健康。我們以 30.7 億美元的現金和長期投資結束了這一年。

Now to guidance. Let me underscore our confidence in our strategy and the strength of our position in addressing key customer priorities, like business analytics, AI, data security and application modernization. However, we expect the macro to remain challenged with continued pressure on IT budgets and the demand environment. As a result, we expect fiscal year '24 total revenue to be down in the low to mid-single digits measured on a percentage basis. Public Cloud will continue to be a positive contributor with revenue growth expected in the mid-teens. Implied in our fiscal year '24 revenue guidance is year-over-year growth in the second half, driven by sales of recently introduced flash products and benefits from our go-to-market changes. While we are hopeful that the macro economy will improve in the second half of our fiscal year, our plans for fiscal year '24 incorporate the environment we are seeing today and do not assume a material change to the economic or demand backdrop. We expect fiscal year '24 consolidated gross margin to be roughly 70%. We believe that product margins will remain at approximately 55%, supported by lower premiums and a rotation to higher-margin all-flash products.

現在來指導。讓我強調一下我們對我們的戰略的信心以及我們在解決關鍵客戶優先事項（如業務分析、人工智能、數據安全和應用程序現代化）方面的優勢。然而，我們預計宏觀將繼續面臨 IT 預算和需求環境持續壓力的挑戰。因此，我們預計 24 財年的總收入按百分比計算將下降到中低個位數。公共雲將繼續成為積極的貢獻者，預計收入將在十幾歲左右增長。在我們的 24 財年收入指引中暗示下半年同比增長，這是受最近推出的閃存產品的銷售推動以及我們的上市變化帶來的好處。雖然我們希望宏觀經濟在本財年下半年有所改善，但我們的 24 財年計劃考慮了我們今天看到的環境，並且不假設經濟或需求背景發生重大變化。我們預計 24 財年的綜合毛利率約為 70%。我們認為產品利潤率將保持在 55% 左右，這得益於較低的保費和轉向利潤率更高的全閃存產品。

To take advantage of record low NAND prices, we have made strategic purchase commitments to lock in pricing for a large portion of our expected fiscal year '24 SSD demand. This will help us maintain product gross margin levels when component prices rise in the future. We expect to see Public Cloud gross margin improvement in fiscal year '24, driven by revenue scale and lower depreciation expense. We remain confident in our long-term Public Cloud gross margin target of 75% to 80%.

為了利用創紀錄的低 NAND 價格，我們做出了戰略採購承諾，以鎖定我們預期的 24 財年 SSD 需求的大部分定價。這將有助於我們在未來組件價格上漲時維持產品毛利率水平。在收入規模和較低的折舊費用的推動下，我們預計 24 財年公有云毛利率將有所改善。我們對 75% 至 80% 的長期公有云毛利率目標仍然充滿信心。

We anticipate operating margins of approximately 25% and EPS of $5.65 to $5.85. Implied in this guidance is the expectation that we will hold operating expenses roughly flat versus fiscal year '23. Fiscal year '24 OpEx includes benefits from the Q4 reduction in force, offset by annual merit increases, a reset of variable compensation and incremental expenses to support our first in-person sales kickoff and Insight user conference since 2019.

我們預計營業利潤率約為 25%，每股收益為 5.65 美元至 5.85 美元。本指南暗示我們將保持運營支出與 23 財年大致持平。 '24 財年的運營支出包括第四季度裁員帶來的收益，被年度業績增長、可變薪酬重置和增量支出所抵消，以支持我們自 2019 年以來的首次面對面銷售啟動和 Insight 用戶會議。

Operating expenses should be spread fairly evenly throughout the year. We expect the tax rate in the range of 21% to 22%. Operating cash flow will move in line with net income, although there will be some quarterly variance based on working capital. As we've stated before, fiscal year '23 should be the peak for CapEx with expenditures beginning to come down in fiscal year '24. Our healthy cash generation enables us to continue our strong program of capital returns to shareholders. In fiscal year '24 we intend to return 100% of free cash flow to shareholders in share buybacks and dividends.

運營費用應在全年中平均分配。我們預計稅率在 21%至 22%之間。經營現金流量將與淨收入一致，但會因營運資金而出現一些季度差異。正如我們之前所說，'23 財年應該是資本支出的頂峰，支出在'24 財年開始下降。我們健康的現金生成使我們能夠繼續我們強大的股東資本回報計劃。在 24 財年，我們打算通過股票回購和派息將 100% 的自由現金流返還給股東。

We plan to hold our quarterly dividend steady at $0.50 per share throughout fiscal year '24, with the remainder of free cash flow going to share buyback. We expect the timing of buybacks to be roughly similar to fiscal year '23 and to reduce share count by at least 2% in fiscal year '24. Now on the Q1 guidance. We expect Q1 revenue to range between $1.325 billion and $1.475 billion, which, at the midpoint, implies a decline of 12% year-over-year. Remember that first half fiscal year '23 revenue, most notably product revenue benefited from elevated levels of backlog from supply chain constraints impacting the year-over-year comparable. We expect Q1 consolidated gross margin to be roughly 70% and operating margin to be approximately 20%. EPS should be in the range of $1 to $1.10. Q1 cash flow will be impacted by payments associated with SSD purchase commitments, partially offset by lower incentive compensation payments year-over-year related to our fiscal year '23 performance.

我們計劃在整個 24 財年將季度股息穩定在每股 0.50 美元，其餘自由現金流將用於股票回購。我們預計回購的時間將與 23 財年大致相似，並在 24 財年將股票數量減少至少 2%。現在關於第一季度的指導。我們預計第一季度收入將在 13.25 億美元至 14.75 億美元之間，按中點計算，這意味著同比下降 12%。請記住，23 財年上半年的收入，最顯著的產品收入受益於供應鏈限制影響同比可比的積壓水平上升。我們預計第一季度綜合毛利率約為 70%，營業利潤率約為 20%。 EPS 應該在 1 美元到 1.10 美元之間。第一季度現金流將受到與 SSD 購買承諾相關的付款的影響，部分被與我們 23 財年業績相關的同比較低的激勵補償付款所抵消。

In closing, I want to echo George's appreciation of the NetApp team and their continued commitment in this uncertain environment. As I look forward into fiscal year '24, I am confident in our strategy and our ability to continue to improve our execution and increase profitability.

最後，我想表達 George 對 NetApp 團隊的讚賞以及他們在這種不確定環境中的持續承諾。展望 24 財年，我對我們的戰略和我們繼續改善執行力和提高盈利能力的能力充滿信心。

I'll now turn the call back over to Kris for Q&A.

我現在將電話轉回 Kris 進行問答。

Thanks, Mike. Operator, let's begin the Q&A.

謝謝，邁克。接線員，讓我們開始問答。

(Operator Instructions) And our first question will come from Aaron Rakers of Wells Fargo.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題將來自富國銀行的 Aaron Rakers。

This is Mike on behalf of Aaron. I just wanted to ask, you mentioned some customers have kicked off new projects following a period of digestion or optimization. I'm just curious, can you give us a sense of how many customers you put in this bucket versus ones that continue to be cautious or maybe becoming incrementally more cautious, just trying to get a sense of how the demand environment has changed?

這是亞倫的代表邁克。我就想問一下，你提到有些客戶在經過一段時間的消化或者優化之後，開始了新的項目。我只是好奇，你能告訴我們你把多少客戶放在這個桶裡，而那些繼續保持謹慎或可能變得越來越謹慎的客戶，只是想了解一下需求環境是如何變化的嗎？

Broadly speaking, the Q4 demand environment was not substantially different from what we saw in Q3, and our plans for next year contemplate continuation of the same environment. We talked about in the cloud segment, some of the larger customers who had significantly optimized their landscape through the course of the prior quarters began to take on the projects that we anticipated them taking on. These projects take some time to ramp. We also saw strength in new customer additions and the number of customers that were using multiple products from NetApp, so all good signs for future revenue growth. That being said, customers on a broad basis, still cautious about spending and particularly in the large enterprise segment.

從廣義上講，第四季度的需求環境與我們在第三季度看到的沒有本質不同，我們明年的計劃是考慮延續相同的環境。我們在雲領域談到，一些在前幾個季度顯著優化了他們的格局的大客戶開始承擔我們預期他們承擔的項目。這些項目需要一些時間才能啟動。我們還看到了新客戶增加和使用 NetApp 多種產品的客戶數量的增長，這些都是未來收入增長的好兆頭。話雖這麼說，客戶在廣泛的基礎上仍然對支出持謹慎態度，尤其是在大型企業領域。

The next question comes from Samik Chatterjee of JPMorgan.

下一個問題來自摩根大通的 Samik Chatterjee。

I guess for the first one. If I sort of -- you reiterated a few times you're really not baking in any macro improvement to the guide, but you did highlight the opportunity to get back to revenue growth in the second half. Just wondering if you can help us think through both of those pieces, particularly when I sort of put them against each other, it does look like you're calling for more of a share gain than revenue rebound in the second half of the -- what sort of drives confidence in this sort of a sequential ramp in revenue through the year? And is there more to it than sort of share gain? And I have a quick follow-up. .

我想是第一個。如果我有點 - 你重申了幾次你真的沒有對指南進行任何宏觀改進，但你確實強調了下半年恢復收入增長的機會。只是想知道你是否可以幫助我們考慮這兩個部分，特別是當我將它們相互比較時，看起來你確實要求在下半年獲得更多的份額收益而不是收入反彈 -是什麼推動了人們對全年收入連續增長的信心？除了某種份額收益之外，還有更多嗎？我有一個快速的跟進。 .

I think broadly speaking, we are super excited about the recent portfolio introductions we've made. We've seen the benefits of improved focus in our field organization. It takes a few quarters to build. And I think if you look at the pattern of sequential linearity through next fiscal year, it is similar to what we have seen in more traditional years. I think FY '23 was a bit anomalous. And so we feel good about the progress through the year. I think with regard to the macro, we are not -- we've built our plan assuming the macro stays the same. Clearly, if there's upside to the macro, that should be a benefit to us over the course of the year.

我認為從廣義上講，我們對最近推出的投資組合感到非常興奮。我們已經看到在我們的現場組織中改進重點的好處。建造需要幾個季度。而且我認為，如果你看看下一個財政年度的順序線性模式，它與我們在更傳統的年份看到的類似。我認為 FY '23 有點反常。因此，我們對這一年的進展感到滿意。我認為關於宏觀，我們不是——我們已經制定了假設宏觀保持不變的計劃。顯然，如果宏觀有上行空間，那應該對我們全年有利。

Samik, it's Mike. If I could just add on to that and want to underline the one point George made. When we talk about our guide for '24, when we talk about linearity, that's -- and we define that as total revenue we expect in the first half versus the second half. That's much more at where we've been historically, which is about 48% and 52% in those halves. So when you take a look at the year-over-year growth rates in '24, just keep in mind that those were heavily influenced by the backlog last year. So when you normalize for that, it looks like a much more normal linearity in '24.

薩米克，是邁克。如果我可以補充一點並想強調喬治提出的一點。當我們談論我們的 24 年指南時，當我們談論線性時，我們將其定義為我們預計上半年與下半年的總收入。這比我們歷史上的水平要高得多，在這兩半中大約是 48% 和 52%。因此，當您查看 24 年的同比增長率時，請記住，這些增長率受到去年積壓的嚴重影響。因此，當您為此進行標準化時，它看起來更像是 24 年的正常線性。

Okay. Got it. On the cloud business, the growth expectations that you have for fiscal '24. Can you just outline how you're thinking about sort of retention business versus new business wins? And also curious if you obviously highlighted the AI opportunity, but do you see that opportunity on the cloud revenue side as well?

好的。知道了。在雲業務上，您對 24 財年的增長預期。您能否概述一下您是如何考慮保留業務與贏得新業務的？也很好奇你是否明顯強調了人工智能的機會，但你是否也看到了雲收入方面的機會？

Listen, I think, first of all, we are very pleased with new customer acquisition, the broadening of our workloads, clearly the performance and the efficiency and multiprotocol capability of our storage is an advantage whether for AI workloads, whether they are on-premises or in public cloud. What we've seen in Public Cloud for AI is a lot of data science teams using the prebuilt tools that are available on the public cloud to calibrate and get their learning models of the curve quickly. And that's uniquely available with NetApp. I think with regard to our perspective for the full year, listen, class storage, especially the storage that's sold alongside the hyperscalers will be the primary driver of our business next year. I think if you look at the total dollars in any given year, the opportunity to expand existing customers is substantially larger than the amount that new customers contribute because they are just small, but we feel good about the pace of new customer acquisition. And now our installed base of cloud customers is very substantial. So there's a good opportunity to cross-sell and upsell them more capabilities.

聽著，我認為，首先，我們對新客戶的獲取、我們工作負載的擴大感到非常高興，顯然我們存儲的性能、效率和多協議能力是一個優勢，無論是對於 AI 工作負載，還是在本地或在公共雲中。我們在 AI 公有云中看到的是，許多數據科學團隊使用公有云上可用的預構建工具來快速校準和獲取他們的曲線學習模型。這是 NetApp 獨有的。我認為關於我們全年的觀點，聽著，類存儲，尤其是與超大規模存儲一起銷售的存儲將成為我們明年業務的主要驅動力。我認為，如果你看一下任何一年的總美元，擴大現有客戶的機會遠遠大於新客戶貢獻的數量，因為它們很小，但我們對新客戶獲取的速度感到滿意。現在我們的雲客戶群非常龐大。因此，這是交叉銷售和追加銷售更多功能的好機會。

The next question comes from Meta Marshall of Morgan Stanley.

下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的元馬歇爾。

Maybe first question, you noted starting to kind of -- noted seeing customers coming out of optimization periods and starting to add workloads. Just wanted to gain a sense of, are you seeing that more with larger or smaller customers or any particular types of workloads that they're starting to kind of add back? And then maybe second question, the Series-C customer that you noted winning in the quarter. Just any commentary on whether that was an existing customer? And just you noted efficiency and kind of energy efficiency being the reason for the sale, but just kind of how long that sales cycle was just any details there would be helpful.

也許第一個問題，你注意到開始有點——注意到看到客戶走出優化期並開始增加工作負載。只是想了解一下，您是否看到更大或更小的客戶或他們開始增加的任何特定類型的工作負載更多？然後可能是第二個問題，您注意到在本季度獲勝的 C 系列客戶。關於這是否是現有客戶的任何評論？只是你注意到效率和能源效率是銷售的原因，但銷售週期有多長，任何細節都會有所幫助。

Yes. So let me get the 2 questions. The first 1 is what we've seen in the cloud environment is that customers are still progressing new workload deployment, meaning new applications, analytics environment, AIML environment and so on, right? And that has not slowed down. I think there was a period of time where customers were monitoring their environments and optimizing the infrastructure but the new deployments continue. I think where we have seen people being more cautious is about migration of on-premises environments, for example, to public cloud, where they are benchmarking the total cost of each of those landscapes. We have a large and growing opportunity in public cloud on new workloads because of the capabilities and the certifications that we continue to bring. And so we're excited about that opportunity. I think with regard to the customer we mentioned, they were not using NetApp for the landscape that we won. We won -- we replaced a competitive environment, and we did so based on the new C-Series products that had a significant advantage over all the competitive products both in terms of our traditional advantages around multiprotocol and all of the data management features but we're also substantially more efficient from a power consumption and density standpoint.

是的。所以讓我回答兩個問題。第一個是我們在雲環境中看到的，客戶仍在進行新的工作負載部署，這意味著新的應用程序、分析環境、AIML 環境等，對嗎？這並沒有放緩。我認為有一段時間客戶在監控他們的環境並優化基礎架構，但新部署仍在繼續。我認為我們看到人們更加謹慎的地方是本地環境的遷移，例如，到公共雲，他們正在對每個環境的總成本進行基準測試。由於我們不斷帶來的能力和認證，我們在公共雲中擁有巨大且不斷增長的機會來處理新的工作負載。因此，我們對這個機會感到興奮。我認為關於我們提到的客戶，他們沒有將 NetApp 用於我們贏得的格局。我們贏了——我們取代了競爭環境，我們這樣做是基於新的 C 系列產品，這些產品在我們圍繞多協議的傳統優勢和所有數據管理功能方面都比所有競爭產品具有顯著優勢，但我們從功耗和密度的角度來看，它們的效率也大大提高。

The next question comes from Steven Fox of Fox Advisors.

下一個問題來自 Fox Advisors 的 Steven Fox。

Just one question for me. I don't think I'm alone in this, but the product gross margin surprised substantially the upside of 7, 8 points of upside by account. Can you just sort of break down how that happened? And whether any of that is transitional? How much carries through the rest of the year in your full fiscal year plan?

只問我一個問題。我不認為我是一個人，但產品毛利率大幅上漲 7、8 個百分點。你能分解一下這是怎麼發生的嗎？這是否是過渡性的？在您的整個財政年度計劃中，今年剩餘時間有多少結餘？

Steven, it's Mike. So let's do the walk from Q3 to Q4, what we guided and where we ended up. So Q3 product margins were about 46%. We guided approximately 50% largely with the full expectation that we would continue to get relief from premiums that we've talked a lot about. And my goal is to never mention the work premium is on another call going forward. That was about 500 basis point benefit to the quarter, and we expected that to be. The 2 things that were incremental is mix came in better than we expected. And by that, we mean the capacity per system came in a little bit better. If you remember, in Q3, we talked about that, that caused a little bit of a reduction in gross margins as well as a little bit better all-flash margin.

史蒂文，是邁克。因此，讓我們從 Q3 到 Q4 走走，我們指導了什麼以及我們結束了什麼。所以第三季度的產品利潤率約為 46%。我們對大約 50% 的人進行了指導，主要是完全期望我們將繼續從我們談論過很多的保費中獲得減免。我的目標是永遠不要在未來的另一個電話中提及工作溢價。這為本季度帶來了大約 500 個基點的收益，我們預計會是這樣。增量的兩件事是混合比我們預期的要好。就此而言，我們的意思是每個系統的容量稍微好一點。如果你還記得，在第三季度，我們談到了這一點，這導致毛利率略有下降，同時全閃存利潤率略有提高。

And then FX helped a little bit quarter-on-quarter as well. So that's the walk from 46 to 55. as we look into next year, we're assuming that we can retain that 55. There's a little bit of premium benefit left, but we're also going to make sure that we are flexible as the component pricing rolls through that we can be competitive in the market. And then in addition, we also talked about, hey, we've done some strategic purchase commitments to lock in a large portion of the NAND supply for fiscal '24 at today's prices. So we're excited about that, being able to not have to deal with that when in the likely event it starts to go up. As we all know, NAND pricing is at an all-time fall. So that's the walk from Q3 to Q4, how we did a little bit better and our outlook into fiscal '24.

然後 FX 也對季度有所幫助。所以這就是從 46 到 55 的步行。當我們展望明年時，我們假設我們可以保留 55。還有一點保費福利，但我們也將確保我們是靈活的組件定價滾動通過我們可以在市場上具有競爭力。此外，我們還談到，嘿，我們已經做出了一些戰略採購承諾，以今天的價格鎖定 24 財年的大部分 NAND 供應。所以我們對此感到很興奮，能夠在可能的情況下開始上升時不必處理它。眾所周知，NAND 定價正處於歷史最低點。這就是從第三季度到第四季度的進展，我們如何做得更好以及我們對 24 財年的展望。

The next question comes from Amit Daryanani of Evercore ISI.

下一個問題來自 Evercore ISI 的 Amit Daryanani。

This is Irvin Liu on for Amit. I wanted to double-click on the drivers of a public cloud ARR outperformance during the quarter. I think you referenced cloud storage services strength. But can you talk about what you saw in data management and cloud optimization. Is there anything to call out for Spot just given the increased focus on optimizing cloud spend? And I also have a follow-up.

這是 Amit 的 Irvin Liu。我想雙擊本季度公共雲 ARR 表現出色的驅動因素。我認為您參考了雲存儲服務的實力。但是你能談談你在數據管理和雲優化方面看到了什麼嗎？鑑於人們越來越關注優化雲支出，Spot 有什麼值得稱道的嗎？我也有跟進。

The CloudOps business was relatively flat sequentially. There were new customer additions and some optimizations within existing customers. The majority of the growth rate sequentially from Q3 to Q4 was driven by cloud storage, especially the consumption business with our cloud provider partners.

CloudOps 業務環比持平。現有客戶中有新客戶增加和一些優化。從第三季度到第四季度的大部分增長率是由雲存儲推動的，尤其是與我們的雲提供商合作夥伴的消費業務。

Got it. And then about 11% of your revenue is public sector. From a debt ceiling perspective, I wanted to ask, are there direct impacts we should be thinking about as it relates to your federal government exposure. Is there a potential for a delay in your accounts payable or any potential changes in how you view the budget environment looking through the back half of calendar '23?

知道了。然後大約 11% 的收入來自公共部門。從債務上限的角度來看，我想問的是，我們是否應該考慮直接影響，因為它與您的聯邦政府風險敞口有關。您的應付賬款是否有可能延遲，或者您對 23 年日曆後半部分的預算環境的看法有任何潛在變化？

Yes. So thanks for the question. At this point, we don't expect any meaningful change in that business from an AR perspective or from a bookings perspective. We'll certainly watch it. We would expect this thing to have to resolve itself in the relatively near term. At this point, we don't expect any material impact from all those discussions.

是的。所以謝謝你的問題。在這一點上，我們預計從 AR 角度或預訂角度來看，該業務不會有任何有意義的變化。我們一定會看的。我們希望這件事必須在相對較短的時間內自行解決。在這一點上，我們預計所有這些討論不會產生任何實質性影響。

The next question comes from Shannon Cross of Credit Suisse.

下一個問題來自瑞士信貸的 Shannon Cross。

George, can you take a step back and maybe talk a bit from a higher level on how conversations with customers are going with regard to AI. And I'm thinking not just like near term, but I'm trying to understand or figure out because I think we all are, what the various roles IT hardware will play in the AI proliferation that we're seeing? So I'm wondering, well, you've got training, so do you need fast storage, and then you move to [inferencing] so it could be more traditional storage or -- is that not correct? I'm just -- I'm wondering, I know you're having probably a lot of conversations with customers that could be beneficial to us.

George，你能否退後一步，從更高的層面談談與客戶就 AI 進行的對話。而且我不僅在考慮近期，而且我正在嘗試理解或弄清楚，因為我認為我們都是，IT 硬件將在我們看到的 AI 擴散中扮演什麼角色？所以我想知道，嗯，你接受過培訓，所以你需要快速存儲，然後你轉向 [推理] 所以它可能是更傳統的存儲，或者 - 這不正確嗎？我只是 - 我想知道，我知道你可能與客戶進行了很多可能對我們有益的對話。

Yes. We have done exceptionally well in the analytics, AI, deep learning environments. We have both technology leadership across multi-protocol, high-performance, scale-out storage and multi-cloud, which are super important buckets of what customers need to drive these analytic applications. And we have done -- we've doubled our business this past year to a very significant amount. I think the key use cases are business problems around, for example, in financial services, sentiment analysis, recommendation engines, advanced recommendations engines and e-commerce, precision medicine, cross-department clinical AI solutions. And then even last quarter, we had a substantial win in a new form of metaverse around autonomous driving, right? So these are advanced analytics engines that are being deployed on very large-scale data sets.

是的。我們在分析、人工智能、深度學習環境方面做得非常出色。我們在多協議、高性能、橫向擴展存儲和多雲方面都處於技術領先地位，這些是客戶驅動這些分析應用程序所需的超級重要資源。我們已經做到了——在過去的一年裡我們的業務翻了一番，達到了一個非常可觀的數量。我認為關鍵用例是圍繞業務問題，例如金融服務、情感分析、推薦引擎、高級推薦引擎和電子商務、精準醫療、跨部門臨床 AI 解決方案。然後甚至在上個季度，我們在圍繞自動駕駛的一種新形式的元宇宙中取得了實質性的勝利，對吧？因此，這些是部署在超大規模數據集上的高級分析引擎。

They typically require file and object and cloud integration. And today's environments are not the advanced LLM model, the majority of the business we see today are really around replatforming from Hadoop to more modern environments as well as the use of advanced neural networks. We see the impending onslaught of ChatGPT and tools like that, where customers will take the OpenAI or open source generative AI model but then build it on top of their own data sets, which require the storage that we have. So we're excited about the future, and we have real strong performance in our AI and analytics business today.

他們通常需要文件和對像以及雲集成。而且今天的環境不是高級的 LLM 模型，我們今天看到的大多數業務實際上都是圍繞從 Hadoop 到更現代的環境以及使用高級神經網絡的重新平台化。我們看到了 ChatGPT 和類似工具即將到來的衝擊，客戶將採用 OpenAI 或開源生成 AI 模型，然後在他們自己的數據集之上構建它，這需要我們擁有的存儲空間。因此，我們對未來感到興奮，而且我們今天在人工智能和分析業務方面的表現非常強勁。

That was helpful. Mike, can you talk a bit about -- I know OpEx is supposed to be -- you're planning on it being flat this year. But I'm wondering, you delayed some investments and you've had some cost cutting in that. I'm wondering, given the gross margin outperformance in the relative strength you're seeing or improvement you're seeing, is there room to maybe reaccelerate some of those investments? Or is it just too early to make that call?

那很有幫助。邁克，你能談談——我知道 OpEx 應該是——你計劃今年持平。但我想知道，你推遲了一些投資，而且你已經削減了一些成本。我想知道，鑑於您所看到的相對實力或所看到的改善的毛利率表現出色，是否有可能重新加速其中一些投資的空間？或者現在打電話還為時過早？

Yes, Shannon. So I'd say we actually have accelerated some of those investments. We've talked about doing Converge, which is our sales conference in person as well as Insight. That's the first time in 3 years. We do a very good job. I give the team a lot of credit for reallocating dollars internally to really -- to reallocate to growth initiatives. You've seen us react very quickly from a product perspective in the last couple of months, C-Series and other things. So I think at this point, we feel good about where we are from an OpEx perspective. We'll see how we get through the year. And when we talk about prudently managing the business for us, it is make sure we spend the money in the right areas, but we always want to make sure we're investing in growth. And that's what you have, and that's what we put in the guide for the year.

是的，香農。所以我想說我們實際上已經加速了其中的一些投資。我們已經討論過要進行 Converge，這是我們面對面的銷售會議以及 Insight。這是3年來的第一次。我們做得很好。我對團隊在內部重新分配美元以真正 - 重新分配給增長計劃給予了很大的讚揚。在過去的幾個月裡，你已經看到我們從產品的角度、C 系列和其他方面做出了非常迅速的反應。所以我認為在這一點上，從運營支出的角度來看，我們對自己所處的位置感到滿意。我們將看看我們如何度過這一年。當我們談論為我們審慎管理業務時，就是確保我們把錢花在正確的領域，但我們始終希望確保我們投資於增長。這就是你所擁有的，這就是我們今年指南中的內容。

The next question comes from Ananda Baruah of Loop Capital.

下一個問題來自 Loop Capital 的 Ananda Baruah。

Just picking up on Shannon's AI question, George, do you see an opportunity over time to have the product growth rate altered by AI on-prem. And actually, we just love maybe even a similar question for cloud software as well as this time.

剛剛接聽 Shannon 的 AI 問題，George，隨著時間的推移，您是否看到了通過 AI on-prem 改變產品增長率的機會。實際上，我們只是喜歡和這一次有關雲軟件的類似問題。

I think the AI applications that drive business productivity are a topic of discussion in every CEO room around the globe because it is a key way to bring speed and operating efficiency to companies. And so many of the applications that we talked about help transform a company's business model. And so they will get prioritized in spending envelopes, and we are really excited about our opportunity to capitalize on that. We have done the work not only to build high-performance storage, but in addition, build the integrations into all of the AI and data science tool chains that are common in the world and to enable a really flexible data pipeline that can start in the cloud where the tools are available, but then can be operated at a scale on the data in your data center. So we're really excited about what the future holds. And we're going to keep pushing forward. I see cloud and I see AI as 2 big opportunities for NetApp. We are super well positioned in both, and we look to take advantage of both of them going forward.

我認為推動企業生產力的 AI 應用程序是全球每個 CEO 會議室討論的話題，因為它是為公司帶來速度和運營效率的關鍵方式。我們討論的許多應用程序都有助於轉變公司的業務模式。因此，他們將在支出信封中得到優先考慮，我們很高興有機會利用這一點。我們所做的工作不僅是構建高性能存儲，而且還構建了與世界上常見的所有人工智能和數據科學工具鏈的集成，並實現了一個真正靈活的數據管道，可以從工具可用的雲，然後可以對數據中心的數據進行大規模操作。所以我們對未來的發展感到非常興奮。我們將繼續前進。我將雲和人工智能視為 NetApp 的兩大機遇。我們在這兩個方面都處於非常有利的位置，我們希望在未來利用這兩個優勢。

That's great. And I guess as a follow-up, can you just talk a little bit about the ability -- and I guess maybe even over what time frame that the newer NAND technologies could have on share gains on-premise relative to HDD? Just how should we think about that dynamic and over what period of time? .

那太棒了。我想作為後續行動，你能否談談這種能力——我想甚至在什麼時間框架內，較新的 NAND 技術相對於 HDD 的內部部署份額收益可能會增加？我們應該如何考慮這種動態以及在什麼時間段內？ .

I think the lower cost NAND technology that we've introduced in our products will become a bigger part of our business through the course of fiscal year '24 and will be the biggest part of the flash storage growth rate in the industry over the next 2 or 3 years. These HDD replacement cycles are multiyear, right? I think if you saw the high-performance 15K HDD segment, it took multiple years to transition that footprint. And so 10K, which is an even bigger part of the market will take many years to transition. But we're excited about our offerings, the start that we've had and the opportunity over the next many years.

我認為我們在產品中引入的低成本 NAND 技術將在 24 財年成為我們業務的更大組成部分，並將成為未來 2 年行業閃存存儲增長率的最大部分或 3 年。這些 HDD 更換週期是多年的，對嗎？我認為，如果您看到高性能 15K HDD 細分市場，就會花費數年時間來轉變該足跡。因此 10K，這是一個更大的市場部分，需要很多年才能過渡。但我們對我們的產品、我們的開端以及未來多年的機會感到興奮。

The next question comes from Krish Sankar of Cowen.

下一個問題來自 Cowen 的 Krish Sankar。

This is Robert Mertens on for Kris. Congrats on the strong execution and guide with a targeted 2024 product margins of around 55%. Could you give a little bit more color on how the strategic purchases of SSDs plays into the target. And on the flip side, if there's any risk to competitors doing the same or headwinds if pricing declines, if there's any sort of elasticity there? And then I have one follow-up.

這是 Kris 的 Robert Mertens。祝賀強大的執行力和指導，目標是 2024 年產品利潤率達到 55% 左右。您能否更詳細地說明戰略性購買 SSD 如何實現目標？另一方面，如果價格下降，如果競爭對手有任何風險或逆風做同樣的事情，是否有任何彈性？然後我有一個跟進。

Sure. (inaudible) it's Mike. So let's take both of those. So the guide 55% assumes that's what we came out of Q4 with. There are some nice continued tailwinds going into next year. One is, of course, the continued shift to all-flash, which has higher margins. In addition to that, we do have a little bit of benefit from premium. So we feel good about the 55% number. The strategic purchases really help, I'll call it hedge that number to lock the prices in that we have today. I would certainly assume given the lower price of NAND that other folks are doing similar exercises. And why we're at 55%, providers want to make sure that we have some flexibility around pricing to your very point. So to the extent that there are changes in the market pricing, we feel like we have that flexibility to stay within 55%, but still be able to get to our product revenue goals for the year.

當然。 （聽不清）是邁克。所以讓我們把這兩個都拿走。因此，55% 的指南假設這就是我們從第四季度出來的結果。明年會有一些不錯的持續順風。當然，其中之一是繼續轉向利潤率更高的全閃存。除此之外，我們確實從溢價中受益。所以我們對 55% 的數字感到滿意。戰略購買確實有幫助，我稱之為對沖這個數字以鎖定我們今天的價格。鑑於 NAND 的較低價格，我肯定會假設其他人也在做類似的練習。為什麼我們達到 55%，供應商希望確保我們在定價方面有一定的靈活性，以滿足您的需求。因此，就市場定價的變化而言，我們覺得我們可以靈活地保持在 55% 以內，但仍然能夠實現我們今年的產品收入目標。

Got it. That's helpful. And then just one more on the public cloud. Do you think the negative impact from cloud optimization efforts is behind us for the year? And would you mind sharing, just sort of which areas within your cloud portfolio are seeing the strongest growth?

知道了。這很有幫助。然後在公共雲上再多一個。您認為今年雲優化工作的負面影響已經過去了嗎？您是否介意分享您的雲產品組合中哪些領域增長最為強勁？

I think it's premature to signal that cloud optimization is behind us. As we commented in our prepared remarks, I think that this -- customers will continue to manage their spend where that is on data center infrastructure or on public cloud. I think what we continue to see is the projects and applications that drive business performance especially core business growth are getting prioritized and invested. Those could be analytics, those could be AI, those could be digital manufacturing projects and on and on, right?

我認為現在表示雲優化已經過去還為時過早。正如我們在準備好的評論中所評論的那樣，我認為這 - 客戶將繼續管理他們在數據中心基礎設施或公共雲上的支出。我認為我們繼續看到的是推動業務績效尤其是核心業務增長的項目和應用程序正在得到優先考慮和投資。那些可能是分析，那些可能是人工智能，那些可能是數字製造項目等等，對吧？

I think where we have seen optimization and some amount of caution is in migration of enterprise workloads from data centers, the old lift and shift, I think people are taking a hard look at benchmarking both environments, whether it's public cloud or on-premises. So I think that's where we continue to see some optimization. In the plan for '24, the real focus is on accelerating our hyperscaler storage. The storage that is sold alongside our cloud providers. It had a good quarter this quarter. We are uniquely positioned in the market, and we are serving a wider and wider range of applications with the strength of our technology. So we're excited about that.

我認為我們已經看到優化和一些謹慎的地方是企業工作負載從數據中心遷移，舊的提升和轉移，我認為人們正在認真研究兩種環境的基準測試，無論是公共雲還是內部部署。所以我認為這是我們繼續看到一些優化的地方。在 24 年的計劃中，真正的重點是加速我們的超大規模存儲。與我們的雲提供商一起出售的存儲。本季度表現良好。我們在市場上具有獨特的定位，我們正以我們的技術實力服務於越來越廣泛的應用領域。所以我們對此感到興奮。

The next question comes from Tim Long of Barclays.

下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的 Tim Long。

Two, if I could. Well, first, I was hoping you could talk a little bit, I think, last quarter, you talked about kind of increased focus given the large enterprises were a little bit more macro impacted, a little bit more focused on small and midsized businesses. Can you give us an update there on how that push into that customer class is going? And then second, if I could just come back to the QLC-based products. George, talking about it taking more share. I'm just curious how you think it's going to further proliferate your portfolio. So are you going to start moving into different workloads, different use cases? How should we think about kind of progression of new products to help gain more share of all-flash and grow as a percent of your business?

兩個，如果可以的話。好吧，首先，我希望你能談談，我想，上個季度，你談到了某種程度的關注，因為大型企業受到的宏觀影響更大一些，更側重於中小企業。您能否向我們介紹一下該客戶類別的進展情況？其次，如果我能回到基於 QLC 的產品上。喬治，談論它需要更多的份額。我只是好奇你認為它將如何進一步擴大你的投資組合。那麼，您是否要開始轉向不同的工作負載、不同的用例？我們應該如何考慮新產品的發展，以幫助獲得更多的全閃存份額並在您的業務中增長？

Yes. So maybe I can start with the portfolio. We've introduced 3 major expansions of our portfolio in the all-flash segment over the last 4 months to 5 months. We have capacity flash, the broadest, most feature-rich, most competitive capacity flash products in the industry. We've announced a set of entry flash products that are shipping, which brings our industry-leading software in an all-flash configuration at a price point that is perfect for midsized enterprises.

是的。所以也許我可以從投資組合開始。在過去的 4 到 5 個月裡，我們在全閃存領域對我們的產品組合進行了 3 次重大擴展。我們擁有容量閃存，是業界最廣泛、功能最豐富、最具競爭力的容量閃存產品。我們已經發布了一系列即將出貨的入門級閃存產品，這些產品以全閃存配置提供了我們行業領先的軟件，而且價格非常適合中型企業。

And we introduced early this quarter an all-SAN array, which is a block-only storage configuration for customers that have large block storage environment and don't want to use unified storage for those offerings. So major expansion to our product portfolio, the most significant expansion since we introduced our flash portfolio many years ago. So I'm excited about that. That gives us opportunity to both expand wallet share in enterprise customers going after parts of the wallet that we used to not serve, but importantly, address the expanding opportunity within commercial customers. Our commercial segment has outperformed the enterprise segment throughout this fiscal year and again did so in Q4, representing the resilience of those customers to the macro spending environment. So we feel good about that. We moved some resources within our spending envelope. We reprioritized some more resources to cover the commercial market for fiscal year '24.

我們在本季度初推出了全 SAN 陣列，這是一種純塊存儲配置，適用於擁有大型塊存儲環境且不想為這些產品使用統一存儲的客戶。我們產品組合的重大擴展，是自多年前推出閃存產品組合以來最重要的擴展。所以我對此很興奮。這讓我們有機會擴大企業客戶的錢包份額，追逐我們過去不提供服務的部分錢包，但重要的是，解決商業客戶不斷擴大的機會。我們的商業部門在本財年的表現優於企業部門，並在第四季度再次如此，這代表了這些客戶對宏觀支出環境的彈性。所以我們對此感覺很好。我們在支出範圍內轉移了一些資源。我們重新確定了更多資源的優先級，以覆蓋 24 財年的商業市場。

The next question comes from Nehal Chokshi of Northland Capital Markets.

下一個問題來自 Northland Capital Markets 的 Nehal Chokshi。

Congrats on nice results. Your billings did decelerate quite a bit the 15% year-over-year decline versus 7% year-over-year into Q3. So given your guidance for analysts, it sounds like you do expect this billings to represent a low point in terms of the billings trends. Is that correct? And if so, why is that?

祝賀你取得了不錯的成績。您的賬單確實大大減緩了 15% 的同比降幅，而第三季度同比降幅為 7%。因此，根據您對分析師的指導，聽起來您確實希望這個賬單代表賬單趨勢的低點。那是對的嗎？如果是這樣，那是為什麼？

Yes. Nehal, it's Mike. So if you take a look at Q4, so total revenue was down year-over-year by about 6%. Total billings were down by about 17%. When you take a look at the difference between billings and revenue, product revenue and product billings are basically the same because there is no change in deferred. What we saw in the second half, especially in Q4, is lower product bookings than correlated with less support bookings, specifically multiyear bookings that come with new sales. So we do expect to see that come back as we go through next year. That's going to be the difference that you see in billings and revenue. So based on the guidance for the year, which is revenue down low to mid-single-digit percent, we do expect billings to be more flat to somewhere around plus or minus a couple of percentage points to do a little bit better than revenue, again, because of the contribution from support.

是的。內哈爾，是邁克。所以如果你看一下第四季度，那麼總收入同比下降了大約 6%。總賬單下降了約 17%。當您查看賬單和收入之間的差異時，產品收入和產品賬單基本相同，因為遞延沒有變化。我們在下半年看到，尤其是在第四季度，產品預訂量低於支持預訂量，特別是新銷售帶來的多年預訂量。因此，我們確實希望在明年經歷時看到它回來。這將是您在賬單和收入中看到的差異。因此，根據今年的指導，即收入下降到中等個位數百分比，我們確實預計賬單會更加持平，大約在正負幾個百分點左右，比收入好一點，再次，因為支持的貢獻。

The next question comes from Simon Leopold of Raymond James.

下一個問題來自 Raymond James 的 Simon Leopold。

I wanted to see if we could maybe unpack the public cloud business a little bit. In that last quarter, it seemed apparent that some of it was very much a recurring revenue stream and some of it was more sensitive and consumption-based. And I'd just like to get level set as to how to think of the composition of PCS as to what you would consider consumption-based and what you would consider truly recurring?

我想看看我們是否可以稍微拆分一下公共雲業務。在最後一個季度，很明顯其中一些是經常性收入流，而另一些則更加敏感且基於消費。我只想了解一下如何看待 PCS 的構成，以及您認為什麼是基於消費的，什麼是真正經常性的？

Simon, it's Mike. So we'll do those 2 ways. We've given this detail in the past. So cloud storage represents approximately 60% of the total cloud ARR. CloudOps represents about 40%. It stayed amazingly consistent through fiscal '23. If you then look at what is consumption versus subscription, consumption is going to more than half of the business, and it's growing faster than subscription because the 2 products that are growing the fastest that George referenced, ANF and FSx, which are our first-party cloud storage products are consumption based. So you should expect to see that percentage of consumption continue to climb as we go through '24. And then it doesn't mean that subscription is declining. It means that the consulting business is growing faster. And by consumption, we meant, hey, there is no starter end date. It's not an a or a multiyear subscription. It is a pay-go relationship.

西蒙，是邁克。所以我們將採用這兩種方式。我們過去已經給出了這個細節。因此，雲存儲約占云 ARR 總量的 60%。 CloudOps 約佔 40%。它在 23 財年期間保持驚人的一致性。如果你再看看什麼是消費與訂閱，消費將佔業務的一半以上，而且它的增長速度快於訂閱，因為 George 提到的增長最快的兩種產品，ANF 和 FSx，這是我們的第一個 -派對雲存儲產品以消費為主。因此，隨著 24 世紀的到來，您應該會看到消費百分比繼續攀升。這並不意味著訂閱量在下降。這意味著諮詢業務增長更快。通過消費，我們的意思是，嘿，沒有啟動結束日期。它不是一年或多年訂閱。這是一種付費關係。

The next question comes from David Vogt of UBS.

下一個問題來自瑞銀集團的 David Vogt。

So maybe this is a question for both George and Mike. When you think about sort of the product innovation engine and the new all-flash offerings versus sort of keeping your OpEx flat going forward, how should we think about sort of what you need to invest in the business as theoretically, there should be sort of a pretty steep growth rate in storage demand by some of your customers over the next couple of years? And then maybe as a quick follow-up. When you think about AI and what it means maybe for your business, how do you think about productivity gains and the uses of those productivity gains within NetApp. So does that flow through? Or is that reinvested into the business, whether it's go-to-market channels? I'm just trying to get a sense for how you think about what the benefit for AI would look like for you over the next couple of years as well?

所以也許這對喬治和邁克來說都是一個問題。當您考慮某種產品創新引擎和新的全閃存產品與某種程度上保持您的 OpEx 平穩向前發展時，我們應該如何考慮您在理論上需要對業務進行哪些投資，應該有某種在接下來的幾年裡，您的一些客戶的存儲需求會急劇增長嗎？然後可能作為快速跟進。當您考慮 AI 及其對您的業務可能意味著什麼時，您如何看待生產力提升以及這些生產力提昇在 NetApp 中的用途。那會流過嗎？還是將其重新投資到業務中，無論是進入市場的渠道？我只是想了解您如何看待未來幾年人工智能對您的好處？

Okay. Let me hit the sort of the broad picture, right, which is, listen, I think that we are disciplined managers of the business. We are balancing an uncertain macro with the strength of our product portfolio and the long-term opportunity. And I think what you'll see us is we continue to invest in the areas where we see the best returns so that we don't forgo the long-term health of the business. If we see the year outperform, we will certainly look at investing to further accelerate the business. But I think at this point in time, we want to be prudent in terms of managing the business just given the macro landscape.

好的。讓我來談談總體情況，對，也就是說，聽著，我認為我們是紀律嚴明的業務經理。我們正在平衡不確定的宏觀與我們產品組合的實力和長期機會。我認為你會看到我們繼續投資於我們看到最佳回報的領域，這樣我們就不會放棄業務的長期健康。如果我們看到今年跑贏大盤，我們肯定會考慮投資以進一步加速業務發展。但我認為在這個時候，我們希望在考慮到宏觀環境的情況下謹慎管理業務。

I think the second is, with regard to AI uses at NetApp, we have a broad range of users. We already use AI in our customer support and our product portfolio to help customers be able to have much reduced management requirements, right? So we automate how data is managed in the system and automate self-healing of a system as well as give customers intelligent chat bots, for example, so that they don't have to wait in queue for all of their basic questions. I think with regard to the big areas that we see opportunity is, is really in software development productivity. We have some exciting work already underway using some of these large language models and this profound opportunity for innovation there that we are leaning into. And you'll see the benefit of that in the ability to deliver more software to customers in a faster period of time. And I think those are some of the key areas of focus for us.

我認為第二個是，關於 NetApp 的 AI 使用，我們擁有廣泛的用戶。我們已經在客戶支持和產品組合中使用人工智能來幫助客戶大大降低管理要求，對吧？因此，我們將系統中的數據管理方式自動化，並使系統的自我修復自動化，並為客戶提供智能聊天機器人，例如，這樣他們就不必排隊等待所有基本問題。我認為關於我們看到機會的大領域，真的是軟件開發生產力。我們已經在使用這些大型語言模型中的一些進行一些激動人心的工作，並且我們正在利用這個巨大的創新機會。您會看到這樣做的好處，即能夠在更快的時間內向客戶交付更多軟件。我認為這些是我們關注的一些關鍵領域。

And David, it's Mike. If I could add one more from a go-to-market. We've talked a lot about building the customer success team, which adds productivity because we're able to shift renewals and cross-sells and upsells and then create capacity for our core sellers. So that's another initiative over the next couple of years.

大衛，是邁克。如果我可以在上市時再添加一個。我們已經談了很多關於建立客戶成功團隊的問題，這會提高生產力，因為我們能夠轉移續訂、交叉銷售和追加銷售，然後為我們的核心賣家創造能力。所以這是未來幾年的另一項舉措。

The next question comes from Sidney Ho of Deutsche Bank.

下一個問題來自德意志銀行的 Sidney Ho。

I have a cash flow question. So I know Q1 is going to be impacted by all these strategic buys. But Mike, how are you thinking about free cash flow for the fiscal year, maybe the linearity of that? It sounds like you're expecting to return 100% of free cash flow to shareholders this year. At what point do you think M&A will come back to be a priority?

我有一個現金流問題。所以我知道第一季度將受到所有這些戰略購買的影響。但是邁克，你如何看待本財年的自由現金流，也許是線性的？聽起來您希望今年將 100% 的自由現金流返還給股東。您認為併購將在什麼時候重新成為優先事項？

Yes. Sidney, so let's start at the top. So we ended the year fiscal '23 with $1.1 billion of operating cash flow. We talked about the onetime items, which was the restructuring and the Danish tax case. So we paid out about $85 million for those 2 items in the quarter. So if you add those back, you had about $1.2 billion. We would expect going into next year, I would call that kind of the floor for cash flow going into next year.

是的。 Sidney，讓我們從頭開始。因此，我們以 11 億美元的運營現金流結束了 23 財年。我們談到了曾經的項目，即重組和丹麥稅務案件。因此，我們在本季度為這兩個項目支付了大約 8500 萬美元。所以如果你把這些加回去，你就有大約 12 億美元。我們預計進入明年，我會稱之為明年現金流量的底線。

Working capital then will drive whether we can do a little bit better or not. We will have some lower cash outflow in Q1 because of the incentive compensation payments. So that will help Q1. The strategic buys will start a little bit in Q1 and then they'll build in 2 and 3. And that largely by the end of the year, it's not a big number. So it's more of an intra-year impact. So -- and again, we do expect cash flow plus or minus a couple of percent, Sidney to be pretty close to non-GAAP net income and it has been historically. As it relates to our capital allocation policy, hey, it's the continuation of what we talked about last March, 2 Marchs ago, with a little bit of a tweak, going into the year, we've always said that we've spent about 70% of our free cash flow on return to shareholders and reserve, call it, 30% for acquisitions.

營運資金將決定我們是否可以做得更好。由於激勵補償支付，我們在第一季度的現金流出量將有所減少。這將有助於 Q1。戰略購買將在第一季度開始，然後在第二和第三季度進行。而且大部分到今年年底，這不是一個大數字。所以它更多的是年內影響。所以 - 再一次，我們確實預計現金流量會增加或減少幾個百分點，Sidney 將非常接近非 GAAP 淨收入，而且歷史上一直如此。因為它涉及到我們的資本配置政策，嘿，這是我們去年 3 月、3 月 2 日之前討論的內容的延續，有一點調整，進入這一年，我們一直說我們已經花了大約我們 70% 的自由現金流返回給股東，30% 用於收購。

Going into fiscal '24, we'll over-index on share buybacks, especially in the first half. It doesn't mean that we won't do any acquisitions. There's still a pipeline, we're still looking at them. But given where we are from an execution perspective and our focus on the business, we would rather reallocate that to share purchases -- repurchases, especially in the first half, and we'll see where it goes in the second half of the year.

進入 24 財年，我們將對股票回購進行過度指數化，尤其是在上半年。這並不意味著我們不會進行任何收購。還有一條管道，我們還在研究它們。但考慮到我們從執行的角度和我們對業務的關注，我們寧願將其重新分配給股票購買——回購，尤其是在上半年，我們將在下半年看到它的去向。

Our last question will come from Louis Miscioscia of Daiwa Capital Markets.

我們的最後一個問題將來自 Daiwa Capital Markets 的 Louis Miscioscia。

George, I think you had said earlier in your script that you're going to regain some all-flash array share. Maybe you could go into that in any more detail. Do you think that you did lose some share, but obviously, now with the new products coming out now in the second half that you're going to start to regain maybe if you could mention how much you think you might have lost and what you think you might be able to gain back? And then just a quick follow-up after that.

George，我想你之前在腳本中說過你將重新獲得一些全閃存陣列份額。也許你可以更詳細地討論這個問題。您是否認為您確實失去了一些份額，但很明顯，隨著下半年新產品的推出，您將開始重新獲得份額，也許您可以提及您認為您可能失去了多少以及您認為你可能會贏回來？之後只是快速跟進。

First of all, if you look at the recent print from our competitors, I think we took share already in the current quarter. So that's a good start to that dynamic. I think with regard to our overall kind of focus areas, we talked about expanding innovation to support our storage business. And so we've done a lot of product-led innovation into the market as well as broad innovation in storage life cycle management programs, the simplified licensing, the industry's most advanced and complete ransomware protection and recovery guarantees of lots of service innovations as well for our customers. We have aligned our go-to-market teams starting fiscal year '24 to be laser focused on our flash portfolio. We think we've got a strong opportunity there. Last year, as I mentioned in our Q3 call, we had a compensation plan that was complex, having our frontline sales team sell a broad array of products, and that impacted execution. We have sharpened that starting FY '24 per our commitment, and we have brought a much more focused approach to our cloud portfolio. So I expect us to -- we have the strongest hybrid class portfolio in the industry. We now have the broadest capacity flash portfolio in the industry and truly the only unified storage portfolio in the industry. Unified now includes block, file, object and cloud. And so we've redefined the landscape for unified to take it to the next level. So we're excited about the portfolio. We've got to execute, and we're focused on it.

首先，如果你看看我們競爭對手最近的印刷品，我認為我們已經在本季度佔據了份額。所以這是這種動態的良好開端。我認為關於我們的整體重點領域，我們談到了擴大創新以支持我們的存儲業務。因此，我們在市場上進行了大量以產品為導向的創新，並在存儲生命週期管理程序、簡化許可、業界最先進和最完整的勒索軟件保護以及大量服務創新的恢復保證方面進行了廣泛創新為我們的客戶。從 24 財年開始，我們已將我們的上市團隊調整為專注於我們的閃存產品組合。我們認為我們在那裡有一個很好的機會。去年，正如我在第三季度電話會議中提到的那樣，我們有一個複雜的薪酬計劃，讓我們的一線銷售團隊銷售廣泛的產品，這影響了執行。根據我們的承諾，我們從 24 財年開始加強了這一點，並且我們為我們的雲產品組合帶來了更加集中的方法。所以我希望我們——我們擁有業內最強大的混合類產品組合。我們現在擁有業內最廣泛的容量閃存產品組合，並且真正成為業內唯一的統一存儲產品組合。統一現在包括塊、文件、對象和雲。因此，我們重新定義了 unified 的格局，將其提升到一個新的水平。所以我們對投資組合感到興奮。我們必須執行，我們專注於此。

Okay. Then a very quick follow-up. On the guidance of down mid- to low single, what is the FX expectation for next year? I assume that you're giving guidance and actual -- what you expect revenues to perform, but I didn't know if you had an FX expectation in there.

好的。然後是非常快速的跟進。中低單下行指引，明年匯市預期如何？我假設你正在提供指導和實際 - 你期望收入表現如何，但我不知道你是否有外匯預期。

Yes. Louis, it's Mike. Our expectation is it's not going to be a big impact at all, less than 1% based on where we sit today from a revenue perspective. So we don't think FX is going to be a big hit. And that's a small benefit where we are. Who knows where FX rates go after all of the fund that we've had with the debt ceiling and other things. So we don't think it's going to be a big driver next year.

是的。路易斯，是邁克。我們的預期是它根本不會產生重大影響，從收入的角度來看，根據我們今天所處的位置，影響不到 1%。所以我們認為 FX 不會大受歡迎。這是我們所處的一個小好處。誰知道在我們擁有債務上限和其他事情的所有基金之後，匯率會走向何方。所以我們認為它明年不會成為一個重要的驅動因素。

I'm going to pass it over to George for some closing remarks.

我將把它交給 George 做一些結束語。

Thanks, Kris. Our focused execution yielded solid Q4 results, capping off fiscal year '23 with record high annual operating margin and EPS despite the slow demand environment. The fundamentals of our business model are sound and our confidence in our strategy and the health of long-term opportunity is unchanged. We will continue to prudently manage the elements within our control to drive margin expansion and improve profitability. I'm excited to enter FY '24 with substantial new innovations and a more focused operating model to better address areas of priority spending within our customers. I look forward to updating you on our progress on next quarter's call.

謝謝，克里斯。儘管需求環境緩慢，但我們專注的執行產生了穩健的第四季度業績，以創紀錄的高年度營業利潤率和每股收益結束了 23 財年。我們商業模式的基礎是健全的，我們對我們的戰略和長期機會的健康狀況的信心沒有改變。我們將繼續審慎管理我們控制範圍內的要素，以推動利潤率擴張並提高盈利能力。我很高興以大量的新創新和更專注的運營模式進入 24 財年，以更好地解決客戶優先支出的領域。我期待著在下一季度的電話會議上向您通報我們的進展情況。

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation, and you may now disconnect.

會議現已結束。感謝您參加今天的演講，您現在可以斷開連接了。