NetApp Inc (NTAP) 2024 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good day, and welcome to the NetApp's Third Quarter of Fiscal Year 2024 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, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

美好的一天，歡迎參加 NetApp 2024 財年第三季財報電話會議。 （操作員說明）。請注意，此事件正在被記錄。我現在想將會議交給投資者關係副總裁克里斯牛頓 (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 forward-looking statements and projections with respect to our financial outlook and future prospects, including, without limitation, our guidance for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2024 our expectations regarding future revenue, profitability and shareholder returns and other growth initiatives and strategies.

大家好。感謝您加入我們。今天和我在一起的是我們的執行長 George Kurian；和財務長麥克·貝裡。本次電話會議正在進行網路直播，並將在我們的網站 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前瞻性陳述和預測，包括但不限於我們對第四季度和2024 財年的指導，我們對未來收入、盈利能力和股東回報的預期以及其他成長舉措和策略。

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 10-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. I'll now turn the call over to George.

這些陳述受到各種風險和不確定性的影響，可能導致我們的實際結果有重大差異。如需了解更多信息，請參閱我們不時向 SEC 以及我們網站上提交的文件，包括我們最新的 10-K 表格和 10-Q 表格。我們不承擔更新前瞻性陳述和預測的義務。除非另有說明，在電話會議期間提出的所有財務指標都將採用非公認會計準則。我們的網站上提供了 GAAP 與非 GAAP 估算的調整表。我現在把電話轉給喬治。

Thanks, Kris. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us on our Q3 FY '24 call. I'm pleased to report that we delivered exceptional performance across the board despite an uncertain macro environment. Revenue was above the midpoint of our guidance driven by the momentum of our expanded all-flash product portfolio. This strength, coupled with continued operational discipline, yielded company all-time highs, for consolidated gross margin, operating margin and EPS for the second consecutive quarter.

謝謝，克里斯。大家下午好。感謝您參加我們的 24 財年第 3 季電話會議。我很高興地報告，儘管宏觀環境不確定，但我們全面實現了卓越的業績。在我們擴大全快閃產品組合的勢頭的推動下，收入高於我們指導的中點。這種優勢，加上持續的營運紀律，使公司的綜合毛利率、營業利潤率和每股盈餘連續第二季創下歷史新高。

Entering FY '24, we laid out a plan to drive better performance in our storage business, and build a more focused approach to our public cloud business while managing the elements within our control in an uncertain macro economy to further improve our profitability. These actions have delivered strong results to date support our raised outlook for the year and enhance our position for the long term. Only NetApp delivers a comprehensive architecture based on a single operating system that supports any application or data type, spans on-premises and multiple cloud environments and is available in traditional CapEx or as-a-service procurement models.

進入24財年，我們制定了一項計劃，以推動儲存業務取得更好的業績，並為我們的公共雲業務建立更加集中的方法，同時在不確定的宏觀經濟中管理我們控制範圍內的要素，以進一步提高我們的獲利能力。迄今為止，這些行動已經取得了強勁的成果，支持了我們提高的今年前景，並增強了我們的長期地位。只有 NetApp 提供基於單一作業系統的全面架構，支援任何應用程式或資料類型，跨越本地和多個雲端環境，並可用於傳統的資本支出或即服務採購模式。

Our unified data solutions address some of the biggest priorities IT organizations face today. Modernizing legacy infrastructure, improving resiliency against ransomware attacks and building scalable, high-performance data pipelines for AI workloads. The consistent operations, common management tools, integrated data services and unique and proven capabilities for hybrid cloud of our unified storage architecture, provides customers the ability to simplify its scale and lower storage costs.

我們的統一資料解決方案解決了 IT 組織當今面臨的一些最重要的優先事項。將遺留基礎架構進行現代化改造，提高抵禦勒索軟體攻擊的彈性，並為人工智慧工作負載建立可擴展的高效能資料管道。我們的統一儲存架構的一致操作、通用管理工具、整合資料服務以及獨特且經過驗證的混合雲功能，使客戶能夠簡化其規模並降低儲存成本。

Our Silo-free approach to unify data storage is clearly resonating with customers, driving healthy demand for our products and services and positioning us well to deliver long-term growth. Turning to the results of the quarter. We delivered robust year-over-year performance in our hybrid cloud segment with revenue growth of 6% and product revenue growth of 10%, driven by momentum from our newly introduced all-flash products and the go-to-market changes we made at the start of the year. Strong customer demand for our industry-leading all-flash solutions drove all-flash growth of 21% year-over-year to an all-time high annualized revenue run rate of $3.4 billion.

我們統一資料儲存的無孤島方法顯然引起了客戶的共鳴，推動了對我們產品和服務的健康需求，並使我們能夠實現長期成長。轉向本季的業績。我們在混合雲領域實現了強勁的同比業績，收入增長了 6%，產品收入增長了 10%，這得益於我們新推出的全閃存產品的勢頭以及我們在年初。客戶對我們業界領先的全快閃解決方案的強勁需求推動全快閃同比增長 21%，年收入運行率達到歷史最高水準 34 億美元。

In Q3, our all-flash business expanded to approximately 60% of hybrid cloud segment revenue. As Mike will detail, we expect a sustainable step-up in our baseline product gross margin going forward with the continued revenue shift to all-flash. The AFF C Series all-flash arrays, again exceeded our expectations, delivering new to NetApp customers and numerous wins over the competition. As customers modernize legacy 10K hard disk drives and hybrid flash environments, we are displacing competitors' installed bases with our all-flash solutions driving share gains.

第三季度，我們的全快閃業務擴大到混合雲部門營收的約60%。正如麥克將詳細介紹的那樣，隨著收入持續轉向全閃存，我們預計我們的基準產品毛利率將持續上升。 AFF C 系列全快閃陣列再次超越了我們的預期，為 NetApp 客戶帶來了新的體驗，並在競爭中取得了許多勝利。隨著客戶對傳統 10K 硬碟和混合快閃記憶體環境進行現代化改造，我們正在透過全快閃解決方案取代競爭對手的安裝基礎，從而推動份額成長。

Our newly introduced ASA families of SAN-optimized high-performance and capacity-oriented all-flash arrays also outperformed our expectations. We are excited about the enormous potential in the nearly $20 billion SAN market. Our modern all-flash SAN arrays backed by industry-leading data availability and efficiency guarantees are well positioned to redefine the competitive landscape. In Q3, we had numerous competitive takeouts across a broad set of workloads and vertical markets as customers leveraged our C series and the ASC products to modernize their legacy infrastructures and deploy new applications like artificial intelligence.

我們新推出的 ASA 系列 SAN 優化的高效能和容量導向的全快閃陣列也超出了我們的預期。我們對價值近 200 億美元的 SAN 市場的巨大潛力感到興奮。我們的現代全快閃 SAN 陣列以業界領先的數據可用性和效率保證為後盾，處於重新定義競爭格局的有利位置。在第三季度，隨著客戶利用我們的 C 系列和 ASC 產品對其遺留基礎設施進行現代化改造並部署人工智慧等新應用程序，我們在廣泛的工作負載和垂直市場中獲得了眾多競爭優勢。

We continue to see strong interest in our advanced portfolio of ransomware protection solutions. We help customers take proactive steps to protect, detect and recover their data. Competitive solutions focus only on data recovery, but NetApp keeps data protected and secured from the start with products designed to block cybersecurity risk and mitigate the high cost of downtime. ONTAP is the first enterprise-class storage solution, validated by the NSA for the Commercial Solutions for Classified program, demonstrating the strength of our state-of-the-art data protection and cybersecurity solutions.

我們繼續看到人們對我們先進的勒索軟體防護解決方案組合抱有濃厚的興趣。我們幫助客戶採取主動措施來保護、偵測和恢復他們的資料。競爭解決方案僅專注於資料恢復，但 NetApp 從一開始就透過旨在阻止網路安全風險並降低高昂停機成本的產品來保護資料。 ONTAP 是第一個企業級儲存解決方案，經過 NSA 機密商業解決方案計畫的驗證，展現了我們最先進的資料保護和網路安全解決方案的實力。

We saw good momentum in AI with dozens of customer wins in the quarter, including several large NVIDIA super pod and base pod deployments. We help organizations in use cases that range from unifying their data in modern data lakes to deploying large model training environments and to operationalize those models into production environments. To best take advantage of generative AI capabilities, customers are looking to augment foundational models with their own data. Our high-performance, scalable unified data storage systems create intelligent data pipelines that allow customers to capture, aggregate and prepare their data for AI.

我們看到了 AI 領域的良好勢頭，本季贏得了數十個客戶，其中包括多個大型 NVIDIA 超級 Pod 和基礎 Pod 部署。我們協助組織處理從統一現代資料湖中的資料到部署大型模型訓練環境以及將這些模型運行到生產環境中的用例。為了最好地利用生成式人工智慧功能，客戶希望利用自己的數據來增強基礎模型。我們的高效能、可擴展的統一資料儲存系統可建立智慧資料管道，使客戶能夠擷取、聚合和準備人工智慧資料。

NetApp delivers the data management capabilities for security, performance and simplicity that enterprises require for their Gen AI workflows. We continue to advance our position with the development of Gen AI-driven cloud and on-premises solutions in partnership with industry leaders. Demand for consumption options is also growing as some customers look to increase budget flexibility in an ongoing uncertain macro and higher interest rate environment. However, this is not a universal mandate. Our unified data storage solutions are available as CapEx, as-a-service and cloud native offerings providing customers with our widest range of buying options, enabling them to meet their budget requirements.

NetApp 提供資料管理功能，以實現企業 Gen AI 工作流程所需的安全性、效能和簡單性。我們與產業領導者合作，透過開發 Gen AI 驅動的雲端和本地解決方案，持續提升我們的地位。由於一些客戶希望在持續不確定的宏觀環境和較高的利率環境中提高預算彈性，對消費選擇的需求也在增加。然而，這並不是一項普遍的命令。我們的統一資料儲存解決方案可作為資本支出、即服務和雲端原生產品提供，為客戶提供最廣泛的購買選擇，使他們能夠滿足預算要求。

Keystone, our Storage-as-a-Service offering delivered another strong quarter with revenue growing triple digits from Q3 a year ago. Keystone is a great solution for customers who want a cloud-like operating model on premises. For customers who are ready to move to the cloud, we uniquely partner with the leading hyperscalers to deliver cloud-native storage services. Public cloud segment revenue was $151 million, up 1% year-over-year. First party and hyperscaler marketplace storage services remain our priority and are growing rapidly with the ARR of these services up more than 35% year-over-year.

我們的儲存即服務產品 Keystone 再次表現強勁，營收較去年第三季成長了三位數。對於想要在本地使用類似雲端的營運模式的客戶來說，Keystone 是一個很好的解決方案。對於準備遷移到雲端的客戶，我們與領先的超大規模供應商合作，提供雲端原生儲存服務。公有雲部門營收為1.51億美元，較去年成長1%。第一方和超大規模市場儲存服務仍然是我們的首要任務，並且正在快速成長，這些服務的 ARR 年比增長超過 35%。

These offerings are highly differentiated and tightly aligned to customer buying preference. We continue to deepen our hyperscaler partnerships and deliver growth in customer count, capacity, revenue and ARR with this part of the portfolio. As I outlined last quarter, we are taking action to sharpen our approach to our public cloud business. As a part of this plan, we exited two small services in the quarter. We also began the work of refocusing Cloud Insights and in and Instaclustr to complement and extend our hybrid cloud storage offerings and integrating some stand-alone services into the core functionality of cloud volumes to widen our competitive moat.

這些產品具有高度差異化，並且與客戶的購買偏好緊密結合。我們繼續深化我們的超大規模合作夥伴關係，並透過這部分產品組合實現客戶數量、容量、收入和 ARR 的成長。正如我上季度所概述的那樣，我們正在採取行動來改進我們的公有雲業務方法。作為該計劃的一部分，我們在本季度退出了兩項小型服務。我們也開始重新關注 Cloud Insights 和 Instaclustr，以補充和擴展我們的混合雲端儲存產品，並將一些獨立服務整合到雲端捲的核心功能中，以擴大我們的競爭護城河。

In Q4, we anticipate approximately $20 million in ARR headwinds from non-renewed subscriptions. This will create minimal revenue impact and should be largely offset by growth in first-party and marketplace services. We will continue refining our focus in fiscal year '25, building a strong base from which to grow. Our hyperscaler partnerships and natively integrated storage services position us to address the new and emerging Gen AI opportunity in the cloud. A leading open source developer of Gen AI tools, data sets and models is leveraging AWS's FSX for NetApp ONTAP as a part of its offerings.

在第四季度，我們預計未續訂訂閱帶來的 ARR 阻力約為 2000 萬美元。這將對收入產生最小的影響，並且應該會被第一方和市場服務的成長所抵消。我們將在 25 財年繼續完善我們的重點，為發展奠定堅實的基礎。我們的超大規模合作夥伴關係和本地整合儲存服務使我們能夠應對雲端中新興的人工智慧機會。 Gen AI 工具、資料集和模型的領先開源開發人員正在利用 AWS 的 FSX for NetApp ONTAP 作為其產品的一部分。

The customer was looking for a high performance and resilient file storage solution to train extensive AIML workloads. FSXN gave them a scalable solution with performance storage for intensive AI model training. As a fully managed service, FSXN removes operational burdens, allowing their DevOps teams to focus on business value activities. In summary, we entered the final quarter of fiscal year '24 in a much stronger position than we were at the start of the year despite the ongoing macro uncertainty, our modern approach to unified data storage, which spans data types, price points and hybrid multi-cloud environments is resonating in the market.

客戶正在尋找高效能且有彈性的文件儲存解決方案來訓練廣泛的 AIML 工作負載。 FSXN 為他們提供了可擴展的解決方案，具有用於強化 AI 模型訓練的效能儲存。作為一項完全託管的服務，FSXN 消除了營運負擔，使他們的 DevOps 團隊能夠專注於業務價值活動。總而言之，儘管宏觀經濟持續存在不確定性，但我們進入 24 財年最後一個季度時的地位比年初時要強得多，我們統一數據存儲的現代方法（涵蓋數據類型、價格點和混合）多雲環境正在市場上引起共鳴。

We are successfully executing against our top priorities, growing in all-flash and cloud storage services. We are well positioned with an expanded TAM, including block storage, and new market opportunities like AI to drive continued growth and share gains. We are moving to a higher product margin profile, supported by growth in all-flash products. And we will continue to maintain the operating discipline that has yielded record profitability. I'm very pleased with our momentum and very confident in our ability to deliver positive outcomes for customers and stockholders.

我們正在成功地執行我們的首要任務，在全快閃和雲端儲存服務方面不斷發展。我們已做好充分準備，擴大了 TAM（包括區塊儲存）和人工智慧等新市場機會，以推動持續成長和份額成長。在全快閃產品成長的支持下，我們正在轉向更高的產品利潤率。我們將繼續維持已創造創紀錄獲利能力的經營紀律。我對我們的勢頭感到非常滿意，並對我們為客戶和股東帶來積極成果的能力充滿信心。

Finally, I want to make you aware of our June 11, Investor Day, where we will provide an update on our long-term strategy and business model. Now I'll turn the call over to Mike.

最後，我想讓您了解 6 月 11 日的投資者日，屆時我們將提供有關我們長期策略和商業模式的最新資訊。現在我將把電話轉給麥克。

Thank you, George, and good afternoon, everyone. As a reminder, all numbers I will discuss today are non-GAAP, unless otherwise noted. Our focus and strong execution again delivered record-setting results, reaching all-time highs across key profitability measures, including consolidated gross margin, product gross margin, operating margin, net income and EPS. Before I discuss the financial details, let me walk you through the key themes for the quarter. As George noted, we continue to see positive results from our new all-flash products and the go-to-market changes we implemented at the start of the fiscal year.

謝謝喬治，大家下午好。提醒一下，除非另有說明，我今天討論的所有數字都是非公認會計原則的。我們的專注和強大的執行力再次創造了創紀錄的業績，在關鍵盈利指標上達到了歷史新高，包括綜合毛利率、產品毛利率、營業利潤率、淨利潤和每股收益。在討論財務細節之前，讓我先向您介紹本季的關鍵主題。正如 George 指出的那樣，我們繼續看到新的全快閃產品以及我們在本財年年初實施的上市變革帶來的積極成果。

The momentum from our industry-leading flash portfolio, coupled with our operational discipline, drove both top and bottom line growth in the quarter. Q3 consolidated gross margin of 73% and product gross margin of 63% were both at all-time highs for the second consecutive quarter. Gross margin leverage and operating discipline drove operating margin of 30% and EPS of $1.94, both also setting company records for the second consecutive quarter. Q3 operating cash flow came in at $484 million, and free cash flow was $448 million. We expect operating cash flow for the full year to be at least $1.3 billion, tracking relatively in line with net income.

我們業界領先的快閃記憶體產品組合的勢頭，加上我們的營運紀律，推動了本季營收和利潤的成長。第三季綜合毛利率為73%，產品毛利率為63%，連續第二季創下歷史新高。毛利率槓桿和營運紀律推動營運利潤率達到 30%，每股收益達到 1.94 美元，這兩項指標也連續第二季創下公司記錄。第三季營運現金流為 4.84 億美元，自由現金流為 4.48 億美元。我們預計全年營運現金流至少為 13 億美元，與淨利潤相對一致。

The strong execution of our priorities of winning in flash and growing first-party cloud services are clearly paying off. Given our strong execution of results that met or beat our guidance ranges, while driving record-setting profitability measures for the second consecutive quarter, we are once again raising our full year revenue and EPS guidance. Looking ahead, we are even more confident in our position to drive long-term revenue growth and profitability.

我們對閃存取勝和不斷增長的第一方雲端服務優先事項的大力執行顯然正在取得回報。鑑於我們對業績的強勁執行達到或超過了我們的指導範圍，同時連續第二個季度推動創紀錄的盈利指標，我們再次提高了全年收入和每股收益指導。展望未來，我們對推動長期收入成長和獲利能力的地位更加充滿信心。

Now to the details of the quarter. Q3 billings increased 7% year-over-year to $1.7 billion and revenue increased 5% year-over-year to $1.6 billion, driven by momentum in our all-flash array product families. Hybrid cloud revenue increased 6% year-over-year to $1.5 billion and product revenue increased 10% year-over-year to $747 million. Support revenue grew 2% year-over-year to $631 million. We are pleased with the success of moving the responsibility for the majority of our renewals to the customer success team implemented as a part of our go-to-market focus. Public cloud revenue grew 1% year-over-year to $151 million.

現在介紹本季的詳細資訊。在全快閃陣列產品系列成長動能的推動下，第三季營收年增 7% 至 17 億美元，營收年增 5% 至 16 億美元。混合雲營收年增 6%，達到 15 億美元，產品營收年增 10%，達到 7.47 億美元。支持營收年增 2%，達到 6.31 億美元。我們很高興成功地將大部分的續訂責任轉移給客戶成功團隊，作為我們進入市場重點的一部分。公有雲營收年增 1%，達到 1.51 億美元。

As expected, Growth was driven by our first party and marketplace cloud storage services offset by declines in subscription services. Now for our operating results. Q3 consolidated gross margin was 73%. Gross profit margin dollars increased 14% year-over-year to $1.2 billion driven by strong growth of product gross profit dollars. Q3 product gross margin of 63% was 250 basis points higher than the high end of our guide, primarily driven by better-than-expected mix shift to all-flash products and pricing discipline in what remains a cost-sensitive environment. Operating expenses of $682 million increased 5% year-over-year and declined slightly from Q2 as expected. As a result of operating leverage and disciplined management, Q3 operating profit dollars increased 30% year-over-year to $485 million and operating margin increased 580 basis points from a year ago to 30%, a record for the second consecutive quarter.

正如預期的那樣，成長是由我們的第一方和市場雲端儲存服務所推動的，但被訂閱服務的下降所抵消。現在來看我們的經營業績。第三季綜合毛利率為 73%。受產品毛利強勁成長的推動，毛利率年增 14%，達到 12 億美元。第三季產品毛利率為 63%，比我們指南的上限高出 250 個基點，這主要是由於向全快閃產品的組合轉變好於預期，以及在成本敏感的環境下的定價紀律。營運支出為 6.82 億美元，年增 5%，較第二季略有下降，符合預期。由於營運槓桿和嚴格的管理，第三季營運利潤年增 30%，達到 4.85 億美元，營運利潤率比去年同期增長 580 個基點，達到 30%，連續第二個季度創歷史新高。

EPS grew 42% year-over-year to a record high of $1.94. Our tax rate was 18%, lower than expected due to an adjustment of our full year tax rate. Normalizing for a tax rate of 21.5%, EPS would still have been a record high of $1.86. Q3 operating cash flow of $484 million was up 28% year-over-year, and free cash flow was up 40% year-over-year, driven by solid billings and profitability. DSL was 45% and inventory turns were 14, both consistent with expectations. Year-to-date operating cash flow of $1.1 billion increased 23% year-over-year.

每股收益年增 42%，達到 1.94 美元的歷史新高。由於全年稅率調整，我們的稅率為 18%，低於預期。如果稅率正常化為 21.5%，每股盈餘仍將達到 1.86 美元的歷史新高。在穩健的營業收入和獲利能力的推動下，第三季營運現金流為 4.84 億美元，年增 28%，自由現金流年增 40%。 DSL 為 45%，庫存週轉率為 14，皆符合預期。年初至今，營運現金流為 11 億美元，年增 23%。

During the quarter, we returned $203 million to stockholders through share repurchases and cash dividends, ending the quarter with approximately $526 million in net cash. Year-to-date, we have generated $963 million in free cash flow and returned more than 100% to stockholders. Our balance sheet remains healthy. Total deferred revenue as of the end of Q3 was $4.1 billion, down 2% year-over-year. We ended the quarter with approximately $2.9 billion in cash and short-term investments. Before moving to Q4 and fiscal '24 guidance, I would like to spend a few minutes discussing our product gross margin expectations going forward.

本季，我們透過股票回購和現金股利向股東返還 2.03 億美元，本季末淨現金約為 5.26 億美元。年初至今，我們已產生 9.63 億美元的自由現金流，並向股東返還超過 100%。我們的資產負債表保持健康。截至第三季末，遞延收入總額為 41 億美元，年減 2%。截至本季末，我們擁有約 29 億美元的現金和短期投資。在轉向第四季度和 24 財年指導之前，我想花幾分鐘討論我們未來的產品毛利率預期。

We have seen the price increases on NAND from suppliers, and these increases will impact all industry participants. The mix shift to our higher-margin all-flash products will partially offset the headwinds from these price increases going forward. As a result of our shift to all-flash, we expect product gross margin to expand to the upper 50% to 60% from our historical norm of approximately 55%. Please note, in any given quarter, commodity prices, product mix, and the pricing environment will cause product gross margin to fluctuate from this new baseline. That being said, I want to make sure to reiterate this point.

我們已經看到供應商對NAND的價格上漲，這些上漲將影響所有行業參與者。向利潤率較高的全快閃產品的組合轉變將部分抵消未來價格上漲帶來的阻力。由於我們轉向全閃存，我們預計產品毛利率將從大約 55% 的歷史正常水平擴大到 50% 至 60%。請注意，在任何特定季度，商品價格、產品組合和定價環境都會導致產品毛利率相對於新基準波動。話雖這麼說，我想確保重申這一點。

Even with the increase in commodity costs, we fully expect our product gross margins to expand to the upper 50% to 60% level driven by the shift to our all-flash portfolio. Now let's turn to guidance. As George noted, we are pleased with the results of our focus and continued operational discipline. Given our better-than-expected results and our improved outlook for Q4, we are again raising our fiscal '24 revenue guidance to a range of $6.185 billion to $6.335 billion or $6.26 billion at the midpoint. We expect to see continued strength in all-flash products and hyperscaler first-party and marketplace services.

即使商品成本增加，我們也完全預計，在轉向全快閃產品組合的推動下，我們的產品毛利率將擴大到 50% 至 60% 以上的水平。現在讓我們轉向指導。正如喬治所指出的，我們對我們的關注和持續的營運紀律所取得的結果感到滿意。鑑於我們好於預期的業績以及第四季度前景的改善，我們再次將 24 財年收入指引上調至 61.85 億美元至 63.35 億美元之間，中間值為 62.6 億美元。我們預計全快閃產品和超大規模第一方和市場服務將持續強勁。

Fiscal '24 consolidated gross margin is expected to be in the range of 71% to 72%. Product gross margin is expected to be approximately 60% driven by the continued favorable mix shift to all-flash products. Operating margin is expected to be approximately 27% and EPS to be in the range of $6.40 to $6.50, with the assumption of net interest income of approximately $40 million and share count of 212 million shares. Our full year tax rate is projected to be 20%. We expect operating cash flow for the full year to be at least $1.3 billion.

24 財年綜合毛利率預計在 71% 至 72% 之間。由於向全快閃產品的持續有利組合轉變，產品毛利率預計約為 60%。假設淨利息收入約為 4,000 萬美元，股票數量為 2.12 億股，營業利潤率預計約為 27%，每股收益將在 6.40 美元至 6.50 美元之間。我們的全年稅率預計為 20%。我們預計全年營運現金流至少為 13 億美元。

In Q4, we expect revenue to range between $1.585 billion and $1.735 billion, which at the midpoint of $1.66 billion implies an increase of 5% year-over-year. We expect Q4 consolidated gross margin to be roughly 71% and product gross margin to be approximately 60%. Operating margin is projected to be in the range of 27% to 28%. Implied in this guidance, we expect operating expenses to increase from Q3 due mainly to higher incentive compensation, the timing of marketing programs and targeted investment to drive key product road map items.

我們預計第四季度營收將在 15.85 億美元至 17.35 億美元之間，中間值 16.6 億美元意味著年增 5%。我們預計第四季綜合毛利率約為 71%，產品毛利率約為 60%。營業利潤率預計在 27% 至 28% 之間。在本指引中，我們預計營運費用將從第三季開始增加，這主要是由於激勵薪酬的提高、行銷計劃的時機以及推動關鍵產品路線圖專案的有針對性的投資。

Our tax rate is expected to be 20% and EPS is expected to be in the range of $1.73 to $1.83. Also, please note that our purchase commitments for NAND for fiscal '25 demand will impact our cash flow and balance sheet in Q4 which is included in our updated cash flow forecast and will result in inventory turns to be in the 8x to 10x range. In closing, I want to thank our customers, partners, employees and stockholders for their unwavering commitment and investment in NetApp. We continue to prove our ability to manage the elements within our control and our solid top line results demonstrate the value that customers realize from our products and services.

我們的稅率預計為 20%，每股收益預計在 1.73 美元至 1.83 美元之間。另請注意，我們針對25 財年需求對NAND 的採購承諾將影響我們第四季度的現金流和資產負債表，這已包含在我們更新的現金流預測中，並將導致庫存週轉率在8 倍到10 倍範圍內。最後，我要感謝我們的客戶、合作夥伴、員工和股東對 NetApp 的堅定承諾和投資。我們不斷證明我們有能力管理我們控制範圍內的要素，我們堅實的營收績效證明了客戶從我們的產品和服務中實現的價值。

Our innovative portfolio is well aligned to priority IT investments and we remain committed to delivering sustainable long-term value for our stockholders. I'll now turn the call over to Kris to open the Q&A. Kris?

我們的創新產品組合與優先 IT 投資非常契合，我們仍然致力於為股東提供可持續的長期價值。我現在將把電話轉給克里斯來開始問答。克里斯？

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

謝謝，麥克。接線員，我們開始問答。

(Operator Instructions). Today's first question comes from Meta Marshall with Morgan Stanley.

（操作員說明）。今天的第一個問題來自摩根士丹利的梅塔馬歇爾。

Great. Thank you and congrats on the quarter. I guess George, you went into a lot of detail just around what you're seeing on the AI side. I guess if you could just get a sense of when you're seeing the timing of maybe people making investments versus -- kind of the various stages of AI? And then maybe just as a follow-up question, just what you're seeing in terms of the competitive environment just in terms of kind of innovative thinking around AI solutions.

偉大的。謝謝並恭喜本季。我猜喬治，你在人工智慧方面看到了很多細節。我想你是否能感覺到人們何時進行投資以及人工智慧的各個階段？然後也許只是作為一個後續問題，您在競爭環境中看到的只是圍繞人工智慧解決方案的創新思維。

Thank you for your question. I think we're in the early phases of the Gen AI opportunity. As you know, we have been in the AI market for a long time and have seen a lot of examples of proven use cases in predictive AI. We are starting to see the early phases of generative AI. And what I mean by that is customers collecting and unifying their data and starting to augment the foundational models with their own data, so that it is more relevant to their business. We expect that to continue for several months or a year, and we think that the deployment of production models and the movement from training to inferencing, becomes more relevant as we head into next year.

謝謝你的問題。我認為我們正處於 Gen AI 機會的早期階段。如您所知，我們已經進入人工智慧市場很長時間了，並且看到了許多預測人工智慧中經過驗證的用例的例子。我們開始看到生成式人工智慧的早期階段。我的意思是，客戶收集並統一他們的數據，並開始用自己的數據增強基礎模型，使其與他們的業務更相關。我們預計這種情況將持續幾個月或一年，我們認為，隨著明年的到來，生產模型的部署以及從訓練到推理的轉變將變得更加重要。

With regard to the work that we have seen, we've had a really strong quarter in the flash business. And several 8-figure deals in Q3, one of the world's largest oil and gas companies built their AI supercomputer and NetApp, one of the world's largest genomics company relying on our technology to speed up genomic analysis with NVIDIA and NetApp. One of the world's largest media companies is using us to drive some of the early phases of their generative AI work. And we also have examples in the public cloud where one of the world's largest open source model providers is using NetApp's cloud technology to enable their customers to access and train their models. So we've got real many different examples of success.

就我們所看到的工作而言，我們的快閃記憶體業務季度表現非常強勁。第三季達成了幾筆8 位數的交易，全球最大的石油和天然氣公司之一構建了自己的AI 超級計算機，而全球最大的基因組公司之一NetApp 依靠我們的技術與NVIDIA 和NetApp 合作加速基因組分析。全球最大的媒體公司之一正在利用我們來推動其生成式人工智慧工作的一些早期階段。我們還有公有雲中的範例，其中全球最大的開源模型供應商之一正在使用 NetApp 的雲端技術來幫助其客戶存取和訓練他們的模型。所以我們有很多不同的成功例子。

I think if you draw out our strength is scale and performance, super part certification, the fact that we can build a hybrid cloud data pipeline and the data management capabilities that we've had for many years that allow you to do things like model versioning, security for your mission-critical data and be able to deploy and connect data pipelines from production back into training. So I feel really good about our strength in the AI market. It's early around Gen AI, and we are doing the work to expand our opportunity there.

我認為，如果你能看出我們的優勢在於規模和性能、超級零件認證、我們可以構建混合雲數據管道以及我們多年來擁有的數據管理功能，這些功能允許你執行模型版本控制等操作、關鍵任務資料的安全性，並能夠部署和連接從生產到訓練的資料管道。所以我對我們在人工智慧市場的實力感到非常滿意。 Gen AI 還處於早期階段，我們正在努力擴大我們在那裡的機會。

The next question is from Krish Sankar with TD Cowen.

下一個問題來自 Krish Sankar 和 TD Cowen。

This is Eddie for Krish. Congrats on the great execution here. George, I think many people still underappreciate how file services is an AI beneficiary. For example, if you set up an AWS SageMaker account, developers can have plenty of file services options, including NetApp's FSX, so maybe talk about what differentiates FSX versus other file services, and what kind of customers you attract, what use cases is it used for? And if you can touch on how big ANF and FSX are within public cloud, that would be great. I do have another question, please.

這是克里什的艾迪。祝賀這裡的出色執行。喬治，我認為很多人仍然低估了文件服務如何成為人工智慧的受益者。例如，如果您設定了 AWS SageMaker 帳戶，開發人員可以擁有大量文件服務選項，包括 NetApp 的 FSX，因此也許可以談談 FSX 與其他文件服務的區別，以及您吸引的客戶類型、用例是什麼？如果您能了解 ANF 和 FSX 在公有雲中的規模有多大，那就太好了。我還有一個問題，請問。

First of all, I think that unstructured data is the vast majority of the value in generative AI. Generative AI really operates on documents and objects and videos and images and a variety of those data sets. And as you know, NetApp has a huge percentage of the enterprises unstructured data stored on our systems. We help them in a few different ways. One way that we help them is if their data science team that's building AI training and building some of their models, wants to start in the public cloud you can very quickly and easily take data from your enterprise environment securely into the public cloud and use it in the public cloud.

首先，我認為非結構化資料是產生人工智慧的絕大多數價值。生成式人工智慧實際上對文件、物件、影片、圖像以及各種資料集進行操作。如您所知，NetApp 將很大比例的企業非結構化資料儲存在我們的系統上。我們以幾種不同的方式幫助他們。我們幫助他們的一種方法是，如果他們正在建立人工智慧培訓和建立一些模型的資料科學團隊想要從公有雲開始，您可以非常快速、輕鬆地將資料從企業環境安全地獲取到公有雲中並使用它在公有雲中。

Second, as you know, we have very high performance scale-out solutions like the one that we referred to on the call, where one of the world's largest open source model providers is using our high-performance scale-out SSX solutions on Amazon to do model training. And then the third is in the enterprise itself, if the enterprise wants to scale that production environment, we have certifications with NVIDIA, for example, that allows them to quickly build a super part with us, train it and then deploy the trained models into production. So we feel very, very confident about the expanding opportunity in front of us. We've had several good wins and we are investing to expand our opportunity in this space.

其次，如您所知，我們擁有非常高效能的橫向擴展解決方案，就像我們在電話中提到的那樣，世界上最大的開源模型提供者之一正在亞馬遜上使用我們的高效能橫向擴展SSX解決方案進行模型訓練。第三個是企業本身，如果企業想要擴展生產環境，我們有 NVIDIA 的認證，例如，這允許他們與我們一起快速建立超級零件，對其進行訓練，然後將訓練好的模型部署到生產。因此，我們對擺在我們面前的不斷擴大的機會感到非常非常有信心。我們已經取得了一些良好的勝利，並且我們正在投資以擴大我們在這個領域的機會。

That's very helpful, George. And one for Mike quickly. Can you refresh please our memory about how customer behavior has historically changed when NAND prices increase aggressively in short periods of time. like do they usually reduce purchases of all-flash arrays and go more to hybrids? Or is NAND a small percentage of the bill of materials today, because of a very low pricing, where a 50% increase in net prices, for example, will not meaningfully change the system price you guys charge customers. That's it for me. Thank you.

這非常有幫助，喬治。快點給麥克一份。您能否回想一下，當 NAND 價格在短時間內大幅上漲時，客戶行為在歷史上發生了怎樣的變化？他們通常會減少全快閃陣列的購買並更多地購買混合陣列嗎？或者說，由於定價非常低，NAND 只佔當今物料清單的一小部分，例如，淨價格上漲 50% 不會有意義地改變你們向客戶收取的系統價格。對我來說就是這樣。謝謝。

Yes. Eddie, there was a lot of questions in there. What we'd say is a couple of things. Remember, customers budget based on dollars, and that's the way that they purchased. We haven't seen anything like in the last year in terms of really NAND prices declining as much as they did. More than anything, we think that, that has made SSD flash technology more affordable, all the benefits that you get around environmentals and economics as well as energy now make that a much better economic decision for them. So that's really the change that we've seen. Short term -- other short-term changes really don't change the market that much because, again, these are long-term decisions companies are making.

是的。艾迪，裡面有很多問題。我們要說的是幾件事。請記住，客戶的預算是根據美元計算的，這就是他們購買的方式。我們還沒有看到像去年那樣的 NAND 價格真正下降的幅度。最重要的是，我們認為，這使得 SSD 快閃記憶體技術變得更加實惠，您在環境、經濟以及能源方面獲得的所有好處現在使這對他們來說是一個更好的經濟決策。這確實是我們所看到的改變。短期－其他短期變化確實不會對市場產生太大影響，因為這些都是公司正在做出的長期決策。

And just to add to that, SSDs are not 50%. They are less than 50% of our bill of materials or probably anybody else's bill of materials.

除此之外，SSD 還不到 50%。它們只占我們的物料清單或其他任何人的物料清單的不到 50%。

The next question comes from Samik Chatterjee with JPMorgan.

下一個問題來自摩根大通的 Samik Chatterjee。

This is Joe Cardoso on for Samik. So first one for me. It seems like you continue to see strong momentum with the C Series and the other new flash products that you guys have introduced and they even appear to be outperforming your expectation in each quarter. So just curious if you could talk to how momentum for those products have tracked through 3Q and into 4Q to date. It doesn't sound like you're seeing any signs of that momentum slowing down, but can you just confirm that. And do you expect that we're still very much in the early innings of these product cycles with your customers? And then I have a follow-up.

我是喬·卡多佐 (Joe Cardoso) 替補薩米克 (Samik)。所以對我來說第一個。您似乎繼續看到 C 系列和您們推出的其他新閃存產品的強勁勢頭，它們甚至似乎每個季度的表現都超出了您的預期。因此，我很好奇您是否可以談談這些產品迄今為止在第三季和第四季的發展勢頭。聽起來你並沒有看到這種勢頭放緩的任何跡象，但你能確認一下嗎？您是否認為我們與您的客戶仍處於這些產品週期的早期階段？然後我有一個後續行動。

Yes. Maybe I can address that in three ways. I think the C Series product cycle is to modernize both traditional hybrid flash systems as well as deploy new private cloud environments, and we are seeing strong advantages there. That's the first use case. And you can see we do not see any end to that. The 10-K drive transition is a multiyear transition. We're in the early stages of that.

是的。也許我可以透過三種方式解決這個問題。我認為 C 系列產品週期旨在實現傳統混合快閃記憶體系統的現代化以及部署新的私有雲環境，我們在這方面看到了強大的優勢。這是第一個用例。你可以看到我們看不到這種情況有任何結束。 10-K 驅動器的過渡是一個多年的過渡。我們正處於早期階段。

On the private cloud side, I think some of the changes in licensing that some of the software vendors have, have renewed interest in our technology as a vehicle to give them -- give customers a path to the future. The second opportunity is the ASA product family. NetApp has had a long history in the block storage space, we've had tens of thousands of customers using our technology to serve block workloads, and we are in the early innings of bringing out a package solution that's focused solely on the block market. And we've been pleased with both of those use cases. And then the third area, of course, which is set for rapid expansion and growth is AI.

在私有雲方面，我認為一些軟體供應商在授權方面的一些變化重新引起了人們對我們的技術的興趣，我們的技術可以作為一種工具，為客戶提供通往未來的道路。第二個機會是 ASA 產品系列。 NetApp 在區塊儲存領域有著悠久的歷史，我們已經有數以萬計的客戶使用我們的技術來服務區塊工作負載，並且我們正處於推出僅專注於區塊市場的軟體包解決方案的早期階段。我們對這兩個用例都很滿意。當然，第三個領域將快速擴張和成長，那就是人工智慧。

And I feel really, really good with the focus and execution. Every time we've set a set of targets internally, we've been them and we've raised them externally. And so we got strong momentum. We're going to stay focused and disciplined in our execution going forward.

我對專注和執行力感覺非常非常好。每次我們在內部設定一系列目標時，我們都會實現這些目標，並在外部提高這些目標。因此我們獲得了強勁的勢頭。我們將在未來的執行中保持專注和紀律。

Got it. I appreciate the color there, George. And then just as my second one, appears the appetite from customers to consume storage more on a consumption basis is increasing based on our checks with the channel as well as comments from you and your peers. I know you touched on the driver being in some part due to this uneven macro that we're seeing. But are you seeing anything else as a driver there, like the maturity around the offerings or go-to-market motion. The reason I'm asking, it just feels like it wasn't too long ago when the opportunity here felt more theoretical and there was not as much appetite coming from the customers. So I would just be interested to hear, like has anything changed on that front?

知道了。我很欣賞那裡的顏色，喬治。正如我的第二個問題一樣，根據我們對頻道的檢查以及您和您的同行的評論，客戶對消耗更多儲存空間的興趣似乎正在增加。我知道您在某種程度上談到了驅動程序，因為我們看到了這個不均勻的巨集。但您是否認為其他因素是驅動因素，例如產品或上市動向的成熟度。我之所以問這個問題，只是感覺就在不久前，這裡的機會還比較理論化，而且客戶的胃口並不大。所以我只是想聽聽，這方面有什麼改變嗎？

I think there's probably two or three things. I think the maturity of the offerings, I think customers comfort around how they would procure cloud-like models. I think the second is the increase in interest rates that on the margin caused certain customers to think about CapEx versus OpEx. And then the third, of course, is the customers that are in transition from one environment to another. For example, when you're in a data center transition and you've got a portion of the life of a data center environment that needs to be continued moving to an as-a-service model is a good transition point.

我想大概有兩三件事。我認為產品的成熟度使客戶對如何採購類似雲端的模型感到滿意。我認為第二個是利率的上升，這導致某些客戶考慮資本支出與營運支出。當然，第三個是從一種環境過渡到另一種環境的客戶。例如，當您處於資料中心轉型過程中，且資料中心環境生命週期的一部分需要繼續遷移到即服務模型時，這是一個很好的過渡點。

We have offered as a service for many years. Clearly, the most flexible, the fastest and the easiest to build an elastic environment is around true public cloud. We also have solutions with colocation providers like Equinix that allows the customer to get a full cloud-like opportunity in a colocation environment connected to the public cloud and our Keystone service in the customers' data centers had another really strong quarter. We are up year-to-date almost more than triple digits, including this past quarter. So we see strong momentum in that category. And we do not see a mandate for it, but it's a nice new way for us to address a set of customer buying preferences.

我們多年來一直提供服務。顯然，最靈活、最快、最容易建構彈性環境的是真正的公有雲。我們也與Equinix 等託管供應商合作提供解決方案，讓客戶能夠在連接到公有雲的託管環境中獲得完整的類似雲端的機會，而我們在客戶資料中心的Keystone 服務又迎來了另一個非常強勁的季度。今年迄今為止，我們的成長幾乎超過三位數，包括上個季度。因此，我們看到該類別的強勁勢頭。我們沒有看到強制要求，但這是我們解決一系列客戶購買偏好的一種很好的新方式。

(Operator Instructions). Next question today comes from Mehdi Hosseini with SIG.

（操作員說明）。今天的下一個問題來自 SIG 的 Mehdi Hosseini。

George, I just wanted to better understand the current competitive landscape for fiber storage market, especially given the AI application. And I have a follow-up.

George，我只是想更了解目前光纖儲存市場的競爭格局，特別是考慮到人工智慧應用。我有一個後續行動。

It's always been competitive. There are different vendors that come and go in the market. I think if you look at the installed base of unstructured data, that becomes the vehicle to build data pipelines for AI and ML applications, NetApp has a very strong position. And we have the only solutions that allow customers to build hybrid cloud pipelines to build solutions that are super scalable and high performance. But also have the security protection and data management that AI will need as these models get scaled. So I feel really good about our position and look forward to continuing to expand our presence in that market.

一直以來都是有競爭力的。市場上有不同的供應商進出。我認為，如果你看看非結構化資料的安裝基礎，也就是成為人工智慧和機器學習應用程式建立資料管道的工具，NetApp 擁有非常強大的地位。我們擁有唯一的解決方案，允許客戶建立混合雲端管道，以建立超級可擴展和高效能的解決方案。隨著這些模型的擴展，還需要人工智慧所需的安全保護和資料管理。因此，我對我們的地位感到非常滿意，並期待繼續擴大我們在該市場的影響力。

Maybe perhaps I could rephrase my question. Mike just raised is product gross margin to 60%, which is pretty much what you're guiding for the January quarter. You're also increasing use of QLC. So should we anticipate some flexibility with pricing that QLC gives you by remaining competitive with your competitors? Because I don't see gross margins already at work the new target is. So where do we go from here?

也許我可以重新表達我的問題。麥克剛剛將產品毛利率提高到 60%，這幾乎是您對 1 月季度的指導。您還增加了 QLC 的使用。那麼，我們是否應該期待 QLC 為您提供一定的定價彈性，以保持與競爭對手的競爭力？因為我認為新目標的毛利率尚未發揮作用。那麼，我們該何去何從？

Listen, I think that, first of all, the mix shift from hard drives to flash in our business continues. And it's an important kind of underlying factor that gives us confidence that we are raising the structural baseline product gross margin, as Mike said, from the mid-50s, which has been our historic norm to the upper 50s and up to 60%. The mix shift is the most important lever in that equation. The second, of course, is the value of our ONTAP software and the ongoing management of the commodity supply chain.

聽著，我認為，首先，我們業務中從硬碟到快閃記憶體的混合轉變仍在繼續。這是一個重要的潛在因素，讓我們有信心將結構性基線產品毛利率從 50 年代中期（這是我們的歷史標準）提高到 50 年代中期，直至 60%。混合轉變是該等式中最重要的槓桿。第二個當然是我們 ONTAP 軟體的價值以及商品供應鏈的持續管理。

I think all of those factor in. I think that we are uniquely positioned with our operating system to benefit from using QLC in a broad bench of applications. Currently, only another one other vendor has QLC-based all-flash arrays, and it gives us an opportunity to go target other vendors who don't have QLC support. So we feel really good about our solution. And I would tell you that AI and all of these enterprise applications are not just about price, right? They're about value, and we built a real good value for our customers over many years.

我認為所有這些因素都在其中。我認為我們的作業系統處於獨特的地位，可以從在廣泛的應用程式中使用 QLC 中受益。目前，只有另一家供應商擁有基於 QLC 的全快閃陣列，這讓我們有機會瞄準其他不支援 QLC 的供應商。所以我們對我們的解決方案感覺非常好。我想告訴你，人工智慧和所有這些企業應用程式不僅僅與價格有關，對嗎？它們關乎價值，多年來我們為客戶創造了真正的好價值。

The next question comes from Asiya Merchant with Citigroup.

下一個問題來自花旗集團的 Asiya Merchant。

This is Mike Cadiz for Asiya at Citi. So my one question is, given ongoing -- in the AI field, given ongoing security and data sovereignty concerns by many companies, is there anything notable in your customer conversations regarding AI model placements, whether on-prem or in the cloud or any other architecture preferences that they may have?

我是花旗銀行 Asiya 的 Mike Cadiz。因此，我的一個問題是，考慮到人工智慧領域的持續發展，考慮到許多公司持續關注的安全和資料主權問題，在您的客戶關於人工智慧模型放置的對話中，是否有任何值得注意的事情，無論是在本地還是在雲端或任何其他地方他們可能有哪些架構偏好？

Listen, I think that data is the foundation on which AI is built. And if you look at what enterprises are doing today, they are augmenting foundational models with their own data to bring the relevance of AI to their business and their organizational needs. As a result, issues like malicious injection of bad data into a data landscape can cause huge impacts on AI, the ability to maintain data security, privacy, and lineage is are all conversations that are happening regardless of the regulatory environment, and they will only get stronger as the regulations get enforced like you are seeing, for example, in the European Union.

聽著，我認為數據是人工智慧建構的基礎。如果你看看企業現在在做什麼，你會發現他們正在用自己的資料增強基礎模型，以將人工智慧與他們的業務和組織需求相關聯。因此，向資料環境中惡意注入不良資料等問題可能會對人工智慧造成巨大影響，無論監管環境如何，維護資料安全、隱私和血統的能力都是正在發生的對話，而且它們只會隨著法規的執行，就像你在歐盟看到的那樣，它會變得更強大。

This gives the needs to have data management across the life cycle of AI extreme importance, and we are exceptionally well positioned, having the capabilities to build secure private environments in the public cloud as well as in customers' data centers.

這使得在人工智慧的整個生命週期中進行資料管理的需求變得極為重要，而我們處於非常有利的位置，有能力在公有雲以及客戶的資料中心建立安全的私有環境。

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

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

Congrats on the strong results here. Mike, can you give us some early thoughts on fiscal year '25. And what are the key things we should be thinking about when modeling fiscal year '25 here?

在這裡恭喜您取得了優異的成績。 Mike，您能給我們一些關於 25 財年的初步想法嗎？在此處對 25 財年進行建模時，我們應該考慮哪些關鍵事項？

Yes. Thank you for the question, Nehal. Sorry about that. So when going into fiscal '25, we've talked about it, hey, we feel really good about the momentum that we have in Q3 as well as the guidance that we built in Q4. We've talked about the momentum around C Series. George talked about all the industry trends that are also tailwinds for us. And when you look at all of the priorities that our customers are looking at, we feel like we're really well positioned. We've given you a good view of where we think our product gross margins will land. The support business continues to be an important driver of profitability as well. And we will continue to be prudent around our investment to make sure that we drive growth. We want to do that.

是的。謝謝你的提問，內哈爾。對於那個很抱歉。因此，在進入 25 財年時，我們已經討論過這一點，嘿，我們對第三季度的勢頭以及我們在第四季度建立的指導感到非常滿意。我們已經討論了 C 系列的動力。喬治談到了所有對我們來說也是順風車的行業趨勢。當你看看我們的客戶所關注的所有優先事項時，我們覺得我們確實處於有利地位。我們已經讓您清楚地了解了我們認為我們的產品毛利率將達到什麼水平。支援業務也仍然是獲利能力的重要驅動力。我們將繼續謹慎投資，以確保推動成長。我們想這麼做。

We want to make sure that we are disciplined in our spending. But hey, there are some things that we also need to do and want to do to be able to continue to drive the top line. I think we've done a lot of great work around cloud to be in a much better position for next year. George talked about the 35%-plus growth in cloud storage in first-party marketplace and Eddie asked that question as well. In the quarter, cloud storage continues to grow as a percentage. It's now closer to 65% from a revenue perspective. So that's where the growth will be.

我們希望確保我們的支出受到約束。但是，嘿，還有一些事情我們還需要做並且想要做，以便能夠繼續推動營收成長。我認為我們圍繞著雲端做了很多出色的工作，以便在明年處於更好的位置。 George 談到了第一方市場中雲端儲存成長 35% 以上，Eddie 也提出了這個問題。本季度，雲端儲存的百分比持續成長。從收入角度來看，現在已經接近 65%。這就是增長所在。

And then, we will continue to do the right things around return of capital to shareholders. We always want to leave flexibility for investments but we also want to make sure that we're mindful of our share count. So without trying to guide '25, that's only the best readers digest version I can give you.

然後，我們將繼續圍繞股東資本回報做正確的事。我們總是希望為投資留出靈活性，但我們也希望確保我們注意我們的股份數量。因此，如果我不試圖指導《25》，這只是我能給你的最好的讀者文摘版本。

That's fantastic. If I may, how should we think about the support revenue? You're coming off 4 quarters of year-over-year product revenue declines now that you're back into year-over-year growth on the product revenue, how long do you expect the support revenue start to (inaudible) back up basically?

這太妙了。如果可以的話，我們該如何考慮支持收入？您已經擺脫了產品收入年減的 4 個季度，現在您的產品收入又恢復了同比增長，您預計支持收入需要多長時間才能（聽不清楚）基本回升？

Yes, great question. And we look at this a lot, obviously. So in the last 2 quarters, we've seen deferred revenue actually decline year-over-year. A couple of things to haul. Keep in mind, that what you see on the balance sheet as a total deferred, it also includes cloud that has declined a little bit more than the support business in the last 2 quarters. 90% Plus support will come off the balance sheet, so you can take a hard look at that. But what we've also seen is a different trend where instead of tech refreshes, we've seen a lot of customers renew their support for up to a year, and that has also helped continue to drive support revenue.

是的，很好的問題。顯然，我們對此進行了許多研究。因此，在過去兩個季度中，我們看到遞延收入實際上比去年同期下降。有幾件事要拖。請記住，您在資產負債表上看到的遞延總額，還包括過去兩個季度比支援業務下降更多的雲端業務。 90%以上的支持將從資產負債表中扣除，所以你可以仔細看看。但我們也看到了一個不同的趨勢，即我們看到許多客戶不再進行技術更新，而是將他們的支援續簽長達一年，這也有助於繼續推動支援收入。

You don't see that as much in deferred. But the big driver will be growth in product revenue drives additional support revenue with the multiyear support. You'll see that in billings. You'll see that in deferred revenue. So we feel good about being able to get that growth and support. I think it was 2% this year, hopefully, at least that and going forward, if product -- when product revenue grows, support revenue should follow. It will be a little bit of a lagging indicator a couple of quarters, but it will definitely follow because of the business model.

你在 deferred 中看不到那麼多。但最大的推動力將是產品收入的成長，透過多年支持推動額外的支援收入。你會在帳單中看到這一點。您會在遞延收入中看到這一點。因此，我們對能夠獲得這種成長和支持感到很高興。我認為今年是 2%，希望至少是這個數字，並且展望未來，如果產品——當產品收入成長時，支援收入也應該隨之成長。這將是一個滯後幾個季度的指標，但由於商業模式，它肯定會跟隨。

The next question comes from Ananda Baruah with Loop Capital.

下一個問題來自 Loop Capital 的 Ananda Baruah。

Yes, congrats, I mean congrats on a strong number of quarters here and really good ongoing execution. And I guess George, that's I guess what I'd like to ask, I guess the first question is -- and I'm sorry if you spoke to some of this, I was -- there's a few calls going on tonight. Sorry, I came on late. But to what degree the last couple of quarters or so, do you think that the strong product growth that you guys have put up. I'm going to try to actually parse to the degree it's parsable. Is the result of new product features, kind of new products, things that customers are doing beginning to do sort of differently with their data.

是的，恭喜，我的意思是祝賀這裡有大量的季度以及非常好的持續執行力。我想喬治，這就是我想問的問題，我想第一個問題是——如果你談到了其中的一些問題，我很抱歉——今晚有幾通電話。抱歉，我來晚了。但是，您認為過去幾季左右的產品強勁成長到了什麼程度？我將嘗試實際解析到可解析的程度。是新產品功能、新產品、客戶正在做的事情開始用他們的數據做一些不同的事情的結果。

It sounds like not really a material Gen AI benefit yet, which makes sense. But if you could parse -- if there's any way to parse through those things, that would be helpful. And then I guess the second part of the question is, I think I heard you make mention of you think there is like a tail to this going forward. And I mean is part of what you're saying is that you think the product demand sort of outlook begins to look a lot different as you go through calendar '24 and then maybe even beyond? I know that's a lot, but I'd appreciate that.

聽起來似乎還沒有真正為人工智慧帶來實質好處，這是有道理的。但如果你可以解析——如果有任何方法可以解析這些東西，那將會很有幫助。然後我想問題的第二部分是，我想我聽到你提到你認為這件事的發展有一個尾巴。我的意思是，您所說的一部分內容是，您認為當您經歷 24 年甚至更久的日曆時，產品需求的前景開始看起來有很大不同？我知道很多，但我會很感激。

Yes. Listen, I think, first of all, the macro has stayed relatively consistent the whole time. It is uncertain. It's not getting worse, but it is not the fundamental reason for the improvement in results. The second is the two biggest reasons for improving our results. One is product and the second is focus on go-to-market execution. Let me hit on product, in terms of product, we brought the world's best operating system to 2 or 3 major new opportunities. We brought it to a price point in the all-flash market that we have not addressed before with the QLC flash offerings. We brought the world's best operating system to a block storage opportunity that's multibillion dollars, multiple tens of billion dollars that we had never built a purpose-built block storage product for. And we are continuing to see an expanding range of AI opportunities as customers are doing both training as well as building context called retrieval augmented generation drag.

是的。聽著，我認為，首先，宏觀經濟一直保持相對一致。這是不確定的。並沒有變得更糟，但這並不是成績改善的根本原因。第二是提高我們業績的兩個最大原因。一是產品，二是注重上市執行。讓我談談產品，在產品方面，我們為世界上最好的作業系統帶來了2到3個重大的新機會。我們將其提升到了全快閃市場的一個價位，這是我們之前透過 QLC 快閃記憶體產品解決的問題。我們將世界上最好的作業系統帶來了價值數十億美元、數百億美元的區塊儲存機會，而我們從未為此建置過專門建置的區塊儲存產品。隨著客戶進行培訓以及建立稱為檢索增強生成阻力的上下文，我們將繼續看到人工智慧機會的範圍不斷擴大。

And so all of those have driven improvements in our results. I think the other part of the equation would be to recognize the benefits that we've had from focus in our go-to-market. We have prioritized 2 areas: the hyperscaler marketplace and first-party cloud storage services in public cloud. And we have focused on our all-flash portfolio as the two major priorities, and we have had strong results in both of them, I'm very pleased with the results.

因此，所有這些都推動了我們業績的改善。我認為等式的另一部分是認識到我們從專注於市場進入中獲得的好處。我們優先考慮兩個領域：超大規模市場和公有雲中的第一方雲端儲存服務。我們將全快閃產品組合作為兩個主要優先事項，並且我們在這兩個方面都取得了出色的成果，我對結果非常滿意。

That's great context. I appreciate that. And just a quick follow-up for Mike here. Mike, you talked about attach in some context. And I guess I just wanted to ask you with the operating margins already in the high 20s, philosophically, is there any reason why with everything you have going on with mix and attach over time, you couldn't touch 30% operating margin?

這是很好的背景。我很感激。這裡只是麥克的快速跟進。麥克，您在某些情況下談到了附加。我想我只是想問您，營運利潤率已經高達20 多歲，從哲學上講，隨著時間的推移，您在混合和附加方面所做的一切，是否有任何原因導致您無法達到30% 的營運利潤率？

So we did this quarter.

所以我們這個季度就這樣做了。

Sorry, it's funny. I haven't -- yes, I apologize. I have to with all the numbers I had you didn't -- That's a miss on me. So well, let me just ask you then, let's start there. Like I mean, should we just expect mix up then going forward? I mean how are you thinking about like showing the margins in the P&L versus doing something else with the op income dollars as mix continues to work in your favor?

抱歉，這很有趣。我沒有——是的，我很抱歉。我必須用我擁有的所有數字來計算你沒有的——這對我來說是一個遺憾。那麼好吧，讓我問你，讓我們從這裡開始。就像我的意思是，我們應該期待混合然後繼續前進嗎？我的意思是，隨著組合繼續對您有利，您如何考慮在損益表中顯示利潤，而不是用營運收入美元做其他事情？

Yes. And no apologies necessary. I know you folks are busy today. So hey, we're super excited about the 30% margin. And a lot of that. There's all 12,000 employees that helped us on that number. We've guided to 27% to 28% in Q4. What I would say is that we very much want to continue to be able to grow the business. And even as a CFO, I know, hey, we need to invest in some areas. There are some product investments that we need to make. We want to make sure that the go-to-market continues to have sales capacity. We've said it at the last Analyst Day, we'll say it again, which is we want to invest, but our goal is always to grow OpEx at a lower rate than revenue to drive the margins up. Where those go really depends, I think, on a couple of things. One is how well we can continue to grow product revenue, that's obviously a big piece. And that then drives storage, which was Nehal's question around -- I'm sorry, around which is a big piece. So we don't have a target in mind. And quite frankly, the other thing I just want to make sure and underline, this is both gross -- product gross margins and operating margins.

是的。無需道歉。我知道你們今天很忙。所以，嘿，我們對 30% 的利潤感到非常興奮。還有很多這樣的事情。共有 12,000 名員工為我們提供了協助。我們第四季的指導值為 27% 至 28%。我想說的是，我們非常希望能夠繼續發展業務。即使作為財務官，我也知道，嘿，我們需要在某些領域進行投資。我們需要進行一些產品投資。我們希望確保進入市場的產品繼續具有銷售能力。我們在上一次分析師日說過，我們會再說一遍，那就是我們想要投資，但我們的目標始終是以低於收入的速度成長營運支出，以提高利潤率。我認為，這些去向實際上取決於幾件事。一是我們能夠如何持續增加產品收入，這顯然是一個重要的部分。然後，這會推動存儲，這是 Nehal 提出的問題——我很抱歉，這是一個很大的問題。所以我們心裡沒有目標。坦白說，我想確定並強調的另一件事是毛利率和營業利潤率。

Hey, we love the margin percentages, but we love the dollars more. And so our goal is to be able to drive dollars. That may mean that, hey, margins stay relatively consistent or they go up or down in a quarter. Our goal is to drive more revenue, more gross margin dollars, more operating that then goes to EPS. So I don't want to give you a target. Now we'll talk about this a little bit in June. There is that trade-off.

嘿，我們喜歡保證金百分比，但我們更喜歡美元。因此，我們的目標是能夠推動美元成長。這可能意味著，嘿，利潤率保持相對穩定，或在一個季度內上升或下降。我們的目標是增加收入、增加毛利率、增加營業額，然後轉換為每股盈餘。所以我不想給你一個目標。現在我們將在六月稍微討論一下這個問題。存在這樣的權衡。

(Operator Instructions). The next question is from Amit Daryanani with Evercore ISI.

（操作員說明）。下一個問題來自 Evercore ISI 的 Amit Daryanani。

This is Irvin Liu on for Amit. George, you mentioned new customer wins resulting from the displacement of competitor 10K hard disk drive and hybrid deployments with C Series. But can you give us a sense on what the upsell opportunity looks like for some of your other product lines such as A series and public cloud services, particularly with these new customers.

我是歐文·劉 (Irvin Liu) 替阿米特 (Amit) 發言。 George，您提到了由於替代競爭對手 10K 硬碟以及與 C 系列的混合部署而贏得的新客戶。但您能否讓我們了解您的其他一些產品線（例如 A 系列和公有雲服務）的追加銷售機會，特別是針對這些新客戶。

Listen, we always start with one environment, and then we can cross-sell other environments into the customer. I think what we have seen quite clearly in the market is that the idea of having multiple different operating systems and storage landscapes in our customer is causing cost, complexity and security vulnerabilities and the idea of going to one consistent architecture across multiple landscapes is clearly seeing resonance in customers.

聽著，我們總是從一個環境開始，然後我們可以向客戶交叉銷售其他環境。我認為我們在市場上已經清楚地看到，客戶擁有多個不同作業系統和儲存環境的想法正在導致成本、複雜性和安全漏洞，而跨多個環境採用一致架構的想法也很明顯。引起客戶的共鳴。

And I think that as we have got obviously both unified as well as block focused offerings across high-performance AFF A Series as well as more value-oriented C-Series products, we see opportunity to not only win one part of our customers' footprint, but over time, win all of their footprint. The work that we've done in public cloud allows us to penetrate accounts that we don't have a relationship with using the public cloud sales motion. And as we have shared many times, the number of new to NetApp customers in the public cloud sales motion is very strong, and we are excited about that. We continue to see good progress on that front even this past quarter.

我認為，由於我們顯然在高性能 AFF A 系列以及更注重價值的 C 系列產品中獲得了統一和集中的產品，因此我們看到了不僅贏得一部分客戶足蹟的機會但隨著時間的推移，贏得了他們所有的足跡。我們在公有雲中所做的工作使我們能夠利用公有雲銷售動議滲透與我們沒有關係的帳戶。正如我們多次分享的那樣，公有雲銷售活動中的 NetApp 新客戶數量非常強勁，我們對此感到興奮。即使在上個季度，我們仍然看到這方面取得了良好進展。

I also had one follow-up. Just on the dip in your mix of U.S. public sector revenue. Was there anything to call out here just in terms of government IT spending?

我也進行了一項後續行動。就在美國公共部門收入組合下降的時候。就政府 IT 支出而言，有什麼值得指出的嗎？

It's just normal seasonality. I think public sector actually was a strong number for us across the globe and nothing other than normal seasonality for us.

這只是正常的季節性。我認為公共部門實際上對我們在全球範圍內來說是一個強勁的數字，對我們來說只是正常的季節性。

All right. Thanks, Urban. I'm going to pass it back to George now for some closing comments.

好的。謝謝，厄本。我現在要把它傳回給喬治，徵求一些結束語。

Thank you, Kris. Let me reiterate my strong confidence in our position to drive continued growth and profitability despite the uncertain macro. We've sharpened our focus, improved our execution and successfully introduced new products that expand our addressable market. Capacity flash, block storage and AI all represent enormous opportunities for us. We are performing well in these areas and expect continued growth.

謝謝你，克里斯。讓我重申，儘管宏觀形勢存在不確定性，但我對我們推動持續成長和獲利能力的立場充滿信心。我們更加專注，提高了執行力，並成功推出了新產品，擴大了我們的目標市場。容量快閃記憶體、區塊儲存和人工智慧都為我們帶來了巨大的機會。我們在這些領域表現良好，並期望持續成長。

We have taken the actions needed to improve the health of our cloud business, creating our healthier business to drive growth in fiscal year '25. We are capitalizing on our share gain opportunity and we'll maintain the operating discipline that has yielded record profitability. Thank you for your time today, and I hope to see you at our June 11 Investor Day.

我們已採取必要的行動來改善雲端業務的健康狀況，打造更健康的業務，以推動 25 財年的成長。我們正在利用我們的股票增值機會，我們將維持已產生創紀錄盈利能力的營運紀律。感謝您今天抽出時間，希望在 6 月 11 日投資者日見到您。

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.

會議現已結束。感謝您的參與。現在您可以斷開線路。