Splunk Inc (SPLK) 2023 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon, and welcome to Splunk Inc.'s Fourth Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. All participants are listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Ken Tinsley, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.

下午好，歡迎來到 Splunk Inc. 的 2023 年第四季度財務業績電話會議。所有參與者都是只聽模式。演講者介紹完畢後，我們將進行問答環節。 （操作員說明）作為提醒，正在錄製此電話會議。我現在想把電話轉給投資者關係副總裁 Ken Tinsley。謝謝。請繼續。

Thank you, Julian, and good afternoon. With me on the call today are Gary Steele and Brian Roberts. After market closed today, we issued our earnings press release, which is also posted on our Investor Relations website along with supplemental material. This conference call is being webcast live and following the call, an audio replay will be available on our website.

謝謝你，朱利安，下午好。今天和我一起通話的有 Gary Steele 和 Brian Roberts。今天收市後，我們發布了收益新聞稿，該新聞稿連同補充材料也發佈在我們的投資者關係網站上。此電話會議正在網絡直播，電話會議結束後，我們的網站上將提供音頻重播。

On today's call, we will be making forward-looking statements, including financial guidance and expectations including our long-term growth and profitability forecast for our first quarter and full year of fiscal 2024 and our future expectations of revenues, total ARR, net new ARR cloud mix, non-GAAP OpEx, non-GAAP operating margin, free cash flow, free cash flow margin and equity burn as well as trends in our markets and our business, our strategies and our expectations regarding our business acquisitions, products, technology, customers and demand.

在今天的電話會議上，我們將做出前瞻性陳述，包括財務指導和預期，包括我們對 2024 財年第一季度和全年的長期增長和盈利預測，以及我們對收入、總 ARR、淨新 ARR 的未來預期雲組合、非 GAAP 運營支出、非 GAAP 營業利潤率、自由現金流、自由現金流利潤率和股權燃燒以及我們的市場和業務趨勢、我們的戰略和我們對業務收購、產品、技術的期望，客戶和需求。

These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and are based on our assumptions as to the macroeconomic environment and reflect our best judgment based on factors currently known to us. Actual events or results may differ materially. Please refer to our documents we file with the SEC, including our Form 10-K and 10-Qs as well as the Form 8-K filed with today's press release. Those documents contain risks and other factors that may cause our actual results to differ from those contained in our forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are being made as of today, and we disclaim any obligation to update or revise these statements. If this call is reviewed after today, the information presented during the call may not contain current or accurate information.

這些陳述受風險和不確定因素的影響，是基於我們對宏觀經濟環境的假設，反映了我們根據我們目前已知的因素做出的最佳判斷。實際事件或結果可能存在重大差異。請參閱我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件，包括我們的 10-K 和 10-Q 表格以及隨今天的新聞稿一起提交的 8-K 表格。這些文件包含可能導致我們的實際結果與我們的前瞻性陳述中包含的結果不同的風險和其他因素。這些前瞻性陳述是在今天作出的，我們不承擔任何更新或修改這些陳述的義務。如果在今天之後審查此電話，則電話中提供的信息可能不包含最新或準確的信息。

We will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures, which are not prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. A reconciliation of GAAP and non-GAAP results is provided in the press release and on our website. So with that, let me turn it over to Gary.

我們還將討論非 GAAP 財務措施，這些措施不是根據公認的會計原則編制的。新聞稿和我們的網站上提供了 GAAP 和非 GAAP 結果的對賬。因此，讓我把它交給加里。

Thank you, Ken. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm excited to share our progress in Q4 as well as our setup for Splunk's next chapter and the opportunities we see in the year ahead. I'd like to take a moment to introduce Brian Roberts, who joined us as CFO in January. Brian brings 30 years of financial expertise, including at some of the most recognized brands in tech and consumer like Lyft, Microsoft and Walmart. Brian has ramped up quickly and is deeply engaged in helping increase Splunk's operating efficiency as we continue to grow our top line. With that, let's dive in.

謝謝你，肯。大家下午好，感謝您今天加入我們。我很高興與大家分享我們在第四季度取得的進展，以及我們為 Splunk 的下一章所做的準備，以及我們在來年看到的機會。我想花點時間介紹 Brian Roberts，他於 1 月份加入我們擔任首席財務官。 Brian 擁有 30 年的金融專業知識，包括在 Lyft、微軟和沃爾瑪等科技和消費領域最知名的品牌。布賴恩 (Brian) 的成長速度很快，並且在我們繼續增加收入的同時，深入參與幫助提高 Splunk 的運營效率。有了這個，讓我們開始吧。

I'm pleased to report that we delivered a solid finish to an important transitional year for Splunk. In our fourth quarter, we met or exceeded our expectations across each of our guided metrics, including revenue, total ARR, cloud ARR, op margin and free cash flow. I'm very proud of the Splunk team for their focus and execution on delivering these results while serving all of our customers around the world.

我很高興地報告，我們為 Splunk 重要的過渡年取得了圓滿的成績。在我們的第四季度，我們在每個指導指標上都達到或超過了我們的預期，包括收入、總 ARR、雲 ARR、運營利潤率和自由現金流。我為 Splunk 團隊感到非常自豪，因為他們在為全球所有客戶提供服務的同時專注於交付這些成果。

In Q4, we grew total ARR by 18% year-over-year to $3.674 billion. For the first time, our quarterly total revenues exceeded $1 billion, up 39% to $1.25 billion. Cloud ARR grew 33% to $1.778 billion. During Q4, we continued to see cloud migrations and expansions impacted by the macro environment as well as increased deal scrutiny, which is factored into our guidance for the current year. We do not view this buying behavior as a demand issue, but rather that of timing as many organizations continue to utilize on-prem Splunk solutions with longer-term plans to shift more of their workloads to the cloud. The reality is on-prem and hybrid will both be here for the long haul, and Splunk has a strong competitive advantage given our solutions help strengthen our customers' resilience across multi-cloud and hybrid environments.

在第四季度，我們的總 ARR 同比增長 18% 至 36.74 億美元。我們的季度總收入首次超過 10 億美元，增長 39% 至 12.5 億美元。 Cloud ARR 增長 33% 至 17.78 億美元。在第四季度，我們繼續看到雲遷移和擴展受到宏觀環境的影響以及交易審查的增加，這已被納入我們今年的指引中。我們不認為這種購買行為是需求問題，而是時間問題，因為許多組織繼續使用本地 Splunk 解決方案，並製定了將更多工作負載轉移到雲端的長期計劃。現實情況是本地部署和混合部署都將長期存在，而 Splunk 具有強大的競爭優勢，因為我們的解決方案有助於增強客戶在多雲和混合環境中的彈性。

We also believe the current budgetary environment can create opportunities for us as companies look to consolidate the number of tools used across our operations with proven leaders like Splunk. Shifting to our own operations, we've made substantial progress on our efforts to improve operating efficiency and lower our costs. In Q4, we held OpEx growth to just 2% year-over-year even against the backdrop of our strong revenue performance. In addition, through the combination of lapping our change to annual billing 3 years ago and the cost reduction initiatives I've described in previous calls, we delivered $427 million of free cash flow in the year, almost 4x the level of last year.

我們還相信當前的預算環境可以為我們創造機會，因為公司希望將我們在運營中使用的工具數量與 Splunk 等久經考驗的領導者整合起來。轉向我們自己的運營，我們在提高運營效率和降低成本方面取得了實質性進展。在第四季度，即使在我們強勁的收入表現的背景下，我們也將運營支出同比增長率控制在 2%。此外，通過結合我們 3 年前對年度計費的更改以及我在之前的電話會議中描述的成本削減舉措，我們在這一年交付了 4.27 億美元的自由現金流，幾乎是去年水平的 4 倍。

Looking at our bottom line performance, we reported profitability on a GAAP basis. We're pleased with this indicator demonstrating the maturity of our business model. Moving forward, we believe that ARR and free cash flow will continue to be the best metrics by which to assess the overall health of our business. Brian will outline our financial performance and guidance in more detail later in the call, including our expected significant free cash flow generation in FY '24.

看看我們的底線表現，我們根據公認會計原則報告了盈利能力。我們很高興這個指標證明了我們商業模式的成熟度。展望未來，我們相信 ARR 和自由現金流將繼續成為評估我們業務整體健康狀況的最佳指標。 Brian 將在稍後的電話會議中更詳細地概述我們的財務業績和指導，包括我們預計在 24 財年產生的大量自由現金流。

Since joining Splunk last April, and as you've heard me describe on previous calls, we've been focused on balancing long-term durable growth with profitability and free cash flow. Our Q4 results demonstrate that this approach is working effectively even in the current economic climate. While we remain cautious about the coming year, given the uncertainty of the overall operating environment, we are committed to delivering meaningful top line growth with improved profitability and substantial free cash flow growth. After meeting with hundreds of customers since I joined Splunk nearly 11 months ago, I continue to learn about the challenges they are facing and how Splunk can help. The recurring theme I hear is the critical role Splunk plays in helping make their digital systems more resilient, so they can stay up and running and quickly adapt to the constantly changing circumstances and evolving threats.

自去年 4 月加入 Splunk 以來，正如您在之前的電話會議上所描述的那樣，我們一直專注於平衡長期持久增長與盈利能力和自由現金流。我們的第四季度結果表明，即使在當前的經濟環境下，這種方法也能有效發揮作用。儘管我們對來年持謹慎態度，但鑑於整體運營環境的不確定性，我們致力於通過提高盈利能力和大幅自由現金流增長來實現有意義的收入增長。自從我在將近 11 個月前加入 Splunk 以來與數百名客戶會面後，我繼續了解他們面臨的挑戰以及 Splunk 如何提供幫助。我聽到的反復出現的主題是 Splunk 在幫助他們的數字系統更具彈性方面發揮的關鍵作用，因此他們可以保持正常運行并快速適應不斷變化的環境和不斷變化的威脅。

Research we published last week found that organizations with advanced digital resilience capabilities save an average of $48 million per year on downtime costs compared to organizations just beginning this journey. The importance of resilience is also evident in my conversations with Chief Information Security Officers or CSOs, who tell me that the capabilities Splunk provides are critical for the effectiveness of their security operation centers, which are facing an increasingly complex and sprawling cybersecurity landscape.

我們上週發布的研究發現，與剛剛開始這一旅程的組織相比，具有高級數字彈性能力的組織每年平均可節省 4800 萬美元的停機成本。在我與首席信息安全官或 CSO 的談話中，彈性的重要性也很明顯，他們告訴我，Splunk 提供的功能對於他們的安全運營中心的有效性至關重要，這些中心正面臨著日益複雜和龐大的網絡安全環境。

Demand for our security solutions remain strong and our market leadership continues to be recognized. During Q4, industry analyst firms, Forrester and IDC positioned Splunk as a leader in the Forrester Wave Security Analytics platforms and IDC MarketScape for worldwide SIM. This recognition builds on the momentum I shared in our Q3 call when we were named a leader in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Security Information and Event Management for the ninth consecutive time. We're continuing to enhance our security offering, including targeted investments in organic innovation like Splunk Enterprise Security 7.1, which became generally available in Q4.

對我們的安全解決方案的需求依然強勁，我們的市場領導地位繼續得到認可。在第四季度，行業分析公司 Forrester 和 IDC 將 Splunk 定位為全球 SIM 的 Forrester Wave 安全分析平台和 IDC MarketScape 的領導者。這一認可建立在我在第三季度電話會議上分享的勢頭之上，當時我們連續第九次被評為 2022 年 Gartner 安全信息和事件管理魔力像限的領導者。我們將繼續增強我們的安全產品，包括對有機創新的有針對性的投資，例如 Splunk Enterprise Security 7.1，它已於第四季度全面上市。

In the coming months, we're also looking forward to adding the capabilities from our acquisition of TwinWave, which I mentioned on our Q3 call. Turning to observability. We were pleased to have a number of marquee observability wins in Q4 which I'll share in a moment. We believe observability is a massive growth opportunity for Splunk, and we're making investments to broaden and strengthen our portfolio of enterprise-grade observability solutions that provide monitoring across complex environments.

在接下來的幾個月裡，我們還期待通過收購 TwinWave 來增加功能，我在第三季度的電話會議上提到了這一點。轉向可觀察性。我們很高興在第 4 季度取得了一些重大的可觀察性勝利，稍後我將與大家分享。我們相信可觀察性對 Splunk 來說是一個巨大的增長機會，我們正在投資以擴大和加強我們的企業級可觀察性解決方案組合，這些解決方案可跨複雜環境提供監控。

It's abundantly clear to me that no other company can deliver the value we provide at enterprise scale. Our unified security and observability platforms helps the largest and most innovative organizations adapt and respond due to constantly changing global technology landscape, helping to build a safer and more resilient digital world. Our team continues to build on the deep level of customer focus that has helped establish our leadership position across our core markets. More than 90 of the Fortune 100 have deployed Splunk to drive enterprise resilience. At the end of Q4, we had 790 customers generating total ARR of $1 million or more up by 115 over last year. 422 of these customers had Cloud ARR of over $1 million, an increase of 33% from last year.

我非常清楚，沒有其他公司可以提供我們在企業規模上提供的價值。我們的統一安全和可觀察性平台可幫助最大和最具創新性的組織適應和應對不斷變化的全球技術格局，從而幫助構建一個更安全、更具彈性的數字世界。我們的團隊繼續以深層次的客戶關注為基礎，這幫助我們在核心市場確立了領導地位。超過 90 家財富 100 強企業已部署 Splunk 來推動企業彈性。在第四季度末，我們有 790 名客戶產生了 100 萬美元或更多的總 ARR，比去年增加了 115 名。其中 422 家客戶的雲 ARR 超過 100 萬美元，比去年增長 33%。

Our team delivered many wins during the quarter that underscore why organizations around the world continue to choose Splunk. I'd like to share a few of them with you now. First, a large U.S. retailer returned to Splunk after trying to develop an in-house solution alongside one of our competitors' solutions. This customer is losing millions of dollars each month due to gift card fraud and no one could solve it. The issue significantly impacted revenue and the only way to ensure swift prevention was real-time data streaming across a complicated web of siloed internal systems, including their gift card, point-of-sale and in-store systems. Our team's proof of concept clearly demonstrated the breadth and effectiveness of our security solutions, landing a significant fourth quarter security deal.

我們的團隊在本季度取得了許多勝利，這凸顯了為什麼世界各地的組織繼續選擇 Splunk。我現在想和你分享其中的一些。首先，一家大型美國零售商在嘗試開發內部解決方案以及我們競爭對手的解決方案後，又回到了 Splunk。由於禮品卡欺詐，該客戶每月損失數百萬美元，而且無人能解決。這個問題對收入產生了重大影響，確保迅速預防的唯一方法是在一個由孤立的內部系統組成的複雜網絡中實時傳輸數據，包括他們的禮品卡、銷售點和店內系統。我們團隊的概念證明清楚地展示了我們安全解決方案的廣度和有效性，在第四季度達成了重要的安全交易。

Next, the Department of the U.S. federal government signed a multimillion dollar expansion agreement to increase their use of Splunk to ensure the resilience of critical applications that benefit more than 100 million people every year. Once again, we beat out a competitor for this deal with 1 critical component of our transaction being this department's conversion from legacy ingest-based pricing to our workload-based model that provides them greater value and flexibility.

接下來，美國聯邦政府部門簽署了一項數百萬美元的擴展協議，以增加他們對 Splunk 的使用，以確保每年造福 1 億多人的關鍵應用程序的彈性。我們再次擊敗競爭對手完成這筆交易，我們交易的一個關鍵組成部分是該部門從傳統的基於攝取的定價轉換為我們基於工作負載的模型，為他們提供更大的價值和靈活性。

We also went head-to-head with a niche absorbability competitor and won a significant deal in Q4 to help a mobile financial services provider in Asia Pacific, modernize their applications. This provider required visibility and insight across several cloud-native micro services they use to provide secure and accessible fintech. We ultimately won the deal because of our scalability, performance and ability to deliver critical integration between observability and security, combined with our more cost-effective pricing model.

我們還與利基可吸收性競爭對手進行了正面交鋒，並在第四季度贏得了一筆重要交易，以幫助亞太地區的一家移動金融服務提供商實現其應用程序的現代化。該提供商需要對他們用來提供安全且可訪問的金融科技的多個雲原生微服務的可見性和洞察力。由於我們的可擴展性、性能和在可觀察性和安全性之間提供關鍵集成的能力，以及我們更具成本效益的定價模型，我們最終贏得了這筆交易。

In Q4, we also won significant deals against a large enterprise competitor by proving that good enough is not enough when it comes to security, cloud migration and pricing. For example, one of the largest banks in Norway and one of the largest energy businesses in Asia Pacific region, each signed multiyear enterprise security deals with us because we offered straightforward pricing and demonstrated they can trust Splunk to keep their systems and customers secure scale for innovation, migrate to the cloud and stay resilient along the way.

在第四季度，我們還通過證明在安全、雲遷移和定價方面足夠好還不夠，從而贏得了與大型企業競爭對手的重大交易。例如，挪威最大的銀行之一和亞太地區最大的能源企業之一都與我們簽署了多年期企業安全協議，因為我們提供直接的定價並證明他們可以信任 Splunk 來確保他們的系統和客戶的安全規模創新、遷移到雲並在此過程中保持彈性。

Finally, our partner momentum continued during the quarter, and we had some nice joint sales wins. For example, we collaborated with Accenture on a 7-figure win at a multinational automotive manufacturer to expand Splunk into security use cases to enhance the customer's overall resilience. We also work closely with Amazon Web Services to secure multimillion dollar targeted cloud migrations including a win with a large U.S. financial institution to address new and growing threats in the areas of fraud, insider threat and business application and process security.

最後，我們的合作夥伴勢頭在本季度繼續保持，我們取得了一些不錯的聯合銷售勝利。例如，我們與埃森哲合作，在一家跨國汽車製造商贏得了 7 位數的勝利，將 Splunk 擴展到安全用例中，以增強客戶的整體彈性。我們還與 Amazon Web Services 密切合作，以確保數百萬美元的目標雲遷移安全，包括與美國一家大型金融機構的合作，以應對欺詐、內部威脅以及業務應用程序和流程安全領域不斷增長的新威脅。

On top of our Q4 customer momentum, we're continuing to extend our impact through deeper customer and partner engagement and product innovation. I was with our customer-facing teams last week at our annual kickoff where we drove greater alignment of how Splunk can deliver even more strategic value to our customers. We believe digital resilience is a journey and our evolving go-to-market approach includes tighter engagement with customers as they mature their resilience practices across security and observability, supported by our single seller model, which I described last quarter.

除了我們第四季度的客戶勢頭之外，我們還將繼續通過更深入的客戶和合作夥伴參與以及產品創新來擴大我們的影響力。上週，在我們的年度啟動會上，我與我們面向客戶的團隊一起推動了 Splunk 如何為我們的客戶提供更多戰略價值的更一致。我們相信數字彈性是一段旅程，我們不斷發展的上市方法包括與客戶更緊密地接觸，因為他們在安全性和可觀察性方面成熟了彈性實踐，並得到我上個季度描述的單一賣家模型的支持。

In December, we welcomed nearly 550 customers and partners to Washington D.C. for our annual public sector event, GovSummit. We're committed to supporting government agencies, public institutions and higher education and it was inspiring to learn from organizations we partner with, such as the Department of Homeland Security, national counterterrorism, innovation, technology and education center and the Department of Navy.

12 月，我們迎來了近 550 位客戶和合作夥伴來到華盛頓特區參加我們的年度公共部門活動 GovSummit。我們致力於支持政府機構、公共機構和高等教育，向我們合作的組織學習很鼓舞人心，例如國土安全部、國家反恐、創新、技術和教育中心以及海軍部。

Looking ahead, we see significant opportunities to drive further engagement across the public sector. Turning to our technology. We're continuing to invest in high-quality, differentiated product innovation where we believe will drive long-term growth and more customer value. You can expect to see a steady drumbeat of product and technology updates from us throughout this year, including some exciting announcements later this quarter that will enhance our security and observability capabilities and help our customers further unify, simplify and modernize their workflows and businesses.

展望未來，我們看到了推動公共部門進一步參與的重大機遇。轉向我們的技術。我們將繼續投資於高質量、差異化的產品創新，我們相信這將推動長期增長和更多客戶價值。您可以期待在今年全年看到我們穩定的產品和技術更新，包括本季度晚些時候發布的一些激動人心的公告，這些公告將增強我們的安全性和可觀察性能力，並幫助我們的客戶進一步統一、簡化和現代化他們的工作流程和業務。

In July, we'll host dot-com 23, our annual customer and partner event, where we'll showcase even more innovation to thousands of Splunk community members. We hope to see you all there. Later this year, we'll roll out a new solution that will make it easier to get data from operational technology environments into Splunk, extending the Splunk platform into rapidly growing smart industry segments such as manufacturing, building management, transportation and industrials. This will be a partner-led motion creating new opportunities for Splunk and our joint go-to-market partners.

7 月，我們將舉辦我們的年度客戶和合作夥伴活動 dot-com 23，屆時我們將向成千上萬的 Splunk 社區成員展示更多創新。我們希望在那裡見到你們。今年晚些時候，我們將推出一個新的解決方案，使從運營技術環境中獲取數據到 Splunk 變得更加容易，從而將 Splunk 平台擴展到快速增長的智能行業領域，例如製造、建築管理、交通和工業。這將是一項由合作夥伴主導的動議，為 Splunk 和我們的聯合上市合作夥伴創造新的機會。

Looking ahead, we remain focused on managing the business with a balanced approach to long-term growth and profitability. As I shared earlier, we held OpEx growth to 2% during the quarter of solid revenue growth. We delivered meaningful progress in Q4 on our 4 cost reduction focus areas. We further implemented our plans to reduce our overall spend on external resources by prioritizing the most business-critical projects that deliver customer value. We continue to pause all but the most essential noncustomer-facing travel, and Splunkers have adapted to this new model of collaboration and mindset for efficiency.

展望未來，我們將繼續專注於以平衡的方式管理業務，以實現長期增長和盈利。正如我之前分享的那樣，我們在收入穩健增長的季度將 OpEx 增長率保持在 2%。我們在第四季度在 4 個降低成本的重點領域取得了有意義的進展。我們進一步實施了我們的計劃，通過優先考慮能夠提供客戶價值的最關鍵業務項目來減少我們在外部資源上的總體支出。除了最重要的非面向客戶的旅行外，我們繼續暫停所有旅行，Splunkers 已經適應了這種新的協作模式和效率思維模式。

In terms of our global real estate footprint over the past several months, we have begun to take actions to reduce or relocate our space usage. For example, in the Bay Area, we are consolidating floors and buildings which will result in significant rent and related operating expense reductions this year. Finally, our approach to hiring remains measured and focused on prioritizing sales and customer-facing roles. During a year in which we grew ARR by 18%, our approach enabled us to end our fiscal year with a modest and efficient headcount increase to approximately 8,000 Splunkers.

就我們過去幾個月的全球房地產足跡而言，我們已經開始採取行動減少或重新安置我們的空間使用。例如，在灣區，我們正在合併樓層和建築物，這將導致今年租金和相關運營費用大幅減少。最後，我們的招聘方法仍然是謹慎的，並專注於優先考慮銷售和麵向客戶的角色。在我們 ARR 增長 18% 的一年中，我們的方法使我們能夠以適度而高效的方式結束我們的財政年度，將員工人數增加到大約 8,000 名 Splunkers。

Consistent with our hiring approach, and as we announced in early February, we made the difficult but necessary decision to reduce our global workforce by approximately 4%, mostly in North America. This action was another step in a broader set of proactive organizational and strategic changes, including those we made in November to support our sales team's transition to a single seller model.

與我們的招聘方法一致，正如我們在 2 月初宣布的那樣，我們做出了艱難但必要的決定，將我們的全球員工人數減少約 4%，主要是在北美。這一行動是更廣泛的主動組織和戰略變革的又一步，包括我們在 11 月為支持我們的銷售團隊向單一賣家模式過渡所做的變革。

Since joining Splunk, I've been committed to making decisive changes to help deliver meaningful customer and shareholder value. I'm proud of our Splunker community for their steadfast dedication to our customers as we evolve to continually assess our overall organizational health and pursue opportunities to drive efficiency across the business. The past year has been one of incredible transitions for Splunk, our team and our customers. It's clear to me that the heavy lifting is largely complete and we're now in a position where the foundational elements of multiple simultaneous transformational efforts are in place.

自加入 Splunk 以來，我一直致力於做出決定性的改變，以幫助實現有意義的客戶和股東價值。我為我們的 Splunker 社區感到自豪，因為他們在我們不斷發展以不斷評估我們的整體組織健康狀況並尋求提高整個企業效率的機會的過程中堅定不移地致力於為我們的客戶服務。過去一年對於 Splunk、我們的團隊和我們的客戶來說是令人難以置信的轉變之一。我很清楚，繁重的工作已經基本完成，我們現在處於多個同步轉型工作的基本要素已經到位的位置。

The fiscal year is the beginning of Splunk's next chapter. Our leadership team is built out, and we are aligned to deliver on our strategy. Our transition to annual billing is complete, and we have a strong base of ARR unlocking opportunities for significant cash flow. Our cloud transformation is optimized to meet customer needs and expectations. We have made significant progress to align our operations and cost structure to deliver operating efficiency and cash flow. Our pipeline of product innovation is prime to bring more customer value across unified security and observability.

財政年度是 Splunk 下一章的開始。我們的領導團隊已經組建完成，我們將齊心協力實現我們的戰略。我們向年度計費的過渡已經完成，我們擁有強大的 ARR 基礎，可以釋放大量現金流的機會。我們的雲轉型經過優化以滿足客戶的需求和期望。我們在調整運營和成本結構以提供運營效率和現金流方面取得了重大進展。我們的產品創新管道是通過統一的安全性和可觀察性為客戶帶來更多價值的首要條件。

Looking at the year ahead, we remain cautiously optimistic on growth given the economic environment, but we'll continue to invest in opportunities that we believe will deliver long-term value. At the same time, we're taking a prudent approach to planning in our expectations, but are committed to increasing profitability and delivering substantial free cash flow by maintaining our disciplined approach to managing costs.

展望未來一年，鑑於經濟環境，我們對增長保持謹慎樂觀，但我們將繼續投資於我們認為能夠帶來長期價值的機會。與此同時，我們正在按照我們的預期採取審慎的規劃方法，但致力於通過保持我們嚴格的成本管理方法來提高盈利能力並提供可觀的自由現金流。

To close, I am pleased to announce that we'll be hosting an Analyst Day later this year where we'll share more about our long-term opportunities and outlook. We look forward to seeing many of you there. I want to share my appreciation to our customers around the world and to every Splunker for continuing to believe that unified security and observability is the best and only way to drive true enterprise resilience.

最後，我很高興地宣布，我們將在今年晚些時候舉辦分析師日活動，屆時我們將分享更多關於我們的長期機遇和前景的信息。我們期待在那裡見到你們中的許多人。我想向我們在世界各地的客戶和每一位 Splunker 表示感謝，因為他們始終相信統一的安全性和可觀察性是推動真正的企業彈性的最佳和唯一途徑。

And with that, I'll turn it over to Brian to drill into our results and guidance.

有了這個，我會把它交給布賴恩來深入研究我們的結果和指導。

Thanks, Gary. Well, I'm about 5 weeks in now, and let me just start by sharing how excited I am to be here at Splunk. This is truly a special company with amazing employees, partners, customers and growth horizon with an estimated $100 billion plus TAM.

謝謝，加里。好吧，我現在大約 5 週了，首先讓我分享一下我對來到 Splunk 感到多麼興奮。這確實是一家特殊的公司，擁有令人驚嘆的員工、合作夥伴、客戶和增長前景，估計 TAM 超過 1000 億美元。

For today, I'll start with Q4 and fiscal '23 results before sharing my perspectives on key metrics that management closely tracks. Then I'll close with guidance. So let's start with the results. Despite the challenging macro environment, we closed the fiscal year with a solid quarter and exceeded or met expectations across all key guided metrics. We grew total ARR by 18% year-over-year to $3.67 billion, which exceeded our most recent outlook by nearly $25 million. Cloud ARR grew 33% year-over-year to $1.78 billion. While we met our outlook on Cloud ARR, as expected, we continue to see customers delay cloud expansions and migrations given the macro environment. Accordingly, as of quarter end, Cloud DBNRR declined to 123%, and we expect further declines in the coming quarters to this trailing 12-month metric, reflecting continued cloud expansion delays.

今天，我將從第四季度和 23 財年的結果開始，然後分享我對管理層密切跟踪的關鍵指標的看法。然後我將以指導結束。那麼讓我們從結果開始吧。儘管宏觀環境充滿挑戰，但我們以穩健的季度結束了本財年，並超出或達到了所有關鍵指導指標的預期。我們的總 ARR 同比增長 18% 至 36.7 億美元，超出我們最近的預期近 2500 萬美元。 Cloud ARR 同比增長 33% 至 17.8 億美元。正如預期的那樣，雖然我們達到了對雲 ARR 的展望，但我們繼續看到客戶在宏觀環境下推遲了雲擴展和遷移。因此，截至本季度末，Cloud DBNRR 下降至 123%，我們預計未來幾個季度將進一步下降至這一連續 12 個月的指標，反映出雲擴展持續延遲。

Now revenue was significantly above expectations. Q4 revenue increased by 39% year-over-year to $1.25 billion. The delayed cloud migrations helped boost term contract volume. The term deals also had a longer average duration than we anticipated. For those new to the Splunk story, rev rec under ASC 606 requires us to recognize the significant majority of revenue related to term contracts upfront. This led to the significant beat on total revenue.

現在收入大大高於預期。第四季度收入同比增長 39% 至 12.5 億美元。延遲的雲遷移有助於提高定期合同量。交易期限的平均持續時間也比我們預期的要長。對於那些剛接觸 Splunk 故事的人，ASC 606 下的 rev rec 要求我們預先確認與定期合同相關的絕大部分收入。這導致總收入大幅下降。

In terms of revenue composition, we were pleased with the 43% year-over-year increase in Q4 cloud revenue despite the challenging economic environment. For the year, cloud revenue increased by 54% to nearly $1.5 billion.

在收入構成方面，儘管經濟環境充滿挑戰，但我們對第四季度雲收入同比增長 43% 感到滿意。全年，雲收入增長了 54%，達到近 15 億美元。

Let's move to costs. We have been purposeful in our initiatives to control expenses and are pleased with the initial progress and impact on both COGS and OpEx. Total gross margin increased by more than 400 basis points year-over-year and Q4 non-GAAP cloud gross margin increased by nearly 700 basis points to 73.4% and on a year-over-year basis. We remain disciplined on OpEx. Q4 non-GAAP OpEx increased by only 2% year-over-year, while revenue increased 39%.

讓我們轉向成本。我們在控制開支方面一直是有目的的，並對初步進展和對 COGS 和 OpEx 的影響感到滿意。總毛利率同比增長超過 400 個基點，第四季度非 GAAP 雲毛利率同比增長近 700 個基點至 73.4%。我們對 OpEx 保持紀律。第 4 季度非 GAAP 運營支出同比僅增長 2%，而收入增長 39%。

So let me take a moment to discuss the bottom line, which was positively impacted by the revenue outperformance and our expense discipline. In Q4, we generated $381 million of non-GAAP net income. And on a GAAP basis, fourth quarter net income reached $269 million. We also achieved a record Q4 non-GAAP operating margin of 38%.

因此，讓我花點時間討論一下底線，這受到了收入表現出色和我們的費用紀律的積極影響。第四季度，我們產生了 3.81 億美元的非 GAAP 淨收入。根據 GAAP，第四季度淨收入達到 2.69 億美元。我們還實現了創紀錄的第四季度非公認會計準則營業利潤率 38%。

Let's move to cash flow. In Q4, we generated $269 million of free cash flow. For the year, we achieved record free cash flow of $427 million, almost 4x the level achieved in the prior year. Fiscal '23 free cash flow as a percentage of ARR was 12% an increase of more than 800 basis points year-over-year. I want to remind investors that our model follows sharp seasonal swings, and historically, we have tended to generate the bulk of our bookings in the second half of the year. Collections from these bookings are typically received in the subsequent quarter, which means that the outlier quarters for free cash flow are Q1 and Q4. As an example, in fiscal '23, 95% annual free cash flow was generated in Q1 and Q4.

讓我們轉向現金流。第四季度，我們產生了 2.69 億美元的自由現金流。這一年，我們實現了創紀錄的 4.27 億美元自由現金流，幾乎是上一年水平的 4 倍。 23 財年自由現金流佔 ARR 的百分比為 12%，同比增長超過 800 個基點。我想提醒投資者，我們的模型遵循劇烈的季節性波動，從歷史上看，我們傾向於在下半年產生大部分預訂。這些預訂的收款通常在隨後的季度收到，這意味著自由現金流的異常季度是第一季度和第四季度。例如，在 23 財年，第一季度和第四季度產生了 95% 的年度自由現金流。

Before I move to guidance, I want to share my perspectives on top line metrics. Given software license revenue related to term contract volume is recognized upfront, GAAP revenue is highly subject to bookings mix and duration. For illustrative purposes, and this is oversimplified because I'm ignoring maintenance revenue, assume we provision 2 customers near quarter end, a 3-year, $3 million TCV cloud deal, so $1 million per year. And a 3-year, $3 million term software license transaction, so also $1 million per year. While the cloud deal would only generate a few days of ratable revenue, while the term software license transaction would generate nearly $3 million of license revenue. All 3 years will be recognized upfront.

在我轉向指導之前，我想分享我對頂線指標的看法。鑑於與定期合同量相關的軟件許可收入是預先確認的，因此 GAAP 收入在很大程度上取決於預訂組合和期限。出於說明目的，這過於簡單化了，因為我忽略了維護收入，假設我們在接近季度末時為 2 個客戶提供 3 年 300 萬美元的 TCV 雲交易，因此每年 100 萬美元。以及一項為期 3 年、價值 300 萬美元的軟件許可交易，因此每年也是 100 萬美元。雖然雲交易只會產生幾天的可計算收入，但軟件許可交易將產生近 300 萬美元的許可收入。所有 3 年都將預先確認。

Now despite the significant difference in revenue recognition, the ARR and cash flow received from both transactions would be the same. We would collect $1 million for both customers for the first year. In other words, as Gary has stressed on prior calls, ARR is correlated to collections. Accordingly, we believe ARR is a key metric because it is a strong indicator of future free cash flow given our annual billing practices. As such, we will continue to provide guidance on ARR.

現在，儘管收入確認存在顯著差異，但從兩筆交易中收到的 ARR 和現金流量將是相同的。我們會在第一年為這兩個客戶收取 100 萬美元。換句話說，正如加里在之前的電話會議上強調的那樣，ARR 與收款相關。因此，我們認為 ARR 是一個關鍵指標，因為考慮到我們的年度計費做法，它是未來自由現金流的有力指標。因此，我們將繼續提供有關 ARR 的指導。

I also want to be absolutely clear here, we're focused on ARR and free cash flow growth to create shareholder value. You will note that in the supplemental slides, we updated the Rule of 40 calculation to be based on ARR growth and several revenue growth and free cash flow margin as a percentage of ARR. This change will help investors clearly see our focus on ARR and free cash flow.

我也想在這裡絕對清楚，我們專注於 ARR 和自由現金流增長以創造股東價值。您會注意到，在補充幻燈片中，我們將 40 法則的計算更新為基於 ARR 增長和若干收入增長以及自由現金流利潤率佔 ARR 的百分比。這一變化將幫助投資者清楚地看到我們對 ARR 和自由現金流的關注。

As previously shared, our renewal base opportunity of ARR increased significantly in fiscal '23. This relates to the fact that customers accelerated migrations to (inaudible) cloud roughly 3 years ago as we stopped marketing perpetual licenses. In fiscal '23, our renewal base opportunity of ARR increased by approximately 100% versus fiscal '22. The term software portion of these renewals translated into immediate fiscal '23 revenue and we recognize the full multiyear duration upfront. This is why revenue growth well exceeded ARR growth in fiscal '23.

如前所述，我們的 ARR 更新基礎機會在 23 財年顯著增加。這與大約 3 年前我們停止營銷永久許可證時客戶加速遷移到（聽不清）雲的事實有關。在 23 財年，我們的 ARR 更新基礎機會比 22 財年增加了約 100%。這些更新的術語軟件部分轉化為即時的 '23 財年收入，我們預先確認完整的多年持續時間。這就是為什麼 23 財年收入增長遠遠超過 ARR 增長的原因。

In fiscal '24, the renewal base opportunity grows, but is more normalized, given we are now emerging on the other side of our business transformation. As a result, we expect ARR growth in fiscal '24 to exceed revenue growth as we comp the revenue recognition spike of multiyear term renewals, especially in the second half of fiscal '23. Again, as we've now fully lapped our transition to annual billing, we believe ARR is a better indicator of future free cash flow versus revenue.

在 24 財年，更新基礎機會增加，但更加正常化，因為我們現在正處於業務轉型的另一端。因此，我們預計 24 財年的 ARR 增長將超過收入增長，因為我們計算了多年期續約的收入確認峰值，尤其是在 23 財年下半年。同樣，由於我們現在已經完全過渡到年度計費，我們相信 ARR 是未來自由現金流與收入的更好指標。

Turning to guidance. Macroeconomic headwinds remain. We have experienced increased scrutiny and new deals and expansions as well as delayed cloud migrations and expansions. As such, we're going to be prudent in our outlook to reflect this. Based on the current market environment, we expect to exit fiscal '24 with total ARR between $4.125 billion and $4.175 billion, implying net new ARR of approximately $450 million to $500 million. If the economy strengthens or could be upside, but again, we believe it is prudent to provide our outlook based on current market conditions, which we expect to persist throughout fiscal '24.

轉向指導。宏觀經濟逆風依然存在。我們經歷了更嚴格的審查、新的交易和擴張，以及延遲的雲遷移和擴張。因此，我們將謹慎看待我們的前景以反映這一點。根據當前的市場環境，我們預計以 41.25 億美元至 41.75 億美元的總 ARR 退出 24 財年，這意味著淨新 ARR 約為 4.5 億美元至 5 億美元。如果經濟走強或可能好轉，我們認為根據當前市場狀況提供我們的展望是謹慎的，我們預計這種情況將持續整個 24 財年。

Assuming an economic recovery and a return to cloud migrations, we are positioned to reaccelerate top line growth in fiscal '25. Given the current and expected macro trends and the resulting uncertainty, we expect the cloud mix of software bookings will range between 55% and 65% in fiscal '24, but the actual mix could vary from quarter-to-quarter just as we've seen historically.

假設經濟復甦並恢復雲遷移，我們將在 25 財年重新加速營收增長。鑑於當前和預期的宏觀趨勢以及由此產生的不確定性，我們預計 24 財年軟件預訂的雲組合將介於 55% 和 65% 之間，但實際組合可能會因季度而異，正如我們所做的那樣歷史上看到的。

In terms of ARR breakdown, we expect that in the second half of the year, cloud will begin to comprise a majority of total ARR. From a strategic perspective, as mentioned, Splunk is leading solutions for hybrid, on-prem cloud and multi-cloud. This is critically important and a competitive advantage. Splunk can address current customer needs and deliver solutions that are future-proofed. We expect revenue growth to trail the increase in ARR by roughly 7%. This relates again to the strong growth in renewals in fiscal '23 and its impact on reported revenue. This will be especially true in the second half of the year, with Q4 expected to show the largest differential.

就 ARR 細分而言，我們預計在今年下半年，雲將開始佔總 ARR 的大部分。如前所述，從戰略角度來看，Splunk 是混合雲、本地雲和多雲的領先解決方案。這是至關重要的，也是一種競爭優勢。 Splunk 可以滿足當前客戶的需求並提供面向未來的解決方案。我們預計收入增長將落後於 ARR 的增長約 7%。這再次與 23 財年續訂的強勁增長及其對報告收入的影響有關。今年下半年尤其如此，預計第四季度將出現最大差異。

This would imply fiscal '24 revenue of approximately $3.85 billion to $3.9 billion. As a reminder, though, duration and mix of term contract volume could significantly impact reported revenue and associated growth rates.

這意味著 24 財年的收入約為 38.5 億美元至 39 億美元。不過，提醒一下，期限合同數量的持續時間和組合可能會顯著影響報告的收入和相關增長率。

Let's move to expenses. In fiscal '24, we expect to increase non-GAAP OpEx by approximately 7% year-over-year to fund investments that will help deliver growth in fiscal '25 and beyond. Fiscal '24 non-GAAP operating margin is expected to be between 16.5% and 17.5%. It will be highly sensitive to the contribution of term license volume given its outsized impact on revenue and thus margin. We're committed to driving free cash flow growth and margin improvement in fiscal '24 and beyond. We expect to generate free cash flow between $775 million and $795 million which represents an increase of between 81% and 86% year-over-year. We see multiple scenarios to achieve our free cash flow outlook across a range of different operating scenarios. As a percentage of ARR, this would represent a margin of between 18.8% and 19%, up from 11.6% in fiscal '23.

讓我們轉向費用。在 24 財年，我們預計非 GAAP 運營支出同比增長約 7%，以資助有助於在 25 財年及以後實現增長的投資。 24 財年非 GAAP 營業利潤率預計在 16.5% 至 17.5% 之間。鑑於長期許可量對收入和利潤率的巨大影響，它將對期限許可量的貢獻高度敏感。我們致力於在 24 財年及以後推動自由現金流的增長和利潤率的提高。我們預計將產生 7.75 億美元至 7.95 億美元的自由現金流，同比增長 81% 至 86%。我們看到多種場景可以在一系列不同的運營場景中實現我們的自由現金流前景。作為 ARR 的百分比，這將代表 18.8% 至 19% 的利潤率，高於 23 財年的 11.6%。

Let's move to equity. We're taking deliberate steps to reduce our use of equity and over the next several years, get to a lower and sustainable burn and dilution rate. In fiscal '24, we expect to meaningfully reduce equity burn relative to fiscal '23. This is what we can control, and this will benefit the SBC accounting expense in future years. Keep in mind, though, that GAAP SBC expense is a lagging indicator. Approximately 3/4 of our expected fiscal '24 SBC accounting expense relates to grants from prior years. SBC is based on the dollar value at the time of grant and then runs through the P&L amortized over the vesting period at that original price. So while we're meaningfully reducing equity burn in fiscal '24, GAAP SBC expense will be relatively in line with fiscal '23.

讓我們轉向股權。我們正在採取慎重的措施來減少我們對股權的使用，並在未來幾年內達到較低且可持續的燃燒和稀釋率。在 24 財年，我們預計相對於 23 財年將顯著減少股權消耗。這是我們可以控制的，這將有利於未來幾年SBC的會計費用。但請記住，GAAP SBC 費用是一個滯後指標。我們預期的 24 財年 SBC 會計費用中約有 3/4 與往年的贈款有關。 SBC 基於授予時的美元價值，然後以原始價格在歸屬期內攤銷損益。因此，雖然我們在 24 財年顯著減少股權消耗，但 GAAP SBC 支出將與 23 財年相對一致。

Near term, for Q1, we expect to grow ARR to approximately $3.7 billion which represents approximately 15% year-over-year growth. We expect total revenue of between $710 million and $725 million. Non-GAAP operating margin is expected to be in the range of negative 3% to negative 5%. Now in Q1, we expect to generate record free cash flow related to the collections from Q4. We expect Q1 free cash flow to approach $475 million versus the $427 million we generated over the full year in fiscal '23. Since Q1 is seasonally our slowest bookings quarter, Q2 free cash flow is expected to be negative just as we've seen historically. We expect modest positive free cash flow in Q3 and then growth in Q4. Again, for the full year, we expect free cash flow between $775 million and $795 million.

短期內，對於第一季度，我們預計 ARR 將增長至約 37 億美元，同比增長約 15%。我們預計總收入在 7.1 億美元至 7.25 億美元之間。非 GAAP 營業利潤率預計在負 3% 至負 5% 之間。現在在第一季度，我們預計將產生與第四季度收款相關的創紀錄自由現金流。我們預計第一季度自由現金流將接近 4.75 億美元，而我們在 23 財年全年產生的自由現金流為 4.27 億美元。由於第一季度是我們季節性預訂最慢的季度，因此預計第二季度的自由現金流量將為負，正如我們以往所見。我們預計第三季度適度的正自由現金流，然後第四季度增長。同樣，對於全年，我們預計自由現金流在 7.75 億美元至 7.95 億美元之間。

In closing, despite macroeconomic headwinds, execution in Q4 was solid and operating leverage in our model is improving. We're focused on driving durable long-term growth and increasing our free cash flow and free cash flow margin. Finally, we've emerged on the other side of our business transformation. As Gary has shared, we look forward to hosting an Analyst Day later this year to update investors on our growth opportunity, capital allocation strategy and long-term targets.

最後，儘管宏觀經濟逆風，但第四季度的執行情況穩定，我們模型中的經營槓桿正在改善。我們專注於推動持久的長期增長並增加我們的自由現金流和自由現金流利潤率。最後，我們在業務轉型的另一端出現了。正如 Gary 分享的那樣，我們期待在今年晚些時候舉辦分析師日，向投資者介紹我們的增長機會、資本配置戰略和長期目標。

With that, let's open it up for questions.

有了這個，讓我們打開它來提問。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Kash Rangan from Goldman Sachs.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自高盛的 Kash Rangan。

Gary, Brian, congratulations versus the team as well. Gary, a question for you since I'm allowed only one, what does the top of the funnel look like as far as demand gen is concerned? And also, as you look at the first month of this quarter, what conversion trends are you seeing? Congratulations and welcome Brian?

加里，布賴恩，也祝賀球隊。加里，我只能問你一個問題，就需求生成而言，漏斗的頂部是什麼樣子的？而且，當您查看本季度的第一個月時，您看到了哪些轉化趨勢？祝賀並歡迎布萊恩？

I'll dive in and Brian may have some comments. We feel good about pipeline build at this point. And as we've entered the year with our single seller model, we're very focused on capturing the demand from our expansion from existing customers as well as looking more broadly about expanding our customer base in the Global 2000. And so we feel like we have a good setup and we're seeing good early pipeline build. No comments yet on pipeline conversion, but we feel good about the top of the funnel at this point.

我會深入探討，Brian 可能會提出一些意見。在這一點上，我們對管道構建感覺良好。隨著我們以單一賣家模式進入這一年，我們非常專注於從現有客戶的擴張中獲取需求，並更廣泛地考慮擴大我們在全球 2000 強中的客戶群。所以我們覺得我們有一個很好的設置，我們看到了很好的早期管道構建。目前還沒有關於管道轉換的評論，但我們對此時漏斗的頂部感到滿意。

Our next question comes from Brent Thill from Jefferies.

我們的下一個問題來自 Jefferies 的 Brent Thill。

Brian, welcome. Gary, just the cloud in line and license it had has been a consistent theme. And I think many are asking, I mean this was a blowout license number. I mean this wasn't in a little beat. It was a huge beat. Like what -- can you describe what's going on and the dynamics that you're seeing here? You talked about cloud slowing, but you're seeing the opposite on the on-prem side in a big way.

布賴恩，歡迎。加里，只是雲在行和許可它一直是一個一致的主題。我想很多人都在問，我的意思是這是一個井噴的許可證號碼。我的意思是這不是一個小節拍。這是一個巨大的節拍。比如——你能描述一下正在發生的事情以及你在這裡看到的動態嗎？你談到了雲速度減慢，但你在很大程度上看到了內部部署方面的相反情況。

Yes. I'll have a couple of comments and make Brian want to dive in a little more detail. I think at a very simple level, one of the things that we did earlier this year is we reaffirmed our commitment to on-prem. So those customers that had been wondering about Splunk's long-term commitment to on-prem, we reaffirmed that we would continue to invest that we would continue to do releases, feature enhancements, et cetera. So I think one of the things we're seeing is customers willing to expand and grow their on-prem footprint. And then as we indicated, the economic environment was one where we saw cloud migration slow. And so we just saw this balance between more on-prem than we originally anticipated and less cloud. And Brian, you probably want to dive in a little bit more detail there.

是的。我會發表一些評論，讓 Brian 想深入了解更多細節。我認為在一個非常簡單的層面上，我們今年早些時候所做的其中一件事是我們重申了我們對本地部署的承諾。因此，那些一直想知道 Splunk 對內部部署的長期承諾的客戶，我們重申我們將繼續投資，我們將繼續進行發布、功能增強等。所以我認為我們看到的一件事是客戶願意擴大和擴大他們的本地足跡。然後正如我們所指出的，經濟環境是我們看到雲遷移緩慢的環境。因此，我們剛剛看到了比我們最初預期更多的本地部署和更少的雲之間的這種平衡。布賴恩，你可能想深入了解更多細節。

Yes. I would say, again, we did meet the guidance on cloud ARR. I would say it's important to remember for last year, we had a very large increase in our renewal opportunity. It grew roughly 100% year-on-year. And so in Q4 what we saw was those term deals renewed and when they renewed, we got the multiyear duration in that in our revenue number. So that's what really drove revenue higher, and I don't want to say inflated, but it's just -- it's the rev rec. So we have tried to stress that ARR is really the right metric to watch. If you look at last year, revenue grew 37% year-on-year. ARR grew 18%. And within that, again, we had very strong growth in cloud.

是的。我想再說一次，我們確實符合雲 ARR 的指導。我想說，重要的是要記住去年，我們的續約機會大大增加了。同比增長約 100%。因此，在第四季度，我們看到的是那些續籤的定期交易，當它們續籤時，我們在收入數字中得到了多年的持續時間。所以這才是真正推動收入增長的原因，我不想說誇大，但它只是 - 它是 rev rec。因此，我們試圖強調 ARR 確實是值得關注的正確指標。看看去年，收入同比增長了 37%。 ARR 增長了 18%。在此之內，我們在雲計算方面再次取得了非常強勁的增長。

Our next question comes from Raimo Lenschow from Barclays.

我們的下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的 Raimo Lenschow。

Can I actually stay on that topic, Gary. What we see at the moment is like the hyperscale growth is coming down. The guys that are very focused on the hyperscaler growth in terms of observability are suffering a little bit more. Well, the on-premise part that you talked about is actually doing better. What do you see in terms of client conversations in terms of their kind of now urgency to go to the cloud, urgency to or just kind of realization that, like, I have a lot on premise, and I need to keep the lights on, like how is that dynamic playing out for you?

加里，我真的可以繼續討論這個話題嗎？我們目前看到的是超大規模增長正在下降。那些非常關注可觀察性方面的超大規模增長的人正在遭受更多的痛苦。好吧，您談到的內部部署部分實際上做得更好。您如何看待客戶對話，他們現在急於進入雲端，急於或只是意識到，比如，我有很多前提，我需要保持運轉，就像這種動態對你有什麼影響？

Yes, it's a great question. I think the one thing we see is continued belief in our on-prem customers that cloud will play an important role for them. What we do understand, though, very clearly is that this hybrid world, combining cloud and on-prem is an architecture that I think we'll see for a very long period of time. And as you've heard from us, we -- by reaffirming our commitment to on-prem and supporting this hybrid architecture, we fundamentally think will be strategically advantageous to us, and we think we're well positioned over the long haul because of that.

是的，這是一個很好的問題。我認為我們看到的一件事是我們的本地客戶繼續相信雲將對他們發揮重要作用。不過，我們非常清楚地了解到，這個結合了雲和本地的混合世界是一種架構，我認為我們會在很長一段時間內看到它。正如您從我們那裡聽到的那樣，我們 - 通過重申我們對本地部署和支持這種混合架構的承諾，我們從根本上認為這對我們具有戰略優勢，而且我們認為我們在長期內處於有利地位，因為那。

Our next question comes from Michael Turits from KeyBanc.

我們的下一個問題來自 KeyBanc 的 Michael Turits。

Brian, welcome and a very solid quarter. So I was wondering if you could just talk about the retention and expansion. In other words, I think obviously, your strength and your presence within the enterprise gives you an opportunity to hold on to customers. So can you describe what's happening at renewal time in terms of gross retention. And when things are expanding, where are they expanding and what's driving that and what are the trends?

布賴恩，歡迎和一個非常穩固的季度。所以我想知道你是否可以談談保留和擴展。換句話說，我認為很明顯，你的實力和你在企業中的存在讓你有機會留住客戶。那麼，您能否根據總保留率描述續訂時發生的情況。當事物在擴張時，它們在哪裡擴張，是什麼推動了擴張，趨勢是什麼？

Yes. So in the quarter, we saw our renewal rates stayed very strong. And so we felt very good about the performance within our existing customer base. Where we see expansion, we're seeing expansion where it's additional use cases, where they want to drive additional uses of Splunk to either drive additional security use cases or drive broader IT and observability adoption. So it's really use case expansion that's driving the incremental value there.

是的。所以在本季度，我們看到我們的續訂率保持非常強勁。因此，我們對現有客戶群的表現感到非常滿意。在我們看到擴展的地方，我們看到擴展是額外的用例，他們希望推動 Splunk 的更多使用，以推動更多的安全用例或推動更廣泛的 IT 和可觀察性採用。因此，真正推動增量價值的是用例擴展。

I think broadly as well security continues to be very resilient. And we're seeing opportunities there where expansion makes sense and the security teams need additional capabilities. So that's another factor in this.

我認為從廣義上講，安全性仍然非常有彈性。我們在那裡看到了擴展有意義且安全團隊需要額外功能的機會。所以這是另一個因素。

And I would just add, this is Brian. In terms of just the modeling, what's important to remember, again, last year, renewals increased roughly 100% year-on-year. As I shared in my prepared remarks, we expect normalized growth this year. So we expect roughly a 20% increase in that renewal opportunity. But over time, that renewal opportunity is more cloud-based. And so again, that impacts for rev rec reasons, it will impact reported revenue. But again, as we stressed, I would focus on ARR.

我只想補充一點，這是布賴恩。僅就建模而言，重要的是要記住，去年，續訂同比增長了大約 100%。正如我在準備好的發言中分享的那樣，我們預計今年將實現正常增長。因此，我們預計更新機會大約增加 20%。但隨著時間的推移，這種更新機會更多地基於雲。因此，由於 rev rec 的原因，這會再次影響報告的收入。但同樣，正如我們強調的那樣，我將專注於 ARR。

Our next question comes from Keith Weiss from Morgan Stanley.

我們的下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的 Keith Weiss。

This is Sanjit Singh for Keith Weiss. Gary, I wanted to talk a little bit about the efficiency that you've been able and the team has been able to extract this year, the free cash flow being up 4x, some significant margin improvements. If I sort of take a step back, I see the business growing 18% in terms of ARR, you're guiding to the low teens for next year. Yet OpEx has been growing in the low single digits. And I guess the question is, how much juice do you have left to squeeze out of the OpEx fruit, if you will, in terms of thinking about the trajectory of expenses going into next year and beyond to get to your longer-term free cash flow goals?

我是 Keith Weiss 的 Sanjit Singh。加里，我想談談你和團隊今年能夠提取的效率，自由現金流增加了 4 倍，利潤率有了顯著提高。如果我退後一步，我看到業務在 ARR 方面增長了 18%，你正在指導明年的低青少年。然而，運營支出一直以較低的個位數增長。我想問題是，考慮到明年及以後的支出軌跡以獲得長期自由現金，如果你願意的話，你還剩下多少果汁可以從 OpEx 果實中榨出流量目標？

We feel very confident in our long-term opportunity to continue to increase efficiency and drive incremental cash flow. And while I'm incredibly proud of all the work we've done over the course of the last year, I think there's continued opportunity to drive efficiency and so we feel very good about the long-term opportunity to continue to expand free cash flow margins.

我們對繼續提高效率和推動增量現金流的長期機會充滿信心。雖然我為去年我們所做的所有工作感到無比自豪，但我認為仍有機會繼續提高效率，因此我們對繼續擴大自由現金流的長期機會感到非常滿意邊距。

Our next question comes from -- our next question comes from John DiFucci from Guggenheim Partners.

我們的下一個問題來自——我們的下一個問題來自 Guggenheim Partners 的 John DiFucci。

This is Ray McDonough on for John. So Brian, we certainly appreciate all the color around renewals and the impact of those renewals on the top line and ARR and certainly appreciate the focus on ARR. But the acceleration of revenue guidance imply you expect declines in the renewal base in fiscal '24? And how much of your confidence about a reacceleration in '25 comes from the renewal base ramping in that year?

這是約翰的雷·麥克多諾 (Ray McDonough)。所以布賴恩，我們當然欣賞續約的所有色彩以及這些續約對頂線和 ARR 的影響，當然也欣賞對 ARR 的關注。但收入指導的加速意味著您預計 24 財年的更新基數會下降？你對 25 年重新加速的信心有多少來自那一年的更新基礎？

Yes. Just again, to clarify, we expect the renewal opportunity to grow this year by roughly 20%. So it's about -- again, it will be approaching $2 billion this year. So that's an opportunity for us. What I was trying to share before is that the mix of that renewal opportunity is beginning to shift more towards cloud, and that will continue. So in terms of reported revenue because of 606, that impacts revenue. But again, ARR is correlated to cash flow, and we are driving free cash flow growth.

是的。再次澄清一下，我們預計今年的續訂機會將增長約 20%。所以它是關於 - 今年它將再次接近 20 億美元。所以這對我們來說是一個機會。我之前試圖分享的是，這種更新機會的組合開始更多地轉向雲，而且這種情況將繼續下去。因此，就 606 的報告收入而言，這會影響收入。但同樣，ARR 與現金流相關，我們正在推動自由現金流的增長。

That's helpful. And any comments on the renewal base in '25 at this point?

這很有幫助。在這一點上對 25 年的更新基地有何評論？

Yes. We expect further growth in fiscal '25.

是的。我們預計 25 財年將進一步增長。

Our next question comes from Mike Cikos from Needham.

我們的下一個問題來自 Needham 的 Mike Cikos。

I guess it's a 2-part question, if I could. The first is more in sync with the guidance here. So maybe a question for Brian here. But I believe I need to go back multiple years to find a quarter where you had just call it, $25 million to $30 million in net new ARR like you're guiding to for Q1. Can you discuss maybe some of the puts and takes that are weighing on that net new ARR as we think about Q1 of the upcoming year?

如果可以的話，我想這是一個由兩部分組成的問題。第一個與這裡的指南更同步。所以也許這裡有一個問題要問Brian。但我相信我需要回溯多年才能找到一個你剛剛稱之為的季度，淨新 ARR 為 2500 萬至 3000 萬美元，就像你為第一季度指導的那樣。當我們考慮來年的第一季度時，您能否討論一些正在影響淨新 ARR 的看跌期權和看跌期權？

And then the second question maybe for Gary, is in relation to observability. Would be curious could size up what that opportunity is as a component of the ARR, anything on traction or take rates that you're seeing? And really what I'm trying to drive at here for the observability is, is it fair to assume that currently when Splunk is going to market with observability, the opportunity is really there to I guess, mine existing customers, whereas it's not necessarily a mechanism for new logo growth at this time? Or is that unfair? And you are seeing new logos land with observability at this time. Sorry for the long-winded question, but just wanted to see if I can get some color on both those points.

然後第二個問題可能是加里，與可觀察性有關。好奇的是，可以評估作為 ARR 的一部分的機會是什麼，你看到的任何牽引力或利率？實際上，我在這裡試圖推動可觀察性的是，假設目前當 Splunk 將以可觀察性進入市場時，我認為機會真的存在，挖掘現有客戶，而這不一定是此時新標識增長的機制？或者這是不公平的？你現在看到新的標誌具有可觀察性。很抱歉這個冗長的問題，但只是想看看我是否可以在這兩點上得到一些顏色。

Sure. This is Brian. I'll take part 1 of the questions. So I would say, look, I would focus on the full year outlook of $450 million to $500 million of net new ARR. In terms of Q1, don't forget that Q4 was our single largest renewal quarter of all time. And the renewal opportunity was more than double the prior year, and we were very pleased with our performance.

當然。這是布萊恩。我將回答問題的第 1 部分。所以我會說，看，我會關注 4.5 億至 5 億美元的淨新 ARR 的全年前景。就第一季度而言，不要忘記第四季度是我們有史以來最大的續訂季度。續約機會是前一年的兩倍多，我們對我們的表現非常滿意。

Now historically, in Q4, we've seen some renewals get completed in Q1, which boost the first quarter. What we saw in Q4 was that we did a really nice job with on-time renewals, which means Q1 is missing the historical bump that we've seen, typically seen. But again, going back to my meta point, I would just focus on the full year outlook of $450 million to $500 million of net new ARR.

從歷史上看，在第四季度，我們已經看到一些續訂在第一季度完成，這提振了第一季度。我們在第四季度看到的是，我們在按時續訂方面做得非常好，這意味著第一季度沒有我們看到的歷史顛簸，通常會看到。但再次回到我的元觀點，我只關注 4.5 億至 5 億美元的淨新 ARR 的全年前景。

And to your observability question, we see the observability opportunity is significant, and we see it significant, both in our installed base where customers that have been loyal Splunk core customers they want to extend their reach into a broader set of applications. The observability cloud has been well received. And if you go back to one of the things I'm super encouraged by, as you go back to our prepared remarks, we noted some very interesting observability wins, and those wins were in our installed base that really felt that they wanted to expand the reach for where Splunk was helping them beyond platform into the observability cloud.

對於您的可觀察性問題，我們認為可觀察性機會很重要，而且我們認為它很重要，無論是在我們的客戶群中，還是忠誠的 Splunk 核心客戶，他們希望將其範圍擴展到更廣泛的應用程序集。可觀測性雲受到好評。如果你回到我非常受鼓舞的事情之一，當你回到我們準備好的評論時，我們注意到一些非常有趣的可觀察性勝利，這些勝利是在我們的安裝基礎上，他們真的覺得他們想要擴展Splunk 幫助他們超越平台進入可觀察性雲的範圍。

And then going to the second part of your question, we have seen some very nice wins in new logos. And so it is a combination of both expansion in the installed base as well as winning new logos. And we believe that the work that we have done to better integrate our observability cloud into our core is super compelling, and it positions us well for customers that need high end true enterprise scale for observability. So super excited about it.

然後轉到問題的第二部分，我們已經看到新徽標取得了一些非常好的勝利。因此，它是安裝基礎擴展和贏得新徽標的結合。我們相信，我們為更好地將可觀察性雲集成到我們的核心所做的工作非常引人注目，它使我們能夠很好地滿足需要高端真正企業級可觀察性的客戶。對此非常興奮。

Our next question comes from Steve Koenig from SMBC Nikko.

我們的下一個問題來自 SMBC Nikko 的 Steve Koenig。

Just maybe a clarification or explanation of some of the numbers. So in your guide, you were assuming, I think it was 55% to 65% cloud mix of new bookings. Maybe I missed it in the press release or remarks, but how does that compare with your cloud mix for this year? And more specifically, where did you end up in Q4? And then if I may just add a 2-parter there. The second part of my question is, as incremental ARR flows into your model, let's say, for every $100 million that flows in. How much free cash flow would you guys expect to be generating on that? I mean based on your ability to hold your OpEx down, it just looks like your free cash flow margin on the incremental ARR looks to be quite high. Just wondering if you have any thoughts on that, too.

也許只是對一些數字的澄清或解釋。所以在你的指南中，你假設，我認為這是新預訂的 55% 到 65% 的雲組合。也許我在新聞稿或評論中遺漏了它，但這與您今年的雲組合相比如何？更具體地說，您在第四季度結束了什麼？然後，如果我可以在那裡添加一個 2-parter。我的問題的第二部分是，隨著增量 ARR 流入您的模型，比方說，每流入 1 億美元。你們希望由此產生多少自由現金流？我的意思是，根據您降低 OpEx 的能力，看起來您在增量 ARR 上的自由現金流量利潤率看起來相當高。只是想知道您是否也對此有任何想法。

Sure. This is Brian. So in terms of your first question, Q4, the bookings mix of software came in -- or sorry, cloud mix came in at 58%. And again, it's going to still vary. We're saying 55% to 65%. We will cross through a majority of total ARR will likely be cloud by the second half of this year. In terms of the question in terms of like flow-through on leverage on free cash flow, I think it's really important, again, our bookings tend to be seasonally much stronger in Q3 and Q4, and we tend to collect the receivable the following quarter. And so last year, 95% of free cash flow was done in Q1 and Q4. And so when you do your models, I think it's -- when you look at our guidance for this year, back to Gary's point, we expect that we can continue to increase free cash flow margins. Part of that is a lot of what we generate in Q4 will actually turn into free cash flow in Q1 of fiscal '25.

當然。這是布萊恩。所以就你的第一個問題而言，第四季度，軟件的預訂組合出現了——或者抱歉，雲組合出現了 58%。再一次，它仍然會有所不同。我們說的是 55% 到 65%。到今年下半年，我們將跨越大部分 ARR 可能是陰天。關於自由現金流槓桿的流動性問題，我認為這非常重要，我們的預訂在第三季度和第四季度往往季節性強得多，我們傾向於在下一季度收取應收賬款.所以去年，95% 的自由現金流是在第一季度和第四季度完成的。因此，當你做你的模型時，我認為 - 當你查看我們今年的指導時，回到加里的觀點，我們預計我們可以繼續增加自由現金流利潤率。其中一部分是我們在第四季度產生的很多東西實際上將在 25 財年第一季度轉化為自由現金流。

Our next question comes from Brad Sills from Bank of America Securities.

我們的下一個問題來自美國銀行證券公司的 Brad Sills。

Great and welcome Brian. I wanted to ask a question now that you've been at this single seller model now for quite some time. Are you seeing a change in the makeup of the deals in the pipeline? In other words, are you starting to see larger expansion deals as reps are now selling more components of the Splunk stack as opposed to single solution?

太好了，歡迎布萊恩。現在我想問一個問題，因為您現在已經使用這種單一賣家模式很長一段時間了。您是否看到正在進行的交易的構成發生了變化？換句話說，您是否開始看到更大的擴展交易，因為銷售代表現在銷售更多的 Splunk 堆棧組件，而不是單一解決方案？

Brad, great question. Single seller got implemented right at the beginning of Q4. And what we were pleased by is the fact that we had a nice strong beat on our numbers given the amount of change that we made. So I think the one thing I can say conclusively is that was really well received by customers, most importantly, and I think that Splunkers also feel like we're better aligned to go win. I think it's a little early to comment on deal sizes related to single seller, but I think we're well aligned to what we need to get done this year with this model that we've got now in place as we enter the year.

布拉德，好問題。單一賣家在第四季度初得到實施。令我們感到高興的是，考慮到我們所做的改變，我們在數字上取得了不錯的成績。所以我認為我可以肯定地說的一件事是，這確實受到了客戶的歡迎，最重要的是，我認為 Splunkers 也覺得我們更有能力贏得勝利。我認為現在評論與單一賣家相關的交易規模還為時過早，但我認為我們已經很好地與我們今年需要完成的工作保持一致，我們在進入今年時已經到位。

Our next question comes from Matt Hedberg from RBC Capital Markets.

我們的下一個問題來自 RBC Capital Markets 的 Matt Hedberg。

Welcome to Brian as well from us. You called out, Gary, a number of great partner wins this quarter. I'm curious, when we look to fiscal '24, how should we think about partner contributions? And is there something that partners can help specifically on the cloud migration front that could be incremental with the model going forward?

也歡迎我們來到 Brian。加里，你大聲疾呼，本季度有許多優秀的合作夥伴獲勝。我很好奇，當我們展望 24 財年時，我們應該如何考慮合作夥伴的貢獻？合作夥伴是否可以在雲遷移方面提供特別幫助，可以隨著模型的發展而增加？

Yes. No, it's a great question, Matt. So as we noted in our prepared remarks, we just see continued larger opportunities coming from the SIs, from the cloud service providers like AWS and we're really trying to align opportunities around using those partners and their leverage to drive cloud migration. That's something that we've had in place. We think it will play an important role this year again. And we're very enthusiastic about the potential there.

是的。不，這是一個很好的問題，馬特。因此，正如我們在準備好的評論中指出的那樣，我們只是看到來自 SI、來自 AWS 等雲服務提供商的持續更大的機會，我們真的在努力調整機會，圍繞使用這些合作夥伴及其影響力來推動雲遷移。這是我們已經到位的東西。我們認為它將在今年再次發揮重要作用。我們對那裡的潛力充滿熱情。

Our next question comes from Fatima Boolani from Citi.

我們的下一個問題來自花旗銀行的 Fatima Boolani。

Brian, 5 weeks in, so I'm definitely going to ask you a very nitty-gritty being counting question. As we think about capital allocation priorities and agenda for the business, given the amount of free cash flow that you are going to be generating and bringing on the horizon. How should we think about share repurchases versus the convert you have on your books and how we should be thinking about treatment around that? And as a related matter, you had alluded to stock-based compensation expense and the trajectory there, but would love to get a little bit more color on that front, particularly as you become more judicious in your hiring and headcount growth aspirations.

Brian，5 週後，所以我肯定會問你一個非常具體的計數問題。當我們考慮企業的資本分配優先事項和議程時，考慮到您將產生並即將出現的自由現金流量。我們應該如何考慮股票回購與您賬面上的轉換以及我們應該如何考慮圍繞它的處理方式？作為一個相關問題，你提到了基於股票的薪酬支出和那裡的軌跡，但希望在這方面有更多的色彩，特別是當你在招聘和員工人數增長的願望上變得更加明智時。

Sure. So let me take the first question around capital allocation. So again, we ended the year with roughly $2 billion of cash, cash equivalents and investments. As it relates to the principal balance of our 2023 convertible note, we -- at maturity, we'll redeem it in cash to the extent the stock is above the conversion price, so obviously, it'll go to equity. We will discuss our long-term strategy around repurchases at Analyst Day. So stay tuned.

當然。因此，讓我回答有關資本配置的第一個問題。同樣，我們在年底擁有大約 20 億美元的現金、現金等價物和投資。由於它與我們 2023 年可轉換票據的本金餘額有關，我們 - 在到期時，我們將在股票高於轉換價格的情況下以現金贖回它，所以很明顯，它會變成股權。我們將在分析師日討論圍繞回購的長期戰略。敬請期待。

And then in terms of equity, I mean I think this is important. We are meaningfully reducing share dilution this year. And the exact magnitude will -- of the reduction will really depend on the future stock price and attrition. I'd say we expect roughly a 1/3 reduction in share dilution this year in terms of our net burn rate. In addition, we will share long-term targets at Analyst Day again later this year. But with SBC, it's sort of accounting. It just has -- it takes time to flow through the P&L. I would encourage investors to look at like dilution in point in time because that's what we can control. We can't control the past.

然後就公平而言，我的意思是我認為這很重要。我們今年正在顯著減少股票稀釋。確切的減少幅度將真正取決於未來的股價和減員。我想說，就我們的淨消耗率而言，我們預計今年的股票稀釋率將減少大約 1/3。此外，我們將在今年晚些時候再次分享分析師日的長期目標。但是對於 SBC，它是一種會計。它只是——需要時間來處理損益表。我鼓勵投資者及時關注稀釋情況，因為這是我們可以控制的。我們無法控製過去。

Our next question comes from Kingsley Crane from Canaccord Genuity.

我們的下一個問題來自 Canaccord Genuity 的 Kingsley Crane。

Welcome, Brian. I know you've advised some customers to switch from Ingest based to Workload based, so they can manage their environment without limiting the amount of data they send into Splunk. So I'm curious, what percent of revenue is now Ingest based versus Workload based? And upon this, does this represent a conversion to drive upsell and cross-sell?

歡迎，布萊恩。我知道您已經建議一些客戶從基於 Ingest 切換到基於 Workload，這樣他們就可以在不限制發送到 Splunk 的數據量的情況下管理他們的環境。所以我很好奇，現在收入的百分比是基於攝取還是基於工作負載？在此基礎上，這是否代表推動追加銷售和交叉銷售的轉換？

So a simple way to think about it is virtually all our cloud customers are on Workload-based pricing. And a reasonable number of our on-premise customers are on Workload. But the simplest way to think about it and model it is to think broadly about all those cloud customers that are benefiting from Workload-based pricing.

因此，一個簡單的思考方式就是我們幾乎所有的雲客戶都採用基於工作負載的定價。我們有相當數量的本地客戶使用工作負載。但考慮它並對其建模的最簡單方法是廣泛考慮所有受益於基於工作負載的定價的雲客戶。

Our next question comes from Fred Lee from Credit Suisse.

我們的下一個問題來自瑞士信貸的 Fred Lee。

This is Tim Chiodo on for Fred. You reduced your R&D spend by 10% year-on-year. How do you evaluate what's the right level of R&D spend to make sure you fully capture your longer-term opportunity and observability. And historically, you have meaningfully augmented our -- really product development through M&A should we expect you to continue a similar strategy? Or should we expect you to shift more towards organic product development?

這是 Fred 的 Tim Chiodo。您的研發支出同比減少了 10%。您如何評估合適的研發支出水平以確保您充分抓住長期機會和可觀察性。從歷史上看，您通過併購顯著增強了我們的產品開發，我們應該期望您繼續採用類似的策略嗎？還是我們應該期望您更多地轉向有機產品開發？

Sure. So this is Brian. I think what you're seeing in the numbers is just a natural leveling off after 2 years of substantial growth in R&D. So we grew R&D roughly 28% in fiscal '21, another 30% in fiscal '22. What I'd say about this year is we're investing in R&D, but really benefiting from hiring top talent in emerging markets. And so this will make our R&D investments even more efficient. So we expect to hold R&D expense roughly flat year-over-year while we increase headcount and impact.

當然。所以這是布賴恩。我認為你在數字中看到的只是在研發經歷了 2 年的大幅增長後自然趨於平穩。因此，我們在 21 財年的研發增長了大約 28%，在 22 財年又增長了 30%。今年我要說的是，我們正在投資研發，但真正受益於在新興市場聘請頂尖人才。因此，這將使我們的研發投資更加高效。因此，我們預計在增加員工人數和影響力的同時，研發費用同比大致持平。

And then to your M&A question, we really feel like we have the right product lineup to support continuing to grow both with our existing customers and in new accounts. We will look for opportunities where there is tuck-in M&A. For example, we did the TwinWave acquisition in the fall. I think that was a very good example of picking up great capabilities that extend the value we can deliver to our customers while also getting some great talent. So we'll continue to look for those opportunities, but don't think about us as doing something large and transformational.

然後是你的併購問題，我們真的覺得我們有合適的產品陣容來支持我們現有客戶和新客戶的持續增長。我們將在有併購的地方尋找機會。例如，我們在秋季收購了 TwinWave。我認為這是一個很好的例子，它可以發揮強大的能力，擴展我們可以為客戶提供的價值，同時也獲得了一些優秀的人才。所以我們會繼續尋找這些機會，但不要認為我們在做一些大的和變革性的事情。

Our next question comes from Andrew Nowinski from Wells Fargo.

我們的下一個問題來自富國銀行的 Andrew Nowinski。

So I have a question on the observability opportunity. You talked about it being a massive opportunity, but that market seems very cloud-centric. So I'm wondering how you get customers to expand into your observability solutions, while at the same time, supporting their hybrid model, particularly when customers want log management, APM, infrastructure monitoring, all on the same platform.

所以我對可觀察性機會有疑問。你談到這是一個巨大的機會，但這個市場似乎非常以雲為中心。所以我想知道你如何讓客戶擴展到你的可觀察性解決方案，同時支持他們的混合模型，特別是當客戶想要日誌管理、APM、基礎設施監控時，所有這些都在同一個平台上。

Yes. No, great question. Where observability is really being deployed today is in next-generation app environments that are micro service driven and so the environment that we're seeing today oftentimes are multi-cloud hybrid, where there's components on-prem, there's components in the cloud. And we extend the reach with OLI Cloud to give the customer the ability to get resilience across new application environment.

是的。不，很好的問題。今天真正部署可觀察性的地方是在微服務驅動的下一代應用程序環境中，因此我們今天經常看到的環境是多雲混合，其中有本地組件，有云中的組件。我們通過 OLI Cloud 擴展了範圍，使客戶能夠在新的應用程序環境中獲得彈性。

So it's really just a natural extension of where the application environment has grown, which is cloud-based and where they need the more sophisticated capabilities that we're delivering. And it's actually proven up quite well in the early wins that we're seeing and the traction that we're getting in the market today.

所以它實際上只是應用程序環境增長的自然擴展，它是基於雲的，他們需要我們提供的更複雜的功能。在我們看到的早期勝利以及我們今天進入市場的牽引力中，它實際上得到了很好的證明。

Our last question will come from Yun Kim from Loop Capital Markets.

我們的最後一個問題將來自 Loop Capital Markets 的 Yun Kim。

Great to see the continued improvement in the cloud gross margin. If you can explain the dynamics behind it and what we can expect going forward in fiscal year '24?

很高興看到雲毛利率的持續改善。您能否解釋一下它背後的動力以及我們對 24 財年的預期？

Yes. We are very impressed and happy with the progress we made over the last few years on cloud gross margin. As we look towards this year, we're balancing driving leverage with prioritizing customer experience and quality of service. So there will be puts and takes. We expect Q1 cloud gross margins will decline sequentially by, call it, 100 basis points but we expect that we can achieve cloud gross margins of 74% in Q4, while improving the customer experience. So in terms of the overall impact on fiscal '24, we expect cloud gross margins between 73% and 73.5%, which is up roughly 200 to 250 basis points year-over-year.

是的。我們對過去幾年在雲毛利率方面取得的進步印象深刻並感到高興。展望今年，我們正在平衡推動槓桿作用與優先考慮客戶體驗和服務質量。所以會有看跌期權。我們預計第一季度雲毛利率將連續下降 100 個基點，但我們預計我們可以在第四季度實現 74% 的雲毛利率，同時改善客戶體驗。因此，就對 24 財年的總體影響而言，我們預計雲計算毛利率在 73% 至 73.5% 之間，同比增長約 200 至 250 個基點。

We have no further questions in queue. I would like to turn the call back over to Gary Steele for closing remarks.

隊列中沒有其他問題。我想將電話轉回給 Gary Steele 以作結束語。

Thank you. I just want to thank everyone for joining us on the call today. We feel great about our setup going into the year, and we're very proud of the results we put up for last fiscal year. We look forward to seeing folks on the road in our IR work, and we'll talk to you next quarter.

謝謝。我只想感謝大家今天加入我們的電話會議。我們對今年的設置感覺很好，我們對上一財年取得的成果感到非常自豪。我們期待在我們的 IR 工作中見到人們，我們將在下個季度與您交談。

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝您的參與。您現在可以斷開連接。