希捷科技 (STX) 2023 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Welcome to the Seagate Technologies Fiscal Third Quarter 2023 Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Shanye Hudson of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

歡迎參加希捷科技 2023 財年第三季度電話會議。 （操作員說明）請注意正在記錄此事件。我現在想把會議轉交給投資者關係部的 Shanye Hudson。請繼續。

Thank you. Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's call. Joining me are Dave Mosley, Seagate's Chief Executive Officer; and Gianluca Romano, our Chief Financial Officer. We posted our earnings press release and detailed supplemental information for our fiscal third quarter 2023 results on the investors section of our website.

謝謝。大家好，歡迎來到今天的電話會議。加入我的是希捷首席執行官戴夫·莫斯利 (Dave Mosley)；和我們的首席財務官 Gianluca Romano。我們在我們網站的投資者部分發布了我們的收益新聞稿和我們 2023 財年第三季度業績的詳細補充信息。

During today's call, we'll refer to GAAP and non-GAAP measures. Non-GAAP figures are reconciled to GAAP figures in the earnings press release posted on our website and included in our Form 8-K that was filed with the SEC. We've not reconciled certain non-GAAP outlook measures because material items that may impact these measures are out of our control and/or cannot be reasonably predicted. Therefore, a reconciliation to the corresponding GAAP measures is not available without unreasonable efforts.

在今天的電話會議中，我們將提到 GAAP 和非 GAAP 指標。非 GAAP 數據與我們網站上發布的收益新聞稿中的 GAAP 數據進行了核對，並包含在我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的 8-K 表格中。我們沒有調整某些非 GAAP 展望措施，因為可能影響這些措施的重大項目超出我們的控制和/或無法合理預測。因此，如果不付出不合理的努力，就無法與相應的 GAAP 措施進行調節。

Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that today's call contains forward-looking statements that reflect management's current views and assumptions based on information available to us as of today and should not be relied upon as of any subsequent date. Actual results may vary materially from today's statements. Information concerning our risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause results to differ from these forward-looking statements are contained in our most recent Form 10-K and 10-Q filed with the SEC, our Form 8-K filed with the SEC today and the supplemental information posted on the Investors section of our website. As always, following our prepared remarks, we'll open the call up for questions.

在我們開始之前，我想提醒您，今天的電話會議包含前瞻性陳述，這些陳述反映了管理層根據我們今天可用的信息得出的當前觀點和假設，並且在以後的任何日期都不應依賴。實際結果可能與今天的陳述大不相同。有關我們的風險、不確定性和其他可能導致結果與這些前瞻性陳述不同的因素的信息包含在我們最近向美國證券交易委員會提交的 10-K 和 10-Q 表格以及今天向美國證券交易委員會提交的 8-K 表格中以及我們網站投資者部分發布的補充信息。與往常一樣，在我們準備好的評論之後，我們將公開提問。

With that, I'll now turn it over to you, Dave.

有了這個，我現在把它交給你，戴夫。

Thanks, Shanye, and hello, everyone. Seagate's March quarter revenue came in at $1.86 billion, just above the low end of our guidance range, while we reported a non-GAAP loss of $0.28 per share. These results reflect rising economic uncertainties and an elongated inventory correction that impacted demand among a few large customers late in the quarter. As a result, we've altered our outlook regarding the timing and trajectory of recovery to now begin later in the calendar year.

謝謝山野，大家好。希捷 3 月季度的收入為 18.6 億美元，略高於我們指導範圍的低端，而我們報告的非 GAAP 每股虧損為 0.28 美元。這些結果反映出經濟不確定性上升以及庫存修正延長影響了本季度末一些大客戶的需求。因此，我們改變了對複蘇時間和軌蹟的看法，現在將在日曆年晚些時候開始。

In response to the current market environment, we are taking aggressive actions to further reduce costs and rightsize the business to navigate this downturn and position Seagate to thrive when recovery ultimately comes. Beyond this cycle, we remain excited about the long-term opportunities presented by the secular growth of data and the relevance of mass capacity storage as new data-centric applications emerge and more workloads migrate to the cloud. We continue to make strong progress on our industry-leading technology road map, including launching HAMR-based products this quarter, which we believe put us in outstanding longer-term position.

為了應對當前的市場環境，我們正在採取積極行動，進一步降低成本並調整業務規模，以度過這次低迷時期，並使希捷在復蘇最終到來時蓬勃發展。在這個週期之後，隨著新的以數據為中心的應用程序的出現以及更多的工作負載遷移到雲端，我們仍然對數據的長期增長和大容量存儲的相關性所帶來的長期機遇感到興奮。我們繼續在我們行業領先的技術路線圖上取得重大進展，包括本季度推出基於 HAMR 的產品，我們相信這使我們處於傑出的長期地位。

In my remarks today, I will share some perspectives on the current market dynamics, provide greater context on our restructuring initiatives and update you on our product plans. First, let me address the settlement we announced with the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security, or BIS. The agreement resolves BIS' allegations regarding Seagate's sales of hard disk drives to a certain customer between August 2020 and September 2021. Under the terms of the settlement agreement, Seagate has agreed to pay a total of $300 million in $15 million quarterly installments that will take place over the course of 5 years. I want to emphasize that Seagate maintains its strong commitment to export compliance, and we believe that we comply with all export regulations at the time we made the shipments.

在今天的發言中，我將分享對當前市場動態的一些看法，提供更多關於我們重組計劃的背景信息，並向您介紹我們的產品計劃。首先，讓我談談我們與美國商務部工業安全局 (BIS) 宣布的和解協議。該協議解決了 BIS 關於希捷在 2020 年 8 月至 2021 年 9 月期間向特定客戶銷售硬盤驅動器的指控。根據和解協議的條款，希捷已同意以 1500 萬美元的季度分期付款方式支付總計 3 億美元的費用，這些費用將在在 5 年的時間裡放置。我想強調的是，希捷堅持其對出口合規的堅定承諾，我們相信我們在發貨時遵守了所有出口法規。

However, in working toward a mutually acceptable solution with BIS, we balance factors such as the risks and cost of protracted litigation involving the U.S. government, the size of a potential penalty, which could have been a significant multiple of the settlement amount, and our desire to focus on current business challenges and our long-term business goals. We believe the outcome we have reached and putting this matter behind us is in the best interest of our customers, shareholders and other stakeholders.

然而，在與 BIS 共同努力尋求雙方都能接受的解決方案時，我們會權衡一些因素，例如涉及美國政府的曠日持久的訴訟的風險和成本、潛在罰款的數額（可能是和解金額的重要倍數）以及我們的希望專注於當前的業務挑戰和我們的長期業務目標。我們相信，我們取得的成果以及將此事拋在腦後符合我們的客戶、股東和其他利益相關者的最佳利益。

Turning now to the near-term business environment. For the past year, Seagate has been navigating a complex market shaped by a few primary factors. Inventory digestion among our large cloud customers that is impacting our nearline business, lower economic activity in China owing to the country's COVID lockdown policy and weakening macro conditions that initially impacted consumer demand and is now affecting all end-markets. These pressures have been compounded recently and weighed on our end of quarter dynamics.

現在轉向近期的商業環境。在過去的一年裡，希捷一直在駕馭一個由幾個主要因素塑造的複雜市場。我們大型雲客戶的庫存消化正在影響我們的近線業務，由於中國的 COVID 封鎖政策導致中國經濟活動減少以及最初影響消費者需求並現在正在影響所有終端市場的宏觀環境疲軟。這些壓力最近變得更加複雜，並影響了我們季度末的動態。

In the nearline markets, CIOs are now facing constrained IT hardware budgets, which has raised the bar for projects to get funded and resulted in efforts to optimize existing workloads, both on-prem and in the cloud. In turn, cloud service providers have focused on maximizing utilization of their existing infrastructure rather than deploying new capacity. The combination of these factors dramatically slowed the pace of cloud customer inventory consumption, and led to the pronounced slowdown in cloud and enterprise storage demand that we experienced exiting the March quarter. However, we don't foresee a strategic shift in customer spending patterns or a change to what remains a robust long-term outlook for cloud storage.

在近線市場中，CIO 現在面臨 IT 硬件預算受限，這提高了項目獲得資金的門檻，並導致努力優化本地和雲端的現有工作負載。反過來，雲服務提供商專注於最大限度地利用現有基礎架構，而不是部署新容量。這些因素的結合大大減緩了雲客戶庫存消耗的速度，並導致我們在 3 月季度結束時經歷的雲和企業存儲需求明顯放緩。但是，我們預計客戶支出模式不會發生戰略性轉變，也不會改變雲存儲長期強勁的前景。

Digital transformation trends will continue as enterprises realize significant cost benefits and operational efficiencies by transitioning workloads to the cloud. Industry analysts have observed that once applications and workloads are moved to the cloud, they generally stay there and grow. Digital workloads rely on data, which bodes well for mass capacity storage as the number of new cloud workloads multiply every year.

隨著企業通過將工作負載轉移到雲端實現顯著的成本效益和運營效率，數字化轉型趨勢將繼續下去。行業分析師觀察到，一旦應用程序和工作負載轉移到雲端，它們通常會留在那裡並不斷增長。數字工作負載依賴於數據，這對大容量存儲來說是個好兆頭，因為新的雲工作負載的數量每年都會成倍增加。

Within the China markets, customers remain constructive on their end market demand outlook as the economy continues to reopen. However, rising macro uncertainties are pushing timing for recovery to begin later in the calendar year. Despite the pushout, we are seeing some positive demand movement in the consumer and service sectors after COVID lockdown restrictions were lifted. These trends support a digital economy growth that bodes well for China cloud demand as growth in consumer demand has historically led to revenue growth for regional cloud customers.

在中國市場，隨著經濟繼續重新開放，客戶對終端市場需求前景仍持樂觀態度。然而，宏觀不確定性上升正在推動復甦的時間在日曆年晚些時候開始。儘管有推出，但在取消 COVID 鎖定限制後，我們看到消費者和服務行業出現了一些積極的需求變化。這些趨勢支持數字經濟的增長，這預示著中國雲需求的好兆頭，因為消費者需求的增長歷來導致區域雲客戶的收入增長。

Within the VIA markets, future demand pickup is based on 2 factors. First, you will recall that several existing VIA projects were delayed during COVID lockdowns. Customers expect these projects to gradually resume as the economy reopens in the coming months, which will consume the existing HDD inventory that was earmarked for these projects. Second, we expect new smart city and smart manufacturing initiatives to build momentum as government funding and enterprise budgets free up and the global economy improves.

在 VIA 市場中，未來需求回升基於兩個因素。首先，您會記得在 COVID 鎖定期間，幾個現有的 VIA 項目被推遲了。客戶預計這些項目將隨著未來幾個月經濟的重新開放而逐步恢復，這將消耗指定用於這些項目的現有 HDD 庫存。其次，隨著政府資金和企業預算的釋放以及全球經濟的改善，我們預計新的智慧城市和智能製造計劃將形成勢頭。

In this dynamic environment, we are continuing to manage what is within our control. In late March, we extended the first phase of our restructuring efforts to adjust our factory headcount to align with lower production volumes, realized efficiencies across various operational support functions and reset our live edge to cloud business plans. We are scaling back new investments in Lyve Cloud as we focus on filling our existing infrastructure. We expect to drive operational and cost synergies across all platforms to accelerate time to profitability while growing the business over the long term.

在這個動態環境中，我們將繼續管理我們控制範圍內的事情。 3 月下旬，我們延長了重組工作的第一階段，以調整我們的工廠員工人數以適應較低的產量，實現各種運營支持功能的效率，並重新調整我們的實時邊緣到雲業務計劃。我們正在縮減對 Lyve Cloud 的新投資，因為我們專注於填充我們現有的基礎設施。我們希望推動所有平台的運營和成本協同效應，以加快實現盈利的時間，同時長期發展業務。

Since fiscal Q1, we've taken more than $150 million out of our cost structure, lowered debt by 5% and significantly reduced manufacturing capacity. Given the prevailing market conditions and our reduced near-term demand outlook, we are undertaking the next phase of restructuring actions targeted to yield at least an additional $200 million in annualized savings from both COGS and OpEx as well as implementing temporary cost savings measures, including salary reductions.

自第一財季以來，我們已經從成本結構中削減了超過 1.5 億美元，將債務降低了 5%，並顯著降低了製造能力。鑑於當前的市場狀況和我們降低的近期需求前景，我們正在進行下一階段的重組行動，目標是每年從 COGS 和 OpEx 中額外節省至少 2 億美元，並實施臨時成本節約措施，包括減薪。

We are taking a programmatic approach focused on 3 key areas: first, we are reassessing the levels of production output and functional support required to meet both near- and long-term business needs. These actions are intended to ensure that supply and demand are appropriately balanced. Second, we are simplifying our product road map to create operational efficiencies. We plan to reduce the number of drive configurations and major capacity node transitions to lower supply chain and manufacturing costs and complexity. We're taking these actions in concert with our customers who can also capture cost benefits from fewer product qualifications. Finally, we will continue prioritizing resources towards higher-return products and end markets, while rationalizing support levels and investments aimed at noncore businesses.

我們正在採取專注於 3 個關鍵領域的程序化方法：首先，我們正在重新評估滿足近期和長期業務需求所需的生產輸出和功能支持水平。這些行動旨在確保供需適當平衡。其次，我們正在簡化產品路線圖以提高運營效率。我們計劃減少驅動器配置和主要容量節點轉換的數量，以降低供應鍊和製造成本和復雜性。我們正在與我們的客戶一起採取這些行動，他們也可以從更少的產品資格中獲得成本效益。最後，我們將繼續將資源優先用於回報更高的產品和終端市場，同時合理化針對非核心業務的支持水平和投資。

Our goal is to emerge a stronger, more agile company able to navigate well in all demand environments, return to profitable growth and preserve our technology leadership momentum. To that end, we have not let up on executing our HAMR-based product road map to preserve our significant time-to-market advantage. We are tracking well to our stated plans and achieved the key milestone last week of shipping initial qualification units to a cloud launch partner, and we expect to recognize initial revenue from 30-plus terabyte platforms this quarter as part of our Corvault system solutions.

我們的目標是成為一家更強大、更敏捷的公司，能夠在所有需求環境中游刃有餘，恢復盈利增長並保持我們的技術領先勢頭。為此，我們一直在執行基於 HAMR 的產品路線圖，以保持我們顯著的上市時間優勢。我們正在很好地跟踪我們既定的計劃，並在上週實現了將初始資格單元運送給雲啟動合作夥伴的關鍵里程碑，我們預計本季度將確認來自 30 多個 TB 平台的初始收入，作為我們 Corvault 系統解決方案的一部分。

The decades of development that have led us to HAMR productization are even more important today as highly cost-efficient, mass capacity storage will be a competitive enabler in a world where data is rapidly growing and increasing in value. We believe HAMR will further extend the large and sustainable cost advantage multiple compared to other storage media, even with current market prices. Additionally, Seagate's ability to service this growing demand through areal density gains by increasing capacities from 3 to 4 to 5 terabytes per disc or more provides far greater capital efficiencies compared with current PMR technology over time.

引領我們實現 HAMR 產品化的數十年發展在今天變得更加重要，因為在數據快速增長和價值不斷增加的世界中，具有高成本效益的大容量存儲將成為具有競爭力的推動因素。我們相信 HAMR 將進一步擴大與其他存儲介質相比的巨大且可持續的成本優勢倍數，即使以當前的市場價格計算也是如此。此外，隨著時間的推移，與當前的 PMR 技術相比，希捷能夠通過將每張磁盤的容量從 3 TB 增加到 4 TB 到 5 TB 或更多來通過面密度增益來滿足這種不斷增長的需求。

We are confident in Seagate's ability to translate areal density leadership into the most advantaged TCO across a broad range of customers from the highest capacity drives used in cloud data centers to lower and mid-cap drives more typically used by enterprise and VIA customers. We currently expect the high-volume ramp to begin in early calendar 2024, depending on customer qualification time lines and prevailing macro conditions at that time.

我們相信希捷有能力將面密度領先優勢轉化為最有優勢的 TCO，涵蓋範圍廣泛的客戶，從雲數據中心使用的最高容量驅動器到企業和 VIA 客戶更常用的中低容量驅動器。我們目前預計大批量生產將在 2024 年初開始，具體取決於客戶資格的時間線和當時的宏觀條件。

Tactically, we are very focused on realizing our targeted savings which, along with an improved demand environment, should create the foundation to move towards our targeted financial model. And as we transition to our strategically vital HAMR platform, we believe that we are positioning the company to drive differentiated financial performance for Seagate over the long term.

在戰術上，我們非常專注於實現我們的目標儲蓄，這與改善的需求環境一起，應該為轉向我們的目標財務模型奠定基礎。隨著我們過渡到具有重要戰略意義的 HAMR 平台，我們相信我們正在將公司定位為長期推動希捷差異化的財務業績。

Thanks. And now I'll turn the call over to Gianluca.

謝謝。現在我將把電話轉給 Gianluca。

Thank you, Dave. Amid intensifying economic uncertainties, we saw a rapid decline in demand in certain parts of the business over the last couple of weeks of the quarter, pressuring supply-demand balance. These factors, along with underutilization charges and tax expenses weighed unfavorably on profitability.

謝謝你，戴夫。在經濟不確定性加劇的情況下，我們看到本季度最後幾周業務某些部分的需求迅速下降，給供需平衡帶來壓力。這些因素，連同未充分利用的費用和稅費，對盈利能力產生了不利影響。

For the March quarter, we reported revenue of $1.86 billion and non-GAAP losses of $0.28 per share. Despite these conditions, we generated free cash flow of $174 million, demonstrating our ability to maintain discipline and strong cost control measures. In response to the near-term business environment, we have and we will continue to evaluate and take steps to improve our cost structure and strengthen our balance sheet as evidenced by the expansion of our restructuring efforts, which we announced in the late March.

對於 3 月季度，我們報告的收入為 18.6 億美元，非 GAAP 每股虧損為 0.28 美元。儘管存在這些條件，我們還是產生了 1.74 億美元的自由現金流，這表明我們有能力維持紀律和強有力的成本控制措施。為了應對近期的商業環境，我們已經並將繼續評估並採取措施改善我們的成本結構並加強我們的資產負債表，我們在 3 月下旬宣布的擴大重組工作就是證明。

Exiting the June quarter, the actions that we committed to and taking charges for are expected to deliver cost savings of $40 million to $45 million annually, with roughly 60% realized in cost of goods sold. As Dave described in his comments, we are taking additional actions to further improve our cost structure, targeting at least $200 million of annualized savings exiting fiscal Q1 2024.

截至 6 月季度，我們承諾並負責的行動預計每年可節省 4000 萬至 4500 萬美元的成本，其中約 60% 的成本體現在銷售商品成本中。正如 Dave 在他的評論中所描述的那樣，我們正在採取額外的行動來進一步改善我們的成本結構，目標是在 2024 財年第一季度結束時每年至少節省 2 億美元。

Now turning to the end markets. Total hard disk drive revenue declined 4% sequentially to $1.6 billion. Mass capacity revenue remained essentially flat quarter-over-quarter at $1.2 billion, but lower than our expectations due to more prolonged cloud customer inventory adjustment and slower demand recovery in China. Shipments into the mass capacity market totaled 104 exabytes compared with 97 exabytes in the December quarter. Consistent with the prior quarter, roughly 83% were derived from nearline products shipped into cloud and enterprise OEM customers.

現在轉向終端市場。硬盤驅動器總收入環比下降 4% 至 16 億美元。海量容量收入環比基本持平，為 12 億美元，但由於雲客戶庫存調整時間延長和中國需求復蘇放緩，低於我們的預期。大容量市場的出貨量總計 104 艾字節，而 12 月季度為 97 艾字節。與上一季度一致，大約 83% 來自運往雲和企業 OEM 客戶的近線產品。

Nearline shipments of 87 exabytes were up 9% sequentially, driven by growth in 20-plus terabyte drives. As a percentage of our nearline exabytes shipments, 20-plus terabyte capacity drives has grown from high single digits to approximately 2/3 of our nearline exabytes year-over-year, reflecting our customer of higher density storage for their data center needs. Looking ahead, we expect nearline exabyte shipments to decline over the next couple of quarters as cloud customers intensify their efforts to reduce inventory and improve the productivity of their existing infrastructure.

受 20 多 TB 驅動器增長的推動，近線出貨量為 87 EB，環比增長 9%。作為我們近線 EB 出貨量的百分比，20 多 TB 容量的驅動器已從高個位數增長到我們近線 EB 的約 2/3，同比增長，反映了我們的客戶需要更高密度的存儲來滿足他們的數據中心需求。展望未來，我們預計未來幾個季度近線 EB 出貨量將下降，因為雲客戶加大力度減少庫存並提高現有基礎設施的生產力。

Specific to the VIA market, revenue declined sequentially, largely as expected. As we outlined earlier, based on interaction with customers, we expect gradual recovery in the second half of the calendar year. Within the Legacy market, revenue was $371 million, down 12% sequentially, reflecting a steeper-than-anticipated decline in mission-critical sales amid a more cautious spending environment and weakening server demand, while the client and consumer markets reflect the typical seasonal demand patterns.

具體到威盛市場，收入環比下降，基本符合預期。正如我們之前概述的那樣，根據與客戶的互動，我們預計將在日曆年下半年逐步恢復。在傳統市場中，收入為 3.71 億美元，環比下降 12%，反映出在更加謹慎的支出環境和服務器需求疲軟的情況下，關鍵任務銷售額的下降幅度大於預期，而客戶端和消費者市場則反映了典型的季節性需求模式。

Finally, revenue for our non-HDD business increased 14% sequentially to $256 million, a bright spot for the quarter. As anticipated, we grew sales for our enterprise system as component supply constraints continue to improve and we expand our market coverage.

最後，我們非 HDD 業務的收入環比增長 14% 至 2.56 億美元，這是本季度的一個亮點。正如預期的那樣，隨著組件供應限制的持續改善和我們擴大市場覆蓋範圍，我們的企業系統銷售額有所增長。

Moving to our operational performance. Non-GAAP gross profit in the March quarter was $347 million reflecting lower revenue and a less favorable mix than what we anticipated. Underutilization cost of approximately $75 million, similar to the prior quarter but higher than we were originally forecasting as we delayed the start in production to later in the quarter, as noted at the recent investor conference. Accounting for risk and underutilization cost, which translates into more than 400 basis points of margin headwind, we recorded non-GAAP gross margin of 18.7% compared with 21.4% in the prior quarter.

轉向我們的運營績效。 3 月季度的非 GAAP 毛利為 3.47 億美元，反映出收入低於我們的預期，而且組合也不如我們預期。正如在最近的投資者會議上指出的那樣，未充分利用成本約為 7500 萬美元，與上一季度相似，但高於我們最初的預測，因為我們將投產推遲到本季度晚些時候。將風險和未充分利用成本轉化為超過 400 個基點的利潤逆風，我們錄得非美國通用會計準則毛利率為 18.7%，而上一季度為 21.4%。

Based on our current outlook, we expect underutilization costs to improve in the June quarter, even if production output remained well below the year ago level. We expect both gross profit and gross margin to move higher as demand recovers towards the end of calendar year 2023 and our cost structure improvements are fully realized.

根據我們目前的展望，即使產量仍遠低於去年同期水平，我們預計 6 月季度未充分利用成本將有所改善。我們預計隨著需求在 2023 日曆年年底恢復以及我們的成本結構改善得到充分實現，毛利潤和毛利率都將走高。

We reduced non-GAAP operating expenses to $282 million, down $63 million year-over-year and $12 million sequentially. The year-on-year decline reflects our cost structure improvement actions to date, lower variable compensation as well as disciplined cost management. We expect non-GAAP OpEx in the June quarter to be similar to the March quarter.

我們將非 GAAP 運營費用減少至 2.82 億美元，同比減少 6300 萬美元，環比減少 1200 萬美元。同比下降反映了我們迄今為止的成本結構改善行動、較低的可變薪酬以及嚴格的成本管理。我們預計 6 月季度的非 GAAP 運營支出將與 3 月季度相似。

I would point out that our GAAP operating expenses for the March quarter included the $300 million reserve associated with the BIS settlement agreement and will be paid in quarterly installments of $15 million over the course of 5 years, starting in fiscal Q2 of 2024. We incurred non-GAAP tax expenses of $36 million in the March quarter. Our tax expense is largely based on a full year GAAP forecast by geography and allocated between the quarters based on expected profitability.

我要指出的是，我們 3 月份季度的 GAAP 運營費用包括與 BIS 和解協議相關的 3 億美元儲備金，並將在 2024 財年第二季度開始的 5 年內按季度分期支付 1500 萬美元。我們產生了3 月季度的非 GAAP 稅收支出為 3600 萬美元。我們的稅收支出主要基於按地區劃分的全年 GAAP 預測，並根據預期盈利能力在季度之間進行分配。

We expect total non-GAAP tax expenses for fiscal year '23 to be approximately $45 million to $50 million. Based on diluted share count of approximately 207 million shares, GAAP loss per share for the March quarter were $2.09, which reflects the reserve that I mentioned earlier. Non-GAAP loss per share was $0.28.

我們預計 23 財年的非 GAAP 稅收支出總額約為 4500 萬至 5000 萬美元。根據約 2.07 億股的攤薄後股份數，第三季度的 GAAP 每股虧損為 2.09 美元，這反映了我之前提到的儲備金。非 GAAP 每股虧損為 0.28 美元。

Moving to balance sheet and cash flow. We ended the March quarter with liquidity level of approximately $2.5 billion, including our revolving credit facilities. Inventory was relatively flat sequentially at $1.2 billion, consistent with our plans. We reduced capital expenditure to $54 million in the March quarter, down 22% sequentially. We expect CapEx to remain relatively flat in the June quarter.

轉向資產負債表和現金流量。我們在 3 月季度結束時的流動性水平約為 25 億美元，包括我們的循環信貸額度。存貨環比持平，為 12 億美元，符合我們的計劃。我們在 3 月季度將資本支出減少至 5400 萬美元，環比下降 22%。我們預計 6 月季度的資本支出將保持相對平穩。

Free cash flow generation was $174 million, up slightly quarter-over-quarter and reflecting our ongoing focus to optimize free cash flow. We currently expect to generate positive free cash flow through calendar year 2023, dependent on the timing of restructuring costs. We used $145 million for the quarterly dividend and exited the quarter with 207 million shares outstanding. We are not currently planning to repurchase any share in the next several quarters, consistent with our near-term focus on optimizing cash balances.

產生的自由現金流為 1.74 億美元，環比略有增長，反映出我們持續關注優化自由現金流。我們目前預計到 2023 年將產生正的自由現金流，具體取決於重組成本的時間安排。我們將 1.45 億美元用於季度股息，並以 2.07 億股流通股結束本季度。我們目前不打算在未來幾個季度回購任何股份，這與我們近期對優化現金餘額的關注是一致的。

Our debt balance exiting the quarter was just below $6 billion, down $71 million quarter-over-quarter. Adjusted EBITDA for the last 12 months totaled $1.3 billion, resulting in a gross debt leverage ratio of 4.5x. Since fiscal Q1 of '23, we have reduced debt by approximately $290 million. In fiscal Q4, we plan to further reduce debt by approximately $550 million.

我們本季度末的債務餘額略低於 60 億美元，環比下降 7100 萬美元。過去 12 個月的調整後 EBITDA 總計 13 億美元，導致總債務槓桿率為 4.5 倍。自 23 年第一季度以來，我們已減少了約 2.9 億美元的債務。在第四財季，我們計劃進一步減少約 5.5 億美元的債務。

Interest expense in the March quarter was $81 million, and is expected to be similar in the June quarter.

3 月季度的利息支出為 8100 萬美元，預計 6 月季度的利息支出與此類似。

Turning to our outlook. In the context of the market challenges that we have outlined today, we expect the June quarter revenue to be in the range of $1.7 billion, plus or minus $150 million. We project incremental decline in the mass capacity business mainly driven by customer focus on inventory drawdown in our nearline cloud market. At the midpoint of our revenue guidance, we expect non-GAAP operating margin to be in the low to mid-single-digit range, which includes between $50 million and $60 million in underutilization cost, and we expect a non-GAAP loss in the range of $0.20 plus or minus $0.20.

轉向我們的前景。在我們今天概述的市場挑戰背景下，我們預計 6 月季度收入將在 17 億美元上下浮動 1.5 億美元。我們預計大容量業務的增量下降主要是由於客戶關注我們近線雲市場的庫存減少。在我們收入指引的中點，我們預計非 GAAP 營業利潤率將處於中低個位數範圍內，其中包括 5000 萬至 6000 萬美元的未充分利用成本，我們預計非 GAAP 虧損範圍為 0.20 美元加上或減去 0.20 美元。

I will now turn the call back to Dave for final comments.

我現在將把電話轉回 Dave 以徵求最終意見。

Thanks, Gianluca. The past year has presented a set of challenges that have impacted Seagate and our industry to a degree not seen for more than a decade. As our outlook and commentary today demonstrate, we believe that we are still a couple of quarters away from seeing a positive turn in demand for data storage. However, there are a few key takeaways that underpin our confidence in the business and our long-term potential.

謝謝，詹盧卡。過去一年出現了一系列挑戰，這些挑戰對希捷和我們的行業產生了十多年未見的影響。正如我們今天的展望和評論所表明的那樣，我們認為我們還需要幾個季度才能看到數據存儲需求的積極轉變。然而，有一些關鍵要點鞏固了我們對業務和我們長期潛力的信心。

We are aggressively managing through this environment and taking appropriate actions to generate positive free cash flow, strengthen our balance sheet and enhance future profitability, all while executing our technology road map. To that end, we have continued to prioritize investments on our HAMR product road map. These drives offer the highest density, most cost-efficient mass capacity drive storage, which we believe translates into a competitive advantage for our customers, and we are focused on driving appropriate returns for the value we are delivering. And we continue to receive indications from our customers that demand will pick up as the global economy improves.

我們正在積極管理這種環境，並採取適當的行動來產生積極的自由現金流，加強我們的資產負債表並提高未來的盈利能力，同時執行我們的技術路線圖。為此，我們繼續優先考慮對我們的 HAMR 產品路線圖進行投資。這些驅動器提供最高密度、最具成本效益的大容量驅動器存儲，我們相信這會轉化為我們客戶的競爭優勢，並且我們專注於為我們提供的價值推動適當的回報。我們不斷收到來自客戶的跡象，表明隨著全球經濟的改善，需求將會回升。

The secular drivers powering long-term demand for storage are intact, and this fact is at the root of the conversations we're having with customers across our key markets and geographies. I'd like to thank and recognize our global team for your resilience and perseverance through this challenging period. We are keeping our heads down and aim to make continued progress towards our goal as we move closer to market recovery. Thanks again for joining, and let's open up the call for questions.

推動長期存儲需求的長期驅動因素是完整的，這一事實是我們與主要市場和地區的客戶進行對話的根源。我要感謝並認可我們的全球團隊，感謝你們在這個充滿挑戰的時期表現出的韌性和毅力。我們正在保持低調，並致力於在我們接近市場復甦時朝著我們的目標繼續取得進展。再次感謝您的加入，讓我們開始提問。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question will come from Erik Woodring of Morgan Stanley.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題將來自摩根士丹利的埃里克伍德林。

Dave, can you maybe help us understand kind of as we sit here today, what gives you the confidence to kind of talk about a recovery towards the end of the calendar year? I guess what I'm hearing from you is a worsening of demand in the last few weeks of the quarter, greater macro concerns amongst customers, obviously, challenges in the nearline market. And so like what data points are you seeing today? Or what are customers saying to you that gives you the confidence that the recovery will happen towards the end of the year as we sit here today? And then I have a follow-up.

戴夫，當我們今天坐在這裡時，你能否幫助我們理解，是什麼讓你有信心在日曆年末談論復甦？我想我從你那裡聽到的是本季度最後幾週的需求惡化，客戶對宏觀的擔憂加劇，顯然，近線市場面臨挑戰。就像您今天看到的數據點一樣？或者，當我們今天坐在這裡時，客戶對您說了什麼讓您相信復甦將在年底發生？然後我有一個後續行動。

Yes. Good. Thanks, Erik. As you alluded to, we've been anticipating a return to exabyte demand growth in the nearline for a few quarters, but what we saw coming out of the last quarter still reflects that there's too much inventory against just a very slow near-term mass capacity demand. I would say that the customers are spending money. They're not necessarily spending money on mass capacity storage right now, they may be spending on compute or other investments that they're choosing to make. And then as we look through into their data center behaviors, if you will, we're somewhat encouraged that the data continues to grow.

是的。好的。謝謝，埃里克。正如您所提到的，我們一直預計近幾個季度將恢復到 EB 級需求增長，但我們從上個季度看到的情況仍然反映出庫存過多，而近期質量非常緩慢產能需求。我會說客戶在花錢。他們現在不一定在大容量存儲上花錢，他們可能在計算或他們選擇進行的其他投資上花錢。然後，當我們深入了解他們的數據中心行為時，如果您願意的話，我們對數據繼續增長感到有些鼓舞。

So in the data centers, the drives that are in there are being strongly utilized. There are some drives that are living a little bit longer in data center applications, but there's also really compelling value propositions we're putting in front of them with higher capacity drives like 30-plus terabytes and new features that are coming that should drive adoption, and we should get a refresh. So as all of these things need to be factored into our planning, they're all important. But the most important thing right now is this reflects kind of our sentiment coming out of last quarter is we don't want to push too much in, especially the older technology products.

因此，在數據中心中，其中的驅動器得到了極大的利用。有些驅動器在數據中心應用程序中的壽命稍長一些，但我們也提出了真正引人注目的價值主張，比如 30 多 TB 的更高容量驅動器和即將推出的新功能，這些都將推動採用，我們應該刷新一下。因此，由於所有這些事情都需要納入我們的計劃中，因此它們都很重要。但現在最重要的是，這反映了我們上個季度的情緒，即我們不想投入太多，尤其是較舊的技術產品。

We want to really stage ourselves for the new technology products and make sure that, that inventory flows through. Timing is everything, exactly to your point. But I do think with the way data is growing, the evidence that we have, the data is growing. Even anecdotally, I can talk about Seagate's IT, we can see the data growing in the cloud much further than our projections were a long time ago, and this is fairly consistent with discussions that I have with CIOs and other fellow travelers.

我們希望真正為新技術產品做好準備，並確保庫存流通。時間就是一切，完全符合您的觀點。但我確實認為，隨著數據增長的方式，我們擁有的證據，數據也在增長。甚至有趣的是，我可以談論希捷的 IT，我們可以看到雲中的數據比我們很久以前的預測增長得更多，這與我與 CIO 和其他旅行者的討論相當一致。

I do think that we're not at peak cloud or anything like that. I think the cloud applications are growing tremendously in data size, and it's just a prioritization issue that we're in the middle of right now. So we just focused on taking actions to further manage the downturn like cost and footprint and still to keep driving the technology leadership so we're there when markets recover. That's how we think we can create the best foundation to quickly move back into the targeted financial range when the demand resumes.

我確實認為我們沒有處於雲頂峰或類似的狀態。我認為雲應用程序的數據量正在急劇增長，這只是我們現在正處於中間的優先級問題。因此，我們只是專注於採取行動進一步管理成本和足蹟等經濟低迷，並繼續推動技術領先地位，以便在市場復甦時我們在那裡。這就是我們認為我們可以創造最佳基礎的方式，以便在需求恢復時迅速回到目標財務範圍。

Okay. And then I guess, Luca, I know you mentioned talking about paying down the $540 million maturity in June. But can you maybe just help us understand some of your sources and uses in cash over the next, let's call it, 6 to 12 months, how you're thinking about your liquidity situation, just given your leverage is kind of quickly kind of creeping up towards that 5x number. And then, for example, how are you thinking about the stability of your dividend, any potential drawdown of your revolver, adjustments to covenants? Maybe if you could just unpackage that a bit, that would be helpful for us.

好的。然後我想，盧卡，我知道你提到過要在 6 月份償還 5.4 億美元的到期款項。但是你能不能幫助我們了解你在接下來的 6 到 12 個月內的一些現金來源和用途，你是如何考慮你的流動性狀況的，只是考慮到你的槓桿率正在迅速上升達到那個 5 倍的數字。然後，例如，您如何考慮股息的穩定性、您的左輪手槍的任何潛在提取、契約調整？也許如果你能把它拆開一點，那對我們會有幫助。

Yes. Thank you, Erik. Well, we renegotiated our covenants in the December quarter. We have paid down already a big part of our debt between December and even the March quarter. As you said, we already discussed about the repayment coming in June about $550 million. So we are very focused on reducing the debt as to the leverage. We are generating free cash flow -- positive free cash flow every quarter until now. So part of that free cash flow is also going to help with the repayment of the debt. We have other sources that we are looking at. One of those that we discussed in the past is some sales and leaseback of nonmanufacturing buildings that we are working on right now. So all this will help with our debt covenants. And if we need to do more, we can do more.

是的。謝謝你，埃里克。好吧，我們在 12 月季度重新談判了我們的契約。我們已經在 12 月甚至 3 月這個季度還清了很大一部分債務。正如您所說，我們已經討論了 6 月份的約 5.5 億美元還款。所以我們非常專注於減少債務的槓桿作用。我們正在產生自由現金流——直到現在每個季度都有正的自由現金流。因此，部分自由現金流也將有助於償還債務。我們還有其他正在研究的來源。我們過去討論過的其中一項是我們目前正在開展的非製造建築的一些銷售和回租。因此，所有這些都將有助於我們的債務契約。如果我們需要做更多，我們可以做更多。

The next question comes from Tom O'Malley of Barclays.

下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的 Tom O'Malley。

I just wanted to dive a little bit into the dynamics of the full year. I think you just said that you expect some declines in nearline for the next several quarters. Just given the size of how big that end market is for you guys, do you expect any sequential growth for the remainder of this calendar year? And if so, are you getting that with about a VIA market or a recovery in Legacy? Can you just walk through the puts and takes of total revenue and when you may see that inflection given the new outlook?

我只是想深入了解全年的動態。我想你剛剛說過你預計未來幾個季度的近線會有所下降。考慮到終端市場對你們來說有多大，你們預計本日曆年剩餘時間會出現連續增長嗎？如果是這樣，你是通過 VIA 市場還是在 Legacy 的複蘇中得到這一點？您能否僅瀏覽一下總收入的賣出和賣出，以及在新的前景下您何時會看到這種拐點？

So a few points. I would say that the next quarter will be fairly muted as what we just described. I do think that there will be exabyte growth as we -- I'll say, late in this calendar year as we get towards the end of the calendar year. That comes from many cloud service providers in the world that are getting through their digestion phase, if you will. Because again, there's a lot of data that we get from them about utilization rates being high inside the data centers and data continuing to grow. So I do think this is going to be over at some point.

所以幾點。我會說下一季度將像我們剛才描述的那樣相當安靜。我確實認為會有艾字節的增長，因為我們 - 我會說，在我們接近日曆年年底的時候，在這個日曆年的晚些時候。如果您願意的話，這來自世界上許多正在經歷消化階段的雲服務提供商。因為再次，我們從他們那裡獲得了大量關於數據中心內部利用率高和數據持續增長的數據。所以我確實認為這會在某個時候結束。

Relative to the VIA markets and maybe the broader macro, we're not really calling the end of any macro uncertainty as part of this, but we do think that some of the investments that have been put off and put off for quite some time may actually come back at the -- towards the back half of the year. So there's positive sentiment. It hasn't translated into POs yet, but that's the way we're feeling about it.

相對於 VIA 市場和更廣泛的宏觀，我們並沒有真正將任何宏觀不確定性的結束稱為其中的一部分，但我們確實認為一些已經推遲並推遲了相當長一段時間的投資可能實際上在今年下半年回來。所以有積極的情緒。它尚未轉化為 PO，但這就是我們的感受。

And only one other point that I would make there is that inside of the cloud workloads that we see, the data growth is actually fairly profound. So I think people can make trade-offs with older drives that they have running and throwing data away and things like that, but at some point, the world runs out of gas. We all know it's -- we're creating more and more data all the time in the form of videos and communications and AI and things like that are all going to need the data. So we're just really focused on making the space for it. I don't think the world can deal with this kind of supply and demand imbalance for very long, but we need to take the actions that we are taking on the supply side to make sure that we're not waiting too long.

我只想說的另一點是，在我們看到的雲工作負載內部，數據增長實際上相當深遠。所以我認為人們可以在運行的舊驅動器和丟棄數據之類的東西之間做出權衡，但在某個時候，世界會耗盡汽油。我們都知道——我們一直在以視頻和通信的形式創建越來越多的數據，人工智能和類似的東西都需要數據。所以我們真的很專注於為它騰出空間。我認為世界無法長期應對這種供需失衡，但我們需要採取我們在供應方面正在採取的行動，以確保我們不會等待太久。

Got it. And then the second one is for Gianluca. Just on the gross margin side, underutilization charges went up slightly quarter-over-quarter, and you kind of laid out what the charges would be for the guided quarter. But in terms of the impact to gross margin, gross margins are down substantially more than the impact on the map that I'm doing in underutilization. Obviously, there's some revenue impact as well. But could you talk to -- is it just mix with VIA being a bit higher in mass capacity? Is there any pricing pressure that you're seeing from the nearline customers? Could you just walk through why you're seeing more gross margin pressure than just the underutilization charges?

知道了。然後第二個是給 Gianluca 的。就毛利率而言，未充分利用的費用環比略有上升，你列出了指導季度的費用。但就對毛利率的影響而言，毛利率的下降幅度遠遠超過我在未充分利用方面對地圖的影響。顯然，這也會對收入產生一些影響。但是你能不能談談——它是否只是與威盛的大容量相結合？您從近線客戶那裡看到任何定價壓力嗎？你能解釋一下為什麼你看到的毛利率壓力不僅僅是未充分利用的費用嗎？

Yes. Thanks, Tom. So I would say the March quarter, of course, has some mix impact also. For example, mission-critical was sequentially down. And as you know, it has a good gross margin generation. VIA was also sequentially down. So we had a couple of segments that are, let's say, above average gross margin in March because of seasonality we're down. So we see that recovering actually in the June quarter.

是的。謝謝，湯姆。所以我想說，三月季度當然也會產生一些混合影響。例如，關鍵任務依次關閉。如您所知，它具有良好的毛利率。威盛也依次下跌。所以我們有幾個細分市場，比方說，由於我們的季節性下降，3 月份的毛利率高於平均水平。因此，我們看到實際上是在 6 月季度恢復。

As you said, there is also some pricing pressure, especially through the end of the quarter with no certain customers. We decided to take some of those deals, and we decided to take -- not to take other deals. And so this is what we are focusing on, trying to keep a supply-demand balance where we can. This is why we are doing another restructuring action. We want to keep the capacity that we have internally aligned to the short-term demand and then, of course, in the longer term, keeping that balance in a way that there is not too much pricing pressure to Seagate and to the industry in general.

正如您所說，也存在一些定價壓力，尤其是在本季度末沒有特定客戶的情況下。我們決定接受其中一些交易，並且我們決定接受——不接受其他交易。因此，這就是我們關注的重點，盡可能保持供需平衡。這就是我們進行另一項重組行動的原因。我們希望保持我們在內部與短期需求保持一致的產能，然後，當然，從長遠來看，以一種不會對希捷和整個行業造成太大定價壓力的方式保持這種平衡.

Tom, I would add on to that. Just you can see the pricing stress in the -- fairly readily in the dollar per terabyte trends. And so that's why we have to be very discerning about what deals we're taking. But I think it's reflective of a world where manufacturers are just trying to convert inventory back to cash as quickly as they can. And our answer long term has got to be don't build too much so that we don't get ourselves into that position and then focus on a transition to a more substantial value proposition like higher capacity or lower cost like VIA, the areal density gains that we might have and we apply that to lower capacity drives, just in order to rebuild the margin for ourselves and for the industry.

湯姆，我還要補充一點。只是你可以看到定價壓力——以每 TB 美元的趨勢相當容易。因此，這就是為什麼我們必須非常清楚我們正在進行的交易。但我認為這反映了一個製造商正試圖盡快將庫存轉回現金的世界。從長遠來看，我們的答案必須是不要建造太多，這樣我們就不會陷入那個境地，然後專注於向更實質性的價值主張過渡，比如更高的容量或更低的成本，比如 VIA，面密度我們可能獲得的收益，並將其應用於低容量驅動器，只是為了重建我們自己和行業的利潤。

The next question comes from Wamsi Mohan of Bank of America.

下一個問題來自美國銀行的 Wamsi Mohan。

I was wondering if you could just maybe talk about the outlook and pricing as well. It seems like your time line for nearline demand recovery is kind of late in the year, HAMR shipments starting like in volume, maybe early next year. In the interim, clearly, like memory pricing, NAND demand, NAND pricing has been also under significant pressure. So would you say that -- as you're thinking about this comment about gross margin improvement as you go through the course of the year, is that predicated on stable pricing, improving or worsening pricing? Any color you can share? And do you think that, that pricing environment could deteriorate a lot more as you go through the course of the year? And I'll follow up.

我想知道你是否也可以談談前景和定價。看起來你近線需求恢復的時間線有點晚了，HAMR 的出貨量可能在明年年初開始。在此期間，顯然，與內存定價、NAND 需求一樣，NAND 定價也承受著巨大壓力。那麼你會說 - 當你在考慮這一年中關於毛利率改善的評論時，這是基於穩定定價，改善或惡化定價嗎？有什麼顏色可以分享嗎？你是否認為，在這一年中，定價環境可能會進一步惡化？我會跟進。

I'll let Gianluca talk about the restructuring because I think that's a significant part of your question. But I would say relative to the pricing environment, this is really where -- we believe we have good products that 20 terabytes to mid-20 capacity points and not -- there's not great demand right now, but we have good products that we can yield and so on. The way out of it, of course, is to continue the areal density gains into the mid-30s and we get the chance to reset things a little bit.

我會讓 Gianluca 談談重組，因為我認為這是你問題的重要組成部分。但我要說的是，相對於定價環境，這確實是 - 我們相信我們擁有 20 TB 到 20 兆字節左右容量點的好產品，而不是 - 現在需求不多，但我們有我們可以提供的好產品產率等。當然，擺脫它的方法是繼續增加面密度到 30 年代中期，我們有機會稍微重置一下。

From my perspective, the demand environment is so low that the way pricing becomes more strained is when we overbuild. And so that's what we have to make sure that we don't do because we can't continue to stress ourselves and our cash that way. So we just have to wait this thing out a little bit. So Gianluca, if you want to talk about the first part.

在我看來，需求環境如此之低以至於定價變得更加緊張的方式是我們過度建設。所以這就是我們必須確保我們不做的事情，因為我們不能繼續以這種方式給自己和我們的現金施加壓力。所以我們只需要稍等一下。那麼 Gianluca，如果你想談談第一部分。

Yes. A good part of the improvement in our gross margin starting fiscal Q1 is related to the restructuring actions that we are taking right now. We said it is about $200 million annualized savings. And it will be fully realized probably through the end of fiscal Q1. The plan is based on the current visibility of pricing. As you know, that can change. And we are trying to reduce our capacity so that we build the right level of products for the current demand, and we take out some pressure from pricing.

是的。從第一財季開始，我們毛利率的改善很大一部分與我們目前正在採取的重組行動有關。我們說每年節省約 2 億美元。它可能會在第一財季末完全實現。該計劃基於當前定價的可見性。如您所知，這可能會改變。我們正在努力降低我們的產能，以便我們為當前的需求打造合適水平的產品，並且我們從定價中消除了一些壓力。

Okay. Thanks for that color. And if I could follow up, Gianluca, on the comments around positive free cash flow for the remainder of the year. Your free cash flow and EBITDA levels have the potential to deteriorate from current levels. And when we look at that on an LTM basis, it does get you pretty close to your existing covenants. I know you mentioned certain actions that you can take on sale leaseback and other elements. But how should investors think about the dividend in this context, given that you have some cash restructuring charges coming up, you do have other uses of cash as well? I know you are paying down debt. But in the context of dividend, should investors think that's pretty secure as we go through the course of this year? Or is that going to be another lever to use to balance the cash sources and uses for you?

好的。謝謝你的顏色。如果我能跟進，Gianluca，關於今年剩餘時間正自由現金流的評論。您的自由現金流和 EBITDA 水平有可能從當前水平惡化。當我們在 LTM 的基礎上看它時，它確實讓你非常接近你現有的契約。我知道您提到了您可以在售後回租和其他方面採取的某些行動。但是投資者應該如何考慮在這種情況下的股息，因為你有一些現金重組費用，你還有其他現金用途嗎？我知道你正在償還債務。但在股息的背景下，投資者是否應該認為在我們經歷今年的過程中這是非常安全的？還是這將成為平衡現金來源和用途的另一個槓桿？

Seagate has always been very focused on shareholder return. As you know, we have suspended share buyback based on the current economic situation, but we have protected our dividend. We think we can reduce our leverage in the next few quarters or already discussed that leverage level with our banks. But I'll say until now, we have always protected our dividend.

希捷一直非常注重股東回報。如您所知，根據當前的經濟形勢，我們暫停了股票回購，但我們保護了我們的股息。我們認為我們可以在未來幾個季度降低杠桿率，或者已經與我們的銀行討論了槓桿率水平。但我要說的是，直到現在，我們都會一直保護我們的紅利。

Yes. I'd say, Wamsi, that I'm proud of who we've been. If you look just over the last 15 years when we came up with some of the policies that we're talking about, I'm really proud of what have we been able to return value to shareholders. Times are tough right now. We have a lot of levers that we can look at, I think, over time. But we want to continue to be that company that we have been.

是的。我會說，Wamsi，我為我們曾經的樣子感到自豪。如果你回顧一下過去 15 年我們提出的一些我們正在談論的政策，我真的為我們能夠為股東回報價值而感到自豪。現在的日子很艱難。我認為，隨著時間的推移，我們有很多可以研究的槓桿。但我們希望繼續成為我們一直以來的公司。

So we're factoring this into all of our discussions right now what our priorities are, trying to keep the exact same priorities we've always had for shareholders. And one of the reasons why we're being really aggressive on the cuts that we are, we're also as aggressively trying to turn some of the assets that we have into cash. We'll continue to look at all those options.

因此，我們現在將這一點納入我們所有的討論中，我們的優先事項是什麼，試圖保持我們一直對股東擁有的完全相同的優先事項。我們之所以如此積極地削減開支，原因之一是我們也在積極地試圖將我們擁有的一些資產變成現金。我們將繼續研究所有這些選項。

The next question comes from Timothy Arcuri of UBS.

下一個問題來自瑞銀集團的 Timothy Arcuri。

I had 2. So Gianluca, just on free cash flow. So are you implying that it's going to be positive for the June quarter? Because you did extend payables a lot in March, and you'd probably have to bring that down maybe 25 days or so. So it seems like maybe June free cash flow could be quite a bit negative. So what's the message on June and particularly around cash flow?

我有 2 個。所以 Gianluca，就靠自由現金流。那麼，您是在暗示 6 月季度將是積極的嗎？因為你在 3 月份確實延長了很多應付賬款，你可能不得不將其減少 25 天左右。因此，看來 6 月份的自由現金流可能會出現負數。那麼 6 月份的信息是什麼，尤其是關於現金流的信息？

We see June still a positive free cash flow. Of course, we need also to look at the exact timing of the payment for the restructuring actions. But in our plan, we have positive free cash flow for June.

我們認為 6 月份的自由現金流仍然為正。當然，我們還需要查看重組行動付款的確切時間。但在我們的計劃中，我們 6 月份的自由現金流為正。

You do. Okay. Okay. Then I guess I had a bigger-picture question. So Dave, in your prepared remarks, you talked about some evaluation of the longer-term capacity needs for the business and that's kind of a new angle. And we've gone from a year ago, thinking that the industry didn't have enough capacity, and now we're thinking about having too much on a structural basis.

你做。好的。好的。然後我想我有一個更大的問題。所以戴夫，在你準備好的發言中，你談到了對企業長期能力需求的一些評估，這是一個新的角度。我們從一年前開始，認為該行業沒有足夠的產能，現在我們正在考慮在結構性基礎上擁有太多產能。

So I guess, can you talk about that and maybe in the context of that, just given how low NAND pricing has gone, we're now basically at cash cost. Is there a risk that there's some cannibalization happening now in nearline? And sort of what's the TCO difference in SSD and nearline now and data center? Is that part of what's driving you to talk about maybe rethinking what the longer-term capacity needs are for the business?

所以我想，你能談談這個嗎，也許在這個背景下，考慮到 NAND 定價已經有多低，我們現在基本上是現金成本。現在近線是否有發生一些同類化的風險？現在 SSD 和近線以及數據中心的 TCO 有什麼區別？這是否是促使您談論重新思考業務的長期容量需求的部分原因？

Okay. Let me address that second problem -- or the second question first. No is the answer to that question. I think we believe that some of the SSD pricing that we're seeing is unsustainable, fundamentally unsustainable. It might go on for a while, but it's unsustainable. So we're not really factoring that into our calculation for exabyte demand over time. I don't think -- even at the rates that we're seeing today, our ability to continue to take cost out and deliver more terabytes over time is going to keep us with a substantial gap to any competing technology.

好的。讓我先解決第二個問題——或者說第二個問題。這個問題的答案是不。我認為我們認為我們看到的一些 SSD 定價是不可持續的，從根本上是不可持續的。它可能會持續一段時間，但它是不可持續的。因此，我們並沒有真正將其納入我們對隨時間變化的 EB 需求的計算中。我不認為 - 即使以我們今天看到的速度，我們繼續降低成本並隨著時間的推移交付更多 TB 的能力將使我們與任何競爭技術保持巨大差距。

I will say that your question is super appropriate. It's -- over the last year, industry hasn't been putting on capacity. There are suppliers that we have that are unfortunately bearing the brunt of this and they're still assessing their own investments or consolidating the factories and things like that. So from an equipment perspective, there's less capacity than there was a year ago.

我會說你的問題非常合適。這是——在過去的一年裡，行業並沒有增加產能。不幸的是，我們的一些供應商首當其衝，他們仍在評估自己的投資或整合工廠等。所以從設備的角度來看，產能比一年前要少。

But definitely, from a people perspective, there's less capacity than there was a year ago because of significant people takedowns, which we know is really hard and nobody wants to do, and that capacity can recover but not quickly. So if you start staring out a year from now, does the industry have the same amount of capacity that it did a year ago? The answer is no.

但肯定的是，從人員的角度來看，由於大量人員裁員，產能比一年前要少，我們知道這真的很難，沒有人願意這樣做，產能可以恢復，但不會很快恢復。因此，如果您從現在開始關註一年後，該行業的產能是否與一年前相同？答案是不。

Theoretically, it can grow back, but it's a matter of time and investment. And from my perspective, the biggest thing we're focused on is the lead times are so long on some of the starts, for example, wafer starts that we have for the new products that we're making sure the customers understand that it's not going to snap back and we better have discussions right now about what the true demand that they they're going to need fulfilled out there a year from now.

從理論上講，它可以重新生長，但這是時間和投資的問題。從我的角度來看，我們關注的最重要的事情是一些開始的交貨時間太長了，例如，我們為新產品準備的晶圓開始，我們要確保客戶明白這不是要迅速恢復，我們最好現在就討論一年後他們需要滿足的真正需求。

In some sense, the kind of consumer behavior where you say, I don't need to buy any for a while and then I can go -- always go to the store and get some. That's the -- but I think it will be challenged because I think that's what a lot of enterprises are kind of assuming to make their models look okay right now. And that's why the factory workers are getting strained. But we're going to have to navigate our way through this and be as communicative as we can. I don't think the industry capacity is what it was a year ago. And I think if you don't tell us now, then it may actually be even more stressful for you a year from now.

從某種意義上說，你說的那種消費者行為，我暫時不需要買任何東西，然後我就可以走了——總是去商店買一些。就是這樣——但我認為它會受到挑戰，因為我認為這是許多企業現在正在假設的，以使他們的模型看起來不錯。這就是工廠工人越來越緊張的原因。但我們將不得不在這件事上找到方向，並儘可能地進行交流。我不認為行業產能是一年前的水平。而且我認為，如果您現在不告訴我們，那麼一年後您的壓力實際上可能會更大。

The next question comes from Aaron Rakers of Wells Fargo.

下一個問題來自富國銀行的 Aaron Rakers。

Aaron, we can't hear you.

亞倫，我們聽不到你的聲音。

Yes. Sorry about that, guys. Can you hear me?

是的。對不起，伙計們。你能聽到我嗎？

Yes, yes.

是的是的。

Yes. Sorry about that. I guess I got 2 real quick. Dave, just on the heels of that last question, I'm just curious of if you're asked kind of the longer-term growth of nearline capacity shift trends, where do you think that is today? Like as we come out of this, do you think we -- maybe I will stop there. What do you think that long-term capacity shift growth trend looks like now?

是的。對於那個很抱歉。我想我很快就得到了 2 個。戴夫，就在最後一個問題之後，我很好奇如果你被問到近線容量轉移趨勢的長期增長，你認為今天在哪裡？就像我們走出這一步，你認為我們——也許我會就此打住。您認為現在的長期產能轉移增長趨勢如何？

Yes. It's an interesting question because I think if we go back a couple of years, you remember there was a stall and then there was an enormous growth pop back. I think it's not going to happen like that again. I mean, from an exabyte perspective, if by that time, we're on mid-3 terabytes per disc or even potentially 4 terabytes per disc that our exabyte output is going to be significantly higher at better economics for us as well. But will we have enough capacity for everyone all at the time? I think the answer to that is probably no.

是的。這是一個有趣的問題，因為我認為如果我們回到幾年前，你會記得有一個停滯，然後出現了巨大的增長。我認為這樣的事情不會再發生了。我的意思是，從 EB 的角度來看，如果到那時，我們每張光盤的容量為 3 TB 左右，甚至可能達到每張光盤 4 TB，那麼我們的 EB 輸出將顯著提高，對我們來說也更經濟。但是，我們當時是否有足夠的容量供所有人使用？我認為答案可能是否定的。

So -- and I don't think we'll see the magnitude of the swing that we did before. Maybe we can't from theoretical demand, but I don't think there's going to be supply right now because of the stresses that are going on in the industry. And the fact that people just can't start materials, they won't have a whole lot of inventory, they won't have a whole lot of materials, they won't be leaning forward into some of those really great value propositions nearly as hard because they just can't do that speculatively on long lead times. So it's actually an interesting problem set versus what it was a few years ago.

所以 - 我認為我們不會看到我們之前所做的搖擺幅度。也許我們不能從理論上的需求來看，但我認為由於行業內的壓力，現在不會有供應。事實上，人們無法開始使用材料，他們不會有大量的庫存，他們不會有大量的材料，他們幾乎不會傾向於那些真正偉大的價值主張很難，因為他們不能在很長的交貨時間內進行推測。因此，與幾年前相比，這實際上是一個有趣的問題集。

Yes. And then the follow-up question, just trying to think about gross margin kind of normalizing itself or, I guess, taken another way, if we kind of think about the progression of lifting out the underutilization charge, appreciate you're not guiding beyond this next quarter. But as I look back in time, when I look back and say, hey, if this model gets back to total capacity shipment levels of 150 exabytes a quarter, 130 exabytes a quarter. How do we think about that relative to lifting out the underutilization charges in the P&L?

是的。然後是後續問題，只是想考慮毛利率本身的正常化，或者，我想，換一種方式，如果我們考慮取消未充分利用費用的進展，感謝你沒有指導超越下個季度。但當我回顧過去時，當我回頭說，嘿，如果這個模型回到每季度 150 艾字節的總容量出貨水平，每季度 130 艾字節。我們如何考慮取消損益表中未充分利用的費用？

Well, of course, it depends on what will be the capacity installed at that point. As you know, we are reducing capacity right now. So gross margin, what we see today for the next several quarters is despite the short-term decline in revenue, we guided in a way that is implying an improvement in gross margin already in the June quarter. So I think that will continue for the next several quarters. And of course, as Dave was saying before, demand weakened it and capacity will be at a certain level, and hopefully, supply and demand will be well balanced. And we have to manage this short-term demand decline. But again, we are ready to do it. We have done that in the past, and we think we know how to do it.

好吧，當然，這取決於屆時安裝的容量。如您所知，我們現在正在減少產能。因此，我們今天看到的未來幾個季度的毛利率是，儘管收入短期下降，但我們的指導方式暗示 6 月季度毛利率已經有所改善。所以我認為這將在接下來的幾個季度繼續下去。當然，正如戴夫之前所說，需求削弱了它，產能將處於一定水平，希望供需能夠很好地平衡。我們必須應對這種短期需求下降。但是，我們再次準備好這樣做。我們過去曾這樣做過，而且我們認為我們知道如何去做。

So underutilization charges continue beyond the June quarter through the back half of the calendar year?

因此，未充分利用費用會持續到日曆年後半年的 6 月季度之後嗎？

We will have some, I think, also in September. But it is declining sequentially.

我想，我們也會在 9 月舉行一些會議。但它正在連續下降。

And some of that is a reset to fixed and variable cost as well, Aaron. So I think as we look forward, we have to project what we think the supply that we'll need to meet that demand is, of course, and we'll be adjusting and trimming as need be.

亞倫，其中一些也是固定成本和可變成本的重置。所以我認為，當我們展望未來時，我們必須預測我們認為滿足需求所需的供應，當然，我們將根據需要進行調整和削減。

The next question comes from C.J. Muse of Evercore ISI.

下一個問題來自 Evercore ISI 的 C.J. Muse。

Yes. I was hoping to maybe drill down a little bit deeper on the nearline outlook. If you think about your vision 3 months ago versus today, obviously a change. And I guess I was hoping you could kind of isolate between cloud, enterprise and China and maybe rank order the change statements there in terms of the slowdown as well as from an end demand overall perspective versus just realizing that there's just too much inventory downstream, and that's what kind of caught you by surprise. So I would love to hear kind of maybe the moving parts there. And if you could prioritize what has really driven the change, that would be helpful.

是的。我希望能夠更深入地了解近線前景。如果您將 3 個月前的願景與今天的願景進行比較，顯然會發生變化。我想我希望你能在雲、企業和中國之間進行某種隔離，並可能根據放緩以及從最終需求的整體角度對那裡的變化陳述進行排序，而不是僅僅意識到下游庫存過多，這就是讓你大吃一驚的原因。所以我很想听聽那裡的活動部件。如果你能優先考慮真正推動變革的因素，那將會很有幫助。

Good. Thanks, C.J. I think it is good to break it down in a few different pieces. The most relevant, obviously, is the major cloud service providers around the world, and there are a few different behaviors depending on geography and so on. If I think about the big applications in the cloud, they are growing a lot. I think right now, there are priorities being made on compute and their priorities being made on other investments. And then there's people questioning business models and all of that just takes time to sort out, but the data keeps growing. So I think that's largely what we're seeing.

好的。謝謝，C.J. 我認為最好將它分解成幾個不同的部分。顯然，最相關的是世界上主要的雲服務提供商，並且根據地理位置等有一些不同的行為。如果我考慮雲中的大型應用程序，它們會增長很多。我認為現在，在計算上有優先權，在其他投資上也有優先權。然後有人質疑商業模式，所有這些都需要時間來解決，但數據在不斷增長。所以我認為這主要是我們所看到的。

We would have forecast 6 months ago that we would be coming out of it by now, just based on all these trends and run rates, and I think people can always hold on for another 3 months or 6 months. They can't hold on much longer than that. So that's the way I think about the major cloud service providers. The difference -- but Mike, the subtle difference might be in China, where you've got cloud providers there that really have been kind of on a pause for quite a while and are starting to get a little bit more optimistic, again, like I said -- I alluded to earlier, not necessarily purchase orders just yet, but get a little bit more optimistic about their investments. And so that's a watch item for when that might come back.

我們會在 6 個月前預測我們現在會走出困境，只是基於所有這些趨勢和運行率，我認為人們總是可以再堅持 3 個月或 6 個月。他們不能再堅持太久了。這就是我對主要雲服務提供商的看法。區別——但是邁克，細微的區別可能在中國，那裡的雲提供商確實已經暫停了很長一段時間，並且開始變得更加樂觀，再次，就像我說過——我之前提到過，不一定是採購訂單，但對他們的投資要更加樂觀。所以這是一個觀察項目，看看它什麼時候會回來。

On the enterprise side, I know there's a lot of discussion about servers and other componentry. From our perspective, data does continue to grow on-prem. There are stressed budgets in the CIO's world today. But I think some of the offerings are actually pretty efficient right now. So I do think for totally different reasons -- well, unless you consider macro being the underlying driver of everything, I think the on-prem enterprise is going to take 6 months probably as well.

在企業方面，我知道有很多關於服務器和其他組件的討論。從我們的角度來看，數據確實會在本地繼續增長。在當今 CIO 的世界裡，預算壓力很大。但我認為有些產品現在實際上非常有效。所以我確實出於完全不同的原因考慮——好吧，除非你認為宏觀是一切的潛在驅動力，否則我認為本地企業也可能需要 6 個月的時間。

I do think that there's not too much inventory there. So we've got anecdotal evidence that, that inventory has been well managed. And so if there's an opportunity to break north into some of those investments, we could go necessarily quicker.

我確實認為那裡沒有太多庫存。所以我們有軼事證據表明，庫存得到了很好的管理。因此，如果有機會向北突破其中的一些投資，我們必然會走得更快。

Very helpful. And I guess as my follow-up to Gianluca, thinking about liquidity. You talked about intention to pay down the debt that's coming due in June. Curious how you're thinking about gross cash? And is there a plan today to draw on the revolver? Or that's TBD depending on kind of the free cash flow generation into June and September?

很有幫助。我想作為我對 Gianluca 的後續行動，考慮流動性。你談到打算償還 6 月到期的債務。想知道您如何看待現金總額？今天有計劃動用左輪手槍嗎？或者這取決於 6 月和 9 月產生的自由現金流量的類型？

No. I think our cash balance will be fairly stable at the end of the quarter compared to the end of March. So I don't think we need to use the -- we don't need to use the revolver. Now sometimes, we use a revolver during the quarter to cover for a few weeks. But in terms of cash balance, I think, it will be fairly similar to what we had at the end of March.

不會。我認為與 3 月底相比，本季度末我們的現金餘額將相當穩定。所以我認為我們不需要使用——我們不需要使用左輪手槍。現在有時，我們在本季度使用左輪手槍來覆蓋幾週。但就現金餘額而言，我認為這將與 3 月底的情況非常相似。

The next question comes from Krish Sankar of TD Cowen.

下一個問題來自 TD Cowen 的 Krish Sankar。

My first one is for Gianluca. Just wanted to follow up on HAMR. How much of a drag is it on margins today? And when do you think it will improve towards the corporate average? Is it just purely a function of volume in eve that helps you improve HAMR margins? And then is the long-term gross margin target still 30% to 33% baking in HAMR? Then I have a follow-up for Dave.

我的第一個是給 Gianluca 的。只是想跟進 HAMR。今天對利潤率的拖累有多大？您認為它什麼時候會改善到企業平均水平？是否僅僅是 eve 中音量的函數可以幫助您提高 HAMR 利潤率？然後，長期毛利率目標是否仍然在 HAMR 中烘烤 30% 至 33%？然後我要跟進戴夫。

Yes. Well, I would say right now, we are very happy with how we are progressing with HAMR. As we said in the prepared remarks, we are shipping products for Qual, so right now, we don't have revenue coming from HAMR. So it's not really impacting our gross margin. But we think, of course, in the future, 3 terabyte per disk or 3.5 terabyte per disk and 4 Terabytes per disk, those are very interesting propositions for our customers, and we think will be actually a very profitable gross margin improvement for Seagate, which is why this product is so important to us. And in general, in the longer term for the entire industry.

是的。好吧，我現在要說的是，我們對 HAMR 的進展感到非常滿意。正如我們在準備好的評論中所說，我們正在為 Qual 運送產品，所以現在，我們沒有來自 HAMR 的收入。所以這並沒有真正影響我們的毛利率。但我們認為，當然，在未來，每個磁盤 3 TB 或每個磁盤 3.5 TB 和每個磁盤 4 TB，這些對我們的客戶來說是非常有趣的提議，我們認為這對希捷來說實際上是一個非常有利可圖的毛利率提高，這就是為什麼該產品對我們如此重要的原因。總的來說，從整個行業的長期來看。

Got it. Got it. Very helpful. And then a follow-up for Dave. Sorry, just to come back to this SSD versus HDD dynamic. I agree with you that the NAND prices are unsustainably low. But if you look at like the last down cycle, the SSD prices are almost 8x higher than HDD on a per gigabyte basis. Now it's more like 2 to 4x. So that gap is definitely closing. So I'm kind of curious, when you talk to your cloud customers, is it a bigger -- how does that discussion progress? And is that a certain part of your weak pricing per terabyte? Or is it part of your weak demand from cloud customers? Or I'm just kind of curious about it.

知道了。知道了。很有幫助。然後是戴夫的後續行動。抱歉，回到這個 SSD 與 HDD 的動態對比。我同意你的看法，NAND 的價格低得不可持續。但如果你看一下上一個下行週期，SSD 的價格幾乎比 HDD 高出 8 倍，以每 GB 為基礎。現在它更像是 2 到 4 倍。所以這個差距肯定正在縮小。所以我有點好奇，當你與你的雲客戶交談時，它是否更大——討論進展如何？這是您每 TB 定價的一部分嗎？還是雲客戶需求疲軟的一部分？或者我只是對此有點好奇。

No, I would say when you get into mass capacity, the highest capacity points, I don't subscribe to the notion it's 2 to 4x. I think it's significantly higher than that. And we'll have an ability to continue to drive to better and better value propositions as we add more capacity per drive through the transitions that we're talking about. So what I would say is that right now, demand is low for everyone. And so what you see, the dynamics you see is just manufacturers trying to take some of their cash that they've tied up in inventory and turn it back into cash as quickly as possible. And if you start to look and say that's below cost or something like that, hopefully, people stop doing that and try to look for other options. And that's exactly how we're thinking about ourselves as well, right, to make sure you don't build.

不，我會說當你進入大容量，最高容量點時，我不同意它是 2 到 4 倍的概念。我認為它遠高於此。我們將有能力繼續推動更好和更好的價值主張，因為我們通過我們正在談論的過渡增加每個驅動器的容量。所以我要說的是，現在每個人的需求都很低。所以你所看到的，你看到的動態只是製造商試圖拿走他們積壓在庫存中的一些現金，並儘快將其變回現金。如果你開始尋找並說低於成本或類似的東西，希望人們停止這樣做並嘗試尋找其他選擇。這正是我們對自己的看法，正確的，以確保你不建造。

So I think in that kind of environment, it's really hard to extrapolate on trends, exactly to your point, Krish. I think some of these other things that we're comparing against are unsustainable. They're going to have to re-equilibrate at some point. I don't know exactly when that is. The more we push into the value chains, the more we push inventory in there, the more people will build buffers and then continue that. So I think that's one of the reasons why from our not hole in defense, we've continued -- we've decided to really pull back on our builds and reduce our footprint.

所以我認為在那種環境下，真的很難根據你的觀點推斷趨勢，Krish。我認為我們正在比較的其他一些事情是不可持續的。他們將不得不在某個時候重新平衡。我不知道那是什麼時候。我們越是深入價值鏈，我們越是將庫存推到那裡，就會有更多的人建立緩衝，然後繼續這樣做。所以我認為這就是為什麼我們沒有防禦漏洞，我們繼續 - 我們決定真正撤回我們的構建並減少我們的足蹟的原因之一。

The next question comes from Toshiya Hari of Goldman Sachs.

下一個問題來自高盛的 Toshiya Hari。

I had one for Dave and then one quick one for Gianluca as well. So Dave, I know it's a bit of a black box, but I was hoping you could give kind of your assessment of nearline inventory -- or customer inventory in the nearline market relative to 6 months ago, 12 months ago, what's your view there? And when you compare and contrast what you're selling into the nearline space versus what's truly being consumed, what's the percentage delta at the moment?

我為 Dave 準備了一件，然後也為 Gianluca 準備了一件。戴夫，我知道這有點像黑匣子，但我希望你能對近線庫存或近線市場的客戶庫存相對於 6 個月前、12 個月前的情況進行評估，你對此有何看法？當你比較和對比你在近線空間銷售的東西和真正被消費的東西時，目前的增量百分比是多少？

Yes. It's actually an interesting thing because if I normally talk about inventory like distribution channel inventory, for example, I'll look at weeks of supply or something like that. But then that's -- is that based on the last 4 weeks or 13 weeks? I mean, if we base things on a couple of years ago, the demand is low and there's not too much inventory out there based on the run rates of number of drives that were a few years ago.

是的。這實際上是一件有趣的事情，因為如果我通常談論像分銷渠道庫存這樣的庫存，例如，我會看幾週的供應或類似的東西。但那是——是基於過去 4 週還是 13 週？我的意思是，如果我們以幾年前為基礎，那麼根據幾年前驅動器數量的運行率，需求很低並且沒有太多庫存。

Even on exabytes, the demand is fairly low -- or sorry, the inventory is fairly low. But I will say that most cloud service providers need to have some inventory around based on the data center populations they're -- the new data center buildouts they're doing and the refresh the spares that they need and things like that. So they normally need to have a few months of inventory anyway.

即使是艾字節，需求也相當低——或者抱歉，庫存相當低。但我要說的是，大多數雲服務提供商需要根據他們所在的數據中心數量進行一些庫存——他們正在進行的新數據中心擴建以及更新他們需要的備件等等。所以他們通常需要有幾個月的庫存。

It's more than a few months right now, but it's not significantly more. And the gross number of drives is not huge, I think. So that's the way I think about it. The exabyte growth will be substantial coming some time and what we've got to do is just make sure we're not pushing any more into those chains. But I don't know if a good way to think about it is really 3 months or 6 months like we might want to say because if you go back 2 years historically on the number of drives that were being pulled by people, that's -- it's not really 6 months. It's probably more like 3.

現在已經超過幾個月了，但並沒有多得多。我認為驅動器的總數並不大。這就是我的想法。艾字節的增長將在一段時間內大幅增長，我們要做的只是確保我們不再向這些鏈中推進。但我不知道考慮它的好方法是否真的像我們可能想說的那樣是 3 個月或 6 個月，因為如果你回顧 2 年前人們拉動的驅動器數量，那就是 -這不是真正的 6 個月。它可能更像是 3。

Got it. And then any view on sell-in versus end consumption? Or is that too hard to really see.

知道了。然後對銷售與最終消費有何看法？或者是太難看清了。

Yes, here's what I'd say is that we see a lot of the new drives, the higher capacity drives going into replacing lower capacity drives, obviously, but the lower capacity drives get put into other purpose applications as well. So I think drives are living longer, but there's still going to be demand for higher capacity drives, especially just the efficiency that you get out of that in the data centers. And then there's new data center buildout as well. So I actually think that this is not a problem of not needing any product. This is a problem of reshuffling priorities inside of the data centers and getting ready for the next level of data center expansion.

是的，這就是我要說的是，我們看到很多新驅動器，更高容量的驅動器正在取代低容量驅動器，顯然，但低容量驅動器也被用於其他用途的應用程序。所以我認為驅動器的壽命更長，但仍然需要更高容量的驅動器，尤其是數據中心的效率。然後還有新的數據中心擴建。所以我其實覺得這不是不需要任何產品的問題。這是重新調整數據中心內部優先級並為下一級數據中心擴展做準備的問題。

That makes sense. And then Gianluca, on gross margins, longer term, obviously, you've had this target of 30% to 33%, if I'm not mistaken. You're obviously significantly below that today, but as you think about the path towards your long-term model over the next 4-8 quarters, given the reduction to manufacturing footprint that you're executing to, what sort of quarterly revenue run rate would you need to be at to be at that, call it, 30% range? I assume it's lower than where you were about a year ago, which was about $3 billion, a little bit below $3 billion.

這就說得通了。然後 Gianluca，就毛利率而言，從長遠來看，如果我沒記錯的話，顯然你的目標是 30% 到 33%。你今天明顯低於這個水平，但當你考慮未來 4-8 個季度的長期模型路徑時，考慮到你正在執行的製造足跡減少，什麼樣的季度收入運行率您是否需要達到 30% 的範圍？我認為它低於大約一年前的水平，即大約 30 億美元，略低於 30 億美元。

Yes, of course, depends also from the mix and other factors. But as you said, we are taking a lot of cost actions. So what we also said last quarter is when we go back to the prior level of revenue that we picked at about $3 billion, we expect gross margin to be actually better than what it was at that time. So we are still confident in the medium and long term. We are taking actions to be even stronger when we come out from this down cycle. And we are executing our road map. We are executing all our cost reviews, and we think we are ready for the recovery of this up cycle when it comes.

是的，當然也取決於搭配等因素。但正如你所說，我們正在採取大量成本行動。因此，我們上個季度也說過，當我們回到之前選擇的大約 30 億美元的收入水平時，我們預計毛利率實際上會比當時更好。所以我們對中長期還是有信心的。當我們走出這個下行週期時，我們正在採取行動變得更加強大。我們正在執行我們的路線圖。我們正在執行所有成本審查，我們認為我們已準備好迎接這一上升週期的複蘇。

And operator, I think we have time for 2 more questions.

接線員，我想我們還有時間再問 2 個問題。

The next question comes from Sidney Ho of Deutsche Bank.

下一個問題來自德意志銀行的 Sidney Ho。

Great. So I have 2 quick ones, 1 on the HAMR side. It sounds like high volume is starting in early '24 to your plan. Can you give us any goalpost in terms of when you expect to hit a certain unit volume on a quarterly basis and maybe when you expect HAMR to be gross margin accretive, and maybe at what kind of volume level? And I have a follow-up.

偉大的。所以我有 2 個快速的，1 個在 HAMR 側。聽起來您的計劃在 24 年初就開始大量銷售。您能否就您希望每季度達到某個單位銷量的時間，以及您希望 HAMR 何時增加毛利率，以及可能達到什麼樣的銷量水平，給我們任何目標？我有一個後續行動。

Yes. I think Sidney, our gross margins are going to come back based on demand. I don't know that we can really break it out based on HAMR transition right now because there's so many other dynamics. But we are aggressively filling the pipeline full of the product, working on the yields and scrap that we need to get down. Very, very confident in the technology. So thanks for the question. I would say we'll hit what I'll consider a significant volume ramp in early 2024. And then we're going to continue to ramp from there because we have that much confidence.

是的。我認為西德尼，我們的毛利率將根據需求回升。我不知道我們現在是否真的可以基於 HAMR 過渡將其分解，因為還有很多其他動態。但我們正在積極地填充產品的管道，努力降低我們需要降低的產量和廢料。對技術非常非常有信心。所以謝謝你的問題。我會說我們將在 2024 年初達到我認為的顯著銷量增長。然後我們將繼續從那裡開始增長，因為我們有足夠的信心。

Okay. That's helpful. Maybe a follow-up question is on the demand side. It seems like you're more optimistic about the enterprise market as compared to the cloud market. Do you expect further correction in the enterprise market, maybe -- or maybe just a U-shaped recovery, considering comments from some of the storage OEMs seem to be quite subdued and it looks like they are just going through the domain collection in their -- it's still in the early stages for them.

好的。這很有幫助。也許後續問題是在需求方。與雲市場相比，您似乎更看好企業市場。考慮到一些存儲 OEM 的評論似乎相當低迷，而且看起來他們只是在他們的領域集合中進行研究，您是否預計企業市場會進一步調整，或者可能只是 U 型複蘇- 對他們來說還處於早期階段。

Yes. I think the only subtlety to your comment is I would say that my comments earlier were about inventory. There's just not too much inventory out there in those chains. So when we did start to see some recovery, I think there's room for the inventory to repopulate. I know -- to your point, I know that people are talking about a fairly subdued summer at least, maybe no recovery until the back half in there, and so we are watching that. I do think there's -- unlike some of the other markets where we look at maybe too much inventory to be digested, I don't think that's necessarily the case there. It's been managed better.

是的。我認為您評論的唯一微妙之處是我會說我之前的評論是關於庫存的。這些連鎖店的存貨不多。因此，當我們確實開始看到一些復甦時，我認為庫存有重新填充的空間。我知道——就你的觀點而言，我知道人們至少在談論一個相當低迷的夏天，也許要到後半段才能恢復，所以我們正在觀察。我確實認為有 - 與我們看到可能有太多庫存需要消化的其他一些市場不同，我認為那裡不一定是這種情況。它得到了更好的管理。

The next question comes from Ananda Baruah of Loop Capital.

下一個問題來自 Loop Capital 的 Ananda Baruah。

Just 2 quick ones, I'll ask them at the same time here. One might be more of a clarification. Dave, when you talk about you believe -- and it was the question about, I think, sort of sequential growth at some point later in the year. When you say towards the end of the year, you think demand will pick up again. Is that to say you think December quarter could see exabyte up sequentially. I guess, does that also mean the implications you think the September quarter would be down sequentially? And then I have a quick follow-up -- I'll leave that there and I have a quick follow-up.

只有 2 個快速的，我會在這裡同時問他們。一個可能更像是一個澄清。戴夫，當你談論你相信的時候——我認為這是關於今年晚些時候某個時候的連續增長的問題。當你說到年底時，你認為需求會再次回升。這就是說您認為 12 月季度可以看到 exabyte 連續增長。我想，這是否也意味著您認為 9 月季度會連續下降？然後我有一個快速的跟進——我會把它留在那裡，我有一個快速的跟進。

Yes. I think -- Ananda thanks for the question. I think it's a little too early to guide. I mean I think we're still, frankly, digesting. We're just telling people what we're building. I do think at some point, exabytes pick up, of course, right? And if we want to think about the December quarter or something like that, that's fine because I think there should be some pickup, barring any other macro issues or something, but it's too early to guide, I think, very specific. What we're doing right now is curtailing the build.

是的。我認為-- Ananda 感謝您提出這個問題。我認為現在指導還為時過早。我的意思是，坦率地說，我認為我們仍在消化。我們只是告訴人們我們正在建造什麼。我確實認為在某些時候，艾字節當然會增加，對吧？如果我們想考慮 12 月季度或類似的事情，那很好，因為我認為應該有一些回升，除非任何其他宏觀問題或其他問題，但我認為現在指導非常具體還為時過早。我們現在正在做的是減少構建。

And the quick follow-up is on the BIS dynamics, is there a revenue impact we should take into account now as well with that invested?

快速跟進是關於 BIS 動態的，我們現在是否應該考慮投資對收入的影響？

No, no revenue impact.

不，沒有收入影響。

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to management for any closing remarks.

我們的問答環節到此結束。我想將會議轉回管理層聽取任何閉幕詞。

Thanks, Andrea. As you heard today, Seagate's acting with speed and agility to manage through a tough near-term market environment. At the same time, we're executing our strong mass capacity product road map that positions us to serve our customers and improve Seagate's financial performance. I just want to close by thanking all of our stakeholders for their ongoing support, and thanks for joining us today.

謝謝，安德里亞。正如您今天所聽到的，希捷以快速和敏捷的方式應對艱難的近期市場環境。與此同時，我們正在執行強大的大容量產品路線圖，使我們能夠為客戶提供服務並改善希捷的財務業績。最後，我想感謝所有利益相關者的持續支持，並感謝今天加入我們。

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

會議現已結束。感謝您參加今天的演講，您現在可以斷開連接了。