希捷科技 (STX) 2023 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good day, and welcome to the Seagate Technology Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2023 Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Shanye Hudson, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

美好的一天，歡迎參加希捷科技 2023 年第四季度和財年電話會議。 （操作員說明）請注意此事件正在被記錄。我現在想將會議交給投資者關係高級副總裁 Shanye Hudson。請繼續。

Thank you. Good afternoon, 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 June quarter and fiscal year 2023 results on the Investors section of our website.

謝謝。大家下午好，歡迎參加今天的電話會議。與我一起的還有 Seagate 首席執行官 Dave Mosley；以及我們的首席財務官 Gianluca Romano。我們在網站的投資者部分發布了收益新聞稿以及 6 月季度和 2023 財年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，我們將提及 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 SEC 提交的 8-K 表格中。我們尚未對某些非公認會計準則展望指標進行調整，因為可能影響這些指標的重大項目超出了我們的控制範圍和/或無法合理預測。因此，如果不付出不合理的努力，就無法與相應的公認會計原則措施進行協調。

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 differ materially from those contained in or implied by these forward-looking statements as they're subject to risks and uncertainties associated with our business.

在開始之前，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基於截至今天我們掌握的信息的當前觀點和假設，不應在任何後續日期依賴。實際結果可能與這些前瞻性陳述中包含或暗示的結果存在重大差異，因為它們受到與我們業務相關的風險和不確定性的影響。

To learn more about the risks, uncertainties and other factors that may affect our future business results, please refer to the press release issued today and our SEC filings, including our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly report on Form 10-Q as well as the supplemental information, all of which may be found on the Investors section of our website.

要了解有關可能影響我們未來業務業績的風險、不確定性和其他因素的更多信息，請參閱今天發布的新聞稿和我們向 SEC 提交的文件，包括我們最新的 10-K 表年度報告和 10-表季度報告問以及補充信息，所有這些都可以在我們網站的投資者部分找到。

As always, following our prepared remarks, we'll open the call for questions. I'll now hand the call over to Dave for opening remarks.

與往常一樣，在我們準備好的發言之後，我們將開始提問。現在我將把電話轉交給戴夫致開幕詞。

Thank you, Shanye, and hello, everyone. We appreciate you being here with us on today's call. Amid a tough business environment, Seagate delivered fourth quarter revenue of $1.6 billion, while holding non-GAAP operating margin at 3.5% to narrow our non-GAAP loss per share to $0.18. These results demonstrate financial leverage and our focus on returning to profitability.

謝謝山野，大家好。我們感謝您參加今天的電話會議。在嚴峻的商業環境下，希捷第四季度營收達到 16 億美元，同時將非 GAAP 運營利潤率保持在 3.5%，將非 GAAP 每股虧損縮小至 0.18 美元。這些結果證明了財務槓桿以及我們對恢復盈利能力的關注。

Importantly, we continue to generate positive free cash flow, achieving $168 million for the quarter and $626 million for the fiscal year, reinforcing Seagate's solid operational and financial execution amid the business backdrop we have seen in fiscal 2023. This past fiscal year has been shaped by macro and end market conditions that have tested our resilience in addition to our financial performance. I'm proud of our team's perseverance and execution.

重要的是，我們繼續產生正的自由現金流，本季度實現 1.68 億美元，本財年實現 6.26 億美元，在我們 2023 財年看到的業務背景下加強了希捷穩健的運營和財務執行力。上一財年已經形成除了我們的財務表現之外，宏觀和終端市場條件也考驗了我們的韌性。我為我們團隊的毅力和執行力感到自豪。

As a result of our proactive actions, we've lowered our cost structure by more than $350 million on an annualized basis. We've enhanced balance sheet flexibility taking out nearly $800 million of debt funded largely by monetizing nonmanufacturing facility assets. We reduced production output by approximately 25% compared with peak volume in order to drive better supply/demand dynamics and enhance profitability as the markets recover. And all of these accomplishments were made while delivering on our 30-plus terabyte HAMR product development and qualification milestones with volume ramp on track to begin in early calendar 2024.

由於我們積極採取行動，我們的年成本結構降低了超過 3.5 億美元。我們增強了資產負債表的靈活性，消除了近 8 億美元的債務，這些債務主要通過非製造設施資產貨幣化提供資金。與高峰產量相比，我們將產量減少了約 25%，以便隨著市場復甦推動更好的供需動態並提高盈利能力。所有這些成就都是在我們實現 30 多 TB HAMR 產品開發和資格里程碑的同時取得的，銷量預計將於 2024 年初開始增長。

Looking ahead, we expect the macro end-to-end market conditions that we have flagged throughout fiscal 2023 to continue weighing on demand through at least December. Consistent with our track record of managing what is within our control, we are taking additional measures to weather the near-term business environment. First, we are adjusting pricing, which we believe will help to ensure a healthy industry supply chain for our customers over the long term. And second, we are carefully managing our manufacturing capacity through a build-to-order approach for certain areas of the business to align our future production output with customer qualifications and demand plans.

展望未來，我們預計 2023 財年宏觀端到端市場狀況將至少在 12 月份繼續對需求造成壓力。根據我們管理可控範圍的記錄，我們正在採取額外措施來應對近期的商業環境。首先，我們正在調整定價，我們相信這將有助於確保我們的客戶長期健康的行業供應鏈。其次，我們正在通過某些業務領域的按訂單生產方式仔細管理我們的製造能力，以使我們未來的產量與客戶資格和需求計劃保持一致。

It will take time to bring production capacity and associated support resources back online. Therefore, it is crucial that we balance lead times for mass capacity products with our ability to reramp production. We expect these efforts will enable Seagate to efficiently manage supply for our customers as demand improves.

恢復生產能力和相關支持資源需要時間。因此，平衡大容量產品的交貨時間與調整生產的能力至關重要。我們預計這些努力將使希捷能夠隨著需求的改善而有效地管理客戶的供應。

I'll now share some perspectives on near-term demand factors, in particular in the mass capacity markets, starting with our business in China. As expected, sales in China improved sequentially off of the March quarter lows, driven by increased demand in the VIA markets and certain regional cloud and enterprise OEM customers. While these trends are pointing in the right direction, sales are still well below historical levels.

我現在將分享對近期需求因素的一些看法，特別是在大容量市場，首先從我們在中國的業務開始。正如預期的那樣，在威盛市場以及某些區域雲和企業 OEM 客戶需求增加的推動下，中國的銷售額從 3 月份季度的低點環比有所改善。儘管這些趨勢指向正確的方向，但銷售額仍遠低於歷史水平。

Since the strict COVID protocols were eased last December, the pace of economic recovery in China has been uneven. For now, we are forecasting sales into China to remain relatively stable for the balance of the calendar year. We are encouraged to see Chinese authorities begin to inject more stimulus to reaccelerate economic growth. Based on customer input, economic improvement is expected to catalyze e-commerce, drive cloud-related ad revenue and spur new smart city projects. Seagate's VIA and nearline products are positioned to benefit from these anticipated improvements in the end market demand.

自去年 12 月放寬嚴格的新冠疫情防控措施以來，中國經濟復甦的步伐一直不平衡。目前，我們預計今年剩餘時間內對中國的銷售將保持相對穩定。我們很高興看到中國當局開始注入更多刺激措施以重新加速經濟增長。根據客戶的意見，經濟改善預計將促進電子商務、推動與雲相關的廣告收入並刺激新的智慧城市項目。希捷的威盛和近線產品將受益於終端市場需求的預期改善。

Outside of China, nearline demand from enterprise OEM customers has remained soft. CIOs continue to operate under tighter budgets in response to near-term macroeconomic uncertainties, ongoing efforts to optimize existing workloads, both on-prem and in the cloud, are helping enterprise customers defer mass storage deployments. These trends have slowed the pace of inventory absorption among most of our U.S. cloud customers. We have significantly reduced shipments to several large cloud customers in order to accelerate inventory absorption and protect our financial returns.

在中國以外，企業OEM客戶的近線需求依然疲軟。為了應對近期宏觀經濟的不確定性，首席信息官們繼續在預算緊張的情況下運營，不斷努力優化本地和雲中的現有工作負載，這正在幫助企業客戶推遲大規模存儲部署。這些趨勢減緩了我們大多數美國雲客戶的庫存吸收速度。我們大幅減少了對幾個大型雲客戶的發貨量，以加速庫存吸收並保護我們的財務回報。

We project it will take another couple of quarters for inventory levels to normalize. We also believe the timing for demand recovery could be affected by spending priorities focused on accelerating the build-out of compute-intensive AI infrastructure. While AI and ML have been around for quite some time, generative AI has quickly emerged as the next megatrend. This megatrend makes us as excited as ever about the long-term growth drivers for Seagate.

我們預計庫存水平還需要幾個季度才能恢復正常。我們還認為，需求復甦的時機可能會受到專注於加速計算密集型人工智能基礎設施建設的支出優先事項的影響。雖然人工智能和機器學習已經存在相當長一段時間了，但生成式人工智能已迅速成為下一個大趨勢。這一大趨勢讓我們對希捷的長期增長動力一如既往地感到興奮。

In addition to the ongoing migration of workloads to the cloud, which we believe is far from over, gen AI is expected to be a catalyst for data creation, underpinning future demand for mass capacity storage.

除了工作負載向雲的持續遷移（我們認為這一過程還遠未結束）之外，新一代人工智能預計將成為數據創建的催化劑，支撐未來對大容量存儲的需求。

In today's earliest stages of gen AI development, you're seeing the necessary first steps of building and training of AI models. These efforts require significant investment in compute architectures, and we're seeing that investment ramp today. The next stage of development will yield enterprise-specific use cases that leverage trained AI models to convert data into value-enhancing applications. As this phase plays out, cost-effective mass storage will be critical and we see HDD as a long-term beneficiary.

在當今人工智能開發的最初階段，您將看到構建和訓練人工智能模型所必需的第一步。這些工作需要對計算架構進行大量投資，而我們今天看到了投資的增加。下一階段的開發將產生特定於企業的用例，利用訓練有素的人工智能模型將數據轉換為增值應用程序。隨著這一階段的結束，具有成本效益的大容量存儲將變得至關重要，我們將 HDD 視為長期受益者。

We are already seeing examples of content creators generating high-definition images from text, which is growing in use as evidenced by 4 of the top services [totaling] 20 million images each day. Development is well underway to create data-intensive videos and animations simply from voice commands. The adoption of AI-generated video bodes well for mass capacity storage. For context, today, nearly 4 million videos are uploaded daily to YouTube and their file sizes can be thousands of times larger than a single image.

我們已經看到內容創建者從文本生成高清圖像的例子，這種技術的使用正在不斷增長，4 個頂級服務每天[總計]2000 萬張圖像就證明了這一點。只需通過語音命令即可創建數據密集型視頻和動畫的開發工作正在順利進行。採用人工智能生成的視頻預示著海量存儲的良好前景。就背景而言，如今，每天有近 400 萬個視頻上傳到 YouTube，它們的文件大小可能比單個圖像大數千倍。

Additionally, we believe that predictive AI will lead to advances in many fields, including science and health care. For example, predictive AI can be used to analyze large collection of medical images, many created by Gen AI to provide insight for early detection, prevent disease progressions and develop patient-specific treatments.

此外，我們相信預測人工智能將帶來許多領域的進步，包括科學和醫療保健。例如，預測人工智能可用於分析大量醫學圖像，其中許多圖像是由 Gen AI 創建的，旨在為早期檢測、預防疾病進展和開發針對患者的治療方案提供見解。

Mass capacity data storage will remain both an enabler and beneficiary of these trends working in harmony with flash and DRAM memories to bring AI applications to bear. While flash will continue to feed high-performance compute engines, mass capacity HDDs will remain the most cost-efficient storage media to house the enormous volumes of data being generated and used for predictive analytics.

大容量數據存儲仍將是這些趨勢的推動者和受益者，與閃存和 DRAM 內存協同工作，以實現人工智能應用。雖然閃存將繼續為高性能計算引擎提供支持，但大容量硬盤仍將是最具成本效益的存儲介質，用於容納正在生成和用於預測分析的大量數據。

Even in today's unsustainably low NAND pricing environment, HDDs are still roughly 5x more cost-efficient and comparable flash solutions on a per bit basis, and we do not project that gap to close in the next decade. This level of conviction is due in large part to our leading technology road map. Seagate is leveraging magnetic recording technology innovations such as HAMR across our mature [10-disc] HDD platform, positioning us very well to meet increasing demand, including from data-intensive AI applications.

即使在當今不可持續的低 NAND 定價環境中，按每比特計算，HDD 的成本效益和同類閃存解決方案的成本效益仍然高出大約 5 倍，而且我們預計這一差距在未來十年內不會縮小。這種信念在很大程度上歸功於我們領先的技術路線圖。希捷在我們成熟的 [10 盤] HDD 平台上利用 HAMR 等磁記錄技術創新，使我們能夠很好地滿足不斷增長的需求，包括數據密集型 AI 應用程序的需求。

Given the current business climate, Seagate is focused on product development, execution and helping our customers qualify next-generation drive capacities. We are executing well on both fronts. We continue to deliver areal density and TCO advancements through our conventional PMR hard disk drive products. Development efforts on what may be our last PMR product are nearing completion and will extend drive capacities into the mid- to upper 20 terabyte range.

鑑於當前的商業環境，希捷專注於產品開發、執行並幫助我們的客戶鑑定下一代硬盤容量。我們在這兩方面都執行得很好。我們繼續通過傳統的 PMR 硬盤驅動器產品提供面密度和 TCO 進步。我們最後一款 PMR 產品的開發工作即將完成，並將把驅動器容量擴展到 20 TB 中上。

As mentioned earlier, our 30-plus terabyte product launch plan is fully intact and initial customer qualifications are progressing well. We are on track to begin volume ramp in early calendar 2024. We are also preparing qualifications with a broader number of customers, including testing for lower capacity drives targeting VIA and enterprise OEM workloads. While there's always work to do, I am pleased with the progress the product development teams have made during fiscal year 2023.

如前所述，我們的 30 多 TB 產品發布計劃完好無損，初始客戶資格認證進展順利。我們有望在 2024 年初開始增加產量。我們還準備與更多客戶進行資格認證，包括針對威盛和企業 OEM 工作負載的較低容量驅動器進行測試。雖然總有工作要做，但我對產品開發團隊在 2023 財年取得的進展感到滿意。

Overall, Seagate has consistently demonstrated the ability to quickly adjust and execute at a high level on every factor within our control. We remain diligent in managing through near-term business conditions. At the same time, I'm excited by the tremendous long-term opportunities ahead brought about by existing and emerging megatrends underpinned by data. Cost-effective mass capacity storage is a critical enabler and Seagate is poised to deliver with strong technology road maps and improving financial leverage. I'll stop there and hand it over to Gianluca.

總體而言，希捷一貫展現出在我們控制範圍內的每個因素上快速調整和高水平執行的能力。我們仍然努力管理近期的業務狀況。與此同時，我對數據支撐的現有和新興大趨勢帶來的巨大長期機遇感到興奮。經濟高效的大容量存儲是關鍵的推動因素，希捷準備提供強大的技術路線圖並提高財務槓桿。我會停在那裡並將其交給吉安盧卡。

Thank you, Dave. Amidst the current industry down cycle, we delivered results that demonstrate our ability to maintain disciplined production output and strong cost control measures.

謝謝你，戴夫。在當前的行業下行週期中，我們取得的成果表明我們有能力維持嚴格的產量和強有力的成本控制措施。

For the June quarter, we reported revenue of $1.6 billion, in line with our recent public commentary and non-GAAP loss of $0.18 per share, slightly better than the midpoint of our guided range. Total hard disk drive revenue declined 14% sequentially to $1.4 billion, with shipment of 91 exabytes. Mass capacity revenue declined 20% sequentially to $1 billion, reflecting softer demand in the cloud nearline market, partially offset by an improvement in the VIA business.

對於 6 月季度，我們報告的收入為 16 億美元，與我們最近的公開評論一致，非 GAAP 每股虧損 0.18 美元，略好於我們指導範圍的中值。硬盤驅動器總收入環比下降 14% 至 14 億美元，出貨量為 91 艾字節。海量容量收入環比下降 20% 至 10 億美元，反映出雲近線市場需求疲軟，但部分被威盛業務的改善所抵消。

Shipment into the mass capacity markets totaled 75 exabytes compared with 104 exabytes in the March quarter. Mass capacity shipments as a percentage of total HDD exabyte was roughly 82% compared to the March quarter 88%. The expected slowdown in our cloud business led to nearline shipments of 55 exabytes, down 37% sequentially.

大容量市場的出貨量總計 75 艾字節，而 3 月份季度的出貨量為 104 艾字節。海量容量出貨量佔 HDD EB 總量的百分比約為 82%，而 3 月份季度為 88%。我們雲業務的預期放緩導致出貨量接近 55 艾字節，比上一季度下降 37%。

As Dave outlined earlier, we anticipate that it will take a couple more quarters for CSPs to consume inventory and demand to improve. Specific to the VIA market, revenue was up sequentially from what we believe was a demand drop in the March quarter. We expect a relatively stable VIA demand environment in the second half of the calendar year, although still below the run rate before the downturn.

正如戴夫之前概述的那樣，我們預計通信服務提供商還需要幾個季度才能消耗庫存並改善需求。具體到威盛市場，收入環比增長，而我們認為三月份季度的需求下降。我們預計威盛下半年的需求環境將相對穩定，但仍低於經濟衰退前的運行水平。

Within the legacy market, revenue was $401 million, up 8% sequentially, reflecting higher demand for mission-critical products. The client and consumer markets were down slightly quarter-over-quarter, typical for a June quarter. Finally, revenue for non-HDD business decreased 15% sequentially to $218 million. As anticipated, current IT spending behavior in light of economic uncertainties impacted our enterprise system business. We expect this headwind and the purchase timing for a couple of large customers to result in a meaningful decline in our system revenue in the September quarter.

在傳統市場中，收入為 4.01 億美元，環比增長 8%，反映出對任務關鍵型產品的更高需求。客戶和消費者市場環比略有下降，這是六月季度的典型情況。最後，非 HDD 業務收入環比下降 15%，至 2.18 億美元。正如預期的那樣，當前經濟不確定性下的 IT 支出行為影響了我們的企業系統業務。我們預計這種逆風和一些大客戶的購買時機將導致我們在九月季度的系統收入大幅下降。

Importantly, we shipped our first HAMR-based Corvault system for revenue as planned during the June quarter. We expect broader availability of these Corvault systems by the end of calendar 2023.

重要的是，我們在 6 月季度按計劃交付了第一個基於 HAMR 的 Corvault 系統並實現了收入。我們預計到 2023 年底，這些 Corvault 系統將得到更廣泛的應用。

Moving to our operational performance. Non-GAAP gross profit in the June quarter was $313 million, down 10% sequentially, reflecting lower revenue and a less favorable mix partially offset by lower underutilization costs. Non-GAAP gross margin expanded 80 basis points sequentially, approaching 20%. Underutilization cost decreased to approximately $40 million in the June quarter as we temporarily increased production to build long lead time components.

轉向我們的運營績效。 6 月份季度的非 GAAP 毛利潤為 3.13 億美元，比上一季度下降 10%，反映出收入下降和不太有利的組合，但部分被未充分利用成本的下降所抵消。非 GAAP 毛利率環比增長 80 個基點，接近 20%。由於我們暫時增加產量以生產長交貨期組件，因此 6 月份季度的未充分利用成本降至約 4000 萬美元。

Based on the current business outlook that Dave outlined, we expect higher [underutilization] costs in the September quarter. However, we expect gross margin to modestly increase as our cost structure improvements are fully realized and we implement pricing adjustments in certain markets during the second half of calendar 2023. We reduced non-GAAP operating expenses to $258 million, down $91 million year-over-year and $24 million sequentially. The year-over-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 September quarter to be similar to the June quarter, reflecting nearly full realization of cost savings from restructuring efforts announced in April, offsetting an increase related to the recent sales and leaseback of 3 nonmanufacturing sites.

根據 Dave 概述的當前業務前景，我們預計 9 月份季度的[未充分利用]成本會更高。然而，隨著成本結構改善的全面實現以及我們在 2023 年下半年在某些市場實施定價調整，我們預計毛利率將小幅增長。我們將非 GAAP 運營費用減少至 2.58 億美元，同比減少 9100 萬美元同比增長 2400 萬美元。同比下降反映了我們迄今為止的成本結構改進行動、較低的可變薪酬以及嚴格的成本管理。我們預計 9 月份季度的非 GAAP 運營支出將與 6 月份季度相似，反映出 4 月份宣布的重組工作幾乎完全實現了成本節省，抵消了與近期 3 個非製造基地的銷售和回租相關的增長。

Moving on to the balance sheet and cash flow. We ended the June quarter with liquidity level of approximately $2.3 billion, including our revolving credit facilities of $1.5 billion, which was lowered by $250 million as previously disclosed in the credit agreement amendment. Inventory was down $60 million quarter-over-quarter at $1.14 billion and we will continue to focus on reducing our own inventory in the coming quarters.

接下來是資產負債表和現金流量。截至 6 月季度末，我們的流動性水平約為 23 億美元，其中包括 15 億美元的循環信貸額度，如先前在信貸協議修正案中披露的那樣，該額度減少了 2.5 億美元。庫存環比減少 6000 萬美元，達到 11.4 億美元，我們將在未來幾個季度繼續致力於減少我們自己的庫存。

Capital expenditure totaled $50 million in the June quarter, down 7% sequentially. Fiscal year '23 CapEx was $316 million or roughly 4% of revenue. We target lower CapEx in fiscal year '24 as we maintain our focus on shifting to a build-to-order factory loading, balancing supply to demand and still supporting our innovation-driven product road map.

六月季度的資本支出總計 5000 萬美元，比上一季度下降 7%。 23 財年資本支出為 3.16 億美元，約佔收入的 4%。我們的目標是在 24 財年降低資本支出，因為我們仍然將重點轉向按訂單生產的工廠裝載，平衡供需，並仍然支持我們的創新驅動的產品路線圖。

Free cash flow generation was $168 million for the quarter, and $626 million for the fiscal year, reflecting solid operational execution and efficiency in working capital management. We expect free cash flow to be lower in the September quarter as we incur a majority of the cash payments associated with the restructuring charges announced in April. We used $145 million for the quarterly dividend and exited the quarter with 207 million shares outstanding. There were no share repurchases during the quarter.

本季度自由現金流量為 1.68 億美元，本財年自由現金流量為 6.26 億美元，反映出穩健的運營執行力和營運資本管理的效率。我們預計 9 月份季度的自由現金流將較低，因為我們承擔了與 4 月份宣布的重組費用相關的大部分現金支付。我們使用了 1.45 億美元作為季度股息，並以 2.07 億股流通股結束本季度。本季度沒有回購股票。

Our debt balance equity in the quarter was $5.5 billion, down $507 million quarter-over-quarter, primarily reflecting the 2023 notes retirement. This debt reduction was mostly funded to the sales and leaseback of the 3 facilities noted earlier. Additionally, we raised $1 billion in new notes and used the proceeds to prepay $450 million of existing term loans and retired the March 2024 notes of $500 million. As a result of these actions, we now have less than 12% of total debt coming due over the next 2 fiscal years.

本季度我們的債務餘額權益為 55 億美元，環比下降 5.07 億美元，主要反映了 2023 年票據的退役。此次債務削減主要用於前面提到的 3 項設施的售後回租。此外，我們還籌集了 10 億美元的新票據，並用所得資金預付了 4.5 億美元的現有定期貸款，並註銷了 2024 年 3 月發行的 5 億美元票據。由於採取了這些行動，我們現在在未來 2 個財年到期的債務不足總債務的 12%。

Interest expense in the June quarter was $84 million and is expected to increase slightly for the September quarter, reflecting a full quarter of the debt restructuring actions that I just described. Adjusted EBITDA for the last 12 months totaled $974 million, resulting in a net debt leverage ratio of 4.8x, well below our amended credit agreement terms.

6 月份季度的利息支出為 8,400 萬美元，預計 9 月份季度的利息支出將略有增加，反映了我剛才描述的整個季度的債務重組行動。過去 12 個月的調整後 EBITDA 總計 9.74 億美元，淨債務槓桿率為 4.8 倍，遠低於我們修訂後的信貸協議條款。

Turning to our September quarter outlook. For the hard drive business, we expect incremental improvements in mass capacity to offset declines in the legacy market. For non-HDD, revenue for the system business is expected to decrease sequentially due in part to demand timing among a couple of our large system customers, as noted earlier. With that as context, we expect September quarter revenue to be in the range of $1.55 billion, plus or minus $150 million. 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 the proactive measure we discussed today, partially offset by higher underutilization cost in the range of $70 million. And we expect a non-GAAP loss per share in the range of $0.16 plus or minus $0.20. I will now turn the call back to Dave for final comments.

轉向我們的九月季度展望。對於硬盤業務，我們預計大容量容量的逐步提高將抵消傳統市場的下滑。對於非 HDD，系統業務的收入預計將連續下降，部分原因是我們的幾個大型系統客戶的需求時序，如前所述。以此為背景，我們預計 9 月份季度的收入將在 15.5 億美元上下浮動 1.5 億美元之間。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，其中包括我們今天討論的主動措施，但部分被 7000 萬美元的未充分利用成本較高所抵消。我們預計非 GAAP 每股虧損將在 0.16 美元正負 0.20 美元之間。我現在將把電話轉回戴夫以徵求最終意見。

Thanks, Gianluca. I'm proud of the perseverance and agility as we continue to proactively respond to the market environment we have faced over this past year. Entering fiscal 2024, we are leaner. Our balance sheet is healthier and our product road map is stronger. All of these factors enhance our ability to weather near-term market conditions, deliver financial leverage and position the company to capture attractive long-term opportunities for mass capacity storage.

謝謝，吉安盧卡。當我們繼續積極應對過去一年所面臨的市場環境時，我為我們的毅力和敏捷性感到自豪。進入 2024 財年，我們更加精簡。我們的資產負債表更健康，我們的產品路線圖更強大。所有這些因素都增強了我們應對近期市場狀況的能力，提供財務槓桿，並使公司能夠抓住大容量存儲的有吸引力的長期機會。

As we conclude our prepared remarks, I would like to thank our employees, suppliers, customers and shareholders once again for their support. Thanks for joining us, and let's open up the call for questions.

在我們結束準備好的發言時，我要再次感謝我們的員工、供應商、客戶和股東的支持。感謝您加入我們，讓我們開始提問。

(Operator Instructions) The first question today comes from [Chris Shankar] with TD Cowen.

（操作員說明）今天的第一個問題來自 [Chris Shankar] 和 TD Cowen。

This is Eddy for Chris from TD Cowen. I understand you won't guide for December, but curious to know your thoughts on December nearline exabyte shipments. Like do you see them growing sequentially from September, more like flat or maybe slightly down. I'm asking because in case we remain at current revenue of $1.6 billion per quarter into next year. I'm wondering if there would be a risk to the dividend in case, especially you guys continue to invest in the business.

我是 TD Cowen 的 Eddy，替 Chris 代言。我知道您不會對 12 月進行指導，但很想知道您對 12 月近線艾字節出貨量的看法。就像你看到的那樣，它們從 9 月份開始連續增長，更像是持平或略有下降。我這樣問是因為萬一我們到明年仍能保持當前每季度 16 億美元的收入。我想知道萬一股息是否會有風險，尤其是你們繼續投資這項業務。

Yes. Thanks, Eddy. So we aren't guiding for December. I think we expect at this point to hold the line on overbuilding. And so that's one of the reasons we're being very cautious. But there will be some -- there's an indication of some natural flow-through at the cloud service providers, for example. So we expect it to slowly start trending back up from here. I don't expect a big hockey stick rebound. I mean I could be wrong on that, but -- and we do expect it to slowly go back up mainly because we're not pushing in a bunch of our own inventory.

是的。謝謝，艾迪。所以我們不提供 12 月的指導。我認為我們目前預計會堅持反對過度建設。這就是我們非常謹慎的原因之一。但會有一些——例如，有跡象表明雲服務提供商存在一些自然流動。因此，我們預計它將從這裡開始緩慢回升。我預計曲棍球棒不會出現大幅反彈。我的意思是我在這一點上可能是錯的，但是 - 我們確實預計它會慢慢回升，主要是因為我們沒有推入大量自己的庫存。

And relative to the dividend, we're planning for all this in all of our plans right now. And I think the way we execute this plan, we should be just fine and we want to continue to be the person for all of our stakeholders that we've always been before, we've got laser focus on that right now.

相對於股息，我們現在正在所有計劃中規劃這一切。我認為我們執行這個計劃的方式應該沒問題，我們希望繼續像以前一樣成為所有利益相關者的人，我們現在已經高度關注這一點。

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

下一個問題來自美國銀行的瓦姆西·莫漢 (Wamsi Mohan)。

I was wondering, Dave, if you could flush out a little bit to the points that you made in your prepared remarks, one on adjusting pricing strategy in certain markets. What specifically are you doing in these markets? And then secondarily, the reduced production output through this build-to-order and lower CapEx comments that you made. How exactly will this build-to-order work? Is this specifically for mass capacity, what kind of lead times would you require? And are your customers? And what do you expect follow-through from customers and also from a competitive standpoint?

戴夫，我想知道您是否可以稍微闡述一下您在準備好的講話中提出的觀點，其中之一是關於調整某些市場的定價策略。您在這些市場上具體做什麼？其次，通過按訂單生產減少了產量，並降低了您提出的資本支出評論。這種按訂單生產究竟將如何進行？這是專門針對大規模產能的嗎？您需要什麼樣的交貨時間？你的客戶是嗎？從競爭的角度來看，您對客戶的後續行動有何期望？

Thanks, Wamsi. Yes, it is complicated because there's a number of different markets in play here. So for example, a distribution channel or some of the classic markets we have consumer client server, you just don't move things very quickly. But some places, it's relatively easier to raise prices and have that flow through into the system.

謝謝，瓦姆西。是的，這很複雜，因為這裡有許多不同的市場。例如，我們擁有消費者客戶端服務器的分銷渠道或一些經典市場，您只是無法快速移動事物。但在某些地方，提高價格並將其流入系統相對容易。

On mass capacity drives, generally speaking, we do the price increases through transitions of products. So we'll say this is the changing economics, we need to make sure that we get paid for that. So as we go through the next product generation, there's still a TCO benefit to the end customer to drive through that product transition, but the economics have to change, largely so that we can go back and pay our suppliers and keep everybody healthy. There's been such a profound downturn in demand that we have to make sure that the entire supply chain is treated properly. But exactly what you said, different markets are behaving very differently and accept things very differently. And this is the direction we're pushing at this point.

對於大容量硬盤，一般來說，我們通過產品轉型來提高價格。所以我們會說這是不斷變化的經濟，我們需要確保我們為此獲得報酬。因此，當我們開發下一代產品時，最終客戶仍然可以通過產品轉型獲得總體擁有成本優勢，但經濟狀況必須改變，主要是為了我們可以回去向供應商付款並保持每個人的健康。需求大幅下滑，我們必須確保整個供應鏈得到妥善處理。但正如你所說，不同的市場表現非常不同，接受事物的方式也非常不同。這就是我們目前正在推動的方向。

Yes. On the cost side, Wamsi and on the production that is, of course, driving under utilization. We had a little bit higher production in the June quarter, mainly on the wafer side and a little bit on the media, but I would say more on the wafer. We will not need to do that level of production right now. So the under utilization charges were declined in the June quarter from almost $80 million to $40 million. It's probably going up a little bit in September. We estimated about $70 million. But of course, through the quarter, that could change a little bit.

是的。在成本方面，Wamsi 和生產當然會導致利用率下降。我們在六月季度的產量有所提高，主要是在晶圓方面，還有一點在介質方面，但我會說更多的是晶圓方面。我們現在不需要達到那樣的生產水平。因此，六月份季度的利用率不足費用從近 8000 萬美元降至 4000 萬美元。 9月份可能會略有上升。我們估計約為 7000 萬美元。但當然，整個季度，情況可能會發生一些變化。

The next question comes from Timothy Arcuri with UBS.

下一個問題來自瑞銀集團的蒂莫西·阿庫裡。

I also had a question on pricing and sort of how you think about it versus market share. We've heard examples of you raising prices 10% to 15%. It's obviously a little bit counterintuitive in such a soft market. So I guess 2 questions. One, how are customers reacting to that? And then also, are you willing to lose share as you kind of look out, is there like a line in the sand on share that you're going to draw where you wouldn't raise pricing if you lost share? Or are you willing to lose share to get pricing reset to a more acceptable level?

我還有一個關於定價的問題，以及你如何看待它與市場份額的關係。我們聽說過你們將價格提高 10% 到 15% 的例子。在如此疲軟的市場中，這顯然有點違反直覺。所以我猜有兩個問題。第一，客戶對此有何反應？然後，當你留意時，你是否願意失去市場份額？在市場份額方面，你是否會劃出一條線，如果你失去市場份額，你就不會提高定價？或者您願意失去份額以將定價重置到更可接受的水平嗎？

Yes. Thanks, Tim. So yes, you are right. It's a weak demand environment, but I think also there's generally speaking, the whole industry is underwater. So I mean, we have to make sure we protect ourselves, we protect the supply base as we talked about earlier. And it's different in different products across the market, obviously, the different markets, obviously.

是的。謝謝，蒂姆。所以是的，你是對的。這是一個疲弱的需求環境，但我認為總的來說，整個行業都陷入了困境。所以我的意思是，我們必須確保保護自己，保護我們之前談到的供應基地。顯然，不同市場的不同產品是不同的。

How is it being accepted. There's -- you can imagine the entire [ponopoly] of different responses. Some people are worried about supply longer term. They do believe that supply will be short and demand will come back. And so -- and especially with the long, long lead times that there are on mass capacity products right now. I think it's something that people are very much in tune with. And so it's forcing good discussions. There's other people for various reasons that need to make tactical procurement decisions and they'll take whatever deals that are out in front of them. And I get that. I mean, that happens from time to time in the business. That's one of the big reasons why we don't want to overbuild. We want to make sure we hold as much as we possibly can.

是如何被接受的。你可以想像不同反應的整個[壟斷]。有些人擔心長期供應。他們確實相信供應將會短缺，需求將會回升。因此，尤其是目前大容量產品的交貨時間很長。我認為這是人們非常認同的事情。因此它迫使人們進行良好的討論。還有其他人出於各種原因需要做出戰術採購決策，他們會接受擺在他們面前的任何交易。我明白了。我的意思是，這種情況在業務中時常發生。這是我們不想過度建設的重要原因之一。我們希望確保盡可能多地持有。

And as we continue to play this forward, I think we'll see and adjust accordingly to make sure that we defend our products. I think the optimism for us is that we can actually go through the product transitions, get to the higher capacity points to provide a better TCO proposition, get components out of the supply chains and so on. And then we didn't dilute or extend the problem any by overbuilding or dilute the problem by continuing to overbuild and then lowering price. And that's what we have to hold on to.

當我們繼續向前推進時，我認為我們會進行相應的觀察和調整，以確保我們捍衛我們的產品。我認為對我們來說樂觀的是，我們實際上可以完成產品轉型，達到更高的產能點以提供更好的 TCO 主張，將組件從供應鏈中剔除等等。然後，我們沒有通過過度建設來淡化或擴大問題，也沒有通過繼續過度建設然後降低價格來淡化問題。這就是我們必須堅持的。

The next question comes from Erik Woodring with Morgan Stanley.

下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的埃里克·伍德林。

Awesome. Dave, I just wanted to ask if you could flesh out the comment you made in your prepared remarks about the timing of the demand recovery being delayed by AI investments. Just in the context of you talking about market conditions, weighing on demand through December, are you telling us we shouldn't expect sequential growth in capacity shipped until calendar '24? Just if you could help us connect some of these thoughts, that would be great.

驚人的。戴夫，我只是想問你是否可以充實你在準備好的評論中關於人工智能投資延遲需求復蘇時間的評論。就您談論市場狀況、影響整個 12 月的需求而言，您是在告訴我們，我們不應該期望 24 年前發貨量會出現環比增長嗎？如果您能幫助我們聯繫其中一些想法，那就太好了。

Thanks, Erik. Yes. And I think I mentioned in one of the earlier comments that there will be slight capacity growth. But the way I read through most of the results that are already coming through in the cloud and in most of my conversations as well, I think it's fairly consistent that there's priorities being put on data center infrastructure, new data center build-out, power infrastructure that was already kind of -- things were biased that way instead of mass capacity storage, the mass capacity being something that would come later. And we all know about the great new capabilities that there are in some of the compute technologies and how those new technologies are being applied in new applications. So that's AI. And that's a high priority for cloud service providers and people doing stuff on-prem as well.

謝謝，埃里克。是的。我想我在之前的評論中提到過產能將會略有增長。但是，從我閱讀雲中已經獲得的大部分結果以及我的大部分對話來看，我認為數據中心基礎設施、新數據中心擴建、電力等優先事項是相當一致的。基礎設施已經是這樣的——事情是這樣偏向的，而不是大容量存儲，大容量存儲是以後才會出現的東西。我們都知道某些計算技術所具有的強大新功能以及這些新技術如何應用於新應用程序。這就是人工智能。對於雲服務提供商和在本地進行工作的人員來說，這是一個高度優先的事項。

We think data follows behind that. Predicting it is going to be really tough, but we do think that, that's going to be a [bow wave] at some point, there will be competition for the data that actually feeds the AI engines, if you will. Right now, there's a big battle to get the AI engines up and running and show those applications as being meaningful, and I think that's an interesting space to watch. Behind it, there's going to be a lot of data that actually has to feed those AI engines every day, every day, every day, and we think that's mass capacity infrastructure net positive.

我們認為數據是其背後的依據。預測這將是非常困難的，但我們確實認為，在某個時候這將是一個[弓波]，如果你願意的話，對於真正為人工智能引擎提供數據的數據將會存在競爭。目前，正在展開一場大戰，讓人工智能引擎啟動並運行，並展示這些應用程序的意義，我認為這是一個值得關注的有趣領域。在它的背後，實際上每天都會有大量數據為這些人工智能引擎提供數據，我們認為這是大規模容量基礎設施淨積極的。

The next question comes from Thomas O'Malley with Barclays.

下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的托馬斯·奧馬利。

In the deck, you guys mentioned that you were extending your PMR platform into the mid- to upper 20 TB capacities. Could you talk about where your original plan was to extend into the mid-20s and where that is now and why you made that decision?

在演講中，你們提到你們正在將 PMR 平台擴展到中上 20 TB 容量。您能談談您最初的計劃是延長到 20 多歲嗎？現在的計劃是什麼？為什麼做出這個決定？

Yes, Tom, there's no real change. We've been talking about it, I think, for about a year. We said we can get PMR into the mid-20s. And the product that we have now -- let me -- I'll talk about it very quickly here. We believe that with SMR variants that can get in the high 20s, the product is in the mid-20s, but it's highly, highly leveraged. It's almost identical electronics and mechanics that takes us to HAMR. So it's almost the same product you swap out the heads and disks for HAMR and a couple of other component changes that have to happen. So we're going to get a lot of leverage from that. That platform has been planned for a long, long time. We called it a 10-disk platform in the prepared remarks.

是的，湯姆，沒有真正的改變。我想我們已經討論了大約一年。我們說過我們可以讓 PMR 進入 20 多歲。我們現在擁有的產品——讓我——我將在這裡很快地談論它。我們相信，對於可以達到 20 多歲的 SMR 變體，該產品處於 20 多歲的中期，但它的槓桿率很高。 HAMR 的電子和機械結構幾乎相同。因此，它幾乎與您將磁頭和磁盤更換為 HAMR 以及必須進行的其他一些組件更改的產品相同。所以我們將從中獲得很大的影響力。這個平台已經計劃了很長時間了。我們在準備好的評論中將其稱為 10 盤平台。

So I have a lot of confidence that we can solution PMR anywhere that the customer wants to stay there in the mid-20s or we can go to HAMR variants with the same bag of parts or very, very similar bag of parts. I do think that there's a lot of confusion out in the market, I'll say it this way about what capacity point, is it 24, 25, 26. Look, there's customers who need all kinds of different variants. And I think we confuse people, frankly, by kind of amalgamating all these things. All I will say is that I think those products that we have are very, very competitive in the market.

因此，我非常有信心，我們可以在客戶想要在 20 年代中期停留的任何地方解決 PMR，或者我們可以採用具有相同零件包或非常非常相似的零件包的 HAMR 變體。我確實認為市場上存在很多混亂，我會這樣說關於什麼容量點，是 24、25、26。看，有些客戶需要各種不同的變體。坦率地說，我認為我們將所有這些東西合併起來，讓人們感到困惑。我想說的是，我認為我們擁有的這些產品在市場上非常非常有競爭力。

Right now, the issue is if I added -- I'm not going to try to force it into the market into a space that people don't need the product simply because that poisons the well for that product maybe 2 quarters out or 3 quarters after when people do need it, and it would erode the value proposition for the HAMR products when they come. So we've got to run the business the way we are right now.

現在的問題是，如果我補充說——我不會試圖強迫它進入市場，進入一個人們不需要該產品的領域，僅僅因為這可能會在 2 個季度或 3 個季度後對該產品造成毒害。當人們確實需要它的幾個季度後，它就會削弱 HAMR 產品的價值主張。所以我們必須按照現在的方式經營業務。

Yes. Let me add to that just for clarity, when we say the mid-20s is in the CMR version, if you go to the SMR version of that drive, of course, we are in the mid- to high 20s.

是的。為了清楚起見，讓我補充一下，當我們說 20 多歲是 CMR 版本時，如果您使用該驅動器的 SMR 版本，當然，我們處於 20 多歲中上。

The next question comes from Aaron Rakers with Wells Fargo.

下一個問題來自富國銀行的 Aaron Rakers。

Aaron, sorry, we can't hear you.

亞倫，抱歉，我們聽不到你的聲音。

Yes, sorry about that. I just wanted to unpack some of the kind of considerations we should be thinking about in terms of gross margin as we move forward. Appreciating that you're not guiding explicitly. But I guess, first of all, if I look at the pricing discussion, based on the math, it looks like your mass capacity dollar per terabyte was up by about 10% sequentially. I guess as we look forward, should we be thinking that the ASP on that basis continues to trend higher? Or how much of that capacity shift, have you already kind of imposed price increases upon? And then also, when we look at the capacity shift in total with a 25% reduction in production capacity, do we take prior peak capacity shipment levels and take 25% of that, and that should be a level for which you think you would get back to kind of that 30% gross margin level? I know there's a lot in that, but I'm just trying to think about some of the variables, looking out just not this current quarter, but beyond.

是的，對此感到抱歉。我只是想闡述一些我們在前進過程中應該在毛利率方面考慮的因素。感謝您沒有明確指導。但我想，首先，如果我看一下定價討論，根據數學計算，每 TB 的海量容量美元似乎連續上漲了約 10%。我想，當我們展望未來時，我們是否應該認為在此基礎上的平均售價會繼續走高？或者說，您已經對產能轉移的多少進行了強制提價？然後，當我們考慮總產能轉移以及產能減少 25% 時，我們是否採用之前的峰值產能出貨水平並採用其中的 25%，這應該是您認為會得到的水平回到30%的毛利率水平嗎？我知道其中有很多因素，但我只是想考慮一些變量，關注的不是本季度，而是以後的情況。

Thanks, Aaron. I'll take my cut, and then I'll give it to Gianluca to answer. I think as I look in at the tactics of what's going on right now, I think it's dangerous to say what changed quarter-over-quarter and extrapolate from there. You can draw straight lines, but I'm not sure that -- like whether we take a deal at the end of a quarter or not is a good way to think about what's going to happen over the long haul.

謝謝，亞倫。我會接受我的意見，然後交給吉安盧卡來回答。我認為，當我審視目前正在發生的事情的策略時，我認為說出季度與季度之間的變化並從中推斷是危險的。你可以畫直線，但我不確定——比如我們是否在季度末達成協議是思考長期會發生什麼的好方法。

We've said that pricing needs to go up or stabilize, depending on the different capacity points, the product transitions that we're going through, whether or not suppliers still want to stay around for a certain product line. I mean, there's a lot of different things to unpack there, to your point.

我們已經說過，定價需要上漲或穩定，具體取決於不同的產能點、我們正在經歷的產品轉型，以及供應商是否仍想留在某個產品線。我的意思是，就你的觀點而言，有很多不同的東西需要解開。

Relative to our manufacturing capacity, we talked about 25%. Of course, that's not perfect across every single factory we have, nor is it perfect across the supply chain. And we're only as good as our weakest link. We have to make sure those weakest links are still well cared for. And so that's largely what's driving that. The ability to go put that capacity back online would -- is severely hampered because it's not just the capital, if you will, that we haven't invested in enough for peak capacity, but it's also the people we'd have to bring back. I mean, unfortunately, our people and a lot of people in the supply chain have been dramatically taken down. So do you want to add something, Gianluca?

相對於我們的製造能力，我們談到了25%。當然，這並不是我們所有工廠都完美，整個供應鏈也不是完美。我們的表現取決於我們最薄弱的環節。我們必須確保那些最薄弱的環節仍然得到很好的照顧。這在很大程度上是推動這一趨勢的原因。恢復產能的能力將受到嚴重阻礙，因為這不僅是我們沒有為峰值產能投資足夠的資本，而且是我們必須帶回來的人員。 。我的意思是，不幸的是，我們的員工和供應鏈中的很多人都被大幅裁員。那麼你想補充些什麼嗎，Gianluca？

Yes, Aaron, you were asking about the price per terabyte in particular in Q4. That is a result also of the mix. So we have a reduction in cloud. That, of course, is our higher capacity that usually has the lowest price per terabyte, but also the lowest cost per terabyte. And we have an increase in VIA. So mid-capacity drives with, again, higher price per terabyte and a little bit higher cost per terabyte. So there is a mix that is impacting, of course, when the volume is not very high. Just a few exabyte difference in the different segments can swing those price and cost per terabyte.

是的，Aaron，您問的是每 TB 的價格，特別是第四季度的價格。這也是混合的結果。所以我們減少了雲計算。當然，這是我們的更高容量，通常每 TB 的價格最低，但每 TB 的成本也是最低的。我們的威盛 (VIA) 也有所增加。因此，中等容量驅動器的每 TB 價格更高，每 TB 成本也稍高一些。因此，當然，當音量不是很高時，就有一種混合會產生影響。不同細分市場中只要有幾 EB 的差異就可能會影響每 TB 的價格和成本。

In terms of capacity, Aaron, the 25%, I would not take the peak of where we were probably more than a year ago. We have done a lot of restructuring, a lot of adjustments. And as they said, we will need time to eventually rebuild that capacity also in terms of employees.

就產能而言，Aaron，25%，我不會採取一年多前我們可能達到的峰值。我們做了很多重組、很多調整。正如他們所說，我們最終需要時間來重建員工方面的能力。

Yes. We don't need to get back to the full capacity in order to get back into our margin model because we've taken so many cost actions across the business. I think we've been very, very aggressive on that, knowing that our footprint had to change. I think we'll be able to scale much better from a margin perspective as some of the demand comes back.

是的。我們不需要為了回到我們的利潤模型而恢復全部產能，因為我們已經在整個業務中採取了很多成本行動。我認為我們在這方面一直非常非常積極，因為我們知道我們的足跡必須改變。我認為，隨著部分需求的回升，從利潤角度來看，我們將能夠更好地擴大規模。

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

下一個問題來自 Evercore ISI 的 C.J. Muse。

This is [Kurt Swartz] on for C.J. Open to delve into generative AI implications for both HDD and SSD demand. What is the perceived time line for storage demand uplift as data creation accelerates? And is there any concern regarding more workloads moving from HDD to flash within an AI data center paradigm?

[Kurt Swartz] 在 C.J. Open 上探討了生成式 AI 對 HDD 和 SSD 需求的影響。隨著數據創建加速，存儲需求提升的預期時間是多長？對於人工智能數據中心範式中更多工作負載從 HDD 轉移到閃存是否存在任何擔憂？

Yes, thanks. I don't think of things that way that people in data centers are not making decisions like you would make for example, if you're building your own PC, this or that or this combination. Instead, they know how to manage data across multiple tiers and geographies very, very well. And make sure that the right data gets the right place at the right time.

對了謝謝。我不認為數據中心的人員不會像您那樣做出決定，例如，如果您正在構建自己的 PC，這個或那個或這個組合。相反，他們非常非常清楚如何跨多個層級和地域管理數據。並確保正確的數據在正確的時間到達正確的位置。

There are some gen AI discussions that are very transactional and probably don't need a whole lot of HDD and there's a lot that are very video-intensive and want data to be sequestered in a certain tank and so that nothing else can touch it. And we believe that's going to be that normal tier that you see today. So I think it's a win-win for memory and storage long term. Obviously, it's win for compute. And I think as some of these new applications are lit up, I'm really excited to see it. We haven't seen it yet. I mean, unless you start to look back at some traditional cloud service provider capabilities and say that all along that was AI. But I do think there's a whole host of new tools coming. It will be a very competitive space. And the data tiering infrastructure will become a critical part of that as we go forward.

有一些關於新一代人工智能的討論非常具有事務性，可能不需要大量的硬盤，還有很多討論是視頻密集型的，並且希望將數據隔離在某個容器中，這樣其他任何東西都無法觸及它。我們相信這將是您今天看到的正常級別。所以我認為從長遠來看，這對於內存和存儲來說是雙贏的。顯然，這是計算的勝利。我認為隨著其中一些新應用程序的出現，我真的很高興看到它。我們還沒有看到它。我的意思是，除非你開始回顧一些傳統雲服務提供商的能力，並說這一直都是人工智能。但我確實認為將會出現大量新工具。這將是一個競爭非常激烈的空間。隨著我們的發展，數據分層基礎設施將成為其中的關鍵部分。

The next question comes from Karl Ackerman with BNP.

下一個問題來自法國巴黎銀行的卡爾·阿克曼。

I have 2 questions. First, I may have missed this, but why did average capacity per drives for the mass capacity area of your business shrink this quarter? And then second, I guess, how should we think about mass capacity unit growth from here? And where do you believe we are in the replacement cycle and whether that should continue to elongate or whether that returns to some form of normal from a unit perspective?

我有 2 個問題。首先，我可能錯過了這一點，但為什麼貴公司的海量容量領域的每個驅動器的平均容量本季度會萎縮？其次，我想，我們應該如何考慮從這裡開始的容量單位增長？您認為我們處於更換週期的哪個階段，是否應該繼續延長，或者從單位角度來看是否會恢復某種形式的正常？

Thanks, Karl. So the -- we are not overbuilding, especially the high capacity drives are trying to push out into some of the cloud service providers. We're waiting until the inventory actually goes down. And so I think that's why -- and I made reference to this earlier, that's why some of the metrics may look weird, like you just pointed out on capacity per drive diving down. I don't think that's a long-term trend either. I think, of course, that's going to go back up.

謝謝，卡爾。因此，我們並沒有過度建設，特別是高容量驅動器正試圖推廣到一些雲服務提供商。我們正在等待庫存實際下降。所以我認為這就是為什麼 - 我之前提到過這一點，這就是為什麼某些指標可能看起來很奇怪，就像您剛剛指出的每個驅動器容量下降一樣。我認為這也不是長期趨勢。我認為，當然，這會回升。

Yes. The average capacity is down because of mix. So as I said before, in the June quarter, we shipped less to cloud and more to VIA. And of course, the capacity is much higher in the cloud business.

是的。由於混合，平均容量下降。正如我之前所說，在六月季度，我們向雲的出貨量減少，向威盛的出貨量增加。當然，雲業務的容量要高得多。

I'm sorry, Karl, what was the second part of your question?

抱歉，卡爾，你問題的第二部分是什麼？

Yes. Sorry about that. It's about how we should think about mass capacity unit growth from here? And where do you believe we are in the replacement cycle? I asked because it appears your mass capacity unit shipments peaked in the first quarter of 2022. So it's been about 5 consecutive quarters of decline. At the same time, the units are down over 2/3 in that same period. And so if we could just discuss perhaps the corollary between units and exabyte growth. I think it's relevant here would be helpful.

是的。對於那個很抱歉。這是關於我們應該如何思考從這裡開始的大規模容量單位增長？您認為我們處於更換週期的哪個階段？我問這個問題是因為你們的大容量單位出貨量似乎在 2022 年第一季度達到頂峰。所以它已經連續 5 個季度下降。與此同時，同期單位數量下降了 2/3 以上。因此，我們是否可以討論一下單位和艾字節增長之間的推論。我認為這與這里相關會有所幫助。

There are hundreds of -- sorry, hundreds of millions of cloud drives, if you will, in data centers around the world. And some of them are aging to your point. And if unit shipments go down, exabytes can still go up even though unit shipments are going down because the ones that are aging off or lower capacity points, say, 4, 8, 12 terabytes whatever. But over time, it's much more efficient.

世界各地的數據中心裡有數百個——抱歉，如果你願意的話，可以說有數億個雲驅動器。其中一些人已經老到你的地步了。如果單位出貨量下降，即使單位出貨量下降，艾字節仍可能上升，因為單位出貨量正在下降，因為那些老化或容量較低的點，例如 4、8、12 TB 等。但隨著時間的推移，它的效率會提高得多。

Actually, it's more efficient power-wise and for a lot of other features, system-level features to put the newer drives on. So it's about all these things in balance. And I do believe that unit shipments are down largely because of this inventory digestion that we've been talking about. That will turn again. Will it go back to the peak of where it was 5 or 6 quarters ago and how fast will it go back? These are tough questions for our customers right now. It comes down to their prioritization of their spend. But all indications are in the latest numbers. And if I think about these latest numbers that the cloud service providers are announcing versus where they were 6 to 9 months ago, there is a very positive trend. And I think to the questions about gen AI and other feature sets, we're not a peak cloud yet. So I do think it will come back fairly strongly from a units perspective when it does.

實際上，它在功率方面更加高效，對於許多其他功能、系統級功能來說，安裝更新的驅動器也更加高效。所以這是所有這些事情的平衡。我確實相信單位出貨量的下降很大程度上是因為我們一直在談論的庫存消化。那又會轉過來。它會回到五六個季度前的峰值嗎？會以多快的速度回落？目前這些對我們的客戶來說都是棘手的問題。這取決於他們支出的優先順序。但所有跡象均來自最新數據。如果我考慮一下云服務提供商宣布的這些最新數據與 6 到 9 個月前的情況相比，就會發現一個非常積極的趨勢。我認為，對於有關人工智能和其他功能集的問題，我們還不是雲的巔峰。所以我確實認為，從單位角度來看，當它出現時，它會相當強勁地回歸。

The next question comes from Tristan Gerra with Baird.

下一個問題來自 Tristan Gerra 和 Baird。

Couple of questions. The first one is about the production cost curve. And if you could talk about the percentage decline per year that we should expect in the medium term on a per bit basis? And then second question about is the percentage of production that's coming from China and also the true demand that you see from China as a percentage of your revenue?

有幾個問題。第一個是關於生產成本曲線。您能否談談我們在中期預計每比特的每年下降百分比？第二個問題是來自中國的產量百分比以及您認為來自中國的真實需求佔您收入的百分比？

I think the relative -- I can answer the China question first and then Gianluca can take the cost discussion. China is down quite a bit, but relatively as part of our portfolio, it's about the same relative numbers that it was even when the peak of our portfolio. So I wouldn't overly analyze China versus CSPs versus consumer spending and all these other things that have affected our revenue downturn, I think it's a fairly consistent number across the entire portfolio. And we're looking for demand upswings in every one of those sections as well as we go forward, but we're also managing the business really carefully because we don't think it's going to come back in the next 6 months, like we said in our prepared remarks.

我認為相對的——我可以先回答中國問題，然後吉安盧卡可以進行成本討論。中國的跌幅相當大，但相對於我們投資組合的一部分而言，即使是我們投資組合達到頂峰時的相對數字也大致相同。因此，我不會過度分析中國、CSP、消費者支出以及影響我們收入下滑的所有其他因素，我認為整個投資組合中的數字相當一致。我們正在尋找每一個領域的需求上升以及我們的前進，但我們也非常謹慎地管理業務，因為我們認為它不會在未來 6 個月內恢復，就像我們一樣在我們準備好的發言中說道。

The cost per terabyte of course, we don't guide the full year. What I would say is in a down cycle, it depends a lot from the level of utilization that you have in your factories, so can vary a lot from one quarter to another quarter. In general, no, we are continuing to do our product road map. And as Dave said, we have a new PMR product coming out soon, higher capacity, that means lower cost per terabyte. And then we will have HAMR in just a couple of quarters. So all those new products will help us in reducing the cost per terabyte.

當然，我們不會指導全年每 TB 的成本。我想說的是，在下行週期中，這在很大程度上取決於工廠的利用率，因此每個季度之間可能會有很大差異。總的來說，不，我們正在繼續制定我們的產品路線圖。正如 Dave 所說，我們即將推出新的 PMR 產品，容量更高，這意味著每 TB 的成本更低。然後我們將在短短幾個季度內擁有 HAMR。因此，所有這些新產品將幫助我們降低每 TB 的成本。

I like our chances in the cost per terabyte arena going forward. And I think as we continue to work yields and scrap on these new products and so on, have the highest capacity points out there, have the ability to take that areal density to lower capacity points as well, it helps our cost per terabyte immensely.

我喜歡我們未來在每 TB 成本領域的機會。我認為，隨著我們繼續研究這些新產品的產量和報廢等，擁有最高的容量點，也有能力將面密度降低到較低的容量點，這極大地幫助我們降低了每 TB 的成本。

The next question comes from Mehdi Hosseini with Susquehanna.

下一個問題來自 Susquehanna 的 Mehdi Hosseini。

Yes. A couple of follow-ups. Given your lower OpEx (inaudible) around to 160, how should I think about scaling, especially on the revenue side before you would need to increase OpEx materially?

是的。一些後續行動。鑑於您的運營支出較低（聽不清）約為 160，在您需要大幅增加運營支出之前，我應該如何考慮擴展，尤其是在收入方面？

Yes, Mehdi. I think we can hold the line on where we are right now and get a lot of scale. I mean we've been through the product transition far enough on the PMR product and HAMR product that we can -- we're pretty much done with the development phases, all the experimentation and so on and so forth. So I don't think we need to grow OpEx until we build back quite a bit of revenue and so we'll get very efficient scale there. I appreciate the question.

是的，邁赫迪。我認為我們可以保持現狀並擴大規模。我的意思是，我們在 PMR 產品和 HAMR 產品上已經完成了足夠多的產品過渡——我們已經完成了開發階段、所有實驗等等。因此，我認為我們不需要增加運營支出，直到我們恢復相當多的收入，這樣我們才能在那裡獲得非常有效的規模。我很欣賞這個問題。

And then for Gianluca, should I assume that free cash flow would be down in September and then up in December?

那麼對於 Gianluca，我是否應該假設自由現金流會在 9 月份下降，然後在 12 月份上升？

Well, in general, no, we have generated good free cash flow through all our quarters. I said in the prepared remarks, September would be a little bit lower because we have to pay for the restructuring charges that we executed in end of June and during July. But no, we also said we expect every quarter to be positive.

嗯，總的來說，不，我們所有季度都產生了良好的自由現金流。我在準備好的發言中說過，9月份的價格會低一些，因為我們必須支付6月底和7月份執行的重組費用。但不，我們還說過，我們預計每個季度都會出現積極的情況。

(inaudible) negative, just sequentially, down in September and then rebounding in December on a sequential basis.

（聽不清）負面，只是連續的，9 月份下降，然後 12 月份連續反彈。

Better. Yes, better point. On the [OpEx], I want to -- I just clarify, we don't have variable compensation right now in our numbers. So we could have a little bit of increase in the future if the business comes back stronger, just a little bit, not much.

更好的。是的，更好的一點。關於[OpEx]，我想——我只是澄清一下，我們目前的數字中沒有可變薪酬。因此，如果業務恢復強勁，我們未來可能會有一點增長，只是一點點，不會太多。

The next question comes from Mark Miller with the Benchmark Company.

下一個問題來自 Benchmark Company 的馬克·米勒 (Mark Miller)。

I'm just wondering if -- it sounds like the PMR is going further than I originally thought it would be. Is this a change? Or was that always in your plan?

我只是想知道——聽起來 PMR 是否比我最初想像的走得更遠。這是一個改變嗎？或者這一直在你的計劃之中？

It was always in the plan. Yes. I think, Mark, we've kind of been focused on 16, 20, 24 and bringing on the technology that way. We believe we have great heads of media on PMR. It's getting towards the top end of the curve, right? So it's harder and harder to squeeze things out. And we've worked really hard to make sure that the drive that was taking us there would also take us to HAMR. So we're leveraging as much as we possibly can and then only changing the areal density critical components that get us the areal density to get us into the 30s and building much more confidence on that new S curve actually as time goes on. So I'm convinced there's going to be 40 terabyte drives in the world, not too distant future. And we've talked about the capabilities of these things in the lab. We're ready to go 5 terabytes per disk. So teams incrementally more positive every time. So that's good. The teams are making progress.

它一直在計劃中。是的。我認為，馬克，我們一直專注於 16、20、24 並以這種方式引入技術。我們相信我們在 PMR 領域擁有優秀的媒體負責人。它正在接近曲線的頂端，對嗎？所以想要把東西擠出來就越來越難了。我們非常努力地確保將我們帶到那裡的驅動器也能將我們帶到 HAMR。因此，我們盡可能多地利用，然後只改變面密度關鍵組件，使我們的面密度達到 30 年代，並隨著時間的推移，對新的 S 曲線建立更多的信心。所以我確信世界上將會有 40 TB 的驅動器，這在不久的將來。我們已經在實驗室中討論了這些東西的功能。我們已準備好每個磁盤容量為 5 TB。因此，團隊每次都會變得更加積極。所以這樣很好。球隊正在取得進步。

Is there any specific technology advance that's allowing you to push that now up to almost 30 terabytes?

是否有任何特定的技術進步可以讓您現在將容量提高到近 30 TB？

Sorry, you mean beyond HAMR?

抱歉，您的意思是超出 HAMR 範圍嗎？

I mean taking the PMR up to the high 20s in terms of terabytes, anything new in the technology and any breakthroughs or advancements.

我的意思是，將 PMR 的 TB 級、任何新技術以及任何突破或進步提升到 20 多倍。

Well, we're always working new readers designs that are applicable to go to 30 and 40 terabyte drives as well. It's not only about the right technology, if you will. There's -- because PMR is implying the write technology. That's write with the [WRITE], you know that. So it's not a HAMR just versus PMR. There's other technology things that are being worked. Technology vectors are being worked. But mid-20s is CMR, high 20s has been SMR, and there's many different kinds of SMR variants for different customers. So I think you have to be a little bit careful with picking individual capacity points.

嗯，我們一直在開發新的讀卡器設計，這些設計也適用於 30 TB 和 40 TB 驅動器。如果你願意的話，這不僅僅是正確的技術。因為 PMR 意味著寫入技術。那是用[WRITE]寫入，你知道的。所以這不僅僅是 HAMR 與 PMR 的對比。還有其他技術方面的工作正在進行中。技術載體正在研究中。但 20 年代中期是 CMR，20 年代中期是 SMR，並且針對不同客戶有許多不同種類的 SMR 變體。所以我認為你在選擇個人能力點時必須小心一些。

And by the way, HAMR can use SMR as well on top of it. So when we get into the 30s, there might be that same kind of spread of capacity points because of how people are choosing to deploy HAMR in their data centers.

順便說一句，HAMR 也可以在其之上使用 SMR。因此，當我們進入 30 年代時，由於人們選擇在數據中心部署 HAMR 的方式，容量點可能會出現同樣的分佈。

The last question today comes from Vijay Rakesh with Mizuho.

今天的最後一個問題來自 Mizuho 的 Vijay Rakesh。

Just quick 2 questions. Just when you look at HAMR, obviously ramping well, any way of looking at what the exabyte mix would be as you look at calendar '24 or even calendar '25?

只是快速回答 2 個問題。當您查看 HAMR 時，顯然增長得很好，有什麼方法可以像您查看日曆 '24 甚至日曆 '25 一樣查看艾字節組合？

Yes. I do think that as we -- and this is a delicate balance between the capacity we'll still have to make drives, the lead times associated with those big drives and the economic returns that we're going to be getting, so how many do we start now, how many parts do we start now to be able to answer that. But theoretically, with HAMR allowing us to jump quite a bit in exabytes per box, if the demand is strong enough, then the exabyte growth will be strong, very strong.

是的。我確實認為，我們仍然需要製造驅動器的能力、與這些大型驅動器相關的交貨時間以及我們將獲得的經濟回報之間存在微妙的平衡，所以有多少我們現在開始嗎？我們現在開始多少部分才能回答這個問題。但從理論上講，HAMR 允許我們在每盒 EB 數量上大幅躍升，如果需求足夠強勁，那麼 EB 增長將非常強勁。

So a lot of this first order driver is still demand, we're going to answer that call with the components that we have. We're very much leaning into the product transition on HAMR because we have that much confidence. I think the customer's qualification is going well and the customer interest is high because they see such a market TCO proposition as well. And if all that stuff lines up into good box demand, like somebody asked earlier, that means good exabyte growth. That's what we're all hoping for.

因此，許多一階驅動程序仍然有需求，我們將用我們擁有的組件來響應該調用。我們非常傾向於 HAMR 上的產品轉型，因為我們有足夠的信心。我認為客戶的資格認證進展順利並且客戶興趣很高，因為他們也看到了這樣的市場 TCO 主張。如果所有這些東西都符合良好的盒子需求，就像有人之前問的那樣，那就意味著良好的艾字節增長。這就是我們大家所希望的。

Got it. And then on the data center inventory side, any way to kind of gauge how much -- how many weeks of inventory is still there? And how that compares to the prior (inaudible) I guess, in the inventory or...

知道了。然後在數據中心庫存方面，有什麼方法可以衡量還有多少週的庫存？我猜，與之前的（聽不清）相比，在庫存或......

Right. It's not an exact science. I would say we have evidence that it's going down, not only that's what people are telling us, our customers are telling us, but also we're not putting any in. So definitely, the Seagate inventory is going down. We're even managing our owned inventory down as well, I can't speak for the rest of the industry. But all indications are that things are getting healthier and -- but we don't think that it's going to be fixed overnight. We think it's going to take another couple of quarters before the upturn. And that's something that I'm very cognizant of. We didn't project originally going into this downturn that this would be this long, but I don't think it's going to last forever either. I think it will turn north again here. We just basically said not until the end of the calendar year.

正確的。這不是一門精確的科學。我想說的是，我們有證據表明它正在下降，這不僅是人們告訴我們的，我們的客戶告訴我們的，而且我們也沒有投入任何東西。因此，希捷庫存肯定會下降。我們甚至還減少了自有庫存的管理，我不能代表行業的其他公司。但所有跡像都表明情況正在變得更加健康——但我們認為這一問題不會在一夜之間得到解決。我們認為還需要幾個季度才能出現好轉。這是我非常了解的事情。我們最初並沒有預計這次經濟低迷會持續這麼長時間，但我認為它也不會永遠持續下去。我想這裡會再次轉向北。我們基本上只是說要等到年底。

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。我想將會議轉交管理層發表閉幕詞。

Thanks, [Betsy]. As you heard today, Seagate is continuing to take proactive actions to navigate this tough business environment over the near term. However, we remain excited as ever for the long-term opportunities for mass capacity storage, and it's brought about by existing and emerging trends that are underpinned by data like AI, like we talked about today.

謝謝，[貝特西]。正如您今天所聽到的，希捷將繼續採取積極行動，以應對近期嚴峻的商業環境。然而，我們仍然對大容量存儲的長期機會感到興奮，這是由人工智能等數據支撐的現有和新興趨勢帶來的，就像我們今天討論的那樣。

Our leading technology road map positions us really well to address future demand and enhance value for both our customers and for Seagate's financial performance. I'll close by thanking all of our stakeholders for their ongoing support. Thanks for joining us today.

我們領先的技術路線圖使我們能夠很好地滿足未來需求並為我們的客戶和 Seagate 的財務業績提高價值。最後，我要感謝所有利益相關者的持續支持。感謝您今天加入我們。

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. 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。