希捷科技 (STX) 2024 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Welcome to the Seagate Technology Fiscal First Quarter 2024 Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) Please note this event is being recorded.

歡迎參加希捷科技 2024 年第一季財報電話會議。 （操作員說明）請注意此事件正在被記錄。

I would now like to turn the conference over to Shanye Hudson, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

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 morning, 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've posted our earnings press release and detailed supplemental information for our September quarter results on the Investors section of our website.

謝謝。大家早安，歡迎參加今天的電話會議。與我一起的還有 Seagate 執行長 Dave Mosley；以及我們的財務長 Gianluca Romano。我們已在網站的投資者部分發布了收益新聞稿和九月份季度業績的詳細補充資訊。

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. 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, 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準則措施進行協調。

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 are 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資訊的當前觀點和假設，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有重大差異，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. As always, following our prepared remarks, we'll open the call up for questions.

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 -表格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。像往常一樣，在我們準備好的發言之後，我們將開始提問。

I'll now hand the call over to Dave for opening remarks.

現在我將把電話轉交給戴夫致開幕詞。

Thank you, Shanye, and welcome, everyone. Before I discuss our financial results, I want to acknowledge the situation taking place in the Middle East. Our thoughts are with all of the people in the region, including our Seagate team members, their families and loved ones.

謝謝山野，歡迎大家。在討論我們的財務表現之前，我想先了解中東正在發生的情況。我們與該地區的所有人同在，包括我們的 Seagate 團隊成員、他們的家人和親人。

Moving on to our September quarter results. Revenue came in at $1.45 billion with non-GAAP loss per share of $0.22. Consistent with our recent public commentary, we experienced softer-than-anticipated demand in the legacy markets, while the ongoing cloud inventory correction and weak economic trends in China continued to restrain near-term demand for hard drives. Looking ahead, we expect the pace of economic recovery in China to be uneven. However, we are encouraged by the positive progress of U.S. cloud inventory consumption.

接下來是我們九月季度的業績。營收為 14.5 億美元，非 GAAP 每股虧損 0.22 美元。與我們最近的公開評論一致，傳統市場的需求低於預期，而持續的雲端庫存調整和中國疲軟的經濟趨勢繼續抑制近期對硬碟的需求。展望未來，我們預期中國經濟復甦的步伐將不平衡。然而，我們對美國雲端庫存消耗的正面進展感到鼓舞。

Importantly, we continue to demonstrate financial discipline and strong execution on the priorities we outlined at the onset of this down cycle, namely to drive cash generation, strengthen our balance sheet and position the company for enhanced profitability as the markets recover.

重要的是，我們繼續表現出財務紀律和對我們在本次下行週期開始時概述的優先事項的強有力執行力，即推動現金生成，加強我們的資產負債表，並使公司在市場復甦時提高盈利能力。

We also continued to hit all key HAMR product development milestones, demonstrating our ability to drive significant areal density gains with this technology. These gains translate into lower storage costs on a per bit basis, enabling Seagate to offer a compelling TCO proposition for our customers while enhancing our future profitability.

我們也持續達到所有關鍵的 HAMR 產品開發里程碑，展示了我們利用這項技術顯著提高面密度的能力。這些收益轉化為更低的每位元儲存成本，使 Seagate 能夠為我們的客戶提供令人信服的 TCO 主張，同時提高我們未來的獲利能力。

Qualification and revenue ramp plans for our 30-plus terabyte products remain fully on track with high volume ramps starting early in calendar 2024. The launch and ramp of our HAMR products is a competitive differentiator and increasingly important in light of the green shoots that we are starting to see with respect to cloud demand trends.

我們30 多TB 產品的資格和收入成長計劃仍完全按計劃進行，從2024 年初開始實現大批量增長。我們的HAMR 產品的推出和增長是一個競爭優勢，鑑於我們正在萌芽，這一點變得越來越重要。開始看到雲端需求趨勢。

Within the mass capacity markets, we saw a modest uptick in demand for our high-capacity nearline products among U.S. cloud customers. We project incremental revenue growth from U.S. cloud customers again in the December quarter and are encouraged by constructive customer dialogue regarding our transition to a build-to-order model, making us more confident on demand fundamentals entering calendar 2024.

在大容量市場中，我們看到美國雲端客戶對我們的大容量近線產品的需求略有上升。我們預計美國雲端客戶的營收將在12 月季度再次出現增量成長，並受到有關我們向按訂單生產模式過渡的建設性客戶對話的鼓舞，這使我們對進入2024 年的需求基本面更有信心。

Additionally, industry analysis of cloud customer behavior suggests that their cost optimization efforts are nearing a conclusion while enterprises continue migrating new workloads to the cloud. These include both core IT workloads as well as AI-specific workloads.

此外，對雲端客戶行為的行業分析表明，在企業繼續將新工作負載遷移到雲端的同時，他們的成本優化工作已接近尾聲。其中包括核心 IT 工作負載以及特定於 AI 的工作負載。

In addition to cost optimization efforts, spending priorities for CSPs have temporarily shifted towards AI-related infrastructure, which have further slowed the pace of demand recovery for mass capacity storage. While AI-related spending remains a near-term priority, several cloud customers have indicated that investments in traditional servers and other IT hardware will resume in the coming quarters. All of these trends bode well for HDD demand recovery in both the cloud and enterprise OEM markets.

除了成本優化之外，通訊服務供應商的支出重點暫時轉向人工智慧相關基礎設施，這進一步減緩了大容量儲存需求恢復的步伐。雖然與人工智慧相關的支出仍然是近期的優先事項，但一些雲端客戶表示，對傳統伺服器和其他 IT 硬體的投資將在未來幾季恢復。所有這些趨勢都預示著雲端和企業 OEM 市場的 HDD 需求復甦。

These same markets in China are lagging these early positive signals due to the regional economic conditions that I mentioned earlier. However, video and image applications were a notable exception, reflecting demand both within China and globally. Public and private investments in smart city and smart security projects have been key demand drivers for the VIA market. While we believe these underlying demand trends remain intact over the long term, the severe slowdown in China's property sector and broader global macro uncertainties are likely to temper demand over the next couple of quarters.

由於我之前提到的區域經濟狀況，中國的這些市場落後於這些早期的正面訊號。然而，視訊和影像應用是一個明顯的例外，反映了中國和全球的需求。智慧城市和智慧安全專案的公共和私人投資一直是威盛市場的主要需求驅動力。雖然我們認為這些潛在需求趨勢長期保持不變，但中國房地產行業的嚴重放緩和更廣泛的全球宏觀不確定性可能會抑制未來幾季的需求。

Near-term conditions aside, we are optimistic about the VIA market given the increasing use of AI and deep data analytics that enhance the effectiveness of VIA systems. These systems are evolving from basic monitoring tools to more fulsome solutions incorporating advances like high-definition AI cameras that offer more valuable insights and lead to longer data retention rates. These data-intensive solutions are well-suited for hard disk storage in terms of cost, capacity and performance.

撇開近期情況不談，我們對威盛市場持樂觀態度，因為人工智慧和深度資料分析的使用越來越多，增強了威盛系統的有效性。這些系統正在從基本的監控工具發展為更豐富的解決方案，融合了高清人工智慧攝影機等先進技術，可提供更有價值的見解並實現更長的資料保留率。這些資料密集型解決方案在成本、容量和效能方面都非常適合硬碟儲存。

Looking back across our 45-year history, cost-effective, high-capacity storage has been vital to the enterprise's ability to harness the benefits of every generational technology megatrend that we have experienced. From personal computing to the internet, mobile to big data to the ongoing migration to the cloud, we anticipate the same will be true with the rise of AI and generative AI applications, which contributes to our long-term view for a return to healthy exabyte growth.

回顧我們 45 年的歷史，經濟高效的大容量儲存對於企業利用我們所經歷的每一代技術大趨勢的優勢至關重要。從個人運算到互聯網，從移動到大數據，再到持續遷移到雲，我們預計隨著人工智慧和生成式人工智慧應用程式的興起，情況也會如此，這有助於我們恢復健康的艾字節的長期願景生長。

Seagate's mass capacity storage portfolio sets us up strongly with this growth backdrop. Last week, we announced our latest high-capacity nearline product boasting 2.4 terabytes per disk and leveraging our proven 10-disk platform to deliver capacity starting at 24 terabytes.

希捷的大容量儲存產品組合為我們在這一成長背景下奠定了堅實的基礎。上週，我們發布了最新的高容量近線產品，每個磁碟容量為 2.4 TB，並利用我們經過驗證的 10 磁碟平台提供 24 TB 起的容量。

We continue to offer customers the flexibility to deploy these drives as a conventional CMR drive or as a shingled SMR configuration based on their specific capacity and architectural needs. We are engaging with a number of cloud and enterprise customers on qualification and expect volume shipments to begin in the first half of calendar '24.

我們繼續為客戶提供靈活性，根據他們的特定容量和架構需求，將這些驅動器部署為傳統的 CMR 驅動器或疊瓦式 SMR 配置。我們正在與許多雲端和企業客戶進行資格認證，預計大量出貨將於 2024 年上半年開始。

We also expect to begin aggressively ramping 3 terabyte per disk products based on HAMR technology in early calendar 2024. These drives deliver capacity starting at 30 terabytes and offer customers the same flexibility to adopt either CMR or SMR configurations to further boost areal density into the mid-30 terabyte range.

我們也預計在2024 年初開始積極增加基於HAMR 技術的每磁碟3 TB 產品。這些磁碟機提供的容量從30 TB 開始，並為客戶提供相同的靈活性來採用CMR 或SMR 配置，以進一步將面密度提高到中期-30 TB 範圍。

Initial customer qualifications are progressing very well and we continue to hit our reliability and yield metrics. We are getting extremely positive customer feedback and we are broadening the number of customer qualifications as planned.

初始客戶資格認證進展順利，我們將繼續達到可靠性和產量指標。我們得到了非常積極的客戶回饋，並且我們正在按計劃擴大客戶資格的數量。

We've been very thoughtful in building our product road map to stage HAMR technology, leveraging existing product design and process commonality where possible. For example, virtually all of the capital invested for the 20-plus terabyte PMR drives is compatible with HAMR products. The 30-plus terabyte HAMR drives utilize many of the same components and electronics as our 20-plus terabyte products. They represent the fourth generation product using our 10-disk platform and the seventh generation that leverages glass substrates.

我們在建立產品路線圖以實現 HAMR 技術時非常周到，盡可能利用現有的產品設計和流程通用性。例如，幾乎所有投資於超過 20 TB PMR 硬碟的資本都與 HAMR 產品相容。 30 多 TB HAMR 硬碟採用了許多與我們的 20 多 TB 產品相同的組件和電子設備。它們代表了使用我們的 10 磁碟平台的第四代產品和利用玻璃基板的第七代產品。

These actions improve capital efficiency, reduce manufacturing complexity, ensure reliability and hasten time to market. While many aspects of our product design are evolutionary in nature, HAMR revolutionizes areal density advancements. Through years of persistent research and development investment, innumerable design iterations and optimization cycles across all elements of the drive from mechanical and electrical designs to wafer processing and firmware, we have now reached the appropriate balance between areal density gains, cost optimization and reliability to launch HAMR in volume.

這些措施提高了資本效率，降低了製造複雜性，確保了可靠性並加快了上市時間。雖然我們產品設計的許多方面本質上都是進化的，但 HAMR 徹底改變了面密度的進步。透過多年持續的研發投資、從機械和電氣設計到晶圓處理和韌體的驅動器所有要素的無數設計迭代和優化週期，我們現在已經在面密度增益、成本優化和可靠性之間達到了適當的平衡，以推出HAMR 的體積。

Our execution and cycles of learning have enabled us to continue strengthening our portfolio and we expect to launch products yielding 4 terabytes per disk in less than 2 years' time, significantly differentiating Seagate and addressing the full spectrum of mass capacity demand.

我們的執行力和學習週期使我們能夠繼續加強我們的產品組合，我們預計在不到2 年的時間內推出每塊磁碟容量為4 TB 的產品，從而顯著區分Seagate 並滿足全方位的海量容量需求。

Architecturally speaking, in today's data-driven business economy, mass capacity storage is a crucial tier. The HDD areal density advancements that we are delivering affirm and sustain the existing TCO advantages relative to NAND for mass capacity storage.

從架構上來說，在當今數據驅動的商業經濟中，大容量儲存是至關重要的一層。我們所提供的 HDD 面密度進步肯定並維持了相對於大容量儲存 NAND 的現有 TCO 優勢。

Simply put, we offer customers mass data storage at less than 1/5 the cost of comparable NAND solutions on a per bit basis. We don't foresee that value gap closing over the next decade relative to data center architectures.

簡而言之，我們為客戶提供大量資料儲存的每位元成本不到同類 NAND 解決方案的 1/5。我們預期未來十年相對於資料中心架構的價值差距不會縮小。

In addition to optimizing costs, customers are intensely focused on conserving data center power and floor space. Customers can realize benefits across each of these objectives by upgrading their existing installed base of HDDs to higher capacity drives.

除了優化成本之外，客戶還非常關注節省資料中心電力和占地面積。客戶可以透過將現有的 HDD 安裝基礎升級到更高容量的驅動器來實現上述每個目標的優勢。

The 30-plus terabyte HAMR drives currently in qualification are more than 2 times the capacity compared to the average installed base across large data centers. This HAMR-based upgrade would more than double their existing storage capacity in the same footprint or offer a 50% reduction in operating costs for the same storage capacity using about half the power and floor space.

目前正在認證的 30 多 TB HAMR 硬碟的容量是大型資料中心平均安裝基數的 2 倍以上。這種基於 HAMR 的升級將在相同的佔地面積內將其現有儲存容量增加一倍以上，或使用大約一半的電力和占地面積將相同儲存容量的營運成本降低 50%。

These are compelling savings for customers and offer valuable optionality to best monetize their storage assets or reallocate floor space and power budgets for other uses or even defer new data center build-outs to maximize their capital dollars.

這些對於客戶來說是極具吸引力的節省，並提供了寶貴的選擇，以最好地利用其存儲資產貨幣化或重新分配佔地面積和電力預算以用於其他用途，甚至推遲新的數據中心擴建以最大化其資本。

As we deliver these benefits to our customers, we are also focused on capturing the value of our product portfolio. As noted on our last call, we are continuing efforts to adjust price commensurate with that value, which ensures both a healthy industry supply chain and offers customers the opportunity for improved TCO over the long term. We have already seen some benefit from this strategy, which we anticipate will take a few quarters to implement more broadly across the end markets we serve.

在我們為客戶提供這些好處的同時，我們也專注於獲取產品組合的價值。正如我們在上次電話會議中所指出的，我們正在繼續努力調整與該價值相稱的價格，這不僅確保了健康的行業供應鏈，也為客戶提供了長期改善整體擁有成本的機會。我們已經看到了這項策略的一些好處，我們預計需要幾個季度的時間才能在我們服務的終端市場上更廣泛地實施。

I'll now hand the call over to Gianluca for further details on the September quarter results and share our outlook.

我現在將把電話轉給 Gianluca，了解有關 9 月份季度業績的更多詳細信息，並分享我們的前景。

Thank you, Dave. Seagate's September quarter financial results were consistent with our revised expectations. We generated revenue of $1.45 billion and a non-GAAP loss of $0.22 per share.

謝謝你，戴夫。希捷九月季度的財務表現與我們修改後的預期一致。我們的營收為 14.5 億美元，非 GAAP 每股虧損為 0.22 美元。

Despite the sequential decline in revenue, we expanded total company non-GAAP gross margin by about 30 basis points and HDD non-GAAP gross margin by more than 130 basis points, reflecting our focus on enhancing profitability.

儘管營收季減，但我們將公司總非 GAAP 毛利率提高了約 30 個基點，HDD 非 GAAP 毛利率提高了 130 個基點以上，反映出我們對提高獲利能力的關注。

Within our hard disk drive business, revenue declined 6% sequentially to $1.3 billion, reflecting a modest improvement in mask capacity sales, offset by steeper decline in the legacy markets than we had originally expected. The mix shift towards higher capacity drives resulted in total HDD shipments of 90 exabytes, essentially flat with the prior quarter.

在我們的硬碟業務中，營收環比下降 6% 至 13 億美元，反映出掩模產能銷售略有改善，但被傳統市場比我們最初預期更大幅度的下滑所抵消。向更高容量驅動器的組合轉變導致 HDD 總出貨量達到 90 艾字節，與上一季基本持平。

Average capacity per drive increased 17% sequentially to roughly 7.5 terabytes per drive. Mass capacity revenue increased 3% sequentially to just over $1 billion, driven mainly by the anticipated improvement in the VIA market. Mass capacity shipments totaled 79 exabytes compared with 75 exabytes in the June quarter.

每個驅動器的平均容量環比增加了 17%，達到每個驅動器約 7.5 TB。海量產能收入環比成長 3%，達到略高於 10 億美元，這主要是受到威盛市場預期改善的推動。海量容量出貨量總計 79 艾字節，而 6 月季為 75 艾字節。

The mass capacity shipments as a percentage of total HDD exabytes were roughly 88%, up from 82% in the June quarter. For nearline products, shipment of 56 hexabytes were slightly up quarter-over-quarter. Average capacity per nearline drive increased 12% sequentially as demand trends among U.S. cloud customers began to modestly improve.

海量容量出貨量佔 HDD EB 總量的百分比約為 88%，高於 6 月季度的 82%。對於近線產品，56 六位元組的出貨量較上季略有成長。隨著美國雲端客戶的需求趨勢開始適度改善，每個近線驅動器的平均容量較上季增加了 12%。

We believe that the industry continues to ship below end consumption and is making progress in reducing existing inventory at our cloud customers. As we mentioned last quarter, we anticipate that it will take at least through the end of the calendar year for inventory levels among CSP customers to rebalance and for demand to improve more broadly.

我們相信，該行業的出貨量繼續低於最終消耗，並且在減少雲端客戶的現有庫存方面正在取得進展。正如我們上季度提到的，我們預計至少要到今年年底，CSP 客戶的庫存水準才能重新平衡，需求才能更廣泛地改善。

Specific to the VIA market, revenue was up sequentially as expected in the September quarter. However, as David noted earlier, the uncertain economic environment in China seems unlikely to change in the near term. As a result, we anticipate the VIA market will reflect an uneven pattern of recovery going forward. Legacy product revenue was $278 million, down 31% sequentially with lower demand in each of the 3 markets served, mission-critical, clients and consumer.

具體到威盛市場，九月季度的營收季增，符合預期。然而，正如大衛之前指出的那樣，中國不確定的經濟環境在短期內似乎不太可能改變。因此，我們預期威盛市場未來將呈現不平衡的復甦模式。傳統產品收入為 2.78 億美元，環比下降 31%，原因是所服務的 3 個市場、關鍵任務市場、客戶和消費者的需求均有所下降。

Finally, revenue for our non-HDD business decreased slightly more than anticipated to $159 million compared with $218 million last quarter. Reserved IT spending patterns in light of economic uncertainties remain a headwind to our enterprise system business and we expect similar revenue levels in the December quarter.

最後，我們的非 HDD 業務收入下降幅度略高於預期，為 1.59 億美元，而上季為 2.18 億美元。鑑於經濟不確定性，保留的 IT 支出模式仍然是我們企業系統業務的阻力，我們預計 12 月季度的收入水準將類似。

Moving to our operational performance. Consistent with lower revenue levels in the September quarter, non-GAAP gross profit decreased by $25 million to $288 million. Non-GAAP gross margin of 19.8% expanded slightly compared to the prior quarter.

轉向我們的營運績效。與 9 月季度營收水準下降一致，非 GAAP 毛利減少 2,500 萬美元，至 2.88 億美元。非 GAAP 毛利率為 19.8%，較上一季略有成長。

Pricing adjustment enacted during the quarter and cost savings from earlier restructuring activities more than mitigated the 9% decrease in revenue and increase in underutilization cost, which were approximately $59 million. We expect to see further margin benefit in future quarters as we continue to execute price adjustment across the entire portfolio and achieve full realization of projected cost savings.

本季實施的定價調整和早期重組活動節省的成本大大緩解了收入下降 9% 和未充分利用成本增加（約 5,900 萬美元）的影響。隨著我們繼續對整個投資組合進行價格調整並完全實現預計的成本節約，我們預計未來幾季將看到進一步的利潤率收益。

I note that beginning with the September quarter, our results reflected change in the estimated useful life of certain capital equipment used in manufacturing. Our ability to increase the efficiency of our existing fixed asset base has enabled us to extend the useful lives from a range of 3 to 7 years to a range of 3 to 10 years. This change reduced depreciation expense in the September quarter by approximately $9 million within cost of goods sold and is expected to increase by about $20 million in the December quarter.

我注意到，從九月季度開始，我們的業績反映了製造業中使用的某些資本設備的預計使用壽命的變化。我們提高現有固定資產基礎效率的能力使我們能夠將使用壽命從 3 至 7 年延長至 3 至 10 年。這項變更使 9 月季度的銷售成本中的折舊費用減少了約 900 萬美元，預計 12 月季度將增加約 2,000 萬美元。

Reduced non-GAAP operating expenses to $248 million, down from $258 million in the June quarter. While we continue to actively manage all areas of spending, we do expect non-GAAP OpEx in the December quarter to be up slightly as certain minor spending reduction measures begin to conclude.

將非 GAAP 營運費用從 6 月季度的 2.58 億美元減少至 2.48 億美元。雖然我們繼續積極管理所有領域的支出，但隨著某些小型支出削減措施開始結束，我們預計 12 月季度的非公認會計原則營運支出將小幅增長。

Moving to cash flow and the balance sheet. We have continued to take actions to improve our debt profile and manage working capital to support positive free cash flow generation. September quarter, we reduced inventory by 8% sequentially to just under $1.1 billion.

轉向現金流量和資產負債表。我們繼續採取行動改善債務狀況並管理營運資金，以支持積極的自由現金流產生。 9 月季度，我們的庫存季減了 8%，達到略低於 11 億美元。

Capital expenditures were $70 million compared with $50 million in the prior quarter. For the fiscal year, we are still planning a significant reduction in CapEx spend compared with fiscal '23 and expect spending will be more heavily weighted to the first half of the fiscal year.

資本支出為 7,000 萬美元，而上一季為 5,000 萬美元。對於本財年，我們仍計劃與 23 財年相比大幅削減資本支出，並預期本財年上半年的支出將更加重要。

Free cash flow generation was $57 million after giving effect to approximately $90 million of restructuring-related payments that we had highlighted on our last earning calls. We used $145 million for the quarterly dividend and exited the quarter with 208 million shares outstanding. We closed the September quarter with $2.3 billion in available liquidity, including our undrawn revolving credit facility.

在我們在上次財報電話會議上強調的約 9,000 萬美元的重組相關付款生效後，自由現金流量為 5,700 萬美元。我們使用了 1.45 億美元作為季度股息，並以 2.08 億股流通股結束本季。截至 9 月季度，我們擁有 23 億美元的可用流動資金，其中包括未提取的循環信貸額度。

During the quarter, we raised $1.5 billion in new capital through the issuance of convertible notes during a low interest rate of 3.5%. A portion of the proceeds were used to fund a CapEx call transaction that increased the effective convert price to nearly $108 per share, reducing potential future share dilution.

本季度，我們透過在 3.5% 的低利率下發行可轉換票據籌集了 15 億美元的新資本。部分收益用於資助資本支出認購交易，該交易將有效轉換價格提高至每股近 108 美元，並減少了未來潛在的股票稀釋。

The majority of the remaining proceeds were used to retire the outstanding balance on our term loans, which totaled approximately $1.3 billion. As a result of this debt restructuring actions, we expect to realize cash interest savings of about $15 million on an annual basis.

剩餘收益的大部分用於償還我們的定期貸款的未償餘額，總計約 13 億美元。透過此次債務重組行動，我們預計每年可節省約 1,500 萬美元的現金利息。

Additionally, we renegotiated the terms of our sales agreement and with support from our lender group, we significantly relaxed the debt covenants through fiscal 2025. Accounting for all actions that I just described, our debt balance was $5.7 billion at the end of the September quarter, up $215 million quarter-over-quarter. Non-GAAP interest expense was sequentially flat at $84 million and we expect similar expense levels in the December quarter.

此外，我們重新談判了銷售協議的條款，並在貸方集團的支持下，我們在2025 財年之前大幅放鬆了債務契約。考慮到我剛才描述的所有行動，截至9 月份季度末，我們的債務餘額為57 億美元，季增 2.15 億美元。非 GAAP 利息支出與上一季持平，為 8,400 萬美元，我們預計 12 月季度的支出水準將類似。

Turning to our outlook. We expect mass capacity sales to move slightly higher in the December quarter, supported by incremental demand for our nearline products from both cloud and enterprise customers, offsetting softer sequential VIA demand.

轉向我們的展望。我們預計，在雲端和企業客戶對我們近線產品的需求增量的支持下，12 月季度的大規模產能銷售將小幅上升，抵消了 VIA 連續疲軟的需求。

Within the legacy business, we are projecting higher seasonal demand, mainly from the consumer market, while non-HDD revenue is expected to be essentially flat. With that as context, we expect December quarter revenue to be in a range of $1.55 billion, plus or minus $150 million.

在傳統業務中，我們預期季節性需求將增加，主要來自消費市場，而非硬碟收入預計將基本持平。以此為背景，我們預計 12 月季度營收將在 15.5 億美元上下浮動 1.5 億美元之間。

At the midpoint of our revenue guidance, we expect non-GAAP operating margin to be in the mid-single-digit percentage range with underutilization costs expected to be relatively flat with the September quarter. We expect to narrow our non-GAAP loss per share to $0.10 plus or minus $0.20, based on a share count of approximately 210 million shares and a non-GAAP tax expense in the $15 million range.

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個位數百分比範圍內，而未充分利用成本預計將與 9 月季度相對持平。基於約 2.1 億股的股數和 1,500 萬美元的非 GAAP 稅收支出，我們預計將非 GAAP 每股虧損縮小至 0.10 美元上下 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戴夫以徵求最終意見。

Thanks, Gianluca. We are operating in a longer than typical cycle and I'm very proud of our team's shared determination and resilience. We've continued to drive our financial, operational and innovation priorities, which is evident by the actions we've discussed today.

謝謝，吉安盧卡。我們的營運週期比典型週期更長，我為我們團隊的共同決心和韌性感到非常自豪。我們繼續推動我們的財務、營運和創新優先事項，這一點從我們今天討論的行動中就可以看出。

We are focusing our tactical business decisions on free cash flow generation. We are strengthening our balance sheet through debt restructuring actions and we are executing on our mass capacity product road map to address future data growth.

我們將戰術業務決策的重點放在自由現金流的產生。我們正在透過債務重組行動來加強我們的資產負債表，並且我們正在執行我們的大規模容量產品路線圖，以應對未來的數據成長。

Signs of recovery have started to emerge as we look past the end of calendar 2023. And as industry conditions improve, Seagate is ready to capitalize. We are a stronger, more efficient company with a technology road map that extends our areal density leadership positioning Seagate to deliver enhanced value to our customers and shareholders. Thanks to all of our stakeholders for your ongoing support of Seagate.

展望 2023 年底，復甦的跡像已經開始出現。隨著產業狀況的改善，希捷已做好充分利用的準備。我們是一家更強大、更有效率的公司，我們的技術路線圖擴展了希捷面密度領先地位，為我們的客戶和股東提供更高的價值。感謝我們所有利害關係人對 Seagate 的持續支持。

Operator, let's open up the call for questions.

接線員，讓我們開始提問吧。

(Operator Instructions) The first question comes from Erik Woodring of Morgan Stanley.

（操作員說明）第一個問題來自摩根士丹利的埃里克·伍德林（Erik Woodring）。

So Dave, I kind of want to take a step back. And if we go back to your prior Analyst Day, the expectation was that mass capacity exabytes shipped could grow at a 35% annual rate. Now the world is clearly different today both from a macro outlook and the emergence of AI as kind of a board level investment priority.

所以戴夫，我有點想退後一步。如果我們回到先前的分析師日，我們預計海量容量 EB 的出貨量可能會以每年 35% 的速度成長。無論是從宏觀前景還是從人工智慧作為董事會層面投資優先事項的出現來看，當今世界都明顯不同。

So curious, as we look forward, how are you thinking about kind of the long-term 3- to 5-year rate at which mass capacity exabytes could grow? And maybe help us think about the linearity of that. Could that strengthen over time? Is that relatively linear? Just any thoughts that you have kind of longer term on what mass capacity exabyte growth could be?

很好奇，當我們展望未來時，您如何看待海量容量 EB 的 3 至 5 年長期成長速度？也許可以幫助我們思考其線性關係。隨著時間的推移，這種情況會加強嗎？這是相對線性的嗎？您對海量容量艾字節的成長有什麼長遠的想法嗎？

Thanks for the question, Erik. Yes, we were coming off the back of a number that was almost 80% in 1 year. So to your point, back in the last Analyst Day, the mid-30s was feeling pretty good for us, given all the data growth that we know is happening. And then we've gone through these current events, I'll say that we're all seeing.

謝謝你的提問，艾瑞克。是的，我們在 1 年內實現了近 80% 的數字。因此，就您的觀點而言，早在上個分析師日，考慮到我們所知的所有數據正在發生的增長，30 多歲對我們來說感覺相當不錯。然後我們經歷了這些當前事件，我想說我們都看到了。

Look, to your point about linearity, I don't think it's a very linear function. I think it can be very choppy. Up 1 year, down the next, it can be. As we look out 3 to 5 years now, I would temper that somewhat and say, in the mid-20s is probably a good modeling range. But we will see probably more growth from time to time.

聽著，就你關於線性的觀點而言，我認為它不是一個非常線性的函數。我認為它可能會非常不穩定。一年漲，隔年跌，還可以。當我們現在展望 3 到 5 年時，我會稍微緩和一下，並說，20 多歲可能是一個不錯的建模範圍。但我們可能會不時看到更多的成長。

I do think that given the move that happened in the middle of the pandemic data into data centers for enterprise applications that were being run in data centers, I think that data is still going to grow in those data centers. So we're not at peak data center growth.

我確實認為，鑑於在大流行期間發生的資料轉移到資料中心運行的企業應用程式的資料中心，我認為這些資料中心的資料仍將成長。所以我們還沒有達到資料中心成長的峰值。

And then you lather on top of all these new applications that will be really sped up with features like AI, generative AI on top of them, I think that there's a big healthy demand growth coming. 25% would be healthy for any kind of CAGR that's going to go out for 3 to 5 years or a decade or something like that. So we think there's healthy demand growth. But I do think it won't be linear. There will be periods of big growth and then there will be periods of digestion as well. We'll continue to see this as the economy flutters.

然後你會在所有這些新應用程式上起泡，這些應用程式將透過人工智慧、生成式人工智慧等功能真正加速，我認為將會出現巨大的健康需求成長。對於任何類型的複合年增長率來說，25% 都是健康的，而且複合年增長率將持續 3 到 5 年或 10 年或類似的時間。因此，我們認為需求存在健康成長。但我確實認為這不會是線性的。會有大幅成長的時期，然後也會有消化的時期。隨著經濟的波動，我們將繼續看到這種情況。

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

下一個問題來自美國銀行的瓦姆西·莫漢。

Dave, can you talk about HAMR qualifications? How many customers are you expecting qualifications in the near term? And maybe share color on what you expect in aggregate given what you know about the ramp in terms of unit shipments, maybe 1, 2 years out? And if you could maybe just comment on how this higher areal density shift might change the dollars per terabyte relative to current product? That would be super helpful.

Dave，您能談談 HAMR 資格嗎？您預計近期有多少客戶獲得資格？鑑於您對單位出貨量成長的了解（也許是 1、2 年後），也許可以分享您對整體預期的顏色嗎？您是否可以評論一下這種更高的面密度變化可能會如何改變相對於當前產品的每 TB 美元的價格？那會非常有幫助的。

Yes. Interesting. I can take a crack at that. So relative to qualification, we are prioritizing customers, not necessarily the easiest customers first. Sometimes they can be more difficult, challenging customers, but we're staying very tight with customers, and we're trying to make sure that every of the initial drives that we build has a home. Make sure that we -- as we bring on more qualifications like we talked about in our prepared remarks that we will make sure that we have the supply that's adequate for those because I do think there will be a strong demand.

是的。有趣的。我可以嘗試一下。因此，相對於資格，我們優先考慮客戶，不一定是最容易的客戶。有時他們可能是更困難、更具挑戰性的客戶，但我們與客戶保持非常緊密的關係，我們正在努力確保我們建造的每個初始驅動器都有一個家。確保我們——當我們提供更多資格時，就像我們在準備好的發言中談到的那樣，我們將確保我們擁有足夠的供應，因為我確實認為會有強勁的需求。

What we're showing customers right now, exactly to your point on the value proposition is a projection for what their TCO benefits will be. Part of that is acquisition cost of the drive itself, part of it is the power and floor space improvements that they'll get as we model TCO with some of them. So I do think that there's going to be a big push for the higher capacities, just like there always has been in our industry. And I think this is going to be one of the biggest jumps in areal density that we've done in the last 5 years.

我們現在向客戶展示的內容（與您對價值主張的觀點完全一致）是對其 TCO 收益的預測。其中一部分是驅動器本身的購置成本，一部分是當我們對其中一些驅動器的 TCO 進行建模時，它們將獲得功率和占地面積的改進。因此，我確實認為，將會大力推動更高容量的發展，就像我們產業一直以來的情況一樣。我認為這將是過去 5 年來我們在面積密度方面最大的進步之一。

So the healthy growth is right ahead of us. We are filling the lines with -- the wafer lines with HAMR parts and we expect to see volume shipments in the millions of drives next year, or next calendar year. It'll all time out based on when the qualifications are, but the parts are coming.

因此，健康成長就在眼前。我們正在用 HAMR 零件填充晶圓生產線，我們預計明年或下一個日曆年將實現數百萬個驅動器的批量出貨。根據資格的時間，一切都會超時，但零件即將到來。

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。

It's great to see some green shoots in the U.S. cloud market. Dave, last quarter, you talked about expecting cloud inventory to normalize in a couple of quarters. Can you give us an update about the timing there? But more importantly, are you getting indications that the rate of recovery is going to -- what kind of rate of recovery is going to look like beyond the December quarter, especially given your efforts to increase visibility through earlier collaboration or longer-term collaboration with your customers?

很高興看到美國雲端市場出現一些萌芽。戴夫，上個季度，您談到預計雲端庫存將在幾個季度內恢復正常。您能給我們提供有關時間安排的最新資訊嗎？但更重要的是，您是否有跡象表明，12 月份季度之後的復甦速度將會是什麼樣子，特別是考慮到您透過早期合作或長期合作來提高可見性的努力你的客戶？

Very good. Thanks. Yes, I think as we are giving predictability on what products that we have in our pipeline, the customers are likewise giving more predictability on what they will need out there in time. So I would say, if you look at 2 years ago, the demand was quite strong and then we entered into this period about 6 quarters ago now where some customers were saying we really don't need very much and we're going to make allocations of what we've already got in our data centers last for another year or something like that.

非常好。謝謝。是的，我認為，當我們對管道中的產品提供可預測性時，客戶同樣也可以對他們及時需要的產品提供更多的可預測性。所以我想說，如果你看看 2 年前，需求非常強勁，然後我們在大約 6 個季度前進入了這個時期，現在一些客戶說我們真的不需要太多，我們將製造我們數據中心已經擁有的資源的分配可以持續一年或類似的時間。

The entire industry has been suffering through that. It's very hard to run factories like that. And so that's why we've gone out and said, okay, let's get predictable.

整個產業都遭受了這種痛苦。經營這樣的工廠非常困難。這就是為什麼我們出去說，好吧，讓我們變得可預測。

What we're showing -- the numbers we're showing for customers right now in these long-term forecast for build-to-order are nothing compared to the volumes of where we were at 2 years ago. They're much smaller. But I think the customers are showing us predictability and then asking us for upside on top of that. So it gets into a really interesting discussion about what's the true demand.

我們所展示的——我們現在在按訂單生產的長期預測中向客戶展示的數字與兩年前的數量相比根本不算什麼。它們要小得多。但我認為客戶向我們展示了可預測性，然後要求我們提供額外的好處。因此，這就進入了一場關於真正需求的非常有趣的討論。

And exactly to your point, I think it will help us get through the back of this period. But then I think ultimately, we're not satisfying true demand when the -- because the growth of data is still large. 25% CAGR is still very, very large. And so we're trying to make sure that we start the parts that ultimately we'll get paid for and showing people exactly what we have in process for them. And they're trying desperately to show us a more predictable schedule that we can all manage better for better economics on both sides of ourselves and our customers.

正是針對您的觀點，我認為這將幫助我們度過這段時期的後期。但我認為最終，我們並沒有滿足真正的需求，因為數據的成長仍然很大。 25%的複合年增長率仍然非常非常大。因此，我們正在努力確保我們開始的部分最終會得到報酬，並向人們展示我們正在為他們準備的東西。他們拼命地試圖向我們展示一個更可預測的時間表，我們可以更好地管理它，從而為我們自己和客戶雙方帶來更好的財務效益。

The next question comes from Karl Ackerman of BNP Paribas.

下一個問題來自法國巴黎銀行的卡爾‧阿克曼。

On HAMR, could you discuss the reliability metrics and perhaps power efficiency metrics relative to your existing SMR drives? I asked because at OCP last week, it's clear that hyperscalers continue to prioritize those metrics as they introduce newer technology. And I guess as you address that question, could you also discuss maybe the number of customer engagements you have with HAMR perhaps beyond the existing customer?

關於 HAMR，您能否討論一下與現有 SMR 驅動器相關的可靠性指標，或許還有能源效率指標？我問這個問題是因為上週在 OCP 上，很明顯，超大規模企業在引入更新的技術時繼續優先考慮這些指標。我想當您回答這個問題時，您能否也討論一下您與 HAMR 的客戶互動數量可能超出了現有客戶？

Yes. As we said before, Karl, we're bringing on multiple customers right now. So we've already shipped qualification units out to multiple customers. I won't talk about them in particular. The HAMR reliability metrics will be identical to the reliability metrics of traditional drives. So there's really no change there. And there's no change in the power either. I mean people have pointed to the laser subsystem and things like that. Yes, there's very small changes according to that, but we're also working power down in normal course on these products.

是的。正如我們之前所說，卡爾，我們現在正在吸引多個客戶。因此，我們已經將資格認證單元發送給多個客戶。我不會特別談論他們。 HAMR 可靠性指標將與傳統驅動器的可靠性指標相同。所以那裡真的沒有任何變化。而且力量也沒有任何改變。我的意思是人們已經指出了雷射子系統和類似的東西。是的，據此有非常小的變化，但我們也在正常過程中對這些產品進行斷電。

I think one thing important to realize about the family is that the mechanical and electrical design points of the 2.4 terabyte per platter drive that we just announced are very similar to the 3 terabyte per drive nodes or even beyond that, we should get into the mid-3 terabytes per disk drives with those same parts. So same electronics, same mechanics. So there's really no change in power. There's no change in reliability expectations either.

我認為關於該系列需要認識到的一件重要的事情是，我們剛剛宣布的每盤 2.4 TB 驅動器的機械和電氣設計點與每個驅動器節點 3 TB 非常相似，甚至超出這一點，我們應該進入中期具有相同部件的每個磁碟機-3 TB。所以相同的電子設備，相同的機械裝置。所以說實力確實沒有什麼改變。可靠性預期也沒有改變。

If I may sneak another one. Just on your systems business that has moderated roughly 40% the last 2 quarters. Just curious, I suppose why and kind of the outlook for that. And within that, how much of that is maybe softness in flash prices versus perhaps the CORVAULT hard drive offering?

如果我可以偷偷再偷一張。僅就您的系統業務而言，過去 2 個季度的增幅約為 40%。只是好奇，我想為什麼會這樣，以及對此的前景。其中，有多少可能是快閃記憶體價格相對於 CORVAULT 硬碟產品的疲軟造成的？

Yes. I don't really think flash has much to do with it. It's more, what I'll call, on-prem traditional enterprise applications. And thankfully, that space has not been as bad as we thought it was at the back of the year. It's not nearly as cyclical as what the cloud has been in this recent cycle, but it was down year-over-year. And I think it will recover over time as well because I think on-prem enterprise should benefit from all the growth of data.

是的。我真的不認為閃存與此有太大關係。我稱之為本地傳統企業應用程式。值得慶幸的是，這個空間並沒有我們想像的那麼糟。它的周期性不像雲在最近的周期中那樣，但它逐年下降。我認為它也會隨著時間的推移而恢復，因為我認為本地企業應該從資料的所有成長中受益。

In many cases, you can't move the data off-site or into the cloud. It's either too massive or you've got regulatory requirements or sovereignty requirements and you want to keep multiple copies anyway. So I do think on-prem enterprise should have a good recovery at some point and we're happy with the systems business and our penetration into multiple accounts on that front to recover when the on-prem enterprise business does recover.

在許多情況下，您無法將資料移出現場或移至雲端。它要么太大，要么您有監管要求或主權要求，並且您無論如何都想保留多個副本。因此，我確實認為本地企業應該在某個時候得到良好的恢復，我們對系統業務以及我們在這方面滲透到多個帳戶感到滿意，以便在本地企業業務確實恢復時恢復。

The next question comes from Aaron Rakers of Wells Fargo.

下一個問題來自富國銀行的 Aaron Rakers。

I wanted to maybe just unpack the gross margin a little bit, appreciating that you guys don't give a defined kind of guide on a forward basis. Could you help us to understand kind of the impact of underutilization you expect going into the December quarter relative to the $59 million reported this last quarter? And how do we think about as maybe that starts to lift out of the model, kind of the glide path to back to that 30% level as HAMR starts ramping, et cetera? I'm just curious how we think about or how you guys are thinking about the gross margin trajectory kind of the variables within that looking out over the next couple of quarters?

我想也許只是稍微解開毛利率，感謝你們沒有在遠期基礎上提供明確的指導。您能否幫助我們了解您預計 12 月季度的未充分利用相對於上季報告的 5,900 萬美元的影響？我們如何看待這可能會開始脫離模型，當 HAMR 開始加速時，會出現滑行路徑回到 30% 的水平，等等？我只是好奇我們如何看待或你們如何看待未來幾季的毛利率軌跡等變數？

Thank you for the question. Yes, our guidance for December quarter is, of course, implying an improvement in gross margin. It is not coming from underutilization. We think underutilization will be fairly flat with the September quarter. But it's coming from, of course, the pricing actions that we are taking and we have already started in the prior quarter and a better cost structure. Now part of the improvement is for sure coming from the full impact of the restructuring plan that we started in the prior quarter. So now we start seeing the full impact in our cost structure. So those are the major drivers for the improvement in gross margin.

感謝你的提問。是的，我們對 12 月季度的指導當然意味著毛利率的改善。它並非來自未充分利用。我們認為利用率不足的情況將與九月季度持平。當然，這來自我們正在採取的定價行動，我們已經在上一季開始採取行動，以及更好的成本結構。現在，部分改善肯定來自我們上一季開始的重組計劃的全面影響。現在我們開始看到對我們成本結構的全面影響。因此，這些是毛利率改善的主要驅動力。

Then we will continue to improve our structure and we think our revenue will continue also to increase sequentially. Now to go back to the, let's say, the 30% gross margin, we think we need to have a revenue that is lower than the prior peak. We think at least 20% lower. So we can achieve that level of profitability with a much lower revenue.

然後我們將繼續改善我們的結構，我們認為我們的收入也將繼續連續成長。現在回到 30% 的毛利率，我們認為我們的收入需要低於之前的高峰。我們認為至少要低 20%。因此，我們可以以低得多的收入來實現這種獲利水準。

The next question comes from Timothy Arcuri of UBS.

下一個問題來自瑞銀集團的提摩西·阿庫裡。

I also wanted to ask on gross margin. Gianluca, as HAMR ramps, I think there's some controversy in terms of whether it's initially negative for gross margin or like what the crossover point will be for when it becomes positive to gross margin? I think it depends on your yields obviously. But can you just talk about sort of how that plays into the answer to your question, the trajectory of margins off the bottom here?

我還想問毛利率。 Gianluca，隨著 HAMR 的成長，我認為存在一些爭議，即它最初對毛利率是否為負，或者當它對毛利率為正時，交叉點是什麼？我認為這顯然取決於你的產量。但您能否談談這如何影響您的問題的答案，即利潤率離開底部的軌跡？

Yes. As Dave said before, no, HAMR will strongly increase our capacity per drive and that will, for sure, improve our gross margin. It will be accretive to our gross margin since the beginning. But of course, when we go to 3, 4, 5 terabytes per drive, you will see even a bigger improvement. Now we think we will start our HAMR revenue fairly strongly in the first 6 months of the calendar '24. We think we have about 1 million unit as opportunity to be sold. That will help, of course, as every time you go into a new technology and new product, we could have a little bit lower yield and that could limit in the first quarter or 2 the improvement to the gross margin, but we see gross margin improving sequentially.

是的。正如 Dave 之前所說，不，HAMR 將大幅提高我們每個驅動器的容量，這肯定會提高我們的毛利率。從一開始，這就會增加我們的毛利率。當然，當我們每個驅動器達到 3、4、5 TB 時，您會看到更大的改進。現在，我們認為我們將在 24 年的前 6 個月開始相當強勁的 HAMR 收入。我們認為我們有大約 100 萬台的銷售機會。當然，這將有所幫助，因為每次進入新技術和新產品時，我們的產量可能會稍低一些，這可能會限制第一季或第二季毛利率的改善，但我們看到毛利率依序改善。

And Tim, just I would add, remember that it's not just about the highest capacity point, although that does drive a lot of heads and media in our factories. It's also about mid-range, if you will, capacity points like 20 terabytes or 24 terabytes again. The areal density enables us to go address those capacity points with improved cost structure.

我想補充一點，蒂姆，請記住，這不僅僅是最高產能點，儘管這確實驅動了我們工廠中的許多頭和媒體。如果你願意的話，它也是中等範圍的容量點，例如 20 TB 或 24 TB。面密度使我們能夠透過改善成本結構來解決這些容量問題。

So I also jumped on just a smidge late. So maybe you talked about this, but can you talk about how the change to build-to-order is impacting bookings? So I know that revenue is being guided pretty flat, but it seems like bookings are improving and I wonder how much of that is due to the shift to build-to-order and how much of that is due to just the customers having worked through inventory? And what do the bookings tell you about the trajectory of where revenue is going to go into the first half of next year?

所以我也晚了一點。也許您談到了這一點，但您能談談按訂單生產的變化如何影響預訂嗎？因此，我知道收入的引導相當平穩，但預訂量似乎正在改善，我想知道其中有多少是由於轉向按訂單生產而有多少是由於客戶已經完成了工作存貨？預訂量可以告訴您哪些有關明年上半年收入軌跡的資訊？

Yes. It's actually an interesting question. So we do have some customers that are embracing the predictability. And there are reasons for that. Maybe some of it is because they have burned through their inventory completely and so they know that they're going to be buying. I think there are customers who are not leaning into multiple years just yet for various reasons. They make procurement decisions all the time and so do we, right? Everybody has to make these tough decisions.

是的。這實際上是一個有趣的問題。因此，我們確實有一些客戶接受可預測性。這是有原因的。也許部分原因是他們已經完全耗盡了庫存，所以他們知道他們會購買。我認為有些客戶由於各種原因還沒有傾向於多年。他們一直在做採購決策，我們也是如此，對嗎？每個人都必須做出這些艱難的決定。

But generally speaking, I think it's giving us better visibility, at least at the lower rate that the industry now runs because remember, the industry just doesn't have the money to speculatively start a bunch of products right now. We have to make sure that what we do start, the suppliers are going to get paid for and so on.

但總的來說，我認為這為我們提供了更好的可見性，至少在該行業目前運行速度較低的情況下是這樣，因為請記住，該行業現在沒有錢投機性地啟動一堆產品。我們必須確保我們所做的事情，供應商能夠得到報酬等等。

I think the model is generally working out pretty well. And as we show higher and higher value like the 3-plus terabyte per disk capacity points and then the 4-plus terabyte per disk capacity point, I think people will want to make sure that they can take advantage of that TCO proposition we put out in front of them. So I anticipate it will pick up steam.

我認為該模型總體上運行得很好。隨著我們展示越來越高的價值，例如每個磁碟容量 3+ TB 以及每個磁碟容量 4+ TB，我認為人們會希望確保他們可以利用我們提出的 TCO 主張在他們面前。所以我預計它會加速發展。

We are still doing things that are 2 quarters or 4 quarters or something like that. And so there's negotiations in everything and I can be frustrated by that. But as those negotiations continue on, I think we will continue to make sure that we write the industry and ourselves, our suppliers so that we can at least get back to a point where we're returning value to everyone so we can keep investing in the industry. I think that's an important point. That's one of the reasons we've done this.

我們仍在做 2 個季度或 4 個季度或類似的事情。所以一切都需要談判，我可能會對此感到沮喪。但隨著這些談判的繼續，我認為我們將繼續確保我們寫下產業、我們自己、我們的供應商，這樣我們至少可以回到為每個人返還價值的地步，這樣我們就可以繼續投資產業。我認為這是很重要的一點。這就是我們這樣做的原因之一。

The next question comes from Krish Sankar of TD Cowen.

下一個問題來自 TD Cowen 的 Krish Sankar。

I had a 2-part question. First is, you folks shipped about 56 exabytes to nearline customers in the quarter. Given the view that nearline is going to improve in calendar '24, do you think you can hit the 100 exabyte run rate sometime in calendar '24?

我有一個由兩個部分組成的問題。首先，你們在本季向近線客戶發送了大約 56 艾字節。鑑於近線將在 24 年日曆中得到改進，您認為您可以在 24 年日曆中的某個時候達到 100 艾字節運行速率嗎？

And then a follow-up is, Dave and Gianluca, it seems like you've been confident about HAMR and gross margin this quarter versus all the prior quarters. Kind of curious what is the reason for that? Was there any improvement in the quarter that you hit some milestones? Or was it more increased customer demand or better visibility into the purchasing of HAMR next year? Any color on that would be helpful?

接下來，Dave 和 Gianluca，與之前所有季度相比，您似乎對本季度的 HAMR 和毛利率充滿信心。有點好奇這是什麼原因呢？在您達到某些里程碑的季度中是否有任何改進？或者是客戶需求增加了，還是明年 HAMR 的採購狀況有了更好的了解？任何顏色都會有幫助嗎？

Yes. I would say all of the above. As time marches on, our teams make progress against the yield targets, the reliability targets and the qualifications progress and we can see -- maybe we have more and more certainty we get towards the end of the qualification. So all of those things are factoring into our confidence. And I think we'll continue to update everyone going forward exactly how this is going.

是的。我想說的是以上所有內容。隨著時間的推移，我們的團隊在產量目標、可靠性目標和資格賽方面取得了進展，我們可以看到——也許我們對資格賽結束的時候越來越有把握。因此，所有這些因素都影響了我們的信心。我認為我們將繼續向大家通報進展。

Remember that we're also starting into qualification with this 2.4-terabyte per platter, which again, I made the point before, it's almost the same box. And so we have a PMR outlet for the same parts and we're driving the vendors to that commonality. Most of the vendors, the lion's share of the vendors have common parts through these 2 platforms. So we can drive that much more volume in and predictably get people paid and things like that.

請記住，我們也開始對每盤 2.4 TB 的容量進行資格認證，我之前也說過，它幾乎是同一個盒子。因此，我們為相同的零件提供了 PMR 出口，並且我們正在推動供應商實現這種通用性。大多數供應商，大部分供應商透過這兩個平台都有共同的部分。因此，我們可以推動更多的銷量，並可以預見地為人們提供報酬等等。

And then on the exabytes for nearline, can you hit 100 exabytes next year? Or is it too aggressive?

然後在近線的艾字節方面，明年能達到 100 艾字節嗎？還是太過激進？

Yes. I think for the current fiscal year and probably the calendar '24 is not very probable that we can double the exabytes, but we think we will grow sequentially in all those quarters.

是的。我認為，對於當前財年，甚至可能到 24 日曆年，我們不太可能將艾字節數量翻倍，但我們認為我們將在所有這些季度中連續增長。

The next question comes from [Blaine Curtis] of Barclays.

下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的[Blaine Curtis]。

Sorry about the name mix up there. This is Tom O'Malley on for Barclays. I just wanted to understand the timing of the recovery a bit better here. You previously have talked about Q4 and then you talked about at the end of December. And this is a nearline in particular. And it's kind of pushed to Q1. You're seeing this U.S. cloud uptick you said, again, so kind of in September and in your expectations for December. But when do you expect the market step-up in the market? Is that still expected for March? Or have things kind of elongated just given the inventory situation? Any update on that recovery would be helpful?

抱歉，名字混淆了。我是巴克萊銀行的湯姆‧奧馬利。我只是想更了解恢復的時間。您之前談到了第四季度，然後又談到了 12 月底。這是特別的近線。它有點被推到了第一季。您再次提到，9 月以及您對 12 月的預期中，您看到了美國雲層的增加。但您預期市場何時會上漲？ 3月份的預期仍然如此嗎？或者考慮到庫存狀況，事情是否有延長？有關恢復的任何更新會有幫助嗎？

Yes, Tom, thanks. I think we're still on the same plan that we talked about last quarter. It's a gradual uptick. So we're watching the inventory being depleted. We're seeing new orders come in. I think the one variable would be maybe some of the global cloud customers, not the U.S. cloud customers, but maybe some of the global cloud customers, given some of the economic issues that we have in various parts of the world. But generally speaking, we're still on the same plan and we'll see a gradual uptick rather than a hockey stick.

是的，湯姆，謝謝。我認為我們仍在執行上季度討論的相同計劃。這是一個逐漸上升的過程。所以我們看到庫存正在耗盡。我們看到新訂單進來。考慮到我們在各個領域遇到的一些經濟問題，我認為一個變數可能是一些全球雲端客戶，而不是美國雲端客戶，但可能是一些全球雲端客戶。世界部分地區。但總的來說，我們仍然遵循相同的計劃，我們會看到逐漸上升而不是曲棍球棒。

And then just on the gross margin side as well, just taking the midpoint of guidance and you're talking about operating expenses actually up slightly in the December quarter. It implies 200-plus basis points of sequential improvement in gross margin. I understand that you pointed to some pricing increases, but that will be pretty quick in terms to get the full benefit there.

然後就毛利率而言，僅採用指導的中點，您所談論的營運費用實際上在 12 月季度略有上升。這意味著毛利率將環比提高 200 多個基點。我知道您提到了一些價格上漲，但就獲得全部利益而言，這將是相當快的。

Is there any other levers that are contributing to December? Obviously you have some mix benefit with VIA gone or going down and nearline up. But just any other levers that you could point to other than the pricing that are impacting December?

還有其他因素可以為 12 月做出貢獻嗎？顯然，隨著威盛的消失或下降和接近上升，你會獲得一些混合優勢。但除了影響 12 月的定價之外，您還可以指出其他槓桿嗎？

Yes. I will not say that pricing is the only thing driving the gross margin up. Actually, the cost side is very important. We have the full impact of all the restructuring plan that we executed in the prior quarter that are now going into our COGS, of course, also in our OpEx. OpEx could be a little bit higher, but not much higher. So we are talking about a few million dollars higher. So I would say both pricing and cost should go in the right direction to improve our gross margin sequentially.

是的。我不會說定價是推動毛利率上升的唯一因素。事實上，成本方面非常重要。我們對上一季執行的所有重組計劃產生了全面影響，這些計劃現在已納入我們的銷貨成本，當然也納入我們的營運支出。營運成本可能會高一點，但不會高很多。所以我們談論的是更高的幾百萬美元。因此，我想說定價和成本都應該朝著正確的方向發展，以依次提高我們的毛利率。

And sorry, just to be clear, we're also going through product transitions, right? So as we may raise price on one of the older products and then there's a -- the customer can offset some of those increases by a better TCO proposition in the next drive and we can go work with the cost on that. So the mix plays a role and the customers can see the TCO benefit, they're incentivized for that.

抱歉，需要澄清的是，我們也正在經歷產品轉型，對嗎？因此，當我們可能提高其中一款舊產品的價格時，客戶可以透過下一個驅動器中更好的 TCO 主張來抵消其中的一些上漲，我們可以繼續處理該成本。因此，這種組合發揮了作用，客戶可以看到 TCO 收益，他們會因此受到激勵。

The next question comes from Steven Fox of Fox Advisors.

下一個問題來自福克斯顧問公司的史蒂文·福克斯。

Dave, understanding everything that you said about sort of a cyclical recovery, there's still a lot of macro headwinds out there. And obviously your decline in sales over the last 12, 18 months has outdone what the macro is doing. So I'm just curious, how can we get comfortable with the idea that as you see more macro pressures that business -- your business keeps recovering?

戴夫，了解您所說的有關週期性復甦的一切，但仍然存在許多宏觀阻力。顯然，過去 12、18 個月的銷售額下降幅度超出了宏觀調控的影響。所以我很好奇，當你看到更多的宏觀壓力使得你的業務不斷復甦時，我們如何接受這樣的想法？

Is there anything you would point to in particular that may not limit cloud spending as much more than you think of? Or just like other cycles where you outgrew in tough environments?

您有什麼特別指出的事情可能不會像您想像的那樣限制雲端支出嗎？或者像其他週期一樣，你在艱難的環境中成長？

Right. Thanks. You're right. It is a tough environment. I will say that data continues to grow and people want to improve their economics all the time. So the data centers that exist in the world have an enormous number of hard drives. So we're going to see some refresh of those for various reasons, power, some of them are just aging off.

正確的。謝謝。你說得對。這是一個艱難的環境。我想說的是，數據持續成長，人們一直希望改善經濟狀況。因此，世界上存在的資料中心擁有大量硬碟。因此，我們將看到由於各種原因、功率等原因，它們將得到一些更新，其中一些剛剛老化。

The upgrades could be actually fairly large. If you think about buying a 32-terabyte drive and replacing 4, 8-terabyte drives, it may still be in your system. I mean those are market economical benefits that will ripple through the data centers.

升級實際上可能相當大。如果您考慮購買 32 TB 硬碟並更換 4、8 TB 硬碟，它可能仍在您的系統中。我的意思是這些是市場經濟效益，將波及資料中心。

And so I do think that in some cases, since data is growing so big, it bucks the trend of what's going on in the macro. I mean, obviously, that everyone is paying attention to the macro. But I do think that there will still have to be some investments to make and there will also be opportunities to go save costs with some of the new products that we have coming. And we've also been through the cycle on the early side already of already the inventories being depleted around the world. So there's not that massive inventory bubble out there anymore.

因此，我確實認為，在某些情況下，由於數據成長如此之大，它與宏觀形勢的趨勢背道而馳。我的意思是，顯然每個人都在關注宏觀。但我確實認為仍然需要進行一些投資，我們也有機會透過我們即將推出的一些新產品來節省成本。我們也已經經歷了世界各地庫存已經耗盡的早期週期。因此，不再存在巨大的庫存泡沫。

That's interesting color. And then Gianluca, can you just -- I mean, I assume you don't want to give like specific underutilization charges likely for the first half of next year. But can you sort of directionally give us a sense for how long you think we should keep modeling even if there are smaller charges in calendar Q1 and Q2 to keep that in our gross margin calculations?

那是有趣的顏色。然後，Gianluca，你能不能——我的意思是，我假設你不想提供明年上半年可能的具體未充分利用費用。但是，您能否直接告訴我們您認為我們應該繼續建模多長時間，即使第一季和第二季的費用較小，以將其保留在我們的毛利率計算中？

Yes. We expect to have underutilization cost also in calendar Q1 and calendar Q2. Probably a little bit -- could be a bit lower than what we have in December, of course. But of course, the volume that we are producing is still a little bit below what we had installed at the top of the cycle before.

是的。我們預計第一季和第二季也會出現利用率不足的成本。當然，可能會比 12 月的情況低一點。但當然，我們生產的產量仍然略低於我們先前週期頂部安裝的產量。

The next question comes from Ananda Baruah of Loop Capital.

下一個問題來自 Loop Capital 的 Ananda Baruah。

I guess, Dave, just given that you're starting to see things start to firm up and talking about sort of, I think, Gianluca, Q-over-Q increases in nearline as you go through '24, what's the opportunity, Dave, for things to get tight as you go through '24, just given the capacity that you've taken offline?

我想，戴夫，只是考慮到你開始看到事情開始變得堅定，並談論某種，我認為，吉安盧卡，隨著你經歷24 年，近線的Q-over-Q 增加，機會是什麼，戴夫，考慮到您已經離線的容量，事情會在 24 年變得緊張？

Well, I think the tightness is actually kind of interesting because like we said before, the data is growing in the data centers. We all know that. The amount of data being generated is growing quite quickly. And I think relative to the hard drive industry quickly reacting to anything right now because of some of the damage that's been done in the supply chain and just some of the -- frankly, the lead times that exist on current parts, especially at the highest capacity points, there's not as much flex as there used to be.

嗯，我認為這種緊密性實際上很有趣，因為正如我們之前所說，資料中心的資料正在成長。我們都知道。產生的數據量正在快速成長。我認為，相對於硬碟產業，由於供應鏈中造成的一些損害，以及目前零件存在的交貨時間，尤其是最高的交貨時間，硬碟產業現在對任何事情都做出了快速反應。容量點，沒有以前那麼多的彈性。

And so I think we may see -- we may enter into an environment where people say, okay, I see the economics of upgrading part of my fleet here now. Let's go ahead and do it. It will save me power, it will save me space. It will allow me to answer the call for the data that's growing. And then once they get their orders in, we'll say, well, the lead time is x and that might be the challenge.

所以我認為我們可能會看到——我們可能會進入這樣一個環境，​​人們會說，好吧，我現在看到了升級部分機隊的經濟效益。讓我們繼續去做。它會節省我的電力，它會節省我的空間。它將讓我能夠響應不斷增長的數據的需求。然後，一旦他們收到訂單，我們就會說，好吧，交貨時間是 x，這可能是個挑戰。

So that's how I think when things may get tight and it will manifest itself. I don't know exactly when, but I certainly think that we could get into a situation like that just simply because the hard drive industry does not have the immediate capacity gains that it used to.

這就是我的想法，當事情變得緊張並且它會顯現出來時。我不知道具體是什麼時候，但我當然認為我們可能會陷入這樣的情況，只是因為硬碟產業沒有像以前那樣立即獲得容量成長。

And then what is the -- so what are the downstream impact to that? I mean, in the past, it's been pricing goes up, long-term agreement, that type of deal. Is that still some of the stuff that could occur if you find (inaudible)?

那麼，下游的影響是什麼？我的意思是，在過去，價格一直在上漲，長期協議，這種類型的交易。如果您發現（聽不清楚），這仍然是可能發生的事情嗎？

That's right. But that's exactly why we're addressing the customer base with these build-to-order models because we -- I think we're -- in some sense, we're helping the customers get a predictable financial outcome if they can give us at least some predictable visibility.

這是正確的。但這正是我們透過這些按訂單生產模式來滿足客戶群的原因，因為我們——我認為我們——在某種意義上，我們正​​在幫助客戶獲得可預測的財務結果，如果他們能夠給我們至少有一些可預測的可見性。

The next question comes from Mark Miller of The Benchmark Company.

下一個問題來自基準公司的馬克米勒。

You mentioned AI opportunities in VIA cameras and other areas. I'm just wondering when do you think these opportunities will really start to ramp? And any idea on the magnitude of these opportunities in terms of sales for next year?

您提到了威盛相機和其他領域的人工智慧機會。我只是想知道您認為這些機會什麼時候才會真正開始增加？對於明年的銷售機會有多大有什麼想法嗎？

Yes, Mark, I think it's really hard to quantify just yet, but there's a lot of stuff going on in, I'll say, big data around AI. You've got people appointing chief data officers now to be able to track where is the data, what's its value, might we want to retain that just in case that we end up with some tools that are allowing us to monetize it or understand more about our process, so on and so forth, with customer base, factories.

是的，馬克，我認為目前還很難量化，但我想說的是，圍繞人工智慧的大數據正在發生很多事情。人們現在任命了首席數據官，以便能夠跟踪數據在哪裡，它的價值是什麼，我們是否希望保留這一點，以防萬一我們最終擁有一些工具，使我們能夠將其貨幣化或了解更多信息關於我們與客戶群、工廠的流程等等。

So my personal opinion is we're in the early innings of a move from throwing data away to keeping some of it longer term for the benefits of the corporations. And I do think that a lot of that will be edge. I don't think all of it will end up in the cloud. I think a lot of it will actually be on the edge. And so this is something that we're tracking very carefully. I don't think it's really manifests itself just yet.

因此，我個人的觀點是，為了企業的利益，我們正處於從丟棄資料到長期保留部分資料的轉變的早期階段。我確實認為其中很多都將是邊緣。我不認為所有這些都會最終儲存在雲端。我認為很多實際上都處於邊緣。因此，我們正在非常仔細地追蹤這一點。我認為它還沒有真正顯現出來。

I think people are using some of the new application capabilities that are being branded AI applications to get to know them and understand them. And certainly like, things like generative AI, which I believe is kind of a new user interface, if you will, that allow the applications to be used much more efficiently and maybe queries to be made of these applications much more efficiently. But I think we're still in the early innings. And I think once it does last, we're going to know that data and the longevity of that data and the integrity of that data is all critical. And so I think that's good for us.

我認為人們正在使用一些被稱為人工智慧應用程式的新應用程式功能來了解它們並理解它們。當然，像生成人工智慧這樣的東西，我相信這是一種新的用戶介面，如果你願意的話，它可以讓應用程式的使用更加有效，也許對這些應用程式的查詢也可以更加有效。但我認為我們仍處於早期階段。我認為一旦它持續下去，我們就會知道資料、資料的壽命以及資料的完整性都是至關重要的。所以我認為這對我們有好處。

You mentioned lower CapEx for fiscal '24. Can you give us a range or any idea what it would be?

您提到 24 財年的資本支出較低。您能給我們一個範圍或知道它會是什麼嗎？

I think we'll probably stay inside of our existing range, 4% to 6% of revenue. But we are -- since the revenue is so far down, we are very mindful of the spending. However, we can see the tools that we need to bring HAMR up according to a certain pace. And as soon as -- if the pace quickens, we will get there as quickly as we possibly can. So we understand what the recipe is and we understand what's needed to make the recipe really well and we'll spend accordingly.

我認為我們可能會保持在現有的範圍內，佔收入的 4% 到 6%。但我們——由於收入大幅下降，我們非常關注支出。但是，我們可以看到以一定的速度提升 HAMR 所需的工具。一旦——如果步伐加快，我們將盡快到達那裡。因此，我們了解配方是什麼，也了解如何使配方真正做好，我們會相應地進行支出。

The last question will come from Vijay Rakesh of Mizuho.

最後一個問題將由瑞穗銀行的 Vijay Rakesh 提出。

Just quickly on the HAMR side. I was just wondering when you look at exiting calendar '24, what your mix of HAMR would be either by exabyte or units?

很快就到了 HAMR 這邊。我只是想知道，當您查看現有日曆 '24 時，您的 HAMR 組合將是艾字節還是單位？

Calendar '24, you said?

你說的是24年曆？

Yes.

是的。

Yes, I don't think we guide so far in time precisely on the mix.

是的，我認為到目前為止我們還沒有及時準確地指導混合。

Yes. We're not going to guide that. But I will say that we'll be very aggressive when we talked about 4 terabytes per disk and cost optimization of these platforms and things like that. I mean this is something that a hard drive industry has been doing for years and years and years, decades, right? So we know how to do these transitions. We're very confident in the technology and we'll look to be very aggressive there.

是的。我們不會對此進行指導。但我要說的是，當我們談論每個磁碟 4 TB 以及這些平台的成本優化以及類似的事情時，我們會非常積極。我的意思是，這是硬碟行業多年來一直在做的事情，對吧？所以我們知道如何進行這些轉換。我們對這項技術非常有信心，我們會在這方面表現得非常積極。

The wafer lead times are also quite long. So we're already starting on this journey because we're already in wafer. And so we're populating the wafer fabs with the parts that will support it.

晶圓交貨時間也相當長。所以我們已經開始了這個旅程，因為我們已經進入了晶圓階段。因此，我們正在為晶圓廠配備支援它的零件。

And then on the nearline side, obviously, the shipments, exabyte shipments have come down quite a bit. As you look at the green shoots with some data center coming back, do you feel pretty comfortable given what the inventory levels are at the OEMs and what you see in terms of a return on the spend? How would you characterize that if you look at those 2?

然後，在近線方面，顯然，出貨量（艾字節出貨量）下降了很多。當您看到一些資料中心恢復的萌芽時，考慮到原始設備製造商的庫存水平以及您所看到的支出回報，您是否感到非常放心？如果你看看這兩個，你會如何描述這一點？

Yes. I do think that the inventory has been depleted now to levels that if you think about the complexity of all the data centers of the world and how much material needs to be parked out of them, in front of them for replacements and then what the data growth is in the data center, I think the inventory levels have come down to a point where we feel comfortable now that people are going to get back to more predictable buying patterns.

是的。我確實認為庫存現在已經耗盡到這樣的水平，如果你考慮一下世界上所有數據中心的複雜性，以及需要在其中停放多少材料，在它們面前進行替換，然後數據是什麼增長是在數據中心，我認為庫存水準已經下降到我們感到滿意的程度，因為人們將恢復到更可預測的購買模式。

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, Andrea. As you heard today, Seagate remains focused on our key priorities, including executing our leading technology road map, which we believe positions us well to enhance profitability over the near term and to capture long-term opportunities for mass capacity storage.

謝謝，安德里亞。正如您今天所聽到的，希捷仍然專注於我們的關鍵優先事項，包括執行我們領先的技術路線圖，我們相信這使我們能夠很好地提高短期盈利能力並抓住大容量存儲的長期機會。

I'll close by once again thanking all of our shareholders for their ongoing support of Seagate. Thanks for joining us today and we look forward to speaking with you during the quarter.

最後，我要再次感謝所有股東對希捷的持續支持。感謝您今天加入我們，我們期待在本季與您交談。

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示，您現在可以斷開連接了。