希捷科技 (STX) 2024 Q2 法說會逐字稿

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

歡迎參加希捷科技 2024 財年第二季電話會議。 （操作員指示）請注意，此活動正在錄製中。

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

現在，我想將會議交給投資者關係高級副總裁 Shanye Hudson。請您發言。

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

謝謝。大家好，歡迎參加今天的電話會議。希捷執行長戴夫·莫斯利和財務長詹盧卡·羅馬諾也出席了今天的電話會議。我們已經在網站的「投資者」板塊發布了盈利新聞稿以及12月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 have 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 effort.

在今天的電話會議上，我們將討論 GAAP 和非 GAAP 指標。非 GAAP 數據已與我們網站上發布的收益新聞稿以及 8-K 表格中的 GAAP 數據進行了對帳。我們尚未對某些非 GAAP 展望指標進行對賬，因為可能影響這些指標的重大事項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，我們將無法獲得與相應 GAAP 指標的對帳結果。

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 the 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. 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 in the Investors section of our website.

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日所掌握的資訊而形成的當前觀點和假設，不應在任何後續日期依賴這些陳述。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，因為它們受與我們業務相關的風險和不確定性的影響。如需了解更多可能影響我們未來業務業績的風險、不確定性和其他因素，請參閱今天發布的新聞稿以及我們向美國證券交易委員會 (SEC) 提交的文件，包括我們最新的 10-K 表年度報告和 10-Q 表季度報告以及補充信息，所有這些文件均可在我們網站的“投資者”部分找到。

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

像往常一樣，在準備好發言稿之後，我們將開始提問環節。現在，我將請戴夫致開幕詞。

Thanks, Shanye, and hello, everyone. I am going to focus on 2 key topics in my remarks today. First, we delivered solid fiscal second quarter results, with revenue at the midpoint of our guidance and non-GAAP earnings of $0.12 per share, exceeding the upper end of our guided range.

謝謝Shanye，大家好。今天的發言我將重點討論兩個關鍵主題。首先，我們第二季財報表現穩健，營收達到我們預期的中點，非公認會計準則每股收益為0.12美元，超過了我們預期區間的上限。

And second, last week, we marked a major inflection point in mass capacity storage with the launch of our groundbreaking Mozaic platform. Mozaic is intentionally named to describe the fusion of innovative technologies, including Seagate's unique implementation of HAMR that collectively enable us to extend our areal density leadership. As we shared in the past, growing areal density is the most efficient way to enable data center operators to scale mass capacity storage to lower their TCO and to advance their sustainability targets.

其次，上週，我們發布了突破性的 Mozaic 平台，標誌著大容量儲存領域的重要轉折點。 Mozaic 的命名旨在體現多項創新技術的整合，包括希捷獨特的 HAMR 實現，這些技術共同幫助我們鞏固了在磁碟面密度領域的領先地位。正如我們過去所分享的，提高磁碟面密度是幫助資料中心營運商擴展大容量儲存、降低總體擁有成本 (TCO) 並推動永續發展目標的最有效途徑。

I'll discuss the platform in more detail shortly and also share progress towards qualification and volume ramp of our first HAMR-based Mozaic product, which lays the foundation for products boasting 5 terabytes per disk and beyond.

我很快就會更詳細地討論該平台，並分享我們第一款基於 HAMR 的 Mozaic 產品的資格認證和容量提升的進展，這為每張磁碟 5 TB 及以上的產品奠定了基礎。

Let me start by highlighting our fiscal Q2 performance. Revenue of $1.56 billion was led by sequentially improving cloud nearline demand and a seasonal uptick in consumer drives, offset partially by the decline in VIA sales that we anticipated. Strong cost discipline and execution on pricing adjustments resulted in non-GAAP operating income tripling quarter-over-quarter and increasing roughly 17% year-over-year despite lower revenue levels. These performance and demand trends affirm our expectation for the September quarter to be the bottom of this prolonged down cycle.

首先，我想重點介紹一下我們第二季的業績。 15.6億美元的營收主要得益於雲端近線需求的環比增長以及消費級硬碟的季節性增長，但部分抵消了我們預期的VIA銷售額下滑。嚴格的成本控制和價格調整的執行，使得非公認會計準則下的營業利潤環比增長了兩倍，同比增長了約17%，儘管營收水準有所下降。這些業績和需求趨勢證實了我們對9月份季度將是本輪長期下行週期底部的預期。

The enhanced discipline we've built into the business, including strict cost controls, management of supply and strengthening of our balance sheet gives us an excellent foundation to build on as we move into a broader recovery. Additionally, execution of our product road map is expected to structurally improve profitability and return us to our targeted financial model, which supports healthier industry economics. We enter calendar 2024 with increased confidence in our non-GAAP gross margin trajectory, including our ability to reclaim 30% minimum benchmark level at quarterly revenues that are at least 20% below our prior cyclical peak.

我們在業務中強化了紀律，包括嚴格的成本控制、供應管理和資產負債表的強化，這為我們邁向更廣泛的復甦奠定了良好的基礎。此外，我們產品路線圖的實施預計將從結構上提升獲利能力，並使我們重回目標財務模型，從而支持更健康的產業經濟。邁入2024年，我們對非公認會計準則下的毛利率走勢充滿信心，包括我們有能力在季度收入至少比之前的周期性峰值低20%的情況下恢復30%的最低基準水平。

From a demand standpoint, gradual recovery within the U.S. cloud market has started to take shape, reflecting solid progress in consuming excess inventory, along with more stable end market behavior. Enterprise OEM demand trends have also stabilized within the U.S. markets. Customer feedback still points to macro-related concerns, although IT hardware budgets are projected to modestly improve in calendar 2024 and traditional server growth is expected to resume, trends that support incremental HDD demand growth in the calendar year. We were also encouraged to see incremental demand among certain non-U.S. cloud and enterprise customers in the December quarter.

從需求角度來看，美國雲端市場已開始逐步復甦，反映出過剩庫存消化的穩定進展，以及終端市場行為的趨於穩定。美國市場的企業OEM需求趨勢也已趨於穩定。客戶回饋仍然指向宏觀相關的擔憂，儘管預計2024年IT硬體預算將略有改善，傳統伺服器的成長預計將恢復，這些趨勢將支撐年度HDD需求的增量成長。我們也欣喜地看到，12月季度某些非美國雲端和企業客戶的需求增加。

Across the broader China markets, we project a relatively slower pace of recovery given the ongoing economic challenges within the region. However, some local governments announced further steps to support the region's economy, which our customers believe will bolster local demand across mass capacity markets in China in the second half of the calendar year. These efforts support our view for demand in the VIA markets to pick up sometime after the Lunar New Year.

鑑於中國市場持續面臨的經濟挑戰，我們預期整體市場復甦速度將相對較慢。不過，一些地方政府宣布了進一步的措施來支持該地區的經濟，我們的客戶相信，這將在今年下半年提振中國大容量市場的本地需求。這些措施支持了我們對VIA市場需求將在農曆新年後回升的預期。

Against the dynamic market environment, Seagate has continued to execute on a mass capacity product portfolio that further advances our technology leadership and serves the breadth of our customers' unique workload requirements while also supporting our objective of improving profitability. I'll outline the execution path for our latest product launches and the relevance of the new platform and then share how we believe our mass capacity solutions deliver economic value both to our customers and to Seagate.

在瞬息萬變的市場環境下，希捷持續推動大容量產品組合，進一步鞏固我們的技術領先地位，滿足客戶各種獨特的工作負載需求，同時協助我們提升獲利能力的目標。我將概述我們最新產品發布的執行路徑以及新平台的相關性，並分享我們堅信大容量解決方案將如何為客戶和希捷帶來經濟價值。

Our product qualification and ramp plans are on track with what we've been articulating over the past several quarters. We began shipping initial volumes of our 24-terabyte CMR, 28-terabyte SMR drives in the December quarter. Customer reception has been positive, as illustrated by the numerous active qualifications underway across multiple cloud and enterprise customers.

我們的產品認證和量產計畫正按計畫推進，與我們過去幾季所闡述的一致。我們已於12月季度開始出貨第一批24TB CMR和28TB SMR硬碟。客戶反應積極，眾多雲端客戶和企業客戶正在進行的認證工作就證明了這一點。

Our 3-plus terabyte per disk product is the first major release of the HAMR-based Mozaic platform and we are rapidly nearing qual completion with our initial hyperscale launch partner. The qual has gone very well, and we are working with this customer at their request to fully transition future Seagate demand to the 3-plus terabyte per disk platform. Volume ramp is starting in the March quarter according to plan, with a goal to ship about 1 million units in the first half of this calendar year.

我們的單盤容量超過 3TB 的產品是基於 HAMR 的 Mozaic 平台的首個主要版本，我們正與第一批超大規模產品合作夥伴迅速完成品質認證。認證工作進展順利，我們正在應客戶要求與其合作，將希捷未來的需求完全過渡到單盤容量超過 3TB 的平台。按計劃，產量將於 3 月季度開始成長，目標是今年上半年出貨約 100 萬台。

We then expect to continue to ramp through the balance of the calendar year, and we are currently broadening our customer engagements. Based on their planned time lines, we expect to complete qualifications with a majority of U.S. hyperscalers and a couple of global cloud customers during calendar 2024.

我們預計在今年餘下時間將繼續提升服務水平，目前我們正在擴大與客戶的合作。根據他們計劃的時間表，我們預計將在2024年完成大多數美國超大規模雲端客戶和一些全球雲端客戶的資格認證。

Starting at 3 terabytes per disk, Mozaic delivers a quantum leap forward in areal density innovation with a well-defined path that extends to 5 terabytes per disk and beyond. This transformative platform is the culmination of decades of development and numerous technologies pioneered by Seagate, including our superlattice platinum alloy media that enables higher bit density. The revolutionary plasmonic writer with integrated laser capable of reliability writing each bit and an advanced reader technology that boasts one of the world's smallest reading sensors. While Mozaic represents groundbreaking technology, the platform is fully plug-and-play with existing conventional drives and addresses the breadth of our customers' mass capacity workloads. These drives can also be deployed with SMR technologies for the few customers able to integrate SMR to take advantage of the additional capacity gains.

Mozaic 的起步容量為每碟 3TB，在面密度創新方面實現了質的飛躍，並製定了明確的發展路徑，將擴展到每碟 5TB 及更高容量。這個變革性平台凝聚了希捷數十年的研發成果和眾多先進技術，包括可實現更高位密度的超晶格鉑合金介質、革命性的等離子體寫入器（集成雷射器，能夠可靠地寫入每一位數據）以及先進的讀取器技術，該技術擁有世界上最小的讀取感測器之一。 Mozaic 不僅代表了突破性的技術，而且該平台與現有的傳統硬碟完全即插即用，能夠滿足客戶廣泛的大容量工作負載需求。對於少數能夠整合 SMR 技術的客戶，這些硬碟還可以與 SMR 技術一起部署，以充分利用額外的容量提升。

As I noted earlier, areal density gains are the most efficient way to scale storage capacity. Let me offer a few clear examples. First, as we execute our product road map, we can deliver increasingly higher capacity drives with minimal changes to the Bill of Materials. This results in a better TCO value proposition for our customers and attractive economics for Seagate. Second, as we scale areal density to 4 terabytes per disk, this enables extremely cost-effective product offerings in the low to midrange capacity points used by a majority of our enterprise via NAS customers. With 4 terabytes per disk, we used half the number of heads and disks to produce a 20-terabyte drive. Prototypes are already working in our labs, with revenue planned for the second half of calendar 2025.

正如我之前提到的，提高磁錄密度是擴展儲存容量最有效的方法。讓我舉幾個清楚的例子。首先，隨著我們執行產品路線圖，我們可以在物料清單（BOM）變動極小的情況下，提供容量不斷提升的硬碟。這為我們的客戶帶來了更優的整體擁有成本 (TCO) 價值主張，也為希捷帶來了更具吸引力的經濟效益。其次，隨著我們將磁錄密度提升至每盤 4TB，我們能夠以極具成本效益的方式，為大多數企業級 NAS 客戶提供中低端容量的產品。由於每碟 4TB 的容量，我們只使用了一半的磁頭和磁碟數量，就生產出了 20TB 的硬碟。原型機已在我們的實驗室中投入運行，計劃於 2025 年下半年實現盈利。

As we ramp production to expand to other end markets, we gained tremendous manufacturing efficiencies, adding to the attractive margin opportunities that I just described. We continue to build on our technology and operational innovations with each successive product generation. For example, we are executing plans to vertically integrate the laser manufacturing process, which enhances supply flexibility, provides greater control of the technology and provides opportunities to lower production costs. Collectively, we believe these actions underpin our mass capacity cost reduction road map while also providing a very strong TCO story for a broad range of customers.

隨著我們擴大產量以擴大其他終端市場，我們獲得了顯著的生產效率，這進一步提升了我剛才提到的誘人的利潤機會。隨著每一代產品的推出，我們都會持續推動技術和營運創新。例如，我們正在實施雷射製造流程的垂直整合計劃，這將增強供應靈活性，增強技術控制力，並帶來降低生產成本的機會。總的來說，我們相信這些措施將鞏固我們大規模產能成本削減路線圖，同時也為廣大客戶帶來了非常強勁的整體擁有成本 (TCO) 表現。

While TCO remains a key driver for mass capacity storage, data center operators are also focused on power and space consumption, particularly as investments in compute-intensive infrastructure proliferates to support generative AI applications. For context, the latest AI GPUs consume up to 700 watts, which is roughly 100x more power-intensive than a hard drive operating at maximum performance.

雖然整體擁有成本 (TCO) 仍然是大容量儲存的關鍵驅動因素，但資料中心營運商也專注於功耗和空間消耗，尤其是在計算密集型基礎設施投資激增以支援生成式 AI 應用的情況下。例如，最新的 AI GPU 功耗高達 700 瓦，大約是硬碟在最高效能下運作的 100 倍。

Our products can help data center operators store more exabytes using less power and space. To quantify this, a single 32-terabyte Mozaic drive can replace 3 10-terabyte drives storing more capacity at 1/3 of the power and footprint. TCO and sustainability gains of this magnitude are decision-altering when architecting a new data center and offer a highly economical path to modernizing existing infrastructure. We believe that this dynamic can potentially accelerate the replacement cycle.

我們的產品可以幫助資料中心營運商以更少的功耗和空間儲存更多EB資料。具體來說，一塊32TB的Mozaic硬碟可以取代3顆10TB的硬碟，以三分之一的功耗和空間儲存更大的容量。如此巨大的TCO和永續性提升，在建立新資料中心時，能夠改變決策，並為現有基礎設施的現代化改造提供一條經濟高效的途徑。我們相信，這種趨勢可能會加速資料中心的更換週期。

As we move into the early stages of demand recovery, Seagate's strong focus on maintaining our product and technology road map through this past down cycle position us to return to profitable growth and address data center operators most important challenges: cost, power and space. We believe we've got the right product at the right time heading into a gradual recovering mass capacity market.

隨著我們進入需求復甦的初期階段，希捷在過去的低迷週期中始終專注於維護我們的產品和技術路線圖，這使我們能夠重回獲利成長，並應對資料中心營運商面臨的最嚴峻挑戰：成本、功耗和空間。我們相信，我們在正確的時機推出了正確的產品，以應對逐步復甦的大容量市場。

With that, Gianluca will now cover details on our financial performance and outlook.

接下來，Gianluca 將詳細介紹我們的財務表現和前景。

Thank you, Dave. Seagate's December quarter financial results reflect solid operational execution. Revenue was $1.56 billion, up 7% quarter-over-quarter. Non-GAAP operating income more than tripled sequentially to $127 million, leading to non-GAAP operating margin expanding to 8.2% of revenue, up 540 basis points quarter-over-quarter. And non-GAAP EPS was $0.12, improving $0.34 sequentially and exceeding the high end of our original guidance range, reflecting both improving demand trends and our focus on profitability.

謝謝，戴夫。希捷12月季度的財務表現反映了其穩健的營運執行力。營收為15.6億美元，季增7%。非公認會計準則下的營業利潤較上季成長兩倍多，達到1.27億美元，使得非公認會計準則下的營業利潤率擴大至營收的8.2%，季增540個基點。非公認會計準則下的每股收益為0.12美元，環比增長0.34美元，並超過了我們最初預期區間的上限，這既反映了需求趨勢的改善，也反映了我們對盈利能力的關注。

As these trends continue, we expect our results to improve and reach the target financial model over time. Within our hard disk drive business, exabyte shipments grew 6% sequentially to 95, with revenue growing 7% to $1.4 billion. Revenue performance was mainly driven by an expected improvement in cloud customer demand, along with seasonal improvement in the consumer market.

隨著這些趨勢的持續，我們預期業績將逐步改善，並逐步達到目標財務模型。我們的硬碟業務，EB出貨量較上季成長6%，達到95EB，營收成長7%，達到14億美元。收入表現主要得益於雲端客戶需求的預期改善，以及消費市場的季節性回升。

Within the mass capacity market, revenue increased 4% sequentially to $1.1 billion, driven mainly by strong nearline cloud demand, offsetting the expected decline in the VIA market. Mass capacity shipments totaled 83 exabytes, compared with 79 exabytes in the September quarter. Mass capacity shipments as a percent of total HDD exabyte was 87%, which is comparable to the prior quarter 88%.

在大容量硬碟市場，營收季增4%，達到11億美元，主要得益於強勁的近線雲需求，抵銷了VIA市場預期的下滑。大容量硬碟出貨量總計83EB，而9月季為79EB。大容量硬碟出貨量佔硬碟總EB的87%，與上一季的88%持平。

For nearline products, shipment of 65 exabytes were up quarter-over-quarter from 56 exabytes. Average capacity per nearline drive continue to increase sequentially, reflecting modest demand improvement among both U.S. cloud customer and China cloud customers. We believe that inventory among many CSP customers is reaching more normalized levels and anticipate continued nearline demand improvement in the March quarter and beyond.

近線產品出貨量較上季成長至65EB，高於上一季的56EB。近線硬碟平均容量持續較上季成長，反映出美國雲端客戶和中國雲端客戶的需求均有所改善。我們認為，許多雲端服務供應商客戶的庫存已趨於正常化，預計3月季度及以後近線需求將持續改善。

VIA market revenue was down sequentially in the December quarter, consistent with our expectations. Looking ahead, we expect VIA to reflect more typical seasonal patterns through calendar 2024, with the March quarter representing the low point. Legacy product revenue was $324 million, up from $278 million in the prior quarter, driven by higher seasonal demand in the consumer market. We expect the legacy market to be sequentially lower in the March quarter following typical consumer demand trends post-holiday season. Finally, revenue for our non-HDD business increased to $171 million compared with $159 million last quarter, primarily driven by improved SSD demand.

威盛市場營收在12月季環比下降，符合我們的預期。展望未來，我們預期威盛在2024年將呈現更典型的季節性模式，而3月季將是最低點。傳統產品收入為3.24億美元，高於上一季的2.78億美元，這得益於消費市場季節性需求的上升。我們預計，隨著假期後消費需求的典型趨勢，傳統產品市場在3月季度將比去年同期下降。最後，我們的非硬碟業務收入從上一季的1.59億美元增加至1.71億美元，主要得益於固態硬碟需求的回升。

Moving on to the rest of the income statement. Non-GAAP gross profit increased sequentially by roughly $80 million in the December quarter to $367 million, ahead of our original expectations. Non-GAAP gross margin of 23.6% expanded nearly 400 basis points compared to the previous quarter, due in part to pricing adjustment and cost savings from earlier restructuring activities as well as lower amortization costs, which were about $40 million, consistent with our view for ongoing demand recovery. However, we expect amortization cost to marginally increase for the next couple of quarters as we transition some of our production line to Mozaic.

接下來看看損益表的其餘部分。非公認會計準則 (Non-GAAP) 毛利在 12 月季度環比增長約 8,000 萬美元，達到 3.67 億美元，高於我們最初的預期。非公認會計準則 (Non-GAAP) 毛利率為 23.6%，較上一季增加近 400 個基點，部分原因是價格調整、早期重組活動帶來的成本節約，以及攤銷成本的降低（約 4000 萬美元），這與我們對持續需求復甦的預期一致。然而，由於我們將部分生產線轉向 Mozaic，我們預計未來幾季攤提成本將略有增加。

Accounting for this [happening], we still expect to see margin expansion every quarter in calendar 2024 as nearline demand continues to improve gradually and we ramp our latest products along with continued execution of price adjustment across the entire portfolio. Non-GAAP operating expenses totaled $240 million, down from $248 million in the September quarter and reflecting ongoing spending optimization.

考慮到這種情況，我們仍然預計2024年每季的利潤率都將有所增長，因為近線需求持續改善，我們不斷推出最新產品，並持續對整個產品組合進行價格調整。非公認會計準則營運支出總計2.4億美元，低於9月份季度的2.48億美元，這反映了持續的支出最佳化。

With the benefit of diligent expense management and higher margins, adjusted EBITDA improved more than 50% sequentially to $216 million. Non-GAAP net income turned positive in the December quarter, resulting in non-GAAP EPS of $0.12 per share, based on diluted share count of approximately 211 million shares and tax expense of $17 million.

由於嚴謹的費用管理和更高的利潤率，調整後息稅折舊攤銷前利潤 (EBITDA) 環比增長超過 50%，達到 2.16 億美元。非公認會計準則淨利潤在 12 月季度轉為正值，基於約 2.11 億股稀釋股份和 1,700 萬美元的稅費，非公認會計準則每股盈餘 (EPS) 為 0.12 美元。

Moving on to cash flow and the balance sheet. In the December quarter, we had the inventory flat at just below $1.1 billion. Capital expenditures were also flat sequentially at $70 million. A majority of planned capital expenditure were completed in the first half of fiscal '24. Consistent with prior commentary, we still expect fiscal '24 CapEx to be down significantly compared with fiscal '23, although still sufficient to support our innovation-driven product road map. We generated about $100 million in free cash flow and returned $146 million to shareholders through the quarterly dividend, exiting the quarter with 210 million shares outstanding.

再來看看現金流和資產負債表。 12月季度，我們的庫存持平於略低於11億美元。資本支出也較上季持平於7000萬美元。大部分計畫中的資本支出已於2024財年上半年完成。與先前的評論一致，我們預計2024財年的資本支出將較2023財年大幅下降，但仍足以支持我們創新驅動的產品路線圖。我們創造了約1億美元的自由現金流，並透過季度股息向股東返還了1.46億美元，本季末流通股總數為2.1億股。

We closed the December quarter with $2.3 billion in available liquidity, including our undrawn revolving credit facility. Our debt balance was $5.7 billion at the end of December quarter, with more than 90% of our long-term debt obligation beyond 3 years. Non-GAAP interest expense were flat quarter-over-quarter at $84 million, and we project similar expense levels in the March quarter.

截至12月季度，我們擁有23億美元的可用流動資金，包括未提取的循環信貸額度。截至12月季末，我們的債務餘額為57億美元，其中超過90%的長期債務期限超過3年。非公認會計準則利息支出較上月持平，為8,400萬美元，我們預期3月季度的支出水準也將維持類似水準。

Turning to our outlook. We expect incremental improvements in mass capacity demand from both cloud and enterprise customers to more than offset seasonal related decline in VIA and the legacy markets. With better context, March quarter revenue is expected to be in the range of $1.65 billion, plus or minus $150 million, an increase of 6% sequentially at the midpoint.

展望未來，我們預期雲端運算和企業客戶對大容量儲存的需求將逐步改善，足以抵銷威盛和傳統儲存市場季節性下滑的影響。在更有利的環境下，預計三月季度營收將在16.5億美元左右，上下浮動1.5億美元，以中位數計算，季增6%。

We are planning for non-GAAP operating expenses of approximately $260 million as our temporary pay reduction ended late in the December quarter. At the midpoint of our revenue guidance, we expect non-GAAP operating margin to expand to the low double-digit percentage range, including underutilization cost of approximately $50 million.

由於我們的臨時減薪已於12月底結束，我們計劃的非GAAP營運費用約為2.6億美元。在營收預期的中位數，我們預期非GAAP營運利潤率將擴大至兩位數的低百分比區間，其中包括約5,000萬美元的未充分利用成本。

We expect our non-GAAP EPS to be $0.25 plus or minus $0.20, based on a diluted share count of approximately 212 million shares and a non-GAAP tax expense of $27 million.

我們預計，基於約 2.12 億股的稀釋股數和非 GAAP 稅費 2,700 萬美元，我們的非 GAAP 每股收益為 0.25 美元加減 0.20 美元。

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

現在我將把電話轉回給戴夫，請他發表最後的評論。

Thanks, Gianluca. Heading into calendar 2024, we have increased confidence in a gradual nearline demand recovery that coincides with the launch of Mozaic. We believe this platform delivers sustainable areal density leadership with compelling TCO advantages, enabling data center operators to satisfy their increasing workload demands while conserving both power and space. This combination of capabilities is significant, and our timing is fortuitous. We've navigated the last 7 quarters with discipline and focus while maintaining our product and technology execution plans. As a result, we emerge well positioned to drive optimized financial performance to support our capital return commitments and return to our targeted profitability levels over time.

謝謝，Gianluca。展望2024年，我們對近線儲存需求將逐步復甦，這與Mozaic的發表同步，信心倍增。我們相信，該平台將提供可持續的面密度領先優勢和令人信服的TCO優勢，使資料中心營運商能夠滿足日益增長的工作負載需求，同時節省電力和空間。這種能力組合意義重大，而我們的時機恰到好處。在過去的7個季度中，我們始終保持紀律和專注力，同時保持了我們的產品和技術執行計劃。因此，我們已做好準備，推動財務績效優化，以支持我們的資本回報承諾，並逐步恢復到目標獲利水準。

Our strong execution is only possible through the tremendous efforts of our global team, and I would like to thank them for their resiliency and dedication through this dynamic period. I would also like to thank our suppliers, customers and shareholders for your ongoing support of Seagate. Operator, let's open up the call for questions.

我們強大的執行力離不開我們全球團隊的巨大努力，我要感謝他們在這段充滿活力的時期所展現的韌性和奉獻精神。我還要感謝我們的供應商、客戶和股東對希捷的持續支持。接線員，現在開始提問環節。

(Operator Instructions) And today's first question comes from Wamsi Mohan with BofA.

（操作員指示）今天的第一個問題來自美國銀行的 Wamsi Mohan。

Dave, you alluded to the progress that you've made on Mozaic. Given what you know now, how would you characterize the outlook for maybe HAMR units in the second half of '24 or perhaps into '25? And I think you mentioned your first customer looking to transition to 3-terabyte HAMR. What kind of exabyte installed base opportunity is that? And maybe you could address it even more broadly across hyperscalers. That would be very helpful.

戴夫，您提到了 Mozaic 的進展。鑑於您目前掌握的信息，您如何看待 2024 年下半年或 2025 年 HAMR 設備的前景？我記得您提到了您的第一位客戶希望過渡到 3TB 的 HAMR。這算是什麼 EB 級的安裝機會？或許您可以更廣泛地探討超大規模資料中心的部署情況。那將非常有幫助。

Yes. Thanks, Wamsi. So we were very quantitative and prescriptive on the last call about the front half of this year. I think we won't be as much on the back half of this year, but the ramp is continuing on at a healthy pace. And we're continuing to look at all what customers need on the last generation platform, next-generation platform, trying to balance supply and demand really well. I think that's the primary metric that we're focused on, make sure we get financial predictability. We'll drive the HAMR transition aggressively this year. And then Mozaic really gets into when we get to 4 terabytes of platter and how are we populating that chain. I mean we expect to drive as many HAMR exabytes into 2025 as we can.

是的，謝謝，Wamsi。上次關於今年上半年的電話會議中，我們做了非常量化和規範的預測。我認為下半年我們不會做那麼多，但成長速度仍在健康地成長。我們將持續專注於客戶對上一代平台和下一代平台的需求，並努力實現供需平衡。我認為這是我們關注的主要指標，確保財務可預測性。今年我們將積極推動HAMR轉型。然後，Mozaic會真正專注於何時達到4TB的盤片容量，以及如何填滿這條產業鏈。我的意思是，我們預計到2025年，HAMR的容量將達到盡可能多的EB級。

So we're off to a good start, I think, and we're going up the ramp and trying to work the yields and get everybody qualified like we talked about. Nothing really changed in the last 90 days, I would say. Problems are tough problems, but the team is knocking them down. So I'm pretty happy with that.

所以我認為我們開局不錯，我們正在逐步提升，努力提高收益率，讓每個人都能像我們之前討論的那樣獲得資格。我想說，過去90天裡沒有什麼改變。問題很棘手，但團隊正在努力解決。所以我對此非常滿意。

Okay. And Gianluca, maybe could you help us just think about the margin ramp? I think you noted some headwinds that will continue from underutilization charges, but you're also expecting the margins to increase all through calendar '24. Could you maybe also help us think through in that margin commentary, how -- what the margin differential is between HAMR and CMR mass capacity drives and how that might change over time?

好的。 Gianluca，您能否幫我們思考利潤率的提升？我認為您已經提到了由於未充分利用費用而持續存在的一些不利因素，但您也預計利潤率將在2024年全年上漲。您能否在利潤率評論中幫我們思考一下，HAMR和CMR大容量硬碟之間的利潤率差異是多少，以及這種差異會如何隨時間變化？

Yes, good question. Well, first of all, our December quarter showed a good improvement in profitability. Our gross margin was up about 4%. Operating margin was up more than 5%, so I'll say this profitability recovery already started. Part of that is, of course, coming from Mozaic cost actions that we have taken in the last almost 2 years. And of course, the mix improvement and of course the pricing action also that we have taken in the last several quarters. So this will continue to be reflected also in the future quarters.

是的，問得好。首先，我們12月季度的獲利能力顯著提升。毛利率成長了約4%，營業利潤率成長了5%以上，所以我想說，獲利能力的復甦已經開始。當然，部分原因在於我們在過去近兩年所採取的Mozaic成本控制措施。當然，還有我們在過去幾季所採取的產品組合改善和定價措施。因此，這些因素也將繼續體現在未來幾季。

Mix will continue to go through more mass capacity volume and those cost actions are, of course, continuing to be very effective. In terms of the underutilization, depending a bit what we ramped during the quarter. In the December quarter, we ramped a little bit more of the wafers, but of course, has high cost in our manufacturing to get ready for the shipment of the current quarter and next quarter in terms of HAMR. And then now we can mediate use it to be the wafer and trend more on the media and, of course, having more drive in the final test. So depending a little bit on the mix inside our production. So we said underutilization charges could be slightly higher, a little bit higher, but not very much higher, which is a little bit higher. So I expect that for the next few quarters to see mix going in the right direction, meaning more high-capacity drive and starting to see the impact from some volume of HAMR. So March will not be particularly high volume, but we will have more in June. And as Dave said, we will have even more into the second part of the calendar year.

Mix 將繼續實現更大的產能，而這些成本控制措施當然會持續非常有效。至於產能利用率不足的問題，這在一定程度上取決於我們在本季的產量。在 12 月季度，我們稍微增加了晶圓產量，但當然，為了準備本季和下一季的 HAMR 出貨，我們的製造成本很高。現在我們可以將其用作晶圓，並更多地關注介質，當然，在最終測試中也會有更多驅動器。所以，這在某種程度上取決於我們生產中的產能組合。我們之前說過，產能不足的費用可能會略高，但不會高太多，這個數字確實略高。因此，我預計在接下來的幾個季度裡，產能組合將朝著正確的方向發展，這意味著更多的高容量驅動器，並開始看到一定程度 HAMR 的影響。因此，3 月的產量不會特別高，但 6 月會有更多。正如 Dave 所說，到下半年，我們的產量會更高。

With the business improving, demand improving, we go into possibly higher revenue, and we are, of course, targeting to bring back our gross margin into the target range of 30% to 33%, as we said in the prior quarter at a much lower level of revenue compared to the prior upside.

隨著業務的改善和需求的提高，我們的收入可能會更高，當然，我們的目標是將毛利率恢復到 30% 至 33% 的目標範圍，正如我們在上一季所說的那樣，當時的收入水平遠低於前期的增長水平。

And our next question today comes from Erik Woodring with Morgan Stanley.

今天的下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的艾瑞克‧伍德林。

Dave, I was wondering if you could just double-click again on some of the dynamics behind the hyperscalers and where their inventory is. How long do you see any more pain or what their behavior is, what your conversations look like? And then again, how they're responding to any pricing actions and production changes that you've been making over the last -- relative to 90 days ago.

Dave，我想問您能否再次詳細談談超大規模資料中心背後的一些動態以及他們的庫存情況。您認為這種痛苦還會持續多久？他們的行為如何？你們的溝通狀況如何？此外，相對於90天前，他們對您在過去採取的定價行動和生產調整有何反應？

Yes. The dynamics for them is very interesting, and it has affected us quite a bit over the last year or so. I do think the inventory situation is much, much better than it was 6 months ago. So I'll say, it's basically cleaned up at this point. And it's going into the inventory changes going out and being consumed by the data centers again. So we're much happier with that. The rate of consumption isn't what it was 2 years ago. And -- but I do think it's going to accelerate a little bit. And this is where we get into the forecast numbers of what the CAGR is, the exabyte CAGR.

是的。他們的動態非常有趣，而且在過去一年左右的時間裡對我們影響很大。我確實認為庫存情況比六個月前好多了。所以可以說，現在庫存基本上已經清理乾淨了。這些庫存正在流入庫存，並再次被資料中心消耗。我們對此感到非常高興。消耗率不像兩年前那麼高了。而且——但我確實認為它會略微加快一些。這就是我們預測的EB級複合年增長率（CAGR）的原因。

In 2020, we were in the high 50s and then we stayed in the 30s for 2021 and 2022. And then for the first time ever for the last year, 1.5 years, we've seen negative exabyte growth, which doesn't make any sense. We're forecasting still in the mid-20s right now. And it may be a little bit higher as people get into some of these replacement cycles that we talked about. The interesting dynamic as I look back on the last 1.5 years was the push for AI and how it consumed a lot of compute dollars for the compute infrastructure that was going on in the data centers. And that's critical for most of our customers. They have been raised up to get as much compute memory for that compute online as they could to be able to handle all these AI applications everyone's talking about. I do think ultimately, there's a data back end piece of that. And then also, there's the fact that they were -- as they were prioritizing that, they were letting the drives that they had in the data centers just continue to run. So there's the replacement cycle for power and space and just overall cost benefits.

2020年，資料量達到了50多億字節，而2021年和2022年則保持在30億多位元組。然而，在過去一年半里，我們首次看到了EB級的負成長，這完全不合常理。我們目前的預測仍然在20多億位元組左右。隨著人們進入我們之前提到的一些設備更換週期，EB級資料量可能會更高一些。回顧過去一年半，我發現一個有趣的現象：人工智慧的蓬勃發展，以及它如何消耗了大量的運算資源，用於資料中心的運算基礎設施建設。這對我們的大多數客戶來說至關重要。為了能夠處理大家正在討論的所有這些人工智慧應用，他們不得不盡可能地取得線上運算所需的運算記憶體。我確實認為，最終這其中涉及到數據後端的部分。而且，事實上，由於他們優先考慮這一點，所以他們讓資料中心現有的硬碟繼續運作。因此，電源和空間的更換週期以及整體成本效益都存在。

We're all -- we're definitely having those conversations with our customers, and then factoring that into what exactly our volume plans are for the next 3 years and saying this is what we're intending to build. This is the economics that you could get it to -- and we've talked about this build-to-order before and I think we're getting a lot of good reception. There's a lot of other supply chains that are actually managed this way by these people. So they understand it fairly well, and they see the TCO benefits of the higher capacity drives, so they want to reach for that, plan it well and they'll get it. And we have to be careful, of course, because the factories have been so decimated by this downturn that we need to make sure that as we grow back, we grow back in a smart way.

我們一直在與客戶進行溝通，並將這些因素納入我們未來三年的產量計劃中，並明確我們計劃生產的產品。這才是我們能夠實現的經濟效益——我們之前也討論過這種單單生產的方式，我認為我們得到了很多積極的反響。實際上，許多其他供應鏈也由我們的員工以這種方式管理。他們對此非常了解，也看到了高容量硬碟帶來的整體擁有成本 (TCO) 優勢，​​因此他們希望實現這一目標，並做好規劃，最終實現目標。當然，我們必須謹慎行事，因為工廠在這次經濟衰退中遭受了重創，因此我們必須確保在復甦過程中，能夠以明智的方式實現。

And our next question today comes from Aaron Rakers with Wells Fargo.

我們今天的下一個問題來自富國銀行的 Aaron Rakers。

I wanted to maybe just ask about the income statement, just the P&L trajectory from here. This guidance that you've given looks like it's the first kind of sequential increase in OpEx that we've seen, and I can appreciate improving fundamentals, et cetera. I'm just curious, how do we think about the pace of quarterly OpEx and maybe a normalized level of operating expenses looking out over a couple of quarters. And then kind of building off of that with free cash flow generation returning, just remind us again how you think about the capital structure and possibility of coming back into the market in terms of share repo?

我想問損益表，也就是接下來的損益走勢。您給出的指引看起來是我們首次看到營運支出較上季成長，而且我也很欣賞基本面的改善等等。我只是好奇，我們如何看待季度營運支出的成長速度，以及未來幾季營運支出的正常化程度。然後，隨著自由現金流的恢復，請您再次提醒我們，您如何看待資本結構以及在股票回購方面重返市場的可能性？

Thanks, Aaron. Well, in terms of OpEx, if you look our trend has always been very positive in terms of OpEx control, cost control. Just a few quarters ago, we were at well above $300 million. So we went fairly low, especially in the last quarter, now at $240 million. As I said in the prepared remarks, we have little bit of higher costs expected in this quarter because we took some extraordinary action on salary that ended at the end of last quarter. So we have a little bit of higher labor cost. As usual, we will focus on OpEx control. It's still a very, very good number. And I think in the next few quarters, we will stay around this level of OpEx until next fiscal year. As you know, in the current fiscal year, we don't have any variable compensation overall in our COGS and OpEx, but a big part is in OpEx. So I think this level is probably reasonable for fiscal Q3 and fiscal Q4. And then next fiscal year, probably a little bit higher cost in OpEx. Still, I think well below the $300 million, probably between $270 million, $280 million a quarter is probably a reasonable way to model it.

謝謝，Aaron。就營運支出而言，我們一直以來在營運支出控制和成本控制方面都保持著非常正面的趨勢。就在幾個季度前，我們的營運支出遠高於3億美元。因此，我們的營運支出下降得相當低，尤其是在上個季度，目前為2.4億美元。正如我在準備好的發言稿中所說，由於我們採取了一些特別的薪資措施，該措施已於上個季度末結束，預計本季的成本將略有增加。因此，我們的勞動成本略有上升。與往常一樣，我們將專注於營運支出控制。這仍然是一個非常非常好的數字。我認為在接下來的幾個季度中，我們的營運支出將保持在這個水平，直到下一個財年。如你所知，在本財年，我們的銷售成本和營運支出中沒有任何浮動薪酬，但很大一部分是營運支出。因此，我認為這個水準對於第三財季和第四財季來說可能是合理的。下一個財年，營運支出的成本可能會略有上升。不過，我認為遠低於 3 億美元，可能在每季 2.7 億至 2.8 億美元之間才是合理的建模方式。

Free cash flow. We had another positive free cash flow quarter. Of course, always very important for us to generate positive free cash flow. Revenue is increasing, profitability is increasing and therefore, we expect free cash flow also to improve sequentially through the next few quarters.

自由現金流。我們又一個季度的自由現金流為正。當然，創造正的自由現金流對我們來說始終非常重要。收入正在成長，獲利能力正在提升，因此，我們預計未來幾季的自由現金流也將持續改善。

And our next question today comes from Krish Sankar with TD Cowen.

今天的下一個問題來自 TD Cowen 的 Krish Sankar。

This is Eddy for Krish. Congrats on the HAMR launch. It's an exciting opportunity for you guys. I have a question regarding the customer value you are providing with these 32-terabyte HAMR drives. Will customers be enjoying lower price for terabyte versus 22 and 24 terabytes CMR drives, for example? Or because HAMR yields haven't matured yet, this benefit will be more about power and space and the lower price per terabyte to take place in the future.

我是 Eddy，代表 Krish 為您報道。恭喜 HAMR 正式發表。這對你們來說是一個令人興奮的機會。我有一個關於 32TB HAMR 硬碟的客戶價值的問題。與 22TB 和 24TB 的 CMR 硬碟相比，客戶是否會享受到更低的 32TB 價格？或者說，由於 HAMR 良率尚未成熟，這種優勢將更多地體現在功耗、空間以及更低的每 TB 價格上，而這些優勢將在未來逐漸顯現。

Yes. Well, it's a good question. We will balance everything, of course, what our yields are and our costs are and then try to get the customers incentivized. But there is some incentive business provided by their power and space reductions as well. We call that their TCO proposition. So all things in balance. I do think that the price per terabyte, if you will, is nominally the same. It may be just slightly lower, but there's definitely going to be a TCO incentive for the customers to move off of the lower capacities and under guidance.

是的。嗯，這是個好問題。當然，我們會平衡所有因素，包括我們的收益和成本，然後努力激勵客戶。但是，他們降低功耗和空間也提供了一些激勵措施。我們稱之為他們的TCO（總體擁有成本）方案。所以一切都保持平衡。我確實認為，每TB的價格，如果你願意的話，名義上是相同的。可能只是略低一些，但肯定會有TCO激勵措施，促使客戶在指導下放棄低容量產品。

That's great color. And if we juxtapose the HAMR transition to the transition from LMR to PMR that took place back in 2006, 2008, you guys went from like 0% PMR mix to 100% within 5 to 6 scores. Do you think the HAMR transition will be as quick or you see some reasons why this trans may be a little bit slower transition from LMR to PMR, in that sense...

這顏色真漂亮。如果我們把HAMR的轉變與2006年、2008年從LMR到PMR的轉變做對比，你們在5到6個分數內就從0%的PMR混合比例上升到了100%。您認為HAMR的轉變會一樣快嗎？或者您認為從LMR到PMR的轉變可能會慢一些，從這個意義上來說…

The cycle times are a little bit longer now. So I don't think it will be as fast. I mean I'd like it to be as fast and we'll continue to drive it as quick as we possibly can. The one thing I will say is that our last generation PMR product, if you will, the 2.4 terabytes platter drive that we've just talked about has a remarkably similar kit of parts as the HAMR drives do. So relative to what we're making one versus the other, it's not a big deal and we can get through customer transitions easier.

現在的周期有點長。所以我認為速度不會那麼快。我的意思是，我希望它能盡可能快，而且我們會繼續盡可能地提高速度。我想說的是，我們上一代PMR產品，也就是我們剛才提到的2.4TB單碟驅動器，其零件套件與HAMR驅動器非常相似。所以，相對於我們製造的產品而言，這沒什麼大不了的，我們可以更輕鬆地完成客戶的過渡。

I think as we gain more confidence in a year over the 4-plus terabyte Mozaic platforms, then we'll definitely want to accelerate. Because by the time you get to say, 5-plus terabytes, then it's such a great replacement on every legacy product that you have that we want to drive the whole portfolio there because utilization is much better in the factories and the costs come way down.

我認為，隨著我們對4TB以上Mozaic平台一年內越來越有信心，我們肯定會加速發展。因為到5TB以上的時候，它將成為所有現有產品的絕佳替代品，我們希望推動整個產品組合朝這個方向發展，因為工廠的利用率會更高，成本也會大幅下降。

And our next question comes from Thomas O'Malley with Barclays.

我們的下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的托馬斯·奧馬利。

I appreciate it. So I just wanted to understand the move from qualification to revenue recognition. It sounds like with your largest customer, you're finishing qualification right now and you're obviously pointing to some big units in the first half. You mentioned on the call that you're expecting quals with the majority of the U.S. cloud guys and a couple of others in calendar year '24. Would you expect a similar time frame between qualification and revenue recognition? Aka, like if those are getting qualified in the second half of this year, you could see revenue from a large number of additional customers. Just wanted to understand the timing.

非常感謝。所以我想了解一下從資格認證到收入確認的流程。聽起來，對於你們最大的客戶，你們現在正在完成資格認證，而且顯然是想在上半年推出一些大客戶。你在電話會議上提到，預計在2024年，大多數美國雲端運算公司和其他一些公司都會獲得資格認證。你預期資格認證和收入確認之間的時間間隔是否相似？也就是說，如果這些公司在今年下半年獲得資格認證，你們可能會看到大量額外客戶的收入。我只是想了解一下具體時間。

Thanks, Thomas. It's complex. There are some customers that are relatively shorter qualifications. And that -- some of that's because of feature set, making sure we get the feature set checked out. If they're on a generic feature set that we're already shipping versus their own unique feature set, we have to make sure we're doing all those things right. That's normal in any nearline transition. And I will say that a lot of people are seeing the TCO benefits. So they're asking and trying to speed these qualifications through, right, because they want that benefit to flow through as well. We will also be limited on our ramp as to what we can do and the cycle times are quite long. So we're going to balance all these things together, if that helps you.

謝謝，Thomas。這很複雜。有些客戶的資質審核相對較短。部分原因是功能集的問題，我們需要確保對功能集進行全面審核。如果他們使用的是我們已發布的通用功能集，而不是他們自己獨有的功能集，我們必須確保所有方面都正確無誤。這在任何近線轉型中都很正常。而且我想說，很多人都看到了TCO（總擁有成本）的好處。所以他們要求並試圖加快這些資質審核的速度，因為他們也希望這種好處能夠惠及客戶。我們的能力也會受到限制，而且週期也相當長。所以，我們會平衡所有這些因素，希望這對您有幫助。

Yes, that's helpful. And then I just wanted to ask one on the margin side. So you guys have talked about 20% below peak, but still getting back to that 30% gross margin target or at least at the low end. If you look at what you're saying for mass capacity growth for the industry, mid-20s, if you just assigned that to kind of your revenue ramp over the next couple of years, it takes probably 1.5 years to kind of get to that $2.5 billion, $2.6 billion mark, just using like a linear growth rate. Is that the time frame we should be thinking about until you get back to that 30% to 32% gross margin? Or can you get there before? And what are the levers that get you there before revenue gets back to that $2.5 billion, $2.6 billion?

是的，這很有幫助。然後我想問一個關於利潤率的問題。你們之前提到過，毛利率比高峰低20%，但仍能回到30%的目標，或至少在低階。如果你看看你們所說的產業產能大規模成長，25%左右，如果將其作為未來幾年營收成長的參考，那麼按照線性成長率計算，大概需要1.5年才能達到25億到26億美元的目標。這是我們在毛利率回到30%到32%之前應該考慮的時間範圍嗎？或者說，你們能提早達到這個目標嗎？在收入回到25億到26億美元之前，有哪些因素可以幫助你們實現這個目標？

Thank you, Tom. Well, the major lever is HAMR. So the more we ramp up HAMR, the better will be the margin. So we are becoming more and more positive on, of course, the timing of the continuous improvement in our margin. I would say, we gave an indication last quarter in terms of the level of revenue, what we think we need to achieve in order to get a certain level of gross margin. That is probably I'm getting a little bit more optimistic right now. So probably we can do at even lower level of revenue.

謝謝，湯姆。主要的槓桿是HAMR。所以我們提升HAMR的幅度越大，利潤率就越高。因此，我們對利潤率持續提升的時機越來越樂觀。我想說，上個季度我們在收入水平方面給出了一個指示，即我們認為需要達到什麼樣的水平才能達到一定的毛利率。我現在可能對此更加樂觀了。所以，我們甚至可能在更低的收入水平下也能實現目標。

As you said before, qualification of customers is important, but we are working hard on qualifying more and more customers. So assuming we can continue our ramp on HAMR, now I'm fairly positive we can do earlier than what you said and also at the lower level of revenue.

正如您之前所說，客戶資格認證很重要，但我們正在努力爭取更多客戶。因此，假設我們能夠繼續推進HAMR業務，我相當有信心，我們能夠比您預期的更早完成，而且收入水平也會更低。

And our next question comes from Karl Ackerman with BNP Paribas.

我們的下一個問題來自法國巴黎銀行的卡爾·阿克曼。

Gianluca, it's encouraging to see an improving gross margin trajectory, but it doesn't appear to be driven by price yet. Given our mass capacity suggests that price per terabyte did fall low single digits sequentially and year-over-year, could you perhaps address whether we should expect previous actions to raise prices across the channel may occur over the next couple of quarters? I have a follow-up, please.

Gianluca，看到毛利率不斷改善令人鼓舞，但這似乎尚未受到價格的推動。鑑於我們的海量容量表明，每TB的價格確實環比和同比下降了個位數，您能否談談，我們是否應該預期此前在整個渠道採取的漲價措施可能會在未來幾個季度內發生？我還有一個後續問題，請問。

Well, I would say, you can see the good improvement in our profitability. A good part of that is actually coming from pricing. Of course, you need to check into the like-for-like pricing. The mix is, of course, always a major impact on the average. We are very happy with what we are doing, both on pricing and on cost. This quarter show a fantastic improvement in profitability, both gross margin and operating margin. And if you look at our guidance, this imply another strong improvement in profitability. So pricing is a good part of that. Mix is another part of that improvement. And we will continue to do exactly execute the strategy, and we are very glad with the outcome so far.

我想說，您可以看到我們盈利能力的顯著提升。這很大一部分實際上來自於定價。當然，您需要查看同比定價。產品組合對平均價格始終有重大影響。我們對目前的定價和成本控制措施感到非常滿意。本季獲利能力（包括毛利率和營業利潤率）均顯著提升。如果您查看我們的業績指引，您會發現這意味著獲利能力將再次強勁提升。定價是其中很重要的一環。產品組合是獲利能力提升的另一個面向。我們將繼續嚴格執行這項策略，我們對目前所取得的成果非常滿意。

Yes. I would say, Karl, the raw demand is still not what it was 2 years ago. And so -- and we have a supply chain that's not entirely healthy yet. We have to go continue to work on those actions. But I do think over time, especially incentivizing transitions to newer mass capacity drives. And then if there's price raises, it tends to be more on legacy and to the extent that everyone is under the same strain throughout the entire ecosystem, this is the trend that we're seeing. I think we'll probably take advantage of it.

是的。 Karl，我想說，原始需求仍然不如兩年前。而且我們的供應鏈也還不夠健康。我們必須繼續努力。但我確實認為，隨著時間的推移，特別是鼓勵向更新的大容量硬碟過渡，將會有所改善。如果價格上漲，這往往更多是針對傳統硬碟，而且由於整個生態系統中每個人都承受著同樣的壓力，這就是我們看到的趨勢。我認為我們可能會利用它。

My sense is that in the next year or 2, we'll get to the point where we get high enough of the ramp that we can be very predictable. And then I think things will stabilize quite a bit. But we're not at a place where the industry has enough demand relative to the capacity that has online yet.

我的感覺是，在未來一兩年內，我們的產能爬坡速度將達到足夠高的水平，變得非常可預測。之後，我認為情況會相當穩定。但目前，相較於上線的產能而言，產業需求還遠遠不夠。

And our next question today comes from Kevin Cassidy of Rosenblatt Securities.

我們今天的下一個問題來自羅森布拉特證券公司的凱文卡西迪。

Congratulations on the great results. You implemented a build-to-order program with your customers. Can you give an update on that? Is that still active? And how is it giving you visibility?

恭喜您取得的優異成績。您與客戶共同實施了按訂單生產計劃。可否介紹一下該計劃的最新進展？該計劃現在還在實施嗎？它如何提升您的知名度？

Yes. Thanks very much. It is, and it's transitioned from my last comments as well because the industry just at the levels that we're at, to build on my last comment is just can't fund the investment to make an areal density and exabyte growth over time with the revenue and margins where it was. And what helps us is -- to run factories is the improved visibility and the predictability towards that in demand. And so I think that's why the HDD industry has changed fairly dramatically through this cycle, these last 6 or 8 quarters, because capacity did come at the same time that people were -- that demand was down.

是的，非常感謝。確實如此，而且這與我上次的評論也有所不同，因為就我們目前的行業水平而言，在收入和利潤率不變的情況下，根本無法為實現磁碟密度和EB級增長提供資金支持。對我們營運工廠有幫助的是，需求的可見性和可預測性得到了提高。所以我認為這就是為什麼HDD產業在過去6到8個季度的周期中發生了相當大的變化，因為產能的增加與人們的需求下降是同時發生的。

And the industry is, therefore, underinvested in capital and lead times are going up, as we've talked about before. So we need this build-to-order framework to just get back to a healthy industry. And we are rewarding predictability with our customers, and we're incentivizing that predictability and where the people aren't predictable, and they come in at the last minute for product that either we don't have it or they have to pay for our flexibility. I think that's the way we're thinking about it. And then making sure that we stabilize the supply base as well because it's not just ourselves as the HDD supplier, but we have numerous upstream supplies that need to be stabilized as well. So it's still going to take some time.

因此，正如我們之前提到的，該行業資本投資不足，交貨時間不斷延長。因此，我們需要這種按訂單生產的框架來恢復產業的健康發展。我們鼓勵客戶保持可預測性，並激勵他們保持可預測性，尤其是在人為因素難以預測的情況下，他們會在最後一刻來購買我們缺貨的產品，或者必須為我們的靈活性付費。我想這就是我們的想法。此外，我們還要確保供應基礎的穩定，因為不僅是我們自己作為硬碟供應商，還有許多上游供應商需要穩定。所以這仍然需要一些時間。

Okay. Great. And you mentioned vertical integration of your laser technology. Is that a cost savings? Or is it more controlling the supply chain?

好的。太好了。您提到了雷射技術的垂直整合。這樣能節省成本嗎？還是更有利於控制供應鏈？

Yes. I think at this point, it's been a long time coming, and we definitely value the suppliers that have helped us get HAMR products to market. We also feel like given how intricate this silicon photonic circuitry is, is that we needed our own capability to control. But right now, it's more of a technology second sourcing, if you will. And so we're going to continue to run with a few sources.

是的。我認為，目前為止，我們已經等了很久了，我們非常重視幫助我們將HAMR產品推向市場的供應商。我們也認為，鑑於矽光子電路的複雜性，我們需要擁有自主控制的能力。但目前，這更像是一種技術的第二採購。因此，我們將繼續使用少數供應商。

I think over time, there should be the opportunity to go drive the cost down and balance all things with multiple sources and the ability to control the investments that we make in capital, for example, and things like that. But it's been a long time coming and part of the reason we're talking about it as part of Mozaic because it's very relevant as we get to 4-terabyte platter and 5 terabyte platter. I think also there's been some noise out there in the industry about, well, as goes the ramp of that supplier so goes the Seagate ramp, and that's clearly not true.

我認為隨著時間的推移，應該有機會降低成本，並透過多種管道平衡所有因素，並控制我們在資本方面的投資等等。但這已經醞釀了很長一段時間，我們之所以在Mozaic中討論這個問題，部分原因在於它與我們邁向4TB和5TB硬碟的目標息息相關。我認為業界也有一些聲音認為，希捷的產能擴張會隨著希捷的擴張而成長，但這顯然不是事實。

And our next question today comes from Steven Bryant Fox with Fox Advisors LLC.

今天的下一個問題來自 Fox Advisors LLC 的 Steven Bryant Fox。

Dave, I was just wondering if you could zoom out a little bit, without putting any kind of time frame on it, to get to the 30% gross margins. It seems like you can almost get there from here on just the typical incremental margins from volumes. But based on everything you said, it doesn't seem that easy, especially early stage with HAMR versus later stage. So can you sort of walk through some of the puts and takes, say, over the next 2 to 3 quarters versus, say, when you hit that volume crossover where it becomes more smooth to get to the margin? It's just -- there's been a lot of comments around this. Maybe you could just sum it up.

戴夫，我只是想知道，您能否稍微縮小一下範圍，不設定任何時間框架，來談談如何實現30%的毛利率。看起來，僅憑典型的產量增量利潤率，您幾乎就能從現在開始實現這一目標。但從您所說的來看，這似乎並不容易，尤其是在HAMR的早期階段，而不是後期階段。您能否舉例說明一下，比如說，未來2到3個季度，以及達到產量交叉點後，實現利潤率會變得更加平穩的情況？關於這個問題有很多評論。也許您可以總結一下。

Yes. And Gianluca can share some insights as well here. I think that first of all, we're ramping HAMR according to some prescriptive schedule. We can deploy it into certain mass capacity hyperscaler markets. We can also deploy it in other markets, depending on how we choose to do things so we can put it in VIA markets, for example, over time. And the rate at which we are able to transition and our yields and scrap and things like that, especially once we get to 4 terabytes per platter, then I think that becomes more and more accretive in margin. Fundamentally, though, I still think the demand picture actually is going to shape the next few quarters from a margin perspective.

是的。 Gianluca 也可以分享一些見解。我認為，首先，我們正在按照既定的計劃逐步增加 HAMR 容量。我們可以將其部署到某些大容量超大規模市場。我們也可以將其部署到其他市場，這取決於我們選擇的方式，例如，隨著時間的推移，我們可以將其部署到 VIA 市場。我們的轉型速度、良率、廢品率等等，尤其是在達到每盤 4TB 容量之後，我認為這將越來越有利於利潤的成長。不過，從根本上來說，我仍然認為需求狀況實際上將從利潤率的角度決定未來幾季的走勢。

My sense is the demand has still not come anywhere close to where it was 2 years ago. We may see with the growth of data and with investments that people need to make in data around all these AI applications, we may see demand pick back up again, and that will be the fundamental driver.

我的感覺是，需求遠不及兩年前的水準。我們或許會看到，隨著數據的成長，以及人們圍繞所有這些人工智慧應用在數據方面所需進行的投資，需求可能會再次回升，這將成為根本驅動力。

Gianluca, go ahead.

詹盧卡，請說。

Yes. No, I said that before, I think the combination of stronger demand through the cycle and our very good products based on HAMR technology will drive further improvement in gross margin, sequential improvement. Now I think we will have a sequential improvement through the entire kind of '24. And this is, of course, based on our view of the ramp of HAMR and also the recovery from the prior down cycle that we expect, especially in the mass capacity to continue through the entire kind of '24 and actually even kind of '25 in it.

是的，不，我之前就說過了。我認為，週期內更強勁的需求，加上我們基於HAMR技術的優質產品，將推動毛利率的進一步提升，以實現環比成長。我認為，在整個24年，我們的業績都將較上季成長。當然，這是基於我們對HAMR成長的預期，以及我們預期的從先前下行週期中復甦的預期，尤其是在大規模產能將持續成長的情況下，24年乃至25年。

That's helpful. Just can you fill in one other blank, which is back-end testing capacity? How does that sort of help hurt margins as this ramp happens?

這很有幫助。能否補充一下，後端測試能力？隨著產能提升，這種幫助會如何影響利潤率？

Based on where we were from legacy products years ago on desktop and so on and even just the volumes we were at a couple of years ago, I think we have plenty of back end test capacity.

根據我們幾年前在桌面等傳統產品上的情況，甚至只是幾年前的數量，我認為我們有足夠的後端測試能力。

But is it a longer test cycle though? Is it going to be a long test cycle as you did before...

但測試週期會更長嗎？會像以前一樣很長嗎？

It is. It certainly is. The bigger the drive, the longer the test cycle, but we still have plenty of capacity to cover the demands at this level.

是的，確實如此。硬碟越大，測試週期越長，但我​​們仍然有足夠的容量來滿足這個等級的需求。

And our next question comes from Timothy Arcuri with UBS.

我們的下一個問題來自瑞銀的 Timothy Arcuri。

This is [Leo] on for Tim. Just one for me. Now you don't report orders, but perhaps you could give us some color on book-to-bill and just some idea of where orders are relative to revenues and where that -- how that book-to-bill has been trending and where you think that's going over the next couple of quarters. That would be helpful.

我是[Leo]，Tim。我只想問一個問題。現在您沒有報告訂單，但您能否介紹一下訂單出貨比的情況，以及訂單與收入的關係，以及訂單出貨比的趨勢如何，以及您認為未來幾季的趨勢如何。這將會很有幫助。

Thanks. Yes, that does get into our build-to-order plans. We are definitely, like I said before, very prescriptive on what we're building for people 2, 3, 4 quarters out. And as long as we all stay on that plan, I think that's predictable economics for our customers as well. So it's going better and better every quarter. I think when we first launched this, there were questions that I was getting on these earnings calls about supply is so far below -- or sorry, since demand is so far below supply today, how can you do something like this? But we need that predictability in order to run the supply chain and reward everyone upstream of the supply chain. So far, the progress has been fairly good and we're getting better visibility in the next quarter and beyond.

謝謝。是的，這確實涉及到我們的按單生產計劃。正如我之前所說，我們對於為客戶在未來2、3、4季生產的產品有著非常明確的規定。只要我們都堅持這個計劃，我認為我們的客戶也能獲得可預測的經濟效益。所以每季都會越來越好。我記得我們剛推出這個計劃的時候，我在財報電話會議上聽到有人問我，供應量遠低於——或者抱歉，既然現在需求遠低於供應量，你怎麼能這樣做呢？但我們需要這種可預測性，以便營運供應鏈並獎勵供應鏈上游的每一個人。到目前為止，進展相當順利，我們對下個季度及以後的前景也越來越有信心。

And our next question comes from Vijay Rakesh with Mizuho.

我們的下一個問題來自瑞穗的 Vijay Rakesh。

Dave and Gianluca, just on the enterprise hard disk drive side, on the hard disk asset, do you see, given the 25% exabyte growth and recovery on the TC side this year, do you expect those revenues to get back to that $2 billion run rate exiting '24 , I guess, calendar '24?

Dave 和 Gianluca，僅就企業硬碟而言，就硬碟資產而言，鑑於今年 TC 方面 25% 的 EB 成長和復甦，您是否預計這些收入將在 2024 年（我猜是 24 日曆年）結束時回到 20 億美元的運行率？

No, we don't guide after this quarter. So we just gave a good guidance for the March quarter in terms of revenue increase and profitability increase. And as we said, no, we are ramping HAMR volume. We are seeing better demand environment. So we expect sequential improvement through the quarter, but we don't give specific guidance on revenue for the end of the calendar year.

不，我們不會在本季之後發布業績指引。我們只是在營收成長和獲利成長方面給出了3月份季度的良好指引。正如我們所說，我們正在提升HAMR的銷售量。我們看到了更好的需求環境。因此，我們預計本季業績將季比改善，但我們不會就年底的收入提供具體的指引。

Yes. I would say that obviously we're watching nearline demand, CSP demand, on-prem enterprise demand continuing to build strength but not nearly be as big as it was a couple of years ago, but that's very good and we're being very careful building into it.

是的。我想說的是，我們顯然看到近線需求、CSP需求和本地企業需求持續增強，但遠不及幾年前那麼大，但這非常好，我們正在非常謹慎地建立它。

The one point that you just raised, which was the whole AI PC demand, which I think it's still very early innings in this, but we do see opportunity there. High-end workstations, if you will, that are running AI applications may actually be an interesting opportunity.

您剛才提到的一點，即整個人工智慧PC的需求，我認為目前還處於非常早期的階段，但我們確實看到了機會。運行人工智慧應用程式的高端工作站實際上可能是一個有趣的機會。

Got it. And then on the gross margin line, sorry to belabor that, Gianluca, do you see you guys getting back to that target window 33% exiting this year? And especially on the HAMR side, I think Dave mentioned you can do with 4-terabyte-plus 5 disks for a 20-terabyte drive versus 7 to 10 disks now. What are the gross margins on HAMR versus where you see your corporate margins today, I guess?

明白了。然後關於毛利率，抱歉，Gianluca，你覺得你們今年能回到33%的目標窗口嗎？尤其是在HAMR方面，我記得Dave提到過，一個20TB的驅動器可以用5塊4TB以上的磁碟，而不是現在的7到10塊磁碟。 HAMR的毛利率與您目前公司利潤率相比如何？

We know we said in the past amortized gross margin is, for sure, accretive to the corporation. So it's always above our average. Right now, as you know, there is no HAMR drive in our results. But now we see starting in the March quarter, and you already see some improvement in our guidance. It will be, I expect, more when we go into the June quarter and through the rest of the calendar year. So we are positive on the profitability from that product. And we need to take our time to qualify big customers and then to start ramp because, as Dave said, we take a little bit of time to ramp high-volume production for the new product.

我們過去說過，攤銷毛利率肯定會為公司帶來增值。所以它一直高於我們的平均水平。目前，如你所知，我們的業績中沒有HAMR驅動因素。但現在我們看到，從3月季度開始，你已經看到我們的業績指引有所改善。我預計，進入6月季度以及今年剩餘時間，這數字還會進一步提升。所以我們對該產品的獲利能力持樂觀態度。我們需要花時間去爭取大客戶的認可，然後開始提升產量，因為正如戴夫所說，我們需要一些時間來提高新產品的產量。

And our next question comes from Ananda Baruah with Loop Capital.

我們的下一個問題來自 Loop Capital 的 Ananda Baruah。

Really appreciate it. I guess for Dave, and Gianluca can jump in here, too. The hyperscalers are sort of having some conversation about data center redesign over the coming years, a lot of this is around GPU compute. But they are referring to it as data center (inaudible). And I guess would there -- if that occurs, do you have any opinion on if there would be incremental opportunity for nearline drive that would, I guess, substantively be like in addition to whatever data growth is going on? So really I just wanted to -- if you have any thoughts on that in any context. And that's it.

非常感謝。我想 Dave 和 Gianluca 也可以插嘴。超大規模資料中心營運商正在討論未來幾年資料中心的重新設計，其中許多都與 GPU 運算有關。但他們稱之為資料中心（聽不清楚）。如果這種情況發生，您是否認為近線驅動器是否會有增量機會，我想這是否會在數據增長之外產生實質性的影響？所以，我只是想問問您對此有何看法。就是這樣。

Yes. Ananda, it's a real complex topic. What I would say is that the compute infrastructure is changing dramatically and the memory architectures will change to support that computer architecture very dramatically as well. So there is a lot of redesign discussion going on. There are different types of applications and things that are being branded AI. There's stuff that's very focused on text or large language models. And then there's image recognition and video creation. And so there's a lot of different types of applications that are propagating. And I think this is just normal application development that's been going on for years and years and years. But I do think there's different types of hardware. So I think there are some now AI data centers being discussed that are largely compute.

是的。阿南達，這是一個非常複雜的話題。我想說的是，運算基礎設施正在發生巨大的變化，記憶體架構也將隨之發生巨大的變化以支援這種電腦架構。因此，目前有很多關於重新設計的討論。有不同類型的應用程式和事物被冠以人工智慧的標籤。有些非常專注於文字或大型語言模型。然後還有圖像辨識和影片創作。因此，有許多不同類型的應用程式正在傳播。我認為這只是多年來一直在進行的正常應用程式開發。但我確實認為存在不同類型的硬體。所以我認為現在正在討論的一些人工智慧資料中心主要與計算有關。

I also think that some of these applications are spinning off a lot of data and they're requiring data to be stored for a certain period of time and then brought back up to the higher levels to be reprocessed. And so that's just normal data growth as well. So I think the net of it is there's a lot of architectural redesign going on, probably not affecting the tiers that we're in. If anything, and we made reference to this in the prepared remarks, there's cost power and space at a premium. There's many AI applications from what I'm hearing that there's just not enough power for and our infrastructure is going to be critical. But to the extent that you can do your part to buy transitioning to higher capacity drives that net-net gives you the same exabyte capacity with less power. I think that's a good thing. It may be an opportunity for us.

我還認為，其中一些應用程式正在產生大量數據，它們需要將數據儲存一段時間，然後再將其傳輸到更高層級進行重新處理。所以，這也只是正常的數據成長。所以，我認為最終結果是，大量的架構重新設計正在進行，這可能不會影響我們所處的層級。如果有什麼不同的話，我們在準備好的發言中提到了這一點，那就是成本、功耗和空間都非常寶貴。據我所知，許多人工智慧應用程式的功耗不足，而我們的基礎設施將至關重要。但是，如果您能盡自己的一份力，購買更高容量的硬碟，最終就能以更低的功耗獲得相同的EB級容量。我認為這是一件好事。這對我們來說可能是一個機會。

So that would be in addition to like the 25% kind of data run rate driven -- that sort of power as a catalyst, Dave?

那麼，除了 25% 的數據運行率驅動之外，這種力量還能作為催化劑嗎，戴夫？

It's hard to say. It depends on the bills and how much people are having to pay for it. Again, I think in the AI applications that are really exploding right now, power is going to become one of the limiting factors. And so to the extent that there may be a really good payoff in not only cost savings, space savings and so on, but also just freeing up that power infrastructure to go do other things. I mean that might actually help us get above the 25%.

很難說。這取決於帳單金額以及人們需要為此支付多少錢。同樣，我認為在目前蓬勃發展的人工智慧應用中，功耗將成為限制因素之一。因此，在某種程度上，這不僅可能帶來豐厚的回報，包括節省成本、節省空間等等，還能釋放電力基礎設施來做其他事情。我的意思是，這實際上可能幫助我們超過25%的目標。

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

我們的下一個問題來自 The Benchmark Company 的馬克米勒。

Congratulations on the launch of Mozaic. I'm just wondering, you mentioned it briefly. What kind of traction are you seeing from AI-related opportunities? And what do you -- how do you see that ramping throughout the year?

祝賀 Mozaic 上線。您剛才簡單提到了這一點。您認為人工智慧相關的機會會帶來哪些發展？您認為這種機會在全年會如何發展？

Yes, Mark, me, I'm pretty cynical sometimes on these things, and I'm looking for POs that actually say AI on them. And they are starting to happen, but it's still fairly small. And again, I'll go back to my previous comments. These are really applications that have been developing on a lot of fronts over many years anyway. So say, for example, image recognition, whether it's at the edge or in the cloud, that application space has been developing over time quite a bit. When we get into specific things like large language models where people talk about, I think the data infrastructure impact piece is still secondary to the compute piece even at this point. So at some point, there will be compute enabling all these really cool applications and efficiencies that people and businesses like ours were taking advantage of and then the data will continue to grow on the back side of that, but we're still early innings on that.

是的，馬克，我有時對這些事情持懷疑態度，我正在尋找真正涉及人工智慧的產品經理。這些應用已經開始出現，但規模仍然很小。我再次回到我之前的評論。這些應用實際上多年來一直在許多領域不斷發展。例如，影像識別，無論是在邊緣還是在雲端，這個應用領域一直在不斷發展。當我們談到人們談論的大型語言模型等具體問題時，我認為即使在目前，資料基礎設施的影響仍然次於計算。所以，在某個時候，計算將會賦能所有這些非常酷炫的應用和效率，而像我們這樣的個人和企業正在利用這些應用和效率，然後數據將在此基礎上持續增長，但我們在這方面仍處於早期階段。

So that's more 2025, you think?

您認為這更接近 2025 年嗎？

For large language models, I'd say maybe. I don't know exactly.

對於大型語言模型，我認為也許可以。具體我也不清楚。

And ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to management for any closing remarks.

女士們，先生們，我們的問答環節到此結束。我想將會議交還給管理階層，請大家發表結束語。

Thanks, Marco. Seagate is focused on executing our product road map, leveraging the advanced technologies in our Mozaic platform, which we believe positions us well to enhance profitability over the near term and capture long-term opportunities for mass capacity storage. I'd like to close by once again thanking all of our stakeholders for their ongoing support of Seagate. Thanks for joining us today, and we look forward to speaking with you during the quarter.

謝謝，Marco。希捷專注於執行我們的產品路線圖，充分利用 Mozaic 平台的先進技術，我們相信這將有助於我們在短期內提升獲利能力，並抓住大容量儲存的長期機會。最後，我想再次感謝所有利害關係人對希捷的持續支持。感謝您今天的參與，我們期待在本季與您再次交流。

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. We thank you all for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.

謝謝大家。今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝大家參加今天的演講。現在您可以掛斷電話了，祝大家有美好的一天。