希捷科技 (STX) 2024 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Seagate Technology fourth quarter and fiscal year 2024 conference call. (Operator Instructions) Please note, this event is being recorded.

下午好，歡迎參加希捷科技第四季和 2024 財年電話會議。 （操作員說明）請注意，正在記錄此事件。

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

我現在想將會議交給投資者關係部門的 Shanye Hudson。請繼續。

Thank you. Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's call. Joining me are Dave Mosley, Seagate's Chief Executive Officer; and Gianluca Romano, our Chief Financial Officer. We posted our earnings press release and detailed supplemental information for our June 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。與我一起的還有 Seagate 執行長 Dave Mosley；以及我們的財務長 Gianluca Romano。我們在網站的投資者部分發布了收益新聞稿和六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 don't reconcile 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 effort.

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。我們不會對某些非GAAP 前景指標進行調節，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GAAP指標進行調節。

Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that today's call contains forward-looking statements that reflect management's current views and assumptions based on 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're subject to risks and uncertainties associated with our business.

在開始之前，我想提醒您，今天的電話會議包含前瞻性陳述，這些陳述反映了管理層基於截至今天我們掌握的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 and uncertainties and other factors that may affect our future business results, please refer to the press release issued today and in our SEC filings, including our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly report on Form 10-Q, as well as the supplemental information, all of which may be found on the Investors section of our website.

要了解有關風險和不確定性以及可能影響我們未來業務業績的其他因素的更多信息，請參閱今天發布的新聞稿和我們向SEC 提交的文件，包括我們最新的10-K 表年度報告和10表季度報告-Q，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。

Following our prepared remarks, we'll open the call for questions. In order to provide all analysts with the opportunities to participate, we thank you in advance for asking just one primary question and then reentering the queue.

在我們準備好的發言之後，我們將開始提問。為了給所有分析師參與的機會，我們提前感謝您只提出一個主要問題，然後重新加入隊列。

I now hand the call over to you, Dave.

我現在把電話交給你，戴夫。

Thank you, Shanye, and hello, everyone. Seagate in fiscal 2024 on a high note, reflecting strong operational execution and more favorable supply demand dynamics.

謝謝山野，大家好。希捷在 2024 財年表現出色，反映出強勁的營運執行力和更有利的供需動態。

Fourth-quarter revenue increased 18% year on year, supported by strengthening global cloud demand. We achieved non-GAAP gross margin of nearly 31% of the company level, supported by HDD gross margin that were above that level and at the top end of our long-term target range. These results, along with ongoing expense discipline, led to non-GAAP EPS of $1.05, far exceeding the high end of our guidance range.

在全球雲端需求增強的支撐下，第四季營收年增 18%。我們實現了接近公司水準 31% 的非 GAAP 毛利率，這得益於高於該水準且處於我們長期目標範圍上限的 HDD 毛利率。這些結果加上持續的費用控制，導致非 GAAP 每股收益達到 1.05 美元，遠遠超出了我們指導範圍的上限。

At the start of the fiscal year, we highlighted three financial priorities, namely to increase profitability, drive cash generation, and strengthen our balance sheet. Reflecting on our full-year performance, we delivered on all three. Our results were due in part to the build-to-order, or BTO strategy, that we've put in place to provide greater supply-demand predictability and optimize our cash resources.

在本財年伊始，我們強調了三個財務重點，即提高獲利能力、推動現金產生和加強資產負債表。回顧我們的全年業績，我們實現了這三項目標。我們的業績部分歸功於按訂單生產（BTO）策略，我們實施該策略是為了提供更大的供需可預測性並優化我們的現金資源。

For fiscal '24, we expanded non-GAAP operating profit by 64%, grew free cash flow sequentially every quarter of the fiscal year, and maintained healthy liquidity levels. As we enter the new fiscal year with operating and financial momentum in an improving demand environment, executing our mass capacity product roadmap is a top priority.

在 24 財年，我們將非 GAAP 營業利潤擴大了 64%，該財年每個季度的自由現金流都連續增長，並保持了健康的流動性水平。隨著我們在需求環境改善的情況下進入新的財年，營運和財務勢頭強勁，執行我們的大規模產能產品路線圖是當務之急。

In the September quarter, we expect to complete the HAMR-based Mozaic 3+ product qualification with our lead CSP partner. We've also started to ramp our 28-terabyte CMR/SMR product platform drives in high volume. These two product advancements align well with the strengthening nearline demand environment. I'll share further details around our product execution momentarily, but first, I'll briefly review the current market trends.

在九月季度，我們預計將與我們的主要 CSP 合作夥伴一起完成基於 HAMR 的 Mozaic 3+ 產品認證。我們也開始大量生產 28 TB CMR/SMR 產品平台驅動器。這兩種產品的進步與不斷增強的近線需求環境非常吻合。我將立即分享有關我們產品執行的更多細節，但首先，我將簡要回顧當前的市場趨勢。

As I highlighted a moment ago, we are seeing strong nearline cloud demand growth from customers globally. Fourth-quarter nearline cloud revenue more than doubled from the year-ago period, and we expect growth to continue in fiscal 2025. We attribute the underlying demand drivers to an increase from both traditional cloud computing workloads as well as new AI-related deployments. We believe this demand rebound falls a period of deferred HDD storage investments by cloud providers as they prioritize spending towards compute-intensive infrastructure.

正如我剛才強調的那樣，我們看到全球客戶的近線雲需求強勁成長。第四季近線雲端收入比去年同期成長了一倍以上，我們預計 2025 財年將持續成長。我們認為，這種需求反彈屬於雲端供應商推遲 HDD 儲存投資的時期，因為他們優先考慮對運算密集型基礎設施的支出。

While cloud service providers are continuing to build out that infrastructure, they increasingly focused on developing, deploying, and monetizing AI applications. This involves both training of large language models and expanding the entire hardware stack to support future generative AI content-driven growth.

雖然雲端服務供應商繼續建立基礎設施，但他們越來越關注人工智慧應用程式的開發、部署和貨幣化。這涉及大型語言模型的訓練和擴展整個硬體堆疊，以支援未來生成人工智慧內容驅動的成長。

While HDD demand pull through related to AI is still relatively small, we believe HDDs will play a crucial role in enabling both of these phases of the AI adoption curve. By offering cost efficient, scalable storage solutions, HDDs are ideal for maintaining the integrity of AI training data sets as well as preserving the valuable content that AI engines are projected to generate in the future.

雖然與人工智慧相關的硬碟需求拉動仍然相對較小，但我們相信硬碟將在實現人工智慧採用曲線的這兩個階段中發揮至關重要的作用。透過提供經濟高效、可擴展的儲存解決方案，HDD 非常適合維護 AI 訓練資料集的完整性以及保留 AI 引擎預計在未來生成的有價值的內容。

In the enterprise OEM markets, we observed a gradual improvement in demand for the second consecutive quarter and continue to project stronger growth in the second half of the calendar year, driven by both modest improvement in traditional server unit demand and increased exabyte content. We've also started to see incremental demand for higher density storage specific solutions due in part to enterprises putting storage capacity in place either on-prem or in private clouds as they prepare for future AI applications.

在企業 OEM 市場，我們觀察到需求連續第二季逐漸改善，並預計在傳統伺服器單位需求適度改善和艾字節內容增加的推動下，今年下半年將出現更強勁的增長。我們也開始看到對更高密度儲存特定解決方案的需求不斷增加，部分原因是企業在為未來的人工智慧應用做準備時將儲存容量部署在本地或私有雲中。

Finally, turning to VIA markets. Sales of our VIA products came in better than we expected in the June quarter while customer inventory remains at healthy levels. We expect VIA sales will likely fluctuate a bit in the second half of the calendar year off of this higher base. Global demand indications for smart city projects remained strong, but near-term budget visibility for these projects is mixed in many markets amid the current global macro uncertainty.

最後，轉向威盛市場。我們威盛產品的銷售在第二季優於我們的預期，而客戶庫存仍保持在健康水準。我們預期威盛的銷售額在今年下半年可能會在較高基數的基礎上略有波動。全球智慧城市計畫的需求跡象仍然強勁，但在當前全球宏觀不確定性的情況下，許多市場的這些項目的近期預算可見度好壞參半。

Overall, the end market demand trends are solidly pointing to long-term growth opportunities for mass capacity storage. Demand recovery for our high-capacity nearline drives has been faster than anticipated, which is extended product lead times and lead to tighter overall supply conditions.

總體而言，終端市場需求趨勢明確顯示大容量儲存的長期成長機會。我們的高容量近線驅動器的需求恢復速度快於預期，這延長了產品交貨時間並導致整體供應狀況趨緊。

Based on our current outlook, our nearline exabytes supply is committed through the end of the calendar year. These trends underscore the relevance of our BTO strategy, which is intended to provide greater demand predictability for Seagate and supply assurance for our customers. In this environment, we are working with our customers to obtain better demand visibility and address their exabyte growth needs through product transitions, while maintaining a strong focus on profitability and supply discipline.

根據我們目前的展望，我們的近艾位元組供應量將承諾到今年年底。這些趨勢強調了我們 BTO 策略的相關性，該策略旨在為 Seagate 提供更大的需求可預測性，並為我們的客戶提供供應保證。在這種環境下，我們正在與客戶合作，以獲得更好的需求可見性，並透過產品轉型滿足他們的艾字節成長需求，同時保持對獲利能力和供應紀律的高度關注。

As noted last quarter, we are executing the qualification and ramp of two new high-capacity drives. Transitioning to these higher capacity products enabled Seagate to profitably expand exabyte shipment volume with our existing head and disk production capacity while also supporting our customers' growing data demand and TCO needs.

正如上季所指出的，我們正在對兩個新的高容量驅動器進行資格認證和升級。過渡到這些更高容量的產品使 Seagate 能夠利用我們現有的磁頭和磁碟生產能力擴大 EB 出貨量並實現盈利，同時也支援客戶不斷增長的資料需求和 TCO 需求。

Customer acceptance of our new PMR product continues to gain momentum. These drives, which offer capacities of up to 28 terabytes, have demonstrated solid yield, quality, and performance to date. With numerous customers now qualified spanning the cloud enterprise in VIA markets and several more planned to complete in the coming months, volume ramp is already underway.

客戶對我們新 PMR 產品的接受度不斷增強。這些驅動器容量高達 28 TB，迄今已展現出穩定的產量、品質和性能。目前，威盛市場上的眾多客戶已獲得雲端企業資格，並且計劃在未來幾個月內完成更多客戶的交付，銷售成長已經開始。

In the June quarter, we shipped a small volume of HAMR-based Mozaic drives revenue to non-cloud customers. Consistent with our recent public commentary, our lead CSP customers validating drives built with the improved process controls and new firmware optimized for their specific workloads. Testing on these drives is progressing to plan, and we expect to complete qualification to begin shipping them revenue units later in the September quarter.

在六月季度，我們向非雲端客戶交付了少量基於 HAMR 的 Mozaic 驅動收入。與我們最近的公開評論一致，我們的主要 CSP 客戶正在驗證使用改進的過程控制和針對其特定工作負載優化的新韌體構建的驅動器。這些驅動器的測試正在按計劃進行，我們預計將完成資格認證，並在 9 月季度晚些時候開始出貨。

Based on our confidence in the technology and experience on this product platform, we are proceeding to launch new HAMR qualifications with the expectation to have multiple US and China cloud customers calls underway this quarter. We estimate these qualifications will take around three quarters on average to complete, which points to a broader volume ramp toward mid-calendar 2025.

基於我們對該產品平台的技術和經驗的信心，我們將繼續推出新的 HAMR 資格，預計本季將有多個美國和中國雲端客戶致電。我們估計這些資格認證平均需要大約三個季度才能完成，這表明到 2025 年中期，數量將出現更廣泛的增長。

We are leveraging all of our learnings and pushing the pace of development on our next generation of HAMR drives, the Mozaic 4+. Mozaic 4+ offers 33% more capacity compared with a HAMR drives that we're shipping today with minimal changes to the bill of materials. This illustrates the central value proposition of the Mozaic platform, namely the technology's ability to scale, drive capacity through areal density gains rather than adding heads and disks.

我們正在利用我們所有的經驗教訓並加快下一代 HAMR 硬碟 Mozaic 4+ 的開發步伐。與我們今天出貨的 HAMR 硬碟相比，Mozaic 4+ 的容量增加了 33%，且對物料清單的變更很小。這說明了 Mozaic 平台的核心價值主張，即該技術能夠透過面密度增益而不是添加磁頭和磁碟來擴展和驅動容量。

This capability is enabling Seagate to deliver significant cost benefits to our customers, as well as offer power and space advantages that are particularly valuable for data center operators as they expand cloud and AI infrastructure. For example, each data center slots loaded with one of our Mozaic 3+ drives offers three times the storage capacity relative to the average capacity nearline drives in our installed base and consumes about 70% less power per terabyte. These represent tremendous savings opportunities for data centers at exabyte scale.

這項功能使 Seagate 能夠為我們的客戶帶來顯著的成本效益，並提供電力和空間優勢，這對於資料中心營運商擴展雲端和 AI 基礎設施時尤其有價值。例如，裝載我們 Mozaic 3+ 驅動器之一的每個資料中心插槽提供的儲存容量是我們已安裝基礎中近線驅動器平均容量的三倍，並且每 TB 的功耗減少了約 70%。這些為艾字節規模的資料中心帶來了巨大的節省機會。

We are hearing from customers directly, including CSPs, that HCDs already play a crucial role in extracting value from data in the early stages of AI application deployment. As GenAI engines mature, customers expect an acceleration in content creation that will lead to significant demand for mass capacity storage.

我們直接從包括 CSP 在內的客戶那裡得知，HCD 已經在人工智慧應用部署的早期階段從資料中提取價值方面發揮了至關重要的作用。隨著 GenAI 引擎的成熟，客戶期望內容創建的加速，這將導致對大容量儲存的巨大需求。

We recognize that GenAI is still in its early stages of adoption. However, this customer feedback, combined with our early engagements with nearline cloud and OEM customers reinforces our view that mass capacity storage will be a beneficiary in both the cloud and at the edge as the adoption of these new exciting applications take hold.

我們認識到 GenAI 仍處於採用的早期階段。然而，這種客戶回饋，加上我們與近線雲端和OEM 客戶的早期合作，強化了我們的觀點：隨著這些令人興奮的新應用程式的採用，大容量儲存將成為雲端和邊緣的受益者。

I'll stop there and pass the call over to Gianluca.

我會在那裡停下來並將電話轉給吉安盧卡。

Thank you, Dave. Seagate delivered a strong June quarter financial performance, underscored by double-digits revenue growth on both a sequential and year-over-year basis, with profitability exceeding the high end of our guidance range.

謝謝你，戴夫。希捷在 6 月季度的財務業績表現強勁，收入環比和同比均實現兩位數增長，盈利能力超出了我們指導範圍的上限。

For the June quarter, revenue was $1.89 billion, up 14% quarter over quarter and 18% year over year. Non-GAAP operating income was up 79% sequentially to $327 million, leading to non-GAAP operating margin of 17% of revenue, expanding 620 basis points quarter over quarter. And our non-GAAP EPS was $1.05, exceeding the high end of our guidance range, reflecting the improving exabyte demand trends, ongoing price adjustment, and continued cost discipline.

六月季度的營收為 18.9 億美元，季增 14%，年增 18%。非 GAAP 營業收入較上季成長 79%，達到 3.27 億美元，導致非 GAAP 營業利潤率為營收的 17%，季增 620 個基點。我們的非 GAAP 每股收益為 1.05 美元，超出了我們指導範圍的上限，反映了艾字節需求趨勢的改善、持續的價格調整以及持續的成本控制。

Within our hard disk drive business, exabyte shipments grew 15% sequentially to 114 exabytes, while revenue increased 17% to $1.7 billion. Growing demand for our mass capacity products more than offset a sequential decline in the legacy and known HDD businesses.

在我們的硬碟業務中，艾字節出貨量較上季成長 15%，達到 114 艾字節，營收成長 17%，達到 17 億美元。對我們大容量產品不斷增長的需求足以抵消傳統和已知 HDD 業務的連續下滑。

Within the mass capacity market, revenue increased 22% sequentially to $1.4 billion, driven by strengthening global nearline cloud demand, along with an improvement in the VIA market. Mass capacity shipments totaled 104 exabytes compared with 89 exabytes in the March quarter, up 17% sequentially. Mass capacity shipments now represent more than 90% of total HDD exabytes, reflecting the continued long-term secular growth for cost-efficient scalable storage.

在大容量市場中，受全球近線雲需求增強以及威盛市場改善的推動，營收季增 22% 至 14 億美元。海量容量出貨量總計 104 艾字節，而 3 月份季度為 89 艾字節，較上季成長 17%。目前，海量容量出貨量佔 HDD 總容量的 90% 以上，反映出經濟高效的可擴展儲存的持續長期成長。

Seagate's nearline product portfolio is as well positioned to address with growing demand. In the June quarter, nearline shipments total 84 exabytes, up quarter over quarter from 72 exabytes. The expected demand will continue to improve from global CSPs as well as nearline enterprise customers into the back half of calendar 2024.

希捷的近線產品組合也能夠很好地滿足不斷增長的需求。在 6 月季度，近線出貨量總計 84 艾字節，較上一季的 72 艾字節有所成長。到 2024 年下半年，全球 CSP 以及近線企業客戶的預期需求將持續改善。

As Dave mentioned, demand for our VIA products was better than we had forecasted in the June quarter, which is more a function of order timing at our VIA revenue outlook for the calendar year has not changed. Finally, legacy product revenue was $290 million, while the revenue for our known HDD business was $160 million, both down slightly on a sequential basis and lower than expected at the beginning of the quarter.

正如 Dave 所提到的，威盛產品的需求好於我們在六月季度的預測，這更多的是訂單時間的函數，我們威盛對日曆年的收入前景沒有改變。最後，傳統產品收入為 2.9 億美元，而我們已知的 HDD 業務收入為 1.6 億美元，兩者均較上一季略有下降，且低於本季初的預期。

Moving on to the rest of the income statement, non-GAP gross profit increased sequentially by $151 million in the June quarter to $583 million. This represents a 45% increase in gross profit compared with similar revenue levels in the December 2022 quarter. Importantly, we achieve a non-GAAP gross margin of 30.9% at the company level, which is well inside our long-term margin range.

轉向損益表的其餘部分，非 GAP 毛利在 6 月季度環比增長 1.51 億美元，達到 5.83 億美元。與 2022 年 12 月季度的類似收入水準相比，毛利增加了 45%。重要的是，我們在公司層級實現了 30.9% 的非 GAAP 毛利率，這完全在我們的長期利潤範圍內。

Overall, non-GAAP gross margin expanded by 480 basis points quarter over quarter, which was faster than we had originally anticipated. As Dave noted, margin for [artist-drive] business were notably higher than the quarter margin. Our outperformance is supported by continued price adjustment, favorable mix shift toward mass capacity products, and ongoing cost efficiencies.

整體而言，非 GAAP 毛利率較上季成長 480 個基點，快於我們最初的預期。正如戴夫所指出的，[藝術家驅動]業務的利潤率明顯高於季度利潤率。我們的優異表現得益於持續的價格調整、向大容量產品的有利組合轉變以及持續的成本效率。

Underutilization costs decreased to roughly $20 million compared to $43 million in the previous quarter. We expected underutilization cost will be minimal going forward, reflecting the improving demand environment. Non-GAAP operating expenses totaled $256 million, up 3% quarter over quarter, roughly in line with our plans.

未充分利用成本從上一季的 4,300 萬美元降至約 2,000 萬美元。我們預計未來利用不足的成本將降至最低，反映出需求環境的改善。非 GAAP 營運費用總計 2.56 億美元，季增 3%，大致符合我們的計劃。

Adjusted EBITDA continues to improve and was up 45% sequentially in the June quarter to $404 million. Non-GAAP net income strongly increased to $222 million, resulting in Non-GAAP EPS of $1.05 per share, based on diluted share count of approximately 212 million shares.

調整後 EBITDA 持續改善，在 6 月季度環比成長 45%，達到 4.04 億美元。非 GAAP 淨利潤大幅成長至 2.22 億美元，基於約 2.12 億股的稀釋股數，非 GAAP 每股收益為 1.05 美元。

Moving on to cash flow and the balance sheet, in the June quarter, cash and cash equivalents total $1.4 billion, including $560 million, representing a majority of the proceeds from the sales of our SoC assets announced in April. From an accounting perspective, we recorded $226 million of the proceeds in operational cash flow, which are net of transaction cost and related to our long-term SoC purchase agreement. The remaining proceeds are reflected in invested cash inflow.

接下來是現金流和資產負債表，在 6 月季度，現金和現金等價物總計 14 億美元，其中 5.6 億美元，占我們 4 月宣布的 SoC 資產出售收益的大部分。從會計角度來看，我們在營運現金流中記錄了 2.26 億美元的收益，其中扣除了交易成本，並與我們的長期 SoC 購買協議相關。剩餘收益反映在投資現金流入。

Capital expenditures for the quarter were down 10% to $54 million. For the fiscal 2024, CapEx spending was $254 million, which is just below the low end of our target 4% to 6% of revenue.

本季資本支出下降 10%，至 5,400 萬美元。 2024 財年，資本支出為 2.54 億美元，略低於我們佔營收 4% 至 6% 的目標下限。

Looking out to fiscal '25, we will maintain capital discipline and currently expect CapEx to be at the low end of the target range. Free cash flow generation was $380 million, including the $226 million noted earlier from the SoC divestiture. As a reminder, we plan to use a portion of this proceeds to support our supply chain. With this in mind, we expect free cash flow in the September quarter to be at or slightly above breakeven.

展望 25 財年，我們將維持資本紀律，目前預計資本支出將處於目標範圍的低端。產生的自由現金流為 3.8 億美元，其中包括先前提到的 SoC 剝離帶來的 2.26 億美元。提醒一下，我們計劃使用部分收益來支持我們的供應鏈。考慮到這一點，我們預計九月份季度的自由現金流將達到或略高於損益兩平。

We return $147 million to shareholders through the quarterly dividend, exiting the quarter with 210 million shares outstanding. We closed the June quarter with $2.9 billion in available liquidity, including our undrawn revolving credit facility.

我們透過季度股息向股東返還 1.47 億美元，本季末流通股數為 2.1 億股。截至 6 月份季度，我們可用的流動資金為 29 億美元，其中包括未提取的循環信貸額度。

With cash and cash equivalents of $1.4 billion, net debt decreased 11% to $4.4 billion at the end of the June quarter. Other income and expenses were $81 million, down from $85 million in the prior quarter and reflecting higher interest income from improved cash balance and relatively flat interest expenses.

截至六月季末，現金和現金等價物為 14 億美元，淨債務下降 11% 至 44 億美元。其他收入和支出為 8,100 萬美元，低於上一季的 8,500 萬美元，反映出現金餘額改善和利息支出相對穩定帶來的利息收入增加。

Turning now to our outlook, we expect mass capacity revenue to trend higher in the September quarter and more than offset lower sales into the legacy markets. We continue to see demand growth from global cloud customers, as well as a modest improvement in the nearline enterprise market. We expect growth margin to benefit from a richer mix of mass capacity revenue and ongoing pricing actions.

現在轉向我們的前景，我們預計九月份季度的大規模產能收入將呈上升趨勢，並且足以抵消傳統市場銷售額的下降。我們持續看到全球雲端客戶的需求成長，以及近線企業市場的適度改善。我們預計成長利潤將受益於更豐富的大規模產能收入和持續定價行動的組合。

With better context, September quarter revenue is expected to be in a range of $2.1 billion, plus or minus $150 million, an increase of 11% sequentially and 44% year on year at the midpoint. We are planning for non-GAAP operating expenses of approximately $270 million, which include costs associated with reinstating our variable compensation plan.

在更好的背景下，9 月季度營收預計將在 21 億美元上下，上下浮動 1.5 億美元，季增 11%，年增 44%（中間值）。我們計劃非公認會計準則營運費用約為 2.7 億美元，其中包括與恢復我們的可變薪酬計劃相關的成本。

As a midpoint of our revenue guidance, we expect non-GAAP operating margin to be in the high-teens percentage range. We expect our non-GAAP EPS to be $1.40, plus or minus $0.20, based on a diluted share account of approximately 213 million shares, and a non-GAAP tax expense of $15 million to $20 million. Our results reflect our supply discipline and strong focus on profitability.

作為我們收入指引的中點，我們預期非公認會計原則營業利潤率將在高十位數百分比範圍內。基於約 2.13 億股的稀釋股票帳戶和 1,500 萬至 2,000 萬美元的非 GAAP 稅收費用，我們預計非 GAAP 每股收益為 1.40 美元，上下浮動 0.20 美元。我們的業績反映了我們的供應紀律和對獲利能力的高度重視。

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. I'm pleased with our strong performance exiting fiscal '24, which reflects our team's unwavering focus on improving profitability and driving cash generation.

謝謝，吉安盧卡。我對我們 24 財年的強勁業績感到滿意，這反映了我們團隊堅定不移地致力於提高盈利能力和推動現金生成。

Two key financial imperatives. As we enter fiscal '25 amid improving nearline cloud and enterprise demand, we will focus on supporting exabyte growth through product transitions. We are working closely with customers to address their data storage needs through two new high-capacity products, including the Moszaic 3+ HAMR drives. We will remain confident in the HAMR technology, which provides our customers with cost efficient, scalable storage that we believe will prove critical in an era where data holds unprecedented value.

兩個關鍵的財務要務。隨著近線雲和企業需求的改善，進入 25 財年，我們將專注於透過產品轉型來支持艾字節成長。我們正在與客戶密切合作，透過兩款新的高容量產品（包括 Moszaic 3+ HAMR 硬碟）來滿足他們的資料儲存需求。我們將繼續對 HAMR 技術充滿信心，該技術為我們的客戶提供了具有成本效益的、可擴展的存儲，我們相信，在數據擁有前所未有的價值的時代，這種技術將變得至關重要。

We want to thank our global teams for their creativity and perseverance over the last several quarters that have helped us achieve the results that we announced today. Our structural performance improvements, coupled with a favorable demand environment and differentiated technology roadmap, position us well for years to come.

我們要感謝我們的全球團隊在過去幾季的創造力和毅力，幫助我們實現了今天宣布的成果。我們的結構性能改進，加上有利的需求環境和差異化的技術路線圖，使我們在未來幾年處於有利地位。

We also wish to thank our suppliers for your support and our customers and shareholders for placing your trust in Seagate. Gianluca and I are now ready to open up to call for questions.

我們也要感謝我們的供應商的支持以及我們的客戶和股東對希捷的信任。詹盧卡和我現在準備好公開提問。

(Operator Instructions) Wamsi Mohan, Bank of America.

（操作員指示）Wamsi Mohan，美國銀行。

Yes, thank you so much. Dave, you mentioned that nearline capacity is committed through end of calendar '24. How should we think about the market coming more in supply-demand balance? And when do you think that would happen? Or maybe asking it the other way, how long would it take for you to add incremental capacity? And how do we square that with the low end of CapEx for fiscal '25 comments from Gianluca? Thank you.

是的，非常感謝。戴夫，您提到近線容量將在 24 日曆年底之前承諾。我們該如何看待市場供需更平衡？您認為這會在什麼時候發生？或換個角度問，增加增量容量需要多長時間？我們如何將其與 Gianluca 的 25 財年評論的資本支出低端相匹配？謝謝。

Thanks, Wamsi. Yes. We are being very careful with adding more capacity. It's good news seeing the demand come back to the extent that it has, but it's still not back to the levels it was a couple of years ago. And if you'll recall, we took something like 25% of the capacity offline and we let a bunch of people go. And so, we've been hiring a lot of the people back, but we're still pretty far away from the supply capabilities that we had years ago.

謝謝，瓦姆西。是的。我們在增加容量方面非常謹慎。看到需求恢復到原來的水平是個好消息，但仍然沒有回到幾年前的水平。如果你還記得的話，我們下線了大約 25% 的產能，並解雇了很多人。因此，我們已經重新僱用了很多人，但我們距離幾年前的供應能力還很遠。

What we're doing right now is trying to get predictable. So making sure that with the supply that we do have, we're getting it booked, and that's why we have the confidence through the end of the calendar year.

我們現在正在做的就是努力變得可預測。因此，確保我們有足夠的供應，並進行預訂，這就是為什麼我們對年底充滿信心。

And then we're trying to drive product transitions, which helps us answer the call for exabyte demand with the new products, and making sure we get that booked so that people are committed to the qualifications and then can have access to that technology as well, which obviously helps us rebuild the industry and the margins that we have. We can share that with suppliers as well. So just that predictability is our priority right now, not adding more capacity.

然後我們正在努力推動產品轉型，這有助於我們滿足新產品對艾字節需求的需求，並確保我們得到預訂，以便人們致力於獲得資格，然後也可以使用該技術，這顯然有助於我們重建產業和我們擁有的利潤。我們也可以與供應商分享。因此，可預測性是我們目前的首要任務，而不是增加更多容量。

Okay, thanks. If I could, really quick one for Gianluca. In your guide of the gross margin improvement, as you've gone through the last few quarters, you've been seeing material step function changes in your gross margin as some of these underutilization charges have gone away on these higher revenues.

好的謝謝。如果可以的話，請盡快為吉安盧卡（Gianluca）做一件事。在您的毛利率改善指南中，隨著您過去幾個季度的經歷，您已經看到毛利率發生了實質性的階梯函數變化，因為其中一些未充分利用的費用已經隨著收入的增加而消失。

As you think about this quarter on quarter into September and beyond, it seems that the gross margin improvement is sort of asymptoting. And I'm wondering, is that more because of the ramp and qualification around HAMR and sort of where those volumes are this year? Or is it -- and should we think that we won't get as much leverage on gross margins over the next few quarters? How should we be thinking about that? Thank you so much.

當您考慮本季至 9 月及以後的季度時，毛利率的改善似乎是漸近的。我想知道，這更多是因為 HAMR 的成長和資格認證以及今年這些銷售的情況嗎？或者是——我們是否應該認為在接下來的幾個季度我們不會獲得那麼多的毛利率槓桿？我們該如何思考這個問題？太感謝了。

Thank you, Wamsi. Well, I would say, first of all, we are very satisfied with the trend in our gross margin. This quarter, I mean, the June quarter was even a little bit higher than what we were expecting. So we went a little bit faster on both the pricing actions and the reduction in our internal cost.

謝謝你，瓦姆西。嗯，我想說，首先，我們對毛利率的趨勢非常滿意。我的意思是，這個季度，六月的季度甚至比我們的預期還要高一點。因此，我們在定價行動和降低內部成本方面都加快了步伐。

This is going on. We expect this to happen again in the September quarter. It's always difficult to perfectly estimate how much will be the impact for the full quarter. As you know, volume is going up, so the underutilization charges will decline even more in September, and we don't really expect this cost to be impacting the company through fiscal '25.

這正在發生。我們預計這種情況會在九月季度再次發生。完美估計整個季度的影響程度總是很困難。如您所知，銷售量正在上升，因此 9 月的未充分利用費用將進一步下降，而且我們並不真正預計這一成本將在 25 財年對公司產生影響。

And then, of course, because of the supply-demand balance now is a bit different than what was in the past, we still expect some improvement on the pricing action. So everything is reflected in our guidance, and the trend is continuing and is going the right direction.

當然，由於目前的供需平衡與過去有所不同，我們仍然預期定價行為會有所改善。因此，一切都反映在我們的指導中，而且趨勢正在持續，並且正在朝著正確的方向發展。

Okay. Thank you so much.

好的。太感謝了。

Thank you.

謝謝。

Asiya Merchant, Citigroup.

花旗集團 Asiya Merchant。

Great. Thank you for taking my question. The guidance talked about improving enterprise storage demand from your enterprise OEM customers. How much visibility is there, and how do you feel about the sustainability of that demand as the quarters progress? Thank you.

偉大的。感謝您回答我的問題。該指南談到了改善企業 OEM 客戶的企業儲存需求。隨著季度的進展，您對該需求的可持續性有何看法？謝謝。

Thanks, Asiya. I would say that the visibility is not as good as what we have from the CSPs today, but it's been a fairly sharp downturn in on-prem enterprise as well over the last year. So talking to the customers, they see some of that coming back, maybe not as early, but probably into FY25 later in the year. So that's what we're targeting right now. And again, trying to get the new products qualified there so we can answer it with exabytes.

謝謝，阿西婭。我想說的是，可見度不如我們今天從 CSP 獲得的那麼好，但去年本地企業的情況也出現了相當嚴重的下滑。因此，與客戶交談時，他們看到其中一些會回來，可能不會那麼早，但可能會在今年晚些時候進入 25 財年。這就是我們現在的目標。再次，嘗試讓新產品在那裡合格，這樣我們就可以用艾字節來回答它。

We think that over time, on-prem is going to grow because a lot of the cool applications that people are talking about, read AI applications, will need on-prem storage as well for various reasons, snapshotting and checkpointing of the data and just making sure you feed all the AI engines with mass data at the edge. So we think there's opportunity there, but it's definitely lagging with what we're seeing in CSPs right now.

我們認為，隨著時間的推移，本地部署將會增長，因為人們談論的許多很酷的應用程序，例如人工智慧應用程序，出於各種原因也需要本地存儲、數據快照和檢查點，以及確保為所有人工智慧引擎提供邊緣的大量數據。因此，我們認為那裡存在機會，但它肯定落後於我們目前在 CSP 中看到的情況。

Thank you.

謝謝。

Erik Woodring, Morgan Stanley.

艾瑞克‧伍德林，摩根士丹利。

Great Thanks a lot for taking my question. Dave, I don't know if you provided an update on HAMR timing tonight. Those comments are obviously helpful in understanding the ramp. I guess I want to provide some assurance for the market on timing. And that is just, [if we're at from] 1 to 10, 10 being highest conviction, how much conviction do you have that HAMR will qualify for your first-maker cloud customer in the September quarter and why? Thanks so much.

非常感謝您提出我的問題。戴夫，我不知道你今晚是否提供了 HAMR 時間的最新情況。這些評論顯然有助於理解斜坡。我想我想在時機上為市場提供一些保證。也就是說，[如果我們從] 1 到 10，10 是最高信念，您對 HAMR 在 9 月季度有資格成為您的第一個製造商雲端客戶有多少信心？非常感謝。

Well, yeah, we're pretty convicted from our comments in the prepared remarks, of course. In short, Erik, we're looking at the data. And we have thousands of drives running in our shop. We have at the customer sites as well. They're running under a variety of workloads.

嗯，是的，當然，我們對準備好的評論中的評論感到非常有罪。簡而言之，埃里克，我們正在研究數據。我們的商店裡有數千個驅動器正在運行。我們在客戶現場也有。它們在各種工作負載下運作。

And we're mindful of the fact that we have to prove the long-term performance. We had some supplier issues during the course of this summer when we went to high volume. But we see the fixes, and we see how they're responding in the test beds that we've got. So we're very optimistic about getting through these things.

我們注意到我們必須證明長期表現。今年夏天，當我們的產量很高時，我們遇到了一些供應商問題。但我們看到了修復措施，也看到了它們在我們現有的測試平台上的反應。因此，我們對解決這些問題非常樂觀。

Our industry has really upped its game. As the drives -- they have to last for five, six, seven years in the data center. It takes a little time to prove that kind of performance. We can't just fix that in a week. We have to actually prove it ourselves. So the bar is pretty high, but we'll get over the bar really soon. And that's why we're optimistic about it.

我們的行業確實提高了水準。作為驅動器，它們必須在資料中心持續使用五、六年、七年。需要一點時間來證明這種性能。我們不能在一周內解決這個問題。我們必須親自證明這一點。所以門檻相當高，但我們很快就會超越這個門檻。這就是我們對此持樂觀態度的原因。

Super. Thanks so much, Dave.

極好的。非常感謝，戴夫。

Krish Sankar, TD Cowen.

克里斯·桑卡爾，TD·考恩。

Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking the question. I have two-part question, one for Gianluca on growth margins. It looks like September quarter growth margin is up probably like 50 to 100 basis points. Is this a fair characterization? And do you have any update on your long-term growth margin targets since they're already there?

是的，嗨。感謝您提出問題。我的問題分為兩部分，一是問吉安盧卡的關於成長率的問題。看起來 9 月季度的成長率可能上升了 50 到 100 個基點。這是一個公平的描述嗎？您的長期成長率目標已經存在，您是否有任何更新？

And then Dave, you kind of spoke about exabytes committed for this year. Any view on FY25 or calendar '25 exabytes for you or for the industry? Thank you.

然後戴夫，你談到了今年承諾的艾字節。您或整個產業對 2025 財政年度或日曆 '25 EB 有什麼看法嗎？謝謝。

In terms of gross margin, as I said before, we are going in the right direction. We have improved our gross margin by a lot in the last three or four quarters, so we are pleased with this trend. And we see further improvements coming in the current quarter. And then, as we discussed also in the past, we see both revenue and profitability continue to improve through the calendar '24.

就毛利率而言，正如我之前所說，我們正朝著正確的方向前進。在過去的三、四個季度裡，我們的毛利率有了很大的提高，所以我們對這個趨勢感到滿意。我們看到本季將出現進一步的改進。然後，正如我們過去也討論過的那樣，我們看到收入和盈利能力在 24 世紀日曆中繼續改善。

So we are fairly optimistic, of course. We always need to check supply and demand balance. And we need to have enough volume to bring underutilization charges to zero. And right now, it is in our forecast.

所以我們當然相當樂觀。我們總是需要檢查供需平衡。我們需要有足夠的數量來將未充分利用的費用降至零。現在，它就在我們的預測之中。

So we are going the right direction. And we are not giving a new range for now. But as Dave said in his script, especially the [artist] part of the business, is particularly strong and is already at the top of what we have in the current model range in terms of gross margin.

所以我們正在朝著正確的方向前進。我們目前不提供新的範圍。但正如戴夫在他的劇本中所說，尤其是[藝術家]業務部分，特別強勁，就毛利率而言，已經處於我們當前模型範圍內的頂部。

And then, Krish, relative to your question for me, there is some evidence that the cloud continues to strengthen going into calendar '25. We don't want to talk about that too much just yet, but I think the enterprise on-prem will, this is to a Asiya's question, will improve in exabyte demand as well in calendar '25.

然後，Krish，相對於你向我提出的問題，有一些證據表明雲端運算在進入日曆 '25 後繼續增強。我們還不想談論太多，但我認為企業在地部署（這是針對 Asiya 的問題）將在 25 日曆年提高 EB 需求。

Our exabytes are fairly committed through calendar '24. So we have limited supply, and FY25 is starting to fill up. And for customers needing more exabyte scale, that's why we're driving the mix via new product introduction so hard that we talked about.

我們的艾字節在 24 日曆年之前都得到了相當的承諾。因此，我們的供應有限，25 財年已開始供滿。對於需要更多艾字節規模的客戶，這就是我們如此努力地透過新產品推出來推動混合的原因，正如我們所討論的那樣。

Thank you, gentlemen. Very helpful, thank you.

謝謝你們，先生們。非常有幫助，謝謝。

Amit Daryanani, Evercore.

阿米特·達裡亞納尼（Amit Daryanani），Evercore。

Good afternoon, thanks for taking my question. I have two as well, I guess. I guess just both on pricing, especially in the math capacity side, it looks like your pricing is up mixing religious, maybe went slightly better than that. Can you just talk about how do you see the pricing trajectory on a year-over-year basis pan out through the end of this calendar year or through fiscal year? Would love to just get a sense on the pricing side.

下午好，感謝您提出我的問題。我想我也有兩個。我想只是在定價方面，特別是在數學能力方面，看起來你們的定價混合了宗教，也許比這稍微好一點。您能否談談您如何看待本日曆年末或整個財年的年比定價軌跡？很想了解定價方面的狀況。

And then, Dave, when you talk about these HAMR volumes happening in mid-2025, so the push out you've seen, there's always this fear that as people, as investors, as customers wait for HAMR ramp, Western Dig will pick up more incremental share versus Seagate. So can you just talk about what are customers probably doing as they're waiting for these HAMR qualifications to happen? And what gives you comfort that perhaps the market share doesn't go away from you as these qualifications happen over the next few quarters? Thank you.

然後，戴夫，當你談到 2025 年中期發生的這些 HAMR 數量時，你所看到的推出，人們總是擔心，作為人們、作為投資者、當客戶等待 HAMR 增長時，Western Dig 將會回升與希捷相比，增量份額更大。那麼您能否談談客戶在等待這些 HAMR 資格認證時可能會做什麼？當這些資格在接下來的幾個季度發生時，是什麼讓您感到安慰，也許市場份額不會從您身邊消失？謝謝。

Well, I think we have products all the way from 20 to 32 terabytes, and we're going to go to 40 terabytes, and we're just asking customers exactly what they want to fill their exabyte demand. So I think we have a lot of options, and we're making sure we're as predictable as we possibly can be. So market share is an outcome, and what we've said many, many times is we're going to go build to order. We're going to communicate with the customers exactly what's going on.

嗯，我認為我們的產品容量從 20 TB 到 32 TB，我們將達到 40 TB，我們只是詢問客戶到底想要什麼來滿足他們的 EB 需求。所以我認為我們有很多選擇，我們正在確保我們盡可能地可預測。因此，市場份額是一個結果，我們已經說過很多次了，我們將按訂單生產。我們將與客戶溝通到底發生了什麼事。

So I'm not really worried about market share. It's more how do we predictably run our factories, long lead times on the products and the supply is fairly tight right now. Making sure we get the customers exactly what they need when they need it is really our priority.

所以我並不擔心市場佔有率。更重要的是我們如何以可預測的方式運作我們的工廠、產品的交貨時間較長以及目前的供應相當緊張。確保我們在客戶需要時為他們提供他們真正需要的東西，這確實是我們的首要任務。

And that does transition into the pricing discussion, which I'll let Gianluca answer right here in a second. But what I would say is if you look back six months ago before we started to see some of this demand uptick, we said we're not taking some deals that we thought were dilutive, increasingly dilutive to our industry.

這確實會轉變為定價討論，我將讓 Gianluca 稍後在這裡回答。但我想說的是，如果你回顧六個月前，在我們開始看到需求上升之前，我們就說過，我們不會採取一些我們認為會稀釋、越來越稀釋我們行業的交易。

And now, as we see better and better dynamics, tighter supply dynamics and so on, we've taken the deals obviously to the back half of this year. And where it goes from here really is dictated by the continued demand. So how big is the demand next year with all these new applications that people are talking about.

現在，隨著我們看到越來越好的動態、更緊張的供應動態等等，我們顯然已經將這些交易推遲到了今年下半年。接下來的走向其實取決於持續的需求。那麼明年人們談論的所有這些新應用程式的需求有多大。

Yeah. On the pricing, of course, we are coming out for a fairly long down cycle, and we have started to increase our pricing based on the increased demand few quarters ago. Part of the pricing is already included in our bill to order that Dave already discussed. So that is part of the volume that already includes a certain pricing for the next several quarters.

是的。當然，在定價方面，我們將經歷一個相當長的下降週期，並且根據幾個季度前需求的增加，我們已經開始提高定價。部分定價已包含在戴夫已經討論過的我們的訂購帳單中。因此，這是已經包括未來幾個季度的特定定價的數量的一部分。

And there is another part that will be discussed during the quarter in terms of upside and in different segments. In some segments the demand is strong, especially in the cloud. Enterprise OEM is also starting to improve. That is very good for us. Video and image application, I think, through the end of the calendar year, will show some further improvement. Of course, there is also a part of the business more in the legacy side that is not currently growing.

還有另一部分將在本季討論上行和不同領域的問題。在某些領域，需求很強勁，尤其是在雲端領域。企業OEM也開始好轉。這對我們來說非常好。我認為，到今年年底，視訊和圖像應用將顯示出一些進一步的改進。當然，還有一部分業務更集中在遺留方面，目前並未成長。

I would say that the industry is becoming more healthy. The ecosystem is improving. So the pricing trend is going in the direction that now we have discussed also in the last couple of quarters. And of course, it's part of the improvement that we can see in the gross margin.

我想說的是，這個行業正在變得更健康。生態系統不斷完善。因此，定價趨勢正朝著我們在過去幾季討論過的方向發展。當然，這是我們可以在毛利率中看到的改善的一部分。

Perfect. Thank you very much.

完美的。非常感謝。

Aaron Rakers, Wells Fargo.

亞倫·雷克斯，富國銀行。

Yes, thanks for taking the question. Kind of digging a little bit into the gross margin drivers. One of your competitors talks a lot about SMR, and I know in your slide deck you highlighted the 28-terabyte SMRs going through qualification. I'm just curious of how much of your nearline business today is on SMR. And if not a lot, how much does that ramp change the trajectory of gross margin? Just trying to isolate that SMR benefit that I think could play out from gross margin.

是的，感謝您提出問題。有點深入研究毛利率驅動因素。您的一位競爭對手談論了很多有關 SMR 的問題，我知道您在幻燈片中強調了正在通過資格認證的 28 TB SMR。我只是好奇你們今天的近線業務有多少是透過 SMR 進行的。如果變化不是很大，那麼毛利率的變化有多大？只是試圖將我認為可以從毛利率中發揮出來的 SMR 收益中分離出來。

And then I guess, Gianluca, on gross margin, I'm curious of, excluding the under utilization charges, it to me looks like you're guiding gross margin more or less flat sequentially. Is there any drivers of why you wouldn't see the same kind of incremental margin flow through in a model this quarter relative to what you've seen over the last two quarters or so?

然後我想，Gianluca，關於毛利率，我很好奇，排除使用不足的費用，在我看來，你的毛利率連續或多或少持平。與過去兩個季度左右的情況相比，是否有任何驅動因素導致您在本季度的模型中看不到相同類型的增量利潤流？

Yeah, I would say the June quarter came out better than what we were expecting. So we have anticipated a little bit of that gross margin improvement in the June quarter. Again, we are very positive for the current quarter. We have included in the guidance what we already have agreed with customers, and then we will see how the quarter will come out to us on a little bit better than what we expect in terms of pricing, but of course depends from what are the negotiations through the quarters.

是的，我想說六月季度的結果比我們預期的要好。因此，我們預計六月季度的毛利率會有所改善。同樣，我們對本季非常樂觀。我們已經在指導中納入了我們已經與客戶達成一致的內容，然後我們將看到本季度的結果將如何比我們在定價方面的預期好一點，但當然取決於談判的內容通過宿舍。

We are happy on the cost side. Cost is declining, so this is helping us. And it will be another step during the second part of the calendar year. So in terms of SMR, I don't know if Dave, you want to answer that question?

我們對成本方面感到滿意。成本正在下降，所以這對我們有幫助。這將是今年下半年的另一步。那麼就SMR而言，我不知道Dave您是否願意回答這個問題？

Yeah. Hi, Aaron. So on SMR, I would just say, look, we've qualified SMR at all customers that want it. And SMR is the percentage of the total. It's really a function of what customers' pulling in a given quarter. So we work with the customers if they happen to want, and there's different flavors of SMR. There's some people who need variants of CMR, and there's a lot of different complexity in the customer base. We'll skip whatever the customer needs.

是的。嗨，亞倫。因此，對於 SMR，我只想說，看，我們已經為所有需要 SMR 的客戶提供了資格。 SMR是佔總數的百分比。這實際上取決於特定季度客戶的需求。因此，如果客戶願意，我們會與他們合作，而且 SMR 有不同的風格。有些人需要 CMR 的變體，並且客戶群中有很多不同的複雜性。我們將跳過客戶需要的任何內容。

Relative to margins, SMR, does it help margins or hurt margins? It's not very relevant. It helps capacity points in some cases, and that's important for individual customers. But we have options to go wherever we want to and different flavors of SMR if we have to.

相對於利潤率，SMR 是有助於利潤率還是損害利潤率？這不是很相關。在某些情況下，它有助於提高容量點，這對個人客戶來說很重要。但如果有必要的話，我們可以選擇去任何我們想去的地方，也可以選擇不同口味的 SMR。

Thank you.

謝謝。

Timothy Arcuri, UBS.

提摩西‧阿庫裡，瑞銀集團。

Hi, thanks. I think in the past, you said that you're max exabyte shipment capacity is about 120 exabytes. You just shipped 114; you're going to ship more in September. So in the not too distant future, you're going to kind of bump up against max capacity. I know Dave, you said that you're hiring folks back and stuff, but we're going to get to a point where you've been raising prices, but how do you think about strategically, do you sort of slow roll the capacity expansion so that you don't really grow that number very much and you instead take price? Or do you just, think about more of a modest price increase trajectory and you basically back solve into what you have to expand in terms of capacity? How do you think about that balance?

你好謝謝。我想在過去，您說您的最大艾字節出貨量約為 120 艾字節。您剛剛發貨了 114；您將在 9 月發貨更多。因此，在不久的將來，您將達到最大容量。我知道戴夫，你說過你要重新僱用人員等等，但我們將達到你一直在提高價格的地步，但你如何從戰略上考慮，你是否會緩慢地提​​高產能擴張，這樣你就不會真正增加這個數字太多，而是採取價格？還是你只是考慮更多適度的價格上漲軌跡，然後基本上回到解決必須擴大產能的問題？您如何看待這種平衡？

Thanks for the question, Tim. So we're going to be very cautious given what we've just been through. So it's not ancient history, and I guess the scars are fairly fresh on our back, not only us but our entire industry, right? So the entire supply chain needs to recover.

謝謝你的提問，提姆。因此，考慮到我們剛剛經歷的事情，我們將非常謹慎。所以這不是古老的歷史，我想我們背上的傷疤還很新鮮，不只是我們，還有我們整個產業，對吧？所以整個供應鏈需要恢復。

I think as we start to look out further and people are booking with more confidence things further along, we'll probably add back some people, use some of the existing capacity that we have, top out that 125 number or maybe slightly higher than that, which will work as tough as we can and inside of operations to do that.

我認為，隨著我們開始進一步關注，人們對未來的預訂更加有信心，我們可能會增加一些人，使用我們現有的一些容量，達到 125 個數字或略高於這個數字，我們將在運營內部盡最大努力做到這一點。

We can grow more exabytes by getting through product transitions. And that's one of the reasons why we're trying so hard to get through the product transitions. So we don't have to necessarily answer it with new CapEx.

透過產品轉型，我們可以增加更多艾字節。這就是我們如此努力完成產品轉型的原因之一。因此，我們不必用新的資本支出來回答這個問題。

We have the CapEx that can actually go through the product transitions already. And that's the way we're going to answer it first. And then we'll see how much demand continues above that. Historically, as you all know, demand has been significantly higher for HDDs before the pandemic, and even sometimes during the pandemic.

我們已經擁有實際上可以完成產品轉型的資本支出。這就是我們首先要回答的方式。然後我們將看到有多少需求繼續高於這一水平。從歷史上看，眾所周知，在大流行之前，甚至有時在大流行期間，對硬碟的需求明顯增加。

So we've been through a wild ride from a supply chain perspective, and the demand, especially with some of these new applications that are coming online, continues to go north. We'll have to deal with that at the time. I think it's too early to do that yet.

因此，從供應鏈的角度來看，我們經歷了一段瘋狂的旅程，而需求，尤其是其中一些即將上線的新應用程序，繼續向北增長。到時候我們就得處理這個問題。我認為現在這樣做還為時過早。

So is there some number that the customer's bearing to -- I mean, willing to bear, Dave? Is it like, do you think the customer can bear these sort of 5% to 10% price increases? I mean, those are the kind of numbers we're hearing for the back half of the year. It seems very high and not a number that the customer probably can bear.

那麼，客戶是否願意承受某個數字──我的意思是，願意承受，戴夫？是不是你認為顧客能承受這種 5% 到 10% 的漲價？我的意思是，這些都是我們今年下半年聽到的數字。看起來很高，不是客戶可以承受的數字。

Well, the way I would think about it instead is, as we go to higher and higher capacity points, that value proposition into their data center, if they're going to be running those drives for five to seven years, it's huge. They get more power efficiency and everything else. And so, yeah, they see that TCO benefit as well driving through the product transition.

嗯，我的想法是，當我們達到越來越高的容量點時，他們的資料中心的價值主張，如果他們要運行這些驅動器五到七年，那是巨大的。他們獲得了更高的電源效率和其他一切。所以，是的，他們看到 TCO 也能帶來好處，並推動產品轉型。

Yeah. Tim, finally, the supply-demand dynamics will determine the price. That's the reality at the end. So demand is fairly strong, at least in the part of the business right now, and hopefully this will continue for a certain number of quarters in the future.

是的。提姆，最後，供需動態將決定價格。這就是最後的現實。因此，至少在目前的部分業務中，需求相當強勁，希望這種情況能夠在未來的幾個季度內持續下去。

Okay, thank you.

好的謝謝。

Karl Ackerman, BNP Paribas.

卡爾‧阿克曼，法國巴黎銀行。

Yeah, thank you. I'd like to follow up as well on exabyte capacity. I guess, was hoping if you could think about -- or help us think about rather the outlook for mass capacity demand from here. You indicated that nearline enterprise and OEM should gradually improve with stronger growth projected in the second half of calendar 2025.

是的，謝謝。我還想跟進艾字節容量。我想，希望您能思考一下——或者幫助我們思考這裡的大規模產能需求的前景。您表示，近線企業和 OEM 應該會逐漸改善，預計 2025 年下半年將會有更強勁的成長。

However, with HAMR expected to ramp in mid-calendar 2025, are you anticipating, or should we anticipate any moderation in cloud demand from now until then, given the fact that September quarter will be the fifth quarter of growth of exabytes, which is a bit longer than what a typical cycle is. Thank you.

然而，鑑於HAMR 預計將在2025 年中期增加，考慮到9 月份季度將是艾字節增長的第五個季度，您是否預計，或者我們是否應該預計從現在到那時雲端需求會有所放緩？謝謝。

Yeah. Carl, as you know, the front end of the plunge was much more significant than anything we'd ever seen before. We didn't ever even see negative growth before the middle of this pandemic on nearline exabyte demand. So we started from a very weak spot. I don't think we're back to normal demand by any stretch of the imagination, but we're going to have to, like I said, because of what we've been through, we're going to be very cautious.

是的。卡爾，如你所知，暴跌的前端比我們以前見過的任何情況都要重要得多。在這次大流行中期之前，我們甚至沒有看到近乎艾字節的需求出現負增長。所以我們從一個非常薄弱的​​地方開始。我認為無論怎麼想，我們都不會恢復正常需求，但正如我所說，我們將不得不這樣做，因為我們經歷過的事情，我們將非常謹慎。

And did you want to say something else, Gianluca?

吉安盧卡，你還想說什麼嗎？

I would say we, of course, now we have [a lot of it is qualities] in qualification right now. And in the script, we said we will have few other customers that will qualify in the next few quarters, and then we will ramp more volume. But we have, of course, many other products that we can use to answer the increasing demand between now and when we will have a significant ramp in HAMR.

當然，我想說的是，我們現在在資格賽中擁有[很多是品質]。在腳本中，我們表示在接下來的幾個季度中，我們將很少有其他客戶符合資格，然後我們將增加銷售量。當然，我們還有許多其他產品可以用來滿足從現在到 HAMR 大幅成長之間不斷增長的需求。

Right, Carl, I mean, the BTO process gives us the visibility that we need. I don't think I would take away that it's the middle of next year or anything else. I mean, we're going to be very aggressive on all of the products moving forward to give exabytes that way.

是的，卡爾，我的意思是，BTO 流程為我們提供了所需的可見性。我不認為我會接受明年年中或其他任何事情。我的意思是，我們將非常積極地開發所有產品，以這種方式提供艾字節。

The high volume issues -- the process issues that we've seen are really valuable learning for us. And I'm happy that the industry lower the line at 4 terabytes and 5-terabyte value propositions that are not too far away. So we're going to aggressively drive these introductions and be as aggressive as you can, just to help reconstitute the margin in the industry. We've had a busy summer making it work, of course, but I wouldn't trade all those learnings in as far as future ramps and future qualifications, let's go.

我們所看到的大量問題——流程問題對我們來說非常有價值。我很高興業界將 4 TB 和 5 TB 的價值主張降低到並不遙遠。因此，我們將積極推動這些產品的推出，並盡可能積極地推動，以幫助重建產業的利潤。當然，我們度過了一個忙碌的夏天，但我不會用所有這些知識來換取未來的進步和未來的資格，讓我們走吧。

Vijay Rakesh, Mizuho.

維傑·拉克什，瑞穗。

Yeah, hi. Just a quick question on, when you look at your underutilization, just one thing you're talking about what the utilization levels are now and how do you -- does it get to like 85% 90% by the exit of the year?

是的，嗨。一個簡單的問題是，當您查看利用率不足時，您談論的只是一件事，即現在的利用率水平是多少，以及如何在今年結束時達到 85% 90% 左右？

I'm not sure I got the question, but if you're talking about the level of underutilization, it's not going to be any significant impact for the fiscal year '25. So that will help our cost per terabyte, our cost in general, and is one factor on the increase of the gross margin that we expect.

我不確定我是否明白這個問題，但如果你談論的是利用率不足的水平，那麼它不會對 25 財年產生任何重大影響。因此，這將有助於降低我們的每 TB 成本、整體成本，並且是我們預期毛利率增加的因素。

Right. If it helps, the utilization generally is high, but there are various factories in the industry and the supply chain that have been pulled offline. So the question is, do we bring those factories back online, even though the utilization of the existing factories might be high, then bringing new factory -- or sorry, some of the old factories back online is one of the questions we're dealing with.

正確的。如果有幫助的話，利用率普遍很高，但業界有各種工廠和供應鏈被拉下線。所以問題是，我們是否要讓這些工廠重新上線，即使現有工廠的利用率可能很高，然後再引入新工廠——或者抱歉，一些舊工廠重新上線是我們正在處理的問題之一和。

CJ Muse, Cantor Fitzgerald.

CJ 繆斯、坎托·費茲傑拉。

Yeah, thank you for taking my question. You talked about nearline exabyte committed for all of calendar '24. Curious how much of that have you locked in fixed pricing? And then I guess bigger-picture question on gross margins. Now that underutilization is de minimis, pushing into the second half of the calendar year, how should we be thinking about ASPs versus mix driving gross margins higher?

是的，謝謝你回答我的問題。您談到了在整個日曆 '24 中承諾的近線艾字節。想知道其中有多少是固定定價的嗎？然後我猜想關於毛利率的更大問題。現在，利用不足已是微乎其微，進入了日曆年下半年，我們應該如何考慮平均售價與混合驅動毛利率更高的問題？

And as part of that is as HAMR revenues start to trickle in in September and December, at those lower volumes, do you expect that to be accretive or dilutive? And very helpful, thanks.

其中一部分是，隨著 HAMR 收入在 9 月和 12 月開始逐漸增加，在銷售較低的情況下，您預計收入會增加還是會稀釋？非常有幫助，謝謝。

Hi, CJ. On the bookings, if you will, some of that stuff was booked, as I mentioned before, as much as a quarter ago as we started to see the demand go up. So we're fairly confident in the price and the volume that we can actually supply towards the back half of the year.

嗨，CJ。在預訂方面，如果你願意的話，正如我之前提到的，其中一些東西在一個季度前就被預訂了，當時我們開始看到需求上升。因此，我們對今年下半年實際供應的價格和數量相當有信心。

Yeah. So I would say all what you said will be an act to our gross margin. Of course, the pricing in the BTO, the eventual pricing that we will negotiate through the rest of the quarter and the fiscal year, assuming demand is still growing as we expect, and of course, also HAMR. HAMR, hopefully, we will be able to ship a significant in the next few quarters and that will help also our gross margin to grow.

是的。所以我想說，你所說的一切都會影響我們的毛利率。當然，BTO 的定價，我們將在本季度剩餘時間和本財年協商的最終定價，假設需求仍按我們的預期增長，當然還有 HAMR。 HAMR，希望我們能夠在接下來的幾季出貨量很大，這也將有助於我們的毛利率成長。

And CJ, you also asked a question about whether it's a creative or dilutive to gross margin. That's not exactly the way we think about it. HAMR unlocks new capacity points, of course, very quickly, and so we will drive for that. It's a better TCO proposition, as I talked about before. There's not significant cost issues with the HAMR platforms.

CJ，您也問了一個問題，即它是否具有創意或會攤薄毛利率。這並不完全是我們思考問題的方式。當然，HAMR 會非常快速地解鎖新的容量點，因此我們將為此努力。正如我之前談到的，這是一個更好的 TCO 提案。 HAMR 平台不存在重大成本問題。

So I think what we can do over time is drive for more product efficiency. Especially as we get higher and higher capacity drives, the lower capacity drives become much more component efficient and that's exactly where we're driving the transition.

因此，我認為隨著時間的推移，我們可以做的是提高產品效率。特別是當我們獲得越來越高容量的驅動器時，較低容量的驅動器變得更加高效，而這正是我們推動轉型的方向。

Mehdi Hosseini, SIG.

邁赫迪·侯賽尼，SIG。

Yes, thanks for taking my question, and appreciate all the details. Dave, just want to go back to the long-term strategy. You guys have done a great job of resizing the company and adjusting to tough market environment and now benefiting from pricing and very diligent with CapEx and everything else, and HAMR is ramping in the middle of next year.

是的，感謝您提出我的問題，並感謝所有細節。戴夫，只想回到長期策略。你們在調整公司規模和適應嚴峻的市場環境方面做得很好，現在從定價中受益，並且在資本支出和其他方面非常勤奮，HAMR 將於明年年中加速發展。

When you think about the longer term, especially as we go through this off cycle, what are your thoughts about recapitalizing the balance sheet? What are your thoughts about longer-term earning power for the company? And is there anything that you see in the next year or so that you can do to better strengthen the balance sheet so that we could think of the longer-term growth drivers and earning power in an environment where you're not spending $80 million a quarter in interest expense? Thank you.

當您考慮更長期的情況時，尤其是當我們經歷這個非週期時，您對資產負債表資本重組有何看法？您對公司的長期獲利能力有何看法？您認為在明年左右您可以做些什麼來更好地加強資產負債表，以便我們可以在您每年不花費 8000 萬美元的環境中考慮長期增長動力和盈利能力季度利息支出？謝謝。

Yeah, thanks, Mehdi. So these are questions that we're stewing on now. Since the last year has been so operationally focused to your earlier point, and thanks to all the accolades. I mean, it's a very, very tough year that we've been through, but we're going to have to start addressing these questions.

是的，謝謝，邁赫迪。這些都是我們現在正在討論的問題。自去年以來，我們一直專注於您先前的觀點，並感謝所有的榮譽。我的意思是，這是我們經歷的非常非常艱難的一年，但我們必須開始解決這些問題。

A lot of it comes down to what ultimately the demand is and is that demand persistent. What we don't want to do is drive our supply back up to some higher-demand thing and then go through the same kind of cycle again. We just can't. We can't do that on our financial footing.

這很大程度上取決於最終的需求是什麼以及這種需求是否持續存在。我們不想做的是將我們的供應推回到需求更高的水平，然後再次經歷同樣的循環。我們就是做不到。就我們的財務狀況而言，我們無法做到這一點。

So we're going to have to address the debt. Depending on what the demand ultimately is, we're going to have to address the debt where it is. But if the demand is even higher, then we'll address that when it comes. And I think it's too early to speculate on what that is. We're still recovering from what we've just been through.

所以我們必須解決債務問題。根據最終的需求，我們必須就地解決債務問題。但如果需求更高，我們會在出現時解決。我認為現在推測這是什麼還為時過早。我們仍在從剛剛經歷的事情中恢復過來。

Yeah. In terms of the balance sheet, we've already partially addressed the high level of debt. We entered into the down cycle with $6.2 billion of debt. We are now at $5.7 billion. Our liquidity is much better than what it was few quarters ago. We were fairly open in the discussion, even in the private quarters. We want to bring this debt down, possibly around the $5 billion. And then we see based on where the business is, if we want to do even more or we stay at that level.

是的。就資產負債表而言，我們已經部分解決了高額債務問題。我們帶著 62 億美元的債務進入了下行週期。我們現在的資產為 57 億美元。我們的流動性比幾個季度前好得多。我們在討論中相當開放，即使在私人場所也是如此。我們希望將債務降低到 50 億美元左右。然後我們根據業務情況來判斷我們是否想做更多或保持在這個水平。

Steven Fox, Fox Advisors.

史蒂文‧福克斯，福克斯顧問公司。

Hi, good afternoon. Hope you don't mind if I go back over the capacity question again. I guess I understand what you're talking about as you go through these product transitions. You sort of are shipping more exabytes per head and platter, et cetera. But I guess, given this new technology, how do we think about this transition in terms of opening up capacity over the next 12 months versus prior node transitions?

嗨，下午好。希望您不介意我再次討論容量問題。當您經歷這些產品轉型時，我想我明白您在說什麼。每個頭和每個盤的傳輸量可能會增加，等等。但我想，考慮到這項新技術，與先前的節點過渡相比，我們如何看待未來 12 個月開放容量方面的過渡？

Anything you can do on that to help us in modeling out three, four quarters, because I think we're all struggling with the idea, do we assume that you're in an incredibly tight environment in three or four quarters where you're getting more price, or do we assume that you're matching demand and pricing is steady? It sounds like you're adding people back already. So I'm just trying to put all that together in some kind of quantifiable manner. Thanks.

你可以做的任何事情來幫助我們建模三四個季度，因為我認為我們都在為這個想法而苦苦掙扎，我們是否假設你在三、四個季度內處於一個極其緊張的環境中？獲得更高的價格，還是我們假設您滿足需求並且定價穩定？聽起來您已經在重新加入人員了。所以我只是試著以某種可量化的方式將所有這些放在一起。謝謝。

Thanks, Steven. It is difficult math because you have to understand exactly what the mix is of the demand that comes, right? So if it's all highest capacity drives, that's one question. If you get a lot of mid-capacity, mid-range capacity, which is really the strength that we saw before the pandemic, was mid-range capacity. And if some of that starts coming back, there's various customers that may need that.

謝謝，史蒂文。這是很難的數學，因為你必須準確地理解隨之而來的需求的組合，對吧？因此，如果都是最高容量的驅動器，那就是一個問題。如果你得到大量的中端產能，中端產能，這確實是我們在大流行之前看到的力量，是中端產能。如果其中一些開始回來，可能會有各種各樣的客戶需要它。

We answer the call differently. For our product today or once we drive through these transitions, we're much more efficient, right? And so a lot of it will depend upon the exact mix. I think where we are right now is our thinking is do not add any drive capacity at all. Just continue to be as utilized as we can and wait and see how that mix develops.

我們以不同的方式回應號召。對於我們今天的產品或一旦我們完成這些轉變，我們的效率就會提高，對嗎？因此，這在很大程度上取決於具體的組合。我認為我們現在的想法是根本不添加任何驅動器容量。只要繼續盡可能地利用我們的資源，並等待看看這種組合將如何發展。

Ananda Baruah, Loop Capital.

阿南達·巴魯阿（Ananda Baruah），Loop Capital。

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Dave, just go back to GenAI, in the prepared remarks, you talked about starting to see demand driven by GenAI. I guess, how much -- in what spirit is it starting to show up? Is it just kind of like [jokes and jabs]? Are you starting to see legitimate chunky orders?

大家好。感謝您提出問題。 Dave，回到 GenAI，在準備好的發言中，您談到開始看到 GenAI 驅動的需求。我猜，有多少——它是以什麼精神開始出現的？是不是有點像[笑話和刺傷]？您是否開始看到合法的大額訂單？

And then any view -- like do you have any visibility or any view on when on-premise starts for inferencing? And I guess just in that context also, are the Tier 2s yet kind of, quote-unquote, legitimate customers treating that? Appreciate it. That's just me. Tier 2 CSPs. Thanks.

然後有任何視圖 - 例如您對本地何時開始推理有任何可見性或任何視圖嗎？我想也正是在這種情況下，二級供應商是否也有合法的客戶對待這一點？欣賞它。這就是我。 2 級 CSP。謝謝。

That's a pretty rich question. Let me try this, Ananda. So I think, remember a few years ago we talked about the cloud being in early innings. I think most of what we're seeing as far as demand right now is traditional cloud workloads continuing to migrate to the cloud. So that's maybe middle innings, maybe still early innings for that matter.

這是一個相當豐富的問題。讓我試試這個，阿南達。所以我想，還記得幾年前我們談過雲端技術還處於早期階段。我認為我們目前看到的大部分需求是傳統雲端工作負載繼續遷移到雲端。所以這可能是中局，也可能是早局。

As far as GenAI, I think we're in the very early innings. So we don't see the efficiency of some of these new applications that are coming, but I have yet to see the big data applications really taking up. And I think they will come with video creation, video storage, video consumption at the edge, exactly to your point.

就 GenAI 而言，我認為我們還處於早期階段。因此，我們還沒有看到即將推出的一些新應用程式的效率，但我還沒有看到大數據應用程式真正投入使用。我認為它們將在邊緣提供視訊創建、視訊儲存、視訊消費，這正是您的觀點。

More importantly, I think a lot of AI applications will need snapshotting in order to trust them. I mean, if you make a decision with an AI engine, you're going to need to be able to prove that that decision was the right decision by having snapshots of the data. And I think that's the biggest opportunity that we see at the edge and in the cloud. And so we're quite excited about it, but it's still very early.

更重要的是，我認為許多人工智慧應用程式都需要快照才能信任它們。我的意思是，如果你使用人工智慧引擎做出決定，你將需要能夠透過數據快照來證明該決定是正確的。我認為這是我們在邊緣和雲端看到的最大機會。所以我們對此感到非常興奮，但現在還為時過早。

We do have some purchase orders that are specifically targeted at AI, but we have not really seen how fast some of these are going to grow. And especially for the big data applications that we're really excited about, they're still in the very early stages.

我們確實有一些專門針對人工智慧的採購訂單，但我們還沒有真正看到其中一些訂單的成長速度有多快。特別是對於我們真正感興趣的大數據應用程序，它們仍處於非常早期的階段。

Tristan Gerra, Baird.

特里斯坦·杰拉，貝爾德。

Hi, good afternoon. The focus on the HAMR has been on CSP customers, but I think you said you're now qualified with Chinese customer. How incremental is that and how does it help moving to potentially the US hyperscaler market over time?

嗨，下午好。 HAMR 的重點一直是 CSP 客戶，但我想您說過您現在有資格與中國客戶合作。隨著時間的推移，它的增量有多大？

Sorry,Tristan. Yes, we said non-cloud customers. We didn't say anything specifically about --

對不起，特里斯坦。是的，我們說的是非雲端客戶。我們沒有具體說什麼——

We didn't even say Chinese.

我們連中文都沒說。

Yeah. I think the way I think about this is there's different kinds of customers that have different kinds of qualifications, and also those customer architectures are more and less tolerant of certain kinds of faults and things like that. We're very communicative with the customers on this.

是的。我認為我對此的看法是，不同類型的客戶具有不同類型的資格，而且這些客戶架構對某些類型的故障和類似情況的容忍度越來越低。我們在這方面與客戶進行了很好的溝通。

So the volume ramp has begun. It's not as aggressive as we were six months ago because of some of these volume issues that we have, but we're going to continue to ship more and more units to other people and learn from those shipments as well as we build volume in our factories. We'll learn about some of these supplier interactions that really slowed us down.

因此，銷量成長已經開始。由於我們遇到的一些銷售問題，它不像六個月前那麼積極，但我們將繼續向其他人運送越來越多的設備，並從這些發貨中吸取教訓，並在我們的產品中增加銷量。我們將了解一些真正拖慢我們速度的供應商互動。

Thomas O'Malley, Barclays.

托馬斯·奧馬利，巴克萊銀行。

Hey, guys. Sorry if I missed this. I was bouncing between calls, but could you just update us on the process with the firmware update that you chose to do? I think you had previously mentioned that you had a subcomponent with a single supplier that was causing an issue, but then you used that opportunity to update the firmware.

大家好。抱歉，如果我錯過了這個。我在兩次通話之間來回切換，但您能否向我們介紹一下您選擇執行的韌體更新的流程？我想您之前曾提到過，您有一個由單一供應商提供的子組件導致了問題，但隨後您利用了這個機會更新了韌體。

So have you completed the firmware, I guess, requalification? And does that have anything to do with the push out into Q3? And what incremental steps do you need to take to complete the qualification from this point? That'd be super helpful. Thank you.

那你完成了韌體的重新認證嗎？這與進入第三季有什麼關係嗎？從此時起，您需要採取哪些漸進步驟才能完成資格認證？那會非常有幫助。謝謝。

No, I think the test beds are up and running. The firmware, we have high confidence in the firmware qualification, and we think we're over that. We're always doing firmware updates for new features for various customers, various market segments, and so on. I mean, we talked about this in the SMR details earlier. There's always architectural changes going on. So I think we're fairly confident about that.

不，我認為測試台已經啟動並正在運行。韌體方面，我們對韌體資格充滿信心，我們認為我們已經克服了這一點。我們一直在為不同的客戶、不同的細分市場等進行新功能的韌體更新。我的意思是，我們之前在 SMR 詳細資訊中討論過這一點。架構變化總是在發生。所以我認為我們對此相當有信心。

Mark Miller, Benchmark Company.

馬克·米勒，基準公司。

Just wondering what your thoughts are about in terms of the ramp of introduction of AI chips into PCs. Where do you see that, say, in the middle of next year as percent of PCs with AI chips?

只是想知道您對將人工智慧晶片引入個人電腦的想法有何看法。比方說，明年年中，您認為配備人工智慧晶片的個人電腦所佔的百分比是多少？

This is a very interesting topic as well, Mark. From my perspective, it's time for the PC ecosystem to get some new applications. And so I'm very excited about it. I hope that some of those applications are what I'll call video editing applications.

這也是一個非常有趣的話題，馬克。從我的角度來看，PC 生態系統是時候獲得一些新的應用程式了。所以我對此感到非常興奮。我希望其中一些應用程式就是我所說的影片編輯應用程式。

So then the question is where is the data? Is it on the PC forever? Is it right next to the PC? Is it in the closet in the small-medium business? Is it up in the cloud? I mean, as long as those applications are creating data and you want to store that data for a long time, I'm happy with it. Some of the sharing may not be as rich, but I think people are going to be very creative with some of the applications that are coming.

那麼問題來了，數據在哪裡呢？是永遠在PC上嗎？它就在電腦旁邊嗎？它在中小型企業的壁櫥裡嗎？是在雲端嗎？我的意思是，只要這些應用程式正在創建數據並且您希望長期儲存該數據，我就對此感到滿意。有些分享可能沒有那麼豐富，但我認為人們會對即將推出的一些應用程式非常有創意。

We've seen the applications in the AI PC space, but I think the adoption's still going to be slow. And I hope I'm wrong. I mean, I hope it's a little bit faster.

我們已經看到了人工智慧 PC 領域的應用，但我認為採用仍然會很緩慢。我希望我錯了。我的意思是，我希望速度能快一點。

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, Gary, and everyone on the call. We appreciate your participation and your questions today. Hopefully, you've seen our enthusiasm for how Seagate has positioned to address the improving demand environment across all of our end markets.

謝謝加里和所有參加電話會議的人。我們感謝您今天的參與和提問。希望您已經看到我們對 Seagate 如何定位以應對所有終端市場不斷改善的需求環境的熱情。

By continuing to focus on the fundamentals, the strong financial and operational execution, and advancing our aerial density growth roadmap, Seagate's well-positioned to deliver value both to our customers and our shareholders. And we look forward to keeping you posted on our progress.

透過持續專注於基本面、強大的財務和營運執行力以及推進我們的空中密度成長路線圖，希捷處於有利地位，可以為我們的客戶和股東創造價值。我們期待讓您隨時了解我們的進展。

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

會議現已結束。感謝您參加今天的演講。您現在可以斷開連線。