A10 Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ATEN) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

So that we expect to be stable. And I think year-to-date, our Enterprise segment is growing like 5%-6% and in quarter slightly better than that. So, even though overall is still negative. On the Service Provider side, I think we made some progress with Tier 2 and Tier 3 a little bit, which is more or less volatile and with Tier 1 Service Provider, our assumption and the signs we see are it will resume towards a growth period, but it’s not going to suddenly snap back to where they were. So we are projecting kind of a slow recovery in the beginning of the year and then as they see a bigger supply-demand imbalance, right, they will spend more.

Gray Powell: Understood. Okay. Great. And I guess just one follow-up question. I mean, you guys have — you have always done a good job controlling costs. How much more room do you have to squeeze on the OpEx side and grow EBITDA and EPS in excess of revenue growth?

Dhrupad Trivedi: Yeah. I think a great question, Gray. And of course, EPS growth is always more fun with revenue growth. The — so for us, I think, this year, because of the revenue impact versus last year, obviously, there are temporary cost changes that will resume when we are back in growth mode, such as right variable, selling costs, commission, channel, all of that. So we expect that obviously to float up again with revenue growth. On G&A side, I think, we continue to look for efficiencies. So nothing dramatically different, but it will always be better as a percent of revenue. And all OpEx will grow slower than revenue growth, right? The part that, I think, obviously comes back fastest would be variable comp on sales side with revenue growth.

On R&D, I would say, the biggest focus for us is, reallocating resources to where we see the most growth opportunities, right? So a lot of our new announcements around capabilities and products will be not more engineers per se, but the ones who are there are working on the most important things, right? So that’s the way we balance it and when growth resumes, we grow OpEx, but not as fast.

Gray Powell: Understood. All right. Thank you very much.

Dhrupad Trivedi: Yeah. Thank you, Gray.

Operator: We now turn to Hamed Khorsand with BWS Financial. Your line is open.

Hamed Khorsand: Hi. I was just want to understand the conversations you are having with your Service Provider customers. How does that relate to your guidance commentary about 2024, when it sounds like early in your comments that you still don’t have enough visibility even for Q4?

Dhrupad Trivedi: Yeah. No. Good question. So I think, we are, obviously, guiding — we are not giving guidance for 2024, right? I think what I was explaining before is, so specific, Hamed, to the Service Provider customers. I would say, difference between North America and rest, so speaking about North America maybe the most, our conversations are around projects that are planned but are getting postponed, as opposed to them not needing the product anymore or scaling back their plans. Second element is, some of those customers specifically cite the cost of capital and concerns about their ability to get a rate of return when they are borrowing at those levels. And I think as those things not necessarily decline but normalize out, they will have to fulfill demand, right?

So they can postpone it, but they are planning to add capacity to support new services and new data. So that’s the second element of it. And third, I think, obviously, in North America, some of the Service Providers have structural CapEx and capital complexity and challenges, so we are not assuming those go away, right? This is more around customers that were planning something in Q3. We know they are still planning it because we are working with them on testing and deployment, is more from that perspective than assuming that some large customers that completely shut out suddenly turns on.

Hamed Khorsand: Okay. And my other question was, you have always been a Service Provider-centric company. What are you doing to expand your presence and market share in Enterprise and how fast could that segment growth for you?