Cognyte Software Ltd. (NASDAQ:CGNT) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Mike Cikos: Thank you for that, David. I do appreciate the fact that you guys are talking about the 1Q outperformance with this backlog conversion and customer readiness, but at the same time, both RPO and current RPO balances remain strong. So, thank you for calling that out. I think the latest item that I really wanted to talk to you, appreciate the color on Q2 and the fact that you’re able to maintain that flat OpEx for the remainder of the year, which I know we had spoken about last quarter. But if I look at the gross margins, that’s the last item I really wanted to hit on with you guys before I turn it over to my colleagues. With gross margins, obviously, you guys were well ahead of expectations. So, can we do a similar, I guess line of questioning versus what we just did with revenue?

First, for gross margin, what helped drive that outperformance in Q1? And then second, what provides you the confidence to now take up gross margin, 150 bps for the year versus what we had anticipated previously?

Elad Sharon: Yes. So, Mike, maybe I’ll start and then David will continue. We do see higher quality of the bookings. So, the mix is better. Mix better means more softer revenue in the mix. And this drives higher gross margin overall. We do see also that we do expect that when revenue goes up, the gross margin will also improve over time. About the specifics, David, do you want to add?

David Abadi: Yes. I will elaborate on that. So, obviously we are very pleased with our gross margin in Q1 and also the ability to improve our outlook for the year. In total we believe that year-over-year will be almost 400 basis points, 275 basis points improvement. The main reason behind it is the quality of the booking more software revenue, we see also in the mix in Q1 that our total software revenue were in a higher mix, it was almost 90% of our revenue. This trend that we are able to continue to deliver our – and we said our premium solution with high margin and drive the gross margin over time. And now we are looking for the year with the 6.5%, and the main reason is the Q1 performance continue with last year and overall backlog which give us the confidence that we’ll be able to drive it.

Mike Cikos: That’s great. And I know we’re talking about the mix. So, just to put a final point on it. So, the assumption is that I guess the mix will normalize a little bit for the rest of the year and that’s why we should expect Q2 through Q4 to come down from the 60% level in Q1. But at the same time the bookings quality is what’s benefiting that overall gross margin. Is that a fair characterization?

David Abadi: Yes, that’s fair.

Mike Cikos: Terrific. I’ll turn it over to my colleagues. Appreciate it. Thank you so much.

David Abadi: Thank you.

Elad Sharon : Thank you, Mike.

Operator: And one moment for our next question. And our next question will come from Peter Levine of Evercore. Your line is open.

Peter Levine: Great. Thanks guys for taking my question here. Elad, your commentary earlier on the call, you said better budget discussions seems like customers are returning to normal behavior of our last year. Can you kind of just maybe dive into that a little bit deeper, explain to us, kind of what you’re seeing on the top of the funnel conversion rates and then your expectations, I think, throughout the rest of the year in terms of the macro impacting your ability to further reaccelerate?