EPAM Systems, Inc. (NYSE:EPAM) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Arkadiy Dobkin: We are about 26%, 27% between Ukraine and Belarus, okay? Eastern Europe or Central Europe like, it’s different, because we are pretty significantly present in Poland and Hungary and all of this. And India is becoming right around second largest delivery location Right now it’s the second largest after Ukraine.

Moshe Katri: All right. Thank you.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Ashwin Shirvaikar with Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Ashwin Shirvaikar: Can you hear me now?

Arkadiy Dobkin: Yes.

Ashwin Shirvaikar: Okay. So, I guess, the question is when I look at your — when I look at the results either by geography or by vertical and on a sequential basis, and I kind of compare the growth rates what they were 2Q versus the growth rate in 3Q, almost everything is either decel or relatively unchanged, you have obviously the very idiosyncratic thing going on with life sciences. And I’m wondering does that — I’m trying to drive back with the — with what I sense is a little bit more positivity in terms of commentary, because of stabilization. So can you comment on how the environmental conversations with clients have evolved over the course of the quarter was September radically different than July? How are things evolving in October? A little bit more color of where we are going in terms of what seems to be stabilization in more areas. That would be useful.

Arkadiy Dobkin: Okay. I think, I got the general numbers and all because this is declining from amount of work, which we are doing right now is definitely stabilizing because if — and it’s difficult to have apples-to-apples comparison but with all our terms it’s actually getting latest lot. There are still big programs in which we continue to decline best of the client decisions done in — even during the last year. That’s why you see some new clients. On the other side after this period, why there is a positivity, we see that for some local fixed programs clients coming back to us and started conversation or even some decisions when programs starting to come back to us. A lot of new opportunities but this was at the very beginning.

Some of them sizable means that clients started to seriously consider as they need to do it. And unfortunately some of the client delays are so much, while there are very specific deadline they have ahead of them, and they will have to start making decisions. And this conversation happens, but they’re still not making calls. But the level of conversation is a different level. That’s a positivity as well. And there are a lot of small apart more new business where we enter in, which is historically for us, it wasn’t very normal because it never was going to be problem from day one. It’s usually where the country is important and the potential that we can do more complex, better quality work and then it was growing. So we have a lot of seats right now for the future.

But as main point that we definitely see is as the production load is getting more stable.

Jason Peterson: Yeah. I think Ashwin also if you look clearly on a year-over-year basis, the numbers still don’t look sequentially despite the fact we still saw a decline between Q2 and Q3. That decline was less than the decline we had in Q2. And when looking ahead to Q4, we still have a modest decline, but I would say that’s largely sort of foreign exchange and to a certain extent as we talk about the build ability or the available build as in Q4. And so, if you adjust for that it does feel like our demand is stabilizing, particularly in North America as we talked about during our prepared remarks.

Arkadiy Dobkin: And something to mention like I know that there are a lot of consumers that we would be able to deliver quality from new locations. That looks more positive as well for us, because we’re getting more and more experience and more and more scales outside our traditional strength in Eastern Europe while again in Eastern Europe and Western Central Asia will also stabilize a little while in general geopolitical environment is still very, very complex.

Ashwin Shirvaikar: That last point is really good to hear. In terms of pricing, because when you kind of talk about transaction loan volume versus results, does that imply a soft pricing environment. And if you can break that down into how much of that is a geo-mix type of issue as opposed to apples-to-apples price crunching. And then, over the last few quarters, you have mentioned obviously that because of the war in Ukraine, you had to move equal to newer geographies and there was a pricing impact that clients needed to absorb because of that. Are we past the impact of that on client decision-making?

Jason Peterson: Yes. So let me quickly do on a year-over-year basis, you would have had the impact of those movements that we took people from Russia and Belarus and Ukraine and moved into higher-cost geographies. But if you begin to look at what’s happening here in Q3 and what we think we see in Q4 is that you’ve got both the facts. And unfortunately, I can’t give you the exact percentage. But certainly one of the effects is that we are seeing more demand for India-based resources where the rates are lower. So that would speak to the mix shift that you talked about. And then the other thing, as Ark has indicated and I mentioned as well, is the pricing environment still is — it’s somewhat challenging with in some cases concessions provided to existing customers and then with newer engagements also starting with a sharper pencil.

And so you’ve got bolt impacts. And I think that you’ll see them show up more so in Q4 and probably in the first half of 2024, which again is part of the discussion around what we see for profitability in coming quarters.

Ashwin Shirvaikar: Understood. And that’s what you’re adjusting for them. Okay. I got it. Thanks.

Operator: Your next question will come from the line of David Grossman with Stifel. Please go ahead.

David Grossman: Thank you. Just wondering if I could just follow-up a couple of points that were just made in the last question. I guess I’m just trying to reconcile. You’ve given us a lot of good information about production about headwinds from customer losses, some of the larger customers that you’ve been talking about over the last several quarters and other dynamics. So I guess, I’m just trying to reconcile all of that, because I think Jason you said that when you back out FX and seasonal kind of workdays or work hours that it feels flattish. So it sounds like the newer work that’s coming on is offsetting those headwinds. Is that a reasonable way to think about things as we kind of move into 2024? I know you don’t want to give guidance, but does it feel like those headwinds that you’ve been experiencing in the last couple of quarters that have been driving sequential declines in revenues should pretty much abate by the end of this year.