Extreme Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXTR) Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Ed Meyercord: And I’ll cover the first part of the question and Kevin I’ll let you jump in and cover the second part. We’re looking, I think at – yes, more traditional seasonality as you look at the shifts going from Q1 — Q4 into Q1 to Q2 etc. I think in the core business, the outlier here is going to be some of the new commercial motions that we have that are not likely to be in the same seasonal patterns. So some of the larger deals that traditionally we would not have access to in terms of our private subscription offer for example are not necessarily going to fall into that the traditional seasonal lower the core business. And I’d say the same thing is true with our MSP business is that ramps That’s just going to be more of a steady incline than it will be kind of traditional seasonal business. Kevin, do you want to comment on the second part of the question?

Kevin Rhodes: Sure. Absolutely happy to. The reason why we gave the fourth quarter outlook is to actually show what we believe will be a more normalized. We do believe we will grow off of Q4, so we’re not thinking that, that is like the new number forever because we have these opportunities with MSP and ESPO that will continue to mature and provide further growth in the future. But with Q4 being 10% to 13%, we believe that’s a good jumping off point. But we will maintain operating margins in the double-digits throughout this fourth quarter and throughout next year is our plan. In terms of like, how much we can scale from where we were in ‘23 or ’24 in the future, we really have to go and spend a little bit more time looking at where our ’25, ‘26 contributions are going to be to get into that, that the higher realms of mid-teens to high-teens, even to 20% scale beyond that, but we do think it’s possible.

I mean, we’re already showing the discipline that if we need to, we could take costs out of the business to drive and keep our margins at that double-digit level. And what we need to do is, we are focused on that is to continue to scale and grow the business and generate more profitability over time and that’s exactly what Ed and I are intending to do is to continue to scale the operating margins over time.

David Vogt: Great. Thanks, guys.

Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our next question coming from the line of Christian Schwab with Craig-Hallum Capital. Your line is open.

Christian Schwab: Hey. Good morning, guys. So Ed, now that it’s become evident of over earning during supply chain issues, etc., etc., and competitors not having products. When we look at your business and we baseline modest growth before we entered this period and I kind of come up with a number of about $1.1 billion plus or minus is that kind of what you believe the business we’re going to be below that run rate, march little bit of above that or kind of in that light and June is – is that kind of our starting from your top line growth initiatives, is that fair or is that, that the way you think about it all?

Ed Meyercord: I think, it’s fair. We are going to build out of this. And yeah, what we’ve said is, and Christian, we use the language kind of more normalized to comment on the June quarter and when you just kind of run the math on some growth on that kind of baseline business, you get to the 1.1. So I think that’s a fair assessment. Kevin, I don’t know, if you want to add to that or comments.

Kevin Rhodes: No. I think you are right, Ed. I mean, with Q4 being at that level and jumping off point there with it being the new normal would continue. We do believe that we will continue to grow the business. We will have a better growth story in the second half of our fiscal year ‘25 than the first half. But in general, yeah, in terms of range $1.1 billion is the new normal about right?

Christian Schwab: Is Norman’s work doing anything about moving to selling product as a service across the board and putting a mechanism in place to be more aggressive in that or is that something you’re going to watch some of the other people in the industry do to see if there’s a tremendous customer interest?

Ed Meyercord: Yeah. I think you’re going to see us be a lot more aggressive and we’ve — I mentioned that the triumvirate of Norman stepping in and taking the lead as Chief Commercial Officer. Nabil is our Chief Technology and Chief Product Officer, but he’s also running a cross-functional team on SaaS and subscription. And one of the things that you’re seeing is really nice growth on the subscription line and really healthy margins on that subscription business. And so as we think about growth we have plans to continue that growth on the subscription line. Also, we have the benefit of gross margins on that. Finally, we made a key hire, Monica Kumar who’s come and joined us. I think she’s going to be the glue between, our product orgs and our selling orgs and I think we have an opportunity to be much more targeted and I would say much more aggressive in direct outreach to the market more broadly as well as more targeted with the channel, and we have some really interesting growth opportunities in the channel.