Commvault Systems Inc Q4 FY2022 Earnings Call

Good morning and welcome to our earnings conference call. I'm Mike Melnyk, Head of Investor Relations. And I'm joined by Sanjay Mirchandani, Commvault's CEO; and Brian Carolan, Commvault's CFO. An infographic with key financial operating metrics is posted on the Investor Relations website for reference. Statements made on today's call will include forward-looking statements about Commvault's future expectations, plans, and prospects. All such forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. Please refer to the cautionary language in today's earnings release and Commvault's most recent periodic reports filed with the SEC for a discussion of the risks and uncertainties that could cause the company's actual results to differ from those contemplated in these forward-looking statements. Commvault does not assume any obligation to update these statements. During this call, Commvault's financial results are presented on a non-GAAP basis. A reconciliation between the non-GAAP and GAAP measures can be found on our website. Thank you again for joining us. Now I'll turn it over to Sanjay for his remarks.

Thank you, Mike. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. Fiscal 2022 was the best year in Commvault's history. Our differentiated platform and portfolio are resonating with customers and partners alike. Demand is strong, and our team is executing, enabling us to outpace and take market share from the competition. We closed the year on a high note, posting record quarterly revenue, EBIT, and EPS. Q4 software revenue of $101 million was a new milestone for the company, and we crossed $200 million in total revenue for the second consecutive quarter. Our growth was driven by the continued traction of our software and SaaS offerings, increased multi-product adoption, and through large deals. Additionally, Metallic continued to scale and contribute meaningfully to our revenue and customer growth. As we accelerate our recurring revenue journey, we are increasingly focused on ARR as a key indicator of our future growth potential. Over 80% of our revenue is now recurring in nature and growing. As of March 31, subscription and SaaS ARR increased 46% year-on-year to $346 million, now representing 59% of total ARR. I'm pleased to report that in just six quarters of commercial availability, Metallic has exceeded $50 million in ARR. Its growth is extraordinary; customers love it, and we love it. Brian will discuss the financial highlights in a moment, but let's first discuss the year ahead. Over the past three years, we've assembled a world-class leadership team with deep domain expertise in cloud and SaaS. We transformed the company through our simplification, innovation, and execution mantra. Today's data protection market, especially data management as a service, is at a tipping point. This is an incredible tailwind for the company, and it is why we firmly believe our time is now. It's rare to have three critical drivers converging at once. First, our heritage is grounded in solving complex data problems for customers, which has never been more important. Second, we continually innovate elegant and industry-leading solutions to these problems across software and SaaS. Third, our execution engine is humming, as proven by the results we're sharing today. Commvault has it all. Let me discuss these one by one. First, we solve hard problems. Our customers live in a transient world. Data is everywhere: on-site, in the cloud, in flight, and on remote devices. They're contending with multiple generations of data, as well as new and different workloads. Well-funded bad actors are using ransomware and other threats to compromise organizations, infrastructures, and data. All of these create what I call IT collision, which puts more pressure on often siloed IT and security teams that are entrusted to protect data while moving to the cloud. Upstarts, point solutions, and companies built through piecemeal acquisitions only create more silos. Customers look to us as a proven and trusted partner to help them on their journey. For 26 years, Commvault has helped solve these hard problems and provided customers peace of mind that their data is secure and readily available. That's why government agencies that demand the highest security and capabilities, like the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Department of Justice, have all chosen Commvault for their data protection needs. Second, we build elegant, world-class solutions to these hard problems. We cater to any workload and customer environment: one provider, one platform for a multitude of data management needs. Our flexible architecture and single payment model removes the rigidity and complexity in their systems. Additionally, as many of our customers straddle both on-prem and cloud environments, they require a solution that can flex and scale to meet their evolving needs. Having moved several exabytes of customer data to the cloud over the past few years, we enable this transformation, which serves as our competitive advantage. For example, in Q4, we displaced incumbent vendors, both legacy and upstart, and welcomed Fincantieri, one of the world's largest shipbuilders, to our roster. They chose us to protect their on-prem workloads and thousands of VMs, migrate their Office 365 mailbox to the cloud, and provide cloud-based immutable copies of their data against ransomware, all through our unified platform. Speaking of ransomware, when customers are facing an unfortunate attack, our teams are there to help them get back to work. For instance, when a Fortune 500 materials company was hit by a global ransomware attack, we were the ones that alerted them. Not only did we save their data, but it also opened the door to an expanded relationship as we were the only provider to meet the company's ransomware, multi-cloud automation, and integration needs. The third, and probably the most compelling reason I believe it is our time is our razor-sharp execution. Over the past two years, we've delivered consistent revenue growth while accelerating our transition from perpetual to subscription software. We built a world-class SaaS franchise that has surpassed $50 million in ARR. We self-funded this while delivering 800 basis points of margin expansion. Moreover, we increased our position from nine to 29 in our pursuit of achieving the Rule of 40. This is definitive proof that we are a well-executing company, which is why I believe it is our time. Now, let me take a moment to discuss our portfolio. Today, our software, combined with Metallic, offers customers the unified solutions they need to address the complexity and collision of systems, workloads, and competing IT and security priorities. They shouldn't have to choose between software or SaaS; depending on their journey and various workloads, they will need both. We're the only company that provides them software and SaaS at scale with the flexibility they require. For example, an existing Commvault customer, a multinational software and services provider, recently expanded their on-prem data management capabilities across their entire footprint, and added HyperScale X and Metallic to accelerate their transition to the cloud. We are now helping them protect thousands of virtual machines and more than a petabyte of data in Azure, and they are doing it with one unified platform. This is the Power of AND, and it is reflected in our financials. This quarter, we observed 80% year-on-year growth in the number of customers using more than one product, which leads to higher ASP, higher lifetime value, and higher recurring revenue. This is why we are bullish. We've put in the hard work, and we are ready to lean into our future as the cloud data management company. Before I turn the call over to Brian to discuss our results, I want to acknowledge him and the announcement we made today. Brian has enabled us to build the solid foundation we stand on today as a company. On a personal note, his counsel to me, the leadership team, and the Board has been invaluable, and we all wish him well. Gary Merrill's appointment as our new CFO reflects the deep bench of talent here at Commvault. Gary has held several senior roles at Commvault including Chief Accounting Officer and most recently as Chief of Business Operations. Importantly, Gary has been leading our transformation initiatives that allow us to build a modernized business platform and position us for accelerated growth. Now, I'll turn the call over to Brian.

Thank you very much, Sanjay. I appreciate that. After more than 21 successful years with Commvault, I have decided this is the right time for me both professionally and personally to move on. Commvault is coming off another record year and is well positioned for success, and it gives me great pleasure to hand the CFO reins to Gary, who has been my colleague and partner for the past 16 years. I have great confidence in his ability to lead the team. Now, let's talk about the FY'22 results, which were the best year in our company's history. We reported record results driven by the Power of AND, with both software and SaaS contributing to our accelerating growth trajectory. We closed the year on a high note. Q4 was a record quarter. We exceeded $200 million in total revenue for the second consecutive quarter, with total revenue growth of 8% year-over-year to approximately $206 million. Software and products revenue increased 12% year-over-year to approximately $101 million. Q4 marked the first time in company history that we crossed the $100 million milestone in quarterly software revenue. Software-only growth, excluding appliance pass-through revenue, was approximately 15% year-over-year. Fourth quarter subscription software revenue increased 45% year-over-year to approximately $77 million. Subscription license sales represented 77% of total software revenue, an increase from 71% last quarter and 59% a year ago. We are clearly benefiting from the tailwinds of our subscription transition and our growing recurring revenue model. Revenue from software transactions over $100,000 increased 19% year-over-year and represented 73% of software revenue. The volume of these transactions grew 14% year-over-year, and the average deal size increased 4% to approximately $327,000. We closed numerous seven-figure deals in the quarter. Subscription and Metallic ARR grew 46% year-over-year to $346 million, now representing 59% of total ARR, up from 55% last quarter and 46% in Q4 '21. As Sanjay noted earlier, Metallic ARR crossed the $50 million milestone during the quarter. Total ARR increased 13% year-over-year to approximately $583 million. On a constant currency basis, ARR growth was up 14% year-over-year. This growth has been driven by new subscription customers and Metallic. This is an important proof point in the transformation of our company. We believe ARR is a good measure of the underlying health of the business and a barometer of our potential for future growth. Total recurring revenue, which includes subscription software, maintenance support services, and SaaS, grew 19% year-over-year to $173 million. Recurring revenue represented 84% of total revenue in the quarter, an increase from 76% a year ago. Now, I will discuss expenses and profitability. We reported fiscal fourth quarter gross margins of 85%. Consolidated gross margin reflects an increased mix of SaaS revenue, which expectedly carries a higher cost of sales than software. Total expenses, including both cost of sales and operating expenses, increased approximately 4% year-over-year to $157 million. Expense growth reflected a seasonal FICA tax reset, annual merit increases, and go-to-market investments. Q4 expenses also benefited from a $5.5 million net settlement of certain legal matters. This gain is netted with related expenses in G&A. Non-GAAP EBIT increased 20% year-over-year to a record of approximately $47 million, and non-GAAP EBIT margins improved by 230 basis points year-over-year to 22.6%. I will now discuss cash flows and the balance sheet. For the quarter, we generated approximately $87 million of free cash flow. The growth in free cash flow was driven by strong Q3 performance, growth in deferred revenue related to Metallic, and timing of payrolls. We ended the quarter with no debt and approximately $268 million in cash on the balance sheet, of which over 70% sits overseas. In Q4, we repurchased approximately 600,000 shares of our common stock for $40 million. Now, I will discuss our financial outlook for Q1 FY'23. We expect Q1 software revenue of approximately $89 million and total revenue of approximately $195 million. Due to ongoing geopolitical uncertainty, we are closely monitoring potential risks to our business, particularly customer spending patterns in Europe. Also note, Russian operations previously contributed approximately 1% of total revenue, which is factored into near-term guidance. We expect total expenses, including cost of sales and operating expenses, to increase approximately 8% year-over-year. This expense growth reflects SaaS infrastructure costs and go-to-market investments to support our accelerating revenue profile. We anticipate that this will result in non-GAAP EBIT margins of approximately 20%. Our projected share count for Q1 is approximately 46 million shares. As we begin the new fiscal year, I'll take a moment to update you on our progress towards the targets we laid out during our January 2021 Investor event. At that time, we outlined our plan to transition to a recurring revenue model characterized by sustainable growth, improved profitability, strong free cash flow, and an attractive capital return policy. I'm happy to report that we've made terrific progress. Our software and total revenue is currently tracking at or above target, while ARR is currently tracking materially above target. Subscription software mix and recurring revenue mix are comfortably within their targeted ranges. We ended FY'22 at 29 against the Rule of 40. We are very proud of the progress we've made considering we were at just nine two years ago. This improvement was driven by accelerating revenue growth and significant margin expansion, all while scaling a hyper-growth SaaS platform. While SaaS was not a major focal point of the Investor event, I'm pleased to report that Metallic is pacing well ahead of expectations. Factoring in the success and momentum of Metallic, we now believe that FY'23 non-GAAP EBIT margins should be in the low 20% range, currently reflected in consensus estimates. We remain focused on making continued progress towards our Investor Day target of 32 against the Rule of 40 in fiscal '23. From a capital return perspective, since the time of the event through March 31, 2022, we repurchased approximately 5.2 million shares for $367 million. The Board recently approved a new share repurchase authorization for up to $250 million of stock. In FY'23, we expect to continue with our existing practice to return approximately 75% of free cash flow over time. I will now turn the call back to Sanjay for his closing remarks.

Thanks, Brian. To recap, fiscal year '22 was a record year for Commvault, and we intend to build on that momentum in fiscal year '23. Overall market demand is healthy, the power of AND is resonating with customers and partners, and our team is executing. In fiscal year '23, we expect to accelerate our growth and lead the cloud data management wave. It is our year; it's our time. Now, we will open the call up for questions.

Thank you. Our first question comes from James Fish with Piper Sandler.

Hey, guys, thanks for the questions, and nice way to end the fiscal year here. Brian, just want to actually clarify something you just said. You're reaffirming the goal of 32 for the revenue growth and the EBITDA margins for fiscal '23, which with low-20s EBIT would imply you're talking about 9% to 10% revenue growth for the year?

James, this is Brian here, good morning. So, yes, I mean we've made great progress towards our targets that we laid out in January 2021, and we're tracking at or above all the top line ones. Importantly, our ARR is tracking well above the goal that we laid out. At this point, we're not changing 32 as an objective, and our objective is to continue to make progress towards that throughout this fiscal year.

Got it. Brian, it has been a pleasure working with you, and I appreciate all your help over the years. My last question is about the pressure on the supply chain that many infrastructure peers are experiencing. I know you’ve shifted more towards software, but there is still a hardware component with HyperScale, for instance. What are you observing in terms of component shortages for Commvault or indirect effects from project delays due to the supply chain? It seems minor, but your lead metrics, like billings, indicated significant positive announcements. Thank you.

So, let me take it, yes. Over the past couple of quarters, we've been keeping a real eye on not just our piece of the deal, but the hardware that supports our software. For the past couple of quarters, we've been able to successfully de-risk it, but it is a real uncertainty in closure times because software needs the hardware or the storage below it. If the customers don't have delivery timescales, it can matter. So, we've been keeping a tight eye on it. After Q2, our forecasting process takes that into account. It's not a perfect science, but we're monitoring it closely. The flip side is if the workload lends itself to a SaaS-based delivery, we've got Metallic, and customers lean in on that.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Aaron Rakers with Wells Fargo.

Hi, guys, thanks for taking my question. This is Michael on behalf of Aaron. It sounds like Metallic is doing really well; you guys are executing on that. I'm just curious, are you able to provide any additional metrics on maybe the deal size growth you're seeing specifically within Metallic, and maybe an update on the customer growth in the quarter?

Customer growth was just shy of, I think, 500 new customers last quarter. We've also got great consistent overlap of customers having more than one product; over 50% of our customers have both. Additionally, over 60% of our new customer base was brought in by Metallic. So, we're seeing, if my numbers are right, which I believe they are, great traction in the size of customers, whether they're small, medium, or large. We're seeing velocity, and we're observing the Power of AND in action. At some point, we'll share more details about the deal size and other metrics that you'd be interested in, but we felt sharing the $50 million ARR milestone was important.

Yes, appreciate that.

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Jason Ader with William Blair.

Yes, thank you. First wanted to say, Brian, good luck; these calls are not going to be the same without you, and I will miss you. Second, just to be clear, Brian, you're not saying rule of 32 for FY'23; you're saying that you still have that as a target but not necessarily for FY'23, just wanted to double-check that?

It's our objective at this point, Jason. I think it's too early to change anything. We're not changing that as an objective right now. I think it really comes down to the great success from Metallic. Obviously, the margins associated with the SaaS business are a little bit different. We may see a balance that is more pronounced as we ship more revenue growth than margin growth, but it's too early in the process to change that.

Okay.

We'll update you at another time during the year, at another investor event.

Okay, so it's not guidance, but it's still the objective. Is that the right way to think about it?

Correct.

Okay. And then was there any FX impact in the quarter or the guidance, just curious because of what's going on in EMEA in particular?

Yes, no, great question. Our growth was somewhat dampened by foreign exchange, by 200 to 300 basis points with revenue. We're factoring in current FX rates for this guidance, and we're closely watching it as well.

Got you. Okay, and then lastly, on the services line, I'm just trying to do some quick math. If we sort of divide by four on the $50 million ARR, I know that's not exact, but it's sort of rough, we're looking at $10 million to $12 million in revenue for Metallic in Q4. When I subtract that from the services line, what I'm left with is support and professional services, which would be kind of in the low 90s, which is essentially flat with what it was two years ago. Is there anything going on in the support and professional services side, because software is still growing; why would support and professional services be kind of flat two years later? Am I thinking about the numbers right?

I think you're close, without being completely exact on that. I know it's not easy to back into all that. However, we're seeing accelerating SaaS growth in terms of recognized revenue, and that's going to carry over the course of time. So, $50 million as an ARR, I don't know if you can exactly divide it by four if you take that accelerated growth into account. Regarding the rest of the services, we've been programmatically and strategically converting many of our professional customers to new subscription and SaaS offerings. This is showing up as accelerating recurring revenue growth and ARR as well.

And I'll just add something on the professional services aspect: we keep that right-sized. As we build more automation and invest more into our channel while delivering more cloud-enabled services, our professional services continue to play an important role in this right-sizing.

So, if we're thinking about a couple of years from now, would it be right to think of the support and professional services business as being somewhat flat over the next couple of years because you're subtracting some services while adding others? Just trying to assess how to model that without Metallic. Is that accurate?

I think you're directionally correct in that.

Okay, thank you, guys.

Thank you, Jason. I appreciate it.

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Eric Martinuzzi with Lake Street.

Yes. You had a small acquisition in the quarter; wondering what the contribution was revenue-wise.

Well, firstly, I think we closed it early-Feb, if memory serves me right. We've been integrating it to make the products part of the Commvault framework. So, that's been our primary focus. The revenue streams that the acquisition had continue, but it’s not material.

Okay. As we look ahead to FY'23, what's the enterprise appetite for large IT transformational projects compared to a year ago? Can you give us a high-level overview?

Increasing. If I had to use one word to describe it, I would say it's increasing. If you see the number of deals we completed in the past couple of quarters over $100,000 or over $1 million, those are on the rise. We are seeing more strategic projects. I provided three examples in my prepared comments about how customers leverage our unified platform for complex ransomware protection, cloud-based transformation, and broader digital transformation in data management. We are noticing more and more of this; every conversation involves cloud in some form, and our capability of moving exabytes of data rapidly for customers into the cloud puts us in an advantageous position.

Okay. Lastly for me, regarding your investment in human capital to support the plan for FY'23, are you able to provide percentage or numerical estimates regarding investments in sales and customer support?

We are not going to provide the level of specificity at this point in time. However, we are focused on attracting, retaining, and developing top talent.

Over the past three years, enhancing productivity across the company has been our major priority. That’s how we've been able to fund a lot of our initiatives and continue supporting our goals. We are driving productivity and have a seasoned set of leadership that understands this approach. Additionally, we are driving multi-product adoption which demands a level of sophistication in our conversations with customers. All of this drives productivity and helps us resource our needs without getting into specific details.

Understood. Thanks for taking my question.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.