Earnings Call Transcript
Sprinklr, Inc. (CXM)
Earnings Call Transcript - CXM Q1 2023
Eric Scro, Vice President of Finance
Thank you, Shamali, and welcome everyone to Sprinklr’s first quarter fiscal year 2023 earnings call. Joining us today are Ragy Thomas, Sprinklr’s Founder and CEO; and Manish Sarin, Sprinklr’s Chief Financial Officer. We issued our earnings release a short time ago, filing the associated 8-K with the SEC and we’ve made that available on the Investor Relations section of our website, along with the supplementary investor presentation. With that, let me turn the call over to Ragy.
Ragy Thomas, CEO
Thank you, Eric, and hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today as we share the results of our first quarter in FY '23. I will get started with highlights including what I'm hearing from customers in some of our key wins. Manish will then share details of our financial results. I am very pleased to report that Q1 was another strong quarter that exceeded guidance. Q1 total revenue grew by 31% year-over-year to $145 million, and subscription revenue climbed to $127.3 million, an increase of 32% year-over-year, coming off a strong finish to our FY '22. This is now our third straight quarter delivering more than 30% in total revenue growth. We continue to believe that there is a durable long-term growth opportunity for Sprinklr to lead the unified customer experience management category that we believe is still just getting started. Before diving into details, let me take a moment to welcome our new CMO Arun Pattabhiraman to Sprinklr. As you saw in our announcement in May, Arun joins us from Freshworks, where he served as the Chief Growth Officer of the company. He brings extensive experience in marketing hypergrowth SaaS companies and we're excited about his ability to position Sprinklr for our next phase of growth. In Q1, I had the privilege and opportunity to sit down face-to-face with over 100 of our top customers and over 75 of our top customer-facing Sprinklrites. The message we're hearing is remarkably consistent. Again, large global companies are all focused on creating great customer experiences across channels. But in today's environment, they're also trying to reduce cost, mitigate risk and convert legacy cost centers to profit centers. Marketing and care have evolved dramatically in a short period of time. We're seeing the volume of customer interaction shift to new channels like live chat and messaging like never before. Customers are demanding personalized human interactions across what used to be siloed internal departments. And that's what a unifying customer-facing platform that can bring functions together from care to marketing can do with an AI powered architecture behind. We're starting to see brands move their customer care to Sprinklr because our vision for customer service is different from that of traditional care vendors. They're buying into our vision that care can be proactive, that care can be omnichannel, and that care can be unified across markets. And it can and should transition from a cost center to potentially a profit center. They're also buying into our vision that everything starts by listening to the customer first, not just episodically with the survey, but in real time. Customers using Sprinklr are now able to understand what their customers like and dislike and what they want and don't want. And they are now using this information to make products better, optimize their marketing content and campaigns, reduce the number of customer service calls they get, and get an early warning for potential crises. And to do all of that in a consumer privacy-first secure and compliant enterprise platform. As we look across our customer base and analyze what they're doing with our platform, we're now able to see revenue-generating, cost-reducing, and risk-mitigating solutions emerge consistently in every industry from technology to financial services. And that makes Sprinklr an increasingly business-critical part of many of our customers' global front office IT architecture. Let me now share with you some exciting innovation across our product suite and along with some customer wins and why they chose Sprinklr. As a reminder, we have four product suites that support brands' major customer-facing functions: customer care, research, engagement, and sales and marketing and advertising suite, each of which has significant revenue scale currently. In modern care, we enhanced several key features this quarter. Our improved knowledge base capability now allows customers to find quick answers before engaging with a live agent. Our improved guided workflows enable newer agents to be as productive as the top agents by simplifying the entire troubleshooting process with easy step-by-step process flows. Our advanced contact center intelligence now has real-time speech analytics for in-depth insights and a single source of truth for understanding CSAT sentiment and escalations for complete performance visibility. Customers want to modernize their contact centers with AI, and they want to convert them into proactive and potentially revenue-generating customer experience centers. These are some of the reasons we secured exciting wins in our customer care product suite this quarter with new customers like Mercedes Benz and Aramex and had expansions with existing customers like Applebee's, Starhub, and Grupo Bimbo. Let's use Grupo Bimbo as an example, one of the largest food companies in the world, headquartered in Mexico City. Grupo Bimbo currently uses all our four product suites. Having implemented social engagement and sales first, modern research, and then modern marketing and advertising. Originally, when they got started, our AI was helping them gain powerful insights into organic and paid ad performance and was providing them with competitive insights on more than 400 of their competitors. In Q1, they expanded into our modern care suite with our CCaaS solution to improve agent productivity, unify customer experiences across digital channels, and deliver more proactive care to customers as they themselves continue to expand across Latin America and Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Peru, in line with our stated strategy of innovating and expanding with partners. In Q1, we also announced integrations with Amazon and Twilio, enabling customers of those great companies to take advantage of our modern care suite. In modern research, we launched conversation insights. The ability to cluster conversations from public digital data that's legally available using AI to surface brand insights that otherwise may have never been discovered. Customers like PepsiCo are using our conversation insights to inform strategies like sustainable packaging. We also announced enhancements in our media monitoring and analytics module, including new premium data partners like NLA Media Access and Financial Times. Conversation insights help PR and corporate communications leaders better understand their digital audience in real-time and allow them to optimize their messaging. We help them and other marketers facilitate data-driven decisions across organic paid and advocacy marketing. Across the suite, we had several expansions in Q1 with customers like Diageo, and Coddy. In our social engagement and sales suite, we announced an official partnership with the new TikTok content marketing specialty. Sprinklr is now the only TikTok marketing partner with a platform capable of helping marketers manage, execute, and optimize both organic and paid content campaigns on TikTok. We also further extended the portfolio of modern channels so customers can now monitor, engage, and grow their communities on Discord, which supports voice, video, and text with 150 million active users. Our channel relationships and differentiated features like customizable reporting, cross-silo workflows, and cross-channel customer conversations are what helped us secure new customers like ASOS and expand with brands like Cross Country Mortgage and AkzoNobel this quarter. Finally, in our marketing and advertising suite, we launched our proprietary creative performance framework. By leveraging AI, our customers can now identify and easily build and duplicate creative assets across channels. We also invested in dynamic image templates, which allow customers to use system-generated insights to automatically build several versions of content without investing additional production dollars. In marketing and advertising, we saw continued momentum with brands like UBS, Ubisoft, Garmin, TransUnion, and Puma. These customers and others choose Sprinklr for our ability to unify workflows across global teams and optimize paid social media performance across channels using artificial intelligence. Our unmatched pace of innovation is at the core of our ability to win new customers. In Q1, we released approximately 600 new and unique platform features, based on customer requests and added new language options in our AI studio, allowing organizations to participate and expand their global listening capabilities. We also added new conversational AI integration, demonstrating our platform's openness and extensibility. Our self-service products that we launched a few quarters ago are seeing great momentum as well. Modern care light, which is a newer one, and modern research light products continue to drive trials and generate demand for the product platform. When we founded Sprinklr in 2009, we knew the world would eventually need a unifying platform and operating system to manage the extended digital edge for every customer-facing team. And that is what we've been building and that's what we will continue to build. As I reflect on our upcoming one-year anniversary as a public company, it's almost a year now. I think about the unique 13-year advantage we have in helping brands listen to, reach, and engage customers on the ever-expanding channels of their choice. We've also innovated and grown with our customers, providing them with a different path to deliver the next generation of digital customer-facing functions, one that doesn't just let them catch up to the present, but also future-proofs them in our rapidly changing world. With that, let me now turn the call over to Manish.
Manish Sarin, CFO
Thank you, Ragy, and good afternoon, everyone. As you heard from Ragy, we delivered another strong quarter across the board, and are pleased with our ability to once again exceed expectations across all key financial metrics. In spite of a challenging macro environment, our ability to deliver strong results demonstrates the long-term tailwind from our customers transforming their digital edge, the breadth of our product offering, and the importance of our unified CXM platform. For the first quarter, total revenue was $145 million, up 31% year-over-year, and above our previously announced guidance range of $140 million to $142 million. This was driven by subscription revenue of $127.3 million, which grew 32% year-over-year, and was also above our previously announced guidance range of $123 million to $125 million. Q1 marked a fifth consecutive quarter of accelerating revenue growth for our subscription business. I'm also happy to report that our subscription revenue-based net dollar expansion rate in the first quarter was 123%. This metric continues to grow and demonstrates our ability to upsell and cross-sell our extensive product set to our installed base of mid and large enterprise customers. We now have 90 customers contributing $1 million or more in subscription revenue over the preceding 12 months, which is a 30% increase year-over-year. This momentum speaks to the strategic value that our platform creates for the world's largest and most valuable brands. As a reminder, we calculate this customer count using $1 million and recognize revenue from these customers for the duration of the 12 months as opposed to ARR. Turning to gross margins for the first quarter. On a non-GAAP basis, our subscription gross margin improved further to 81% as we continue to drive efficiencies in our cloud operations, leading to a total non-GAAP gross margin of 72%. Our professional services gross margin came in at approximately 10%, consistent with the last few quarters. In terms of our operating expenses, we continue to invest in growing our sales and marketing capabilities to tap the market opportunity in front of us. As Ragy alluded to earlier, we are excited to welcome Arun as our new CMO, and we will be working with him to further energize and streamline our go-to-market initiatives. During the first quarter, total non-GAAP operating expenses increased 41% over the prior year to $115 million, representing 79% of revenue, up from 73% of revenue during the same period last year. As you may recall, on the last call, we said that this level of investment was partly the result of catch-up investments from prior years due to the unknown impact of COVID at that time. That level of catch-up investment is nearing its end, and we estimate the magnitude of the year-over-year increase in non-GAAP operating expenses to decelerate in the coming quarters. Non-GAAP operating loss was $10.3 million or $0.05 per share. Recall our previously announced guidance range was an operating loss of $14 million to $16 million, or $0.676 per share to $0.07 per share. This is important to highlight for two main reasons. Firstly, the top-line beat of $4 million at the midpoint dropped entirely to the bottom line, demonstrating our ability to run an efficient operation as we scale the business. Secondly, non-GAAP operating losses have been on a declining trajectory for the last few quarters, highlighting our renewed focus on operating discipline across the business. As we've indicated since the IPO, we believe the market for CXM is expensive, and investing in the platform is the best way to maximize the opportunity and drive long-term value for our shareholders. However, I want to stress that we closely monitor the returns we get on these investments. If those returns degrade, we will pare back our level of investment accordingly. To that end, I'm very pleased to report that in terms of free cash flow, we generated a positive $6.2 million in adjusted free cash flow during the first quarter, compared to a burn of $12.6 million in the same period last year. The adjusted free cash flow metric excludes the $12 million litigation settlement that was accrued for in Q4 FY '22, but paid in the first quarter of FY '23. This litigation settlement was a one-time non-recurring item and therefore excluded from the free cash flow calculations. The positive adjusted free cash flow in Q1 was driven by the strong billings number posted in Q4 FY '22, coupled with the operational improvements we've been making throughout our business. Given the seasonality and low duration of our billings, we estimate that free cash flow will remain negative on a full-year basis for FY '23. However, we remain committed to getting to a free cash flow breakeven level during FY '24 as indicated on our Q4 FY '22 earnings call. We ended the quarter with a healthy balance sheet including $531 million in cash and investments, putting us in excellent shape to continue investing in strategic initiatives that will drive growth with an eye towards profitability. Calculated billings for the first quarter were $138.7 million, which was an increase of 27% year-over-year. The dynamics of our billings trends, as outlined on the fourth quarter earnings call, continue to hold true, specifically as it pertains to seasonality and duration. And as noted previously, we expect the delta between revenue growth and billings growth, with billings growth lagging revenue growth by approximately 5 percentage points, assuming all else stays the same. As of the end of Q1, total remaining performance obligations or RPO, which represents revenue from committed customer contracts that has not yet been recognized was $585.8 million, up 34% compared to the same period last year. While current RPO was $412.5 million, up 30% year-over-year, both metrics attach to the durability of our business. We continue to believe that subscription revenue, subscription revenue growth, RPO, and RPO growth represent the best metrics to evaluate the underlying health of our business. Our billings can fluctuate significantly relative to revenue based on the timing of invoicing cadence of renewals and the duration of customer contracts. Moving now to our Q2 and full-year FY '23 guidance and business outlook. I had alluded to this during the Q4 FY '22 earnings call, and it is probably worth repeating here that we face tougher compares for the remainder of this year, given the strong growth we demonstrated over the last three quarters of FY '22. We also recognize that macroeconomic and geopolitical issues are currently impacting businesses and global markets. As these conditions can have a near-term impact on our business, we have incorporated that into our guidance. Starting with Q2 FY '23, we expect total revenue to be in the range of $146.5 million to $148.5 million, representing 24% growth year-over-year at the midpoint. Within this, we expect subscription revenue to be in the range of $129.5 million to $131.5 million, representing 26% growth year-over-year at the midpoint. We expect a non-GAAP operating loss in the range of $11 million to $13 million and a non-GAAP net loss per share of $0.05 to $0.06, assuming 263 million weighted average shares outstanding. For the full year FY '23, we are raising both our subscription and total revenue outlook for the year. We expect subscription revenue to be in the range of $540.5 million to $546.5 million representing 27% growth year-over-year at the midpoint. We expect total revenue to be in the range of $612 million to $618 million representing 25% growth year-over-year at the midpoint. Note that the midpoint has moved up by the full amount of the Q1 beat. In addition, the low end has moved up by more than the Q1 beat, and the range has now been tightened as we move across the arc of FY '23. For the full year, we expect the non-GAAP operating loss in the range of $37 million to $41 million, equating to a non-GAAP net loss per share of $0.18 to $0.20, assuming 263 million weighted average shares outstanding. Note that the beat at the midpoint for Q1 for operating loss was $4.7 million, but we are comfortable improving the full-year operating loss by an additional $2.3 million, for a total full-year improvement of $7 million. Again, this is a continuation of our focus on operating discipline and managing the business, while still delivering a strong growth metric. As a quick reminder in deriving the net loss per share for modeling purposes, a $9.4 million tax provision for the full year FY '23 needs to be added to the non-GAAP operating loss range just provided. We booked a $2.5 million provision in Q1 as the timing of some estimated tax credits were delayed. We estimate the tax provision to be approximately $2.5 million here in Q2, with the remaining tax provision spread across Q3 and Q4. Moving forward, we are firmly focused on durable revenue growth, continued operational improvement, and leading to declining operating losses. We estimate the quarterly non-GAAP operating losses to improve markedly in the second half of FY '23. Lastly, I would like to thank all our employees for delivering a strong Q1 and a great start to FY '23. In the midst of an uncertain macro environment and volatility in the financial markets, I'm grateful for the confidence that our customers have placed in us and the dedication of our employees. We remain focused on building a track record of successful execution with prudent operating discipline across the business.
Operator, Operator
Our first question comes from Pinjalim Bora at JPMorgan. Please go ahead with your question.
Pinjalim Bora, Analyst
Oh, great. Thank you for taking the questions and congrats on a good start to the year. I wanted to ask you about the demand environment. It seems like in the Q2 guide, you incorporated some kind of buffer from potential adverse impacts from the macro. Maybe you could talk about the demand environment that you're seeing so far in Q2 across your various theaters globally, especially in Europe, and how would you characterize the pipeline? Are you seeing any change in the texture of the deal dynamics or customer conversations? Any color will be helpful?
Ragy Thomas, CEO
Thank you for the question. I want to confirm that we are not experiencing any changes in the demand for our product and platform. For example, two weeks ago, I spoke with a large manufacturer who invests around $1.5 billion in content and advertising. They had implemented a marketing and advertising solution focused on media measurement and optimization in the digital space, expecting to save $25 million to fund other initiatives. We conducted a workshop to explore potential savings from content optimization. Our call center products are mainly used to enhance efficiency through AI and boost agent productivity. Therefore, we focus on cost reduction and revenue enhancement. Traditionally, as an enterprise platform servicing some of the largest companies globally, we have seen an increase in the number of clients who pay over $1 million, which continues to rise this quarter, as it has in the past. We've consistently engaged in a business outcome-focused and quantifiable sales approach. While we aren't noticing immediate shifts, it's important for us to consider various factors. There are uncertainties among C-suite executives, and as Manish would confirm, when many express uncertainty and hesitation, it's wise for us to incorporate some of that into our considerations.
Pinjalim Bora, Analyst
Understood. I'll stick to one and get back in the queue. Thank you.
Operator, Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Raimo Lenschow with Barclays. Please proceed with your question.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
Hi. This is Frank up for Raimo. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask one around your efforts to verticalize the product, specifically how the steps taken here have been progressing and how has this helped to minimize the time to value for new customers. Thank you.
Ragy Thomas, CEO
Thank you, Raimo. It’s interesting that you seem to be on the same page as us. As I mentioned about our customer interactions, we take pride in our 33 products and 4 product suites. When we examine our customers who are investing significant amounts in annual recurring revenue, we notice they have all adopted standardized, outcome-based solutions on the platform. This realization will guide our direction moving forward. You’ll see us rolling out a range of verticalized solutions as early as next quarter. Let me illustrate this with a couple of examples. In the travel and hospitality sector, for instance, we might tell an airline to utilize our listening capability. However, our top implementations show they don’t even use the term 'listening.' One airline, which I won't name, had actually integrated a threat detection solution through Sprinklr. This involves an AI-driven listening capability that detects any mentions of bombs, explosives, weapons, or violence related to the airline. This serves as a clear illustration of the difference between products and solutions. I believe that if our sales development representatives and account executives consistently promoted the threat detection package, it would garner much more attention than discussing a listening product. A second example involves an oil company, as these companies tend to be monopolies or duopolies in various regions. A common use case for large firms in regulated sectors is understanding shifts in consumer perception. For an oil company, it's vital to gauge how to adapt their policies in response to evolving regulations. The best approach is to track changes in public sentiment regarding renewable energy, solar power, and electric vehicles, as well as how subsidies may be adjusted. This insight enables them to anticipate regulatory changes and position themselves advantageously based on public opinion. These are just a couple of examples. You'll notice that we will focus much more on solutions in the near future, and I hope that in about a year, 75% to 90% of customer purchasing occurs at the solution level rather than at the product level. It’s always great to speak with you, Raimo.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
Very helpful. Thank you.
Operator, Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Elizabeth Porter with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.
Elizabeth Porter, Analyst
Hi. Congrats on the quarter and thanks for taking the question. Previously, you discussed some of the macro volatility coinciding with increased engagement and just renewed confidence in the platform as customers navigate the difficult environment. I wanted to ask if that trend has exacerbated or slowed over the last quarter. And any color on how engagement trends have occurred over the last couple of months, just given this volatility and the higher level of uncertainty seems to be at least the new normal for now. Thank you.
Ragy Thomas, CEO
Thank you for your question, Elizabeth. As I mentioned, we are not observing any significant changes. The world is gradually returning to normal, but like many of you, I am noticing an increase in mild COVID cases. Occasionally, we have personnel such as procurement team members, customer advocates, or executive buyers who are unavailable. We are witnessing such occurrences, which I believe many others are as well. However, we are also hearing more discussions about uncertainty and cautiousness. Therefore, we will be careful in our projections for the remainder of the year. One of the actions we have taken, as many companies do, is to align with public market indicators reflecting their value outlook. Under Manish's leadership, we have concentrated on improving our bottom line as never before. Our goal has always been to establish a company that can endure over decades, and we see this as a valuable opportunity. Our aim is to achieve over 25% growth and then shift our focus towards the bottom line and efficient growth, which is our plan moving forward.
Elizabeth Porter, Analyst
Great. Thank you.
Operator, Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Michael Turrin with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.
Michael Turrin, Analyst
Hey there. Great, thanks. Good afternoon. I appreciate you taking the question. Obviously, the macro is top of mind for everyone, so we've been fielding a couple of different types of questions that I think your perspective around would be valuable. Number one is just around what's discretionary versus what's necessary in terms of spend, particularly looking at marketing-focused software spend and then potential for vendor consolidation. I'm wondering if the vendor consolidation piece is something you feel Sprinklr stands to benefit from, given the number of product offerings you have within your portfolio. If there are any observations you could share around where you sit on that discretionary versus essential conversation, I think that's also very useful from our side. Thank you.
Ragy Thomas, CEO
Absolutely. Thank you for the question, Michael. 100% of our revenue and subscription comes from licenses. We do not have any consumption-based models at Sprinklr. The concept of discretionary spending relates to our budgets, which are fairly fixed. No one is creating new budgets for us; the spending comes from marketing, ad tech, and care tech budgets that remain consistent. What we're observing is a desire for every dollar to work harder. As you mentioned, there is a trend towards unifying point solutions into a single platform and consolidating vendors—not just in terms of contracts, but also in truly unifying them to reduce the need for more staff. We are witnessing this trend and are positioned well within it. Customer experience remains resilient and dependable. We see ourselves as a means to cut costs and mitigate risks. In financial services, which is a significant industry for us, I was speaking with the Chief Compliance Officer of a large financial services firm that is now facing hundreds of millions of dollars in fines because investment advisers are using WhatsApp to communicate with clients. We are aligned with the positive aspects of this movement in the short, medium, and long term. Thank you.
Operator, Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Michael Turits with KeyBanc. Please proceed with your question.
Michael Turits, Analyst
Hey, everyone. Congratulations on the continued growth in subscriptions. Ragy, you mentioned that Manish has been focusing more on profitability. Manish, can you detail where you've made the most additional investments over the past year and where we can expect to see the most significant changes? Specifically, can you share which areas will show the greatest operating leverage and, if possible, provide more detail within those areas? Also, will this lead to just one quarter of positive free cash flow in fiscal '24, or are we actually on track to maintain a positive position for the entire year in '25?
Manish Sarin, CFO
Yes, thank you for the question. Some of the investments we've been making in FY '22 were really a catch-up from 1.5 years of COVID. We felt, given the investments we have already made in the business, the quantum of investments going forward ought to be on a sort of declining trend, given the investments already made. As it relates to operating discipline across the business, this looks at a variety of things. There's not one thing in particular, all the way from where we spend our incremental dollars to the pace of hiring and any number of other investments we make to grow the business. To be very clear, we are looking to deliver durable growth. As Ragy said earlier, that's sort of in the 25% to 30% zone, but we're trying to do that a lot more efficiently. With respect to free cash flow, Q1 obviously benefited from the strong billings number in Q4 of last year. Given all the operational improvements we were making, we got a benefit here in Q1. Given where we sit, we probably wouldn't be able to deliver a positive number for the full year but feel very confident we can do that for FY '24. It's a little too early for me to comment in terms of when in FY '24. We'll see how the business progresses during the arc of this year and we can provide more color commentary as we get towards the end of the year.
Michael Turits, Analyst
I’m sorry, but I just want to clarify. Are you indicating that it's not the case of achieving positive free cash flow for the full fiscal year '24, or is it possible at some point?
Manish Sarin, CFO
I'm, right now, saying at some point and we will provide more color as we get towards the end of this year.
Operator, Operator
The next question comes from the line of Parker Lane with Stifel. Please proceed with your question.
Parker Lane, Analyst
Yes, hi. Thanks for taking the questions. Ragy, I wondered if you could hit a little bit more on the rise of TikTok. Just how the brands you're working with are thinking about that channel across the four key pillars of the platform. Is there any one area particularly, maybe Marketing & Advertising, that they see the most immediate opportunity? And what do you think the future holds there for businesses over the next few years?
Ragy Thomas, CEO
Great question, Parker. I can confirm that we're seeing growing interest from our Marketing and Advertising customers in utilizing the platform, which is encouraging. As you know, other platforms are innovating in short-form video, and similar features are becoming more common across various channels. It is still early in this evolution. We support 36 channels and maintain a channel-agnostic approach. With our licensing model, we focus on AI-driven optimization and governance for the Marketing and Advertising aspects of our business. Over time, we often feel that we have reached our limit with client accounts, yet new ones continue to emerge, contributing to our learning and growth. I'm optimistic about the future. Many people may view the Metaverse as a distant concept. However, the AR and VR landscape, whether it arrives sooner or later, could open up a new realm of possibilities for the Internet. We have established a robust platform foundation that can scale across channels and adapt to new innovations, with a unified architecture that effectively supports everything from customer care to marketing and insights.
Parker Lane, Analyst
Got it. Appreciate the feedback. Thank you.
Operator, Operator
And our next question comes from the line of Pat Walravens with JMP Group. Please proceed with your question.
Pat Walravens, Analyst
Oh, great. Thank you. So Ragy, I love that you spoke to 100 customers. I don't know how you did that, but it's fabulous. I'm guessing you're continuing to do it. We are already halfway through your second quarter. How does it feel compared to Q1 so far?
Ragy Thomas, CEO
How do you want to know how to do it? Just stay on a plane for 40 days. Well, I was hoping it wasn't all over Zoom. I'm delighted to hear it's in-person. Yes, it was amazing. There's no substitute for face-to-face, right? The emotions don't fully translate over video. Look, I am more excited than I ever was. We touched a little bit on verticalized solutions. If you look at our business, no matter how you analyze it, the fundamentals are extremely healthy. Let's talk about the NDE that's been increasing. We can discuss retention and renewal rates, which are also on the rise and at enterprise-class levels. It's clear that our customers are purchasing more, and the good ones are renewing more. We just need to build this expansive platform. It was about understanding how they're using our services and making general observations for each industry. So we are quite enthusiastic about that. I can tell you the excitement we are seeing in marketplace demand is significant. It feels like the early days of social media with the waves and tailwinds; I’m starting to see early excitement when we talk about converting multiple data center contact center operations into something that might enhance sales. These concepts are still in development, but many customer service leaders who don't want to be seen as back-office cost centers believe that when customers call, they could reinvent the next generation of a real-world store where customers can ask any question. So, we're developing this headless capability with our bots and conversational AI, along with an operating system to facilitate that. I'm more excited than I ever was, and we still believe it's very early.
Pat Walravens, Analyst
That’s great. Thank you.
Operator, Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Tyler Radke with Citi. Please proceed with your questions.
Boyoung Kim, Analyst
Hi. This is Boyoung Kim on for Tyler Radke. Thank you so much for taking our question. CRPO growth was very nice, so I'd love to hear if there was, at all, a difference in the growth rate in the U.S. versus international, which is primarily Western Europe and any different dynamics that you're seeing across the region. Thanks.
Ragy Thomas, CEO
I mentioned earlier that we received the same question last quarter. We are making progress with cost savings, optimization, and revenue. Currently, we aren't experiencing any negative effects in Europe and Western Europe. Manish, would you like to add to that?
Manish Sarin, CFO
No, I'd agree with Ragy. I mean, CRPO growth was up 30%. If I look at the booking trends in the quarter across the 3 regions, nothing that would jump out at me as being out of the ordinary. So we're definitely not seeing any slowdown in Europe as some other companies have alluded to. I think it all points to the tailwinds, as Ragy said in his opening remarks.
Boyoung Kim, Analyst
Right. Thank you.
Operator, Operator
And our next question comes from the line of Arjun Bhatia with William Blair. Please proceed with your question.
Arjun Bhatia, Analyst
Perfect. Thanks for taking the question. Manish, maybe one for you. When you talk about incorporating some of the perceived macro risks into your guidance, I was wondering if you could just maybe elaborate a little bit into which factors you're sensitizing more. Is it just longer deal cycles? Do you see potential for down-sell or is it more new customer-oriented? For Ragy, I'm curious how you think about your go-to-market playbook now that you are in a more settled phase with the sales organization. Do you make any changes into the areas that you're focusing on, whether it's vertical-specific, whether it's geos or how much you focus on new versus expansion activity? Thank you.
Ragy Thomas, CEO
Let me discuss the go-to-market strategy first, and then Manish can address the modeling aspect. Over the past couple of years, we have made several go-to-market enhancements, which are typical for a business of our size and growth. This includes establishing a significant global accounts program and a large enterprise program, as most of our clients are sizable. We have also created a three-pronged approach at the top, setting the groundwork for our self-service product in the coming years. All these adjustments have been made, and our sales focus is now on capacity and productivity. Our recent investments were aimed at establishing a foundation for expanding our capacity and modeling. Moving forward, with the verticalization and changes we are implementing, we will focus on optimizing productivity. We needed to achieve 1,200 implementations in five years and secure 90 customers who each pay us over $1 million to identify sufficient patterns. You will notice an increased emphasis on productivity. Regarding modeling, I believe Manish would advise our peers at Sprinklr to closely monitor our spending. This caution is something he anticipates other CFOs will share. Manish, would you like to add to that?
Manish Sarin, CFO
No, I think that's exactly right. To be abundantly clear, we are not seeing any slowdown in demand yet. We are not seeing anything untoward happening in terms of bookings. As Ragy was saying, there are folks like me who get paid to worry all the time, and there is a part of that is concerned they might try to pull back on spend here and there. And that would lead to lengthening sales cycles. That could lead to a number of other things that would slow down business. We're not seeing that yet, that's our current view and that's what's baked into the guide.
Arjun Bhatia, Analyst
Understood. Thank you very much and congrats on a good quarter, guys.
Ragy Thomas, CEO
Thank you, Arjun.
Operator, Operator
And we have reached the end of the question-and-answer session, and I'll now turn the call back over to Ragy Thomas for closing remarks.
Ragy Thomas, CEO
Thank you, Shamali, and thanks to everyone who joined the call today. I also want to express my gratitude to our employees. There are many challenging issues in the world right now, including inflation, the situation in Ukraine, and COVID, and these factors affect all of us. I especially appreciate our employees for their hard work and resilience during these times. I would like to thank our partners and, most importantly, our customers for their business and continued trust in us. We look forward to updating all of you as we progress on this exciting journey of creating a new category that we refer to as unified CXM, and I believe the best is yet to come. Thank you very much.
Operator, Operator
And this concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.