Earnings Call Transcript - FTNT Q2 2024

Operator, Operator

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Fortinet Second Quarter Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Aaron Ovadia, Director of Investor Relations. Aaron?

Aaron Ovadia, Director of Investor Relations

Thank you and good afternoon, everyone. This is Aaron Ovadia, Director of Investor Relations at Fortinet. I am pleased to welcome everyone to our call to discuss Fortinet's financial results for the second quarter of 2024. Joining me on today's call are Ken Xie, Fortinet's Founder, Chairman and CEO; Keith Jensen, our CFO; and John Whittle, our COO. This is a live call that will be available for replay via webcast on our Investor Relations website. Ken will begin our call today by providing a high-level perspective on our business. Keith will then review our financial and operating results for the second quarter of 2024, before providing guidance for the third quarter of 2024 and updating the full year. We will then open the call for questions. During the Q&A session, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that is on today's call that we will be making forward-looking statements and these forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Please refer to our SEC filings and in particular, the risk factors in our most recent Form 10-K and Form 10-Q for more information. All forward-looking statements reflect our opinions only as of the date of this presentation and we undertake no obligation and specifically disclaim any obligation to update forward-looking statements. Also, all references to financial metrics that we make on today's call are non-GAAP, unless stated otherwise. Our GAAP results and GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations are located in our earnings press release and the presentation accompanying today's remarks, both of which are posted on our Investor Relations website. The prepared remarks for today's earnings call will be posted on the quarterly earnings section of our Investor Relations immediately following today's call. Lastly, all references to growth are on a year-over-year basis unless noted otherwise. I will now turn the call over to Ken.

Ken Xie, Founder, Chairman and CEO

Okay. Thank you, Aaron, and thank you to everyone for joining our call. We are pleased with our strong execution in the second quarter as we successfully balanced growth and profitability. We achieved record operating margin, which increased 820 basis points to 35% and managed to build revenue in the high end of the guidance range, reaching our full year 2024 revenue and operating margin guidance while continuing to invest for growth. Gaining market share in secure networking and investing in the fast-growing Unified SASE and Secure Operations market. Secure networking customers are increasingly recognizing our FortiOS and FortiASIC technology offering 5 to 10 times better performance than our competitors while improving security effectiveness and providing a low total cost of ownership. For over 20 years, we have been leading the shift to networking and security convergence, and the industry's projections now indicate secure networking will surpass traditional networking by 2026, 4 years earlier than previously anticipated. In the second quarter, Unified SASE accounted for 23% of total billings, up 1 point. We expect our differentiated Unified SASE offering to become a leader in the SASE market. We believe we are the only company that has built all the SASE functions organically in a single operating system. We have a converged networking and security stack, including our market-leading SD-WAN, ZTNA, Secure Web Gateway, CASB, Firewall, and many other innovations. Our SASE offering provides flexible enforcement, delivering a better user experience while securing access to applications on-premise and in the cloud. Furthermore, we continue to build our own SASE delivery infrastructure, leveraging FortiGate technologies, providing us with a competitive long-term cost advantage. As announced earlier today, we acquired Next DLP, a next-generation cloud-native SaaS data protection platform, extending from endpoint to cloud. This will allow us to enter the stand-alone enterprise DLP market as well as enhance our market for the SASE solution. We also recently improved our position in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for single-vendor SASE and are the only vendor included in all 5 major network security Magic Quadrants: single-vendor SASE, network firewall, SD-WAN, secure service edge, and enterprise wide and wireless infrastructure. Each of the solutions runs on our single unified operating system for the OS with AI-powered FortiGuard secure service and unified management. AI-driven Secure Operations accounted for 10% of total billings in the second quarter, up 1 point. Our comprehensive Secure Operations portfolio, backed by over a decade of AI experience, offers the broadest range of sensors and advanced analytics to continuously access activity to identify signs of cyber threats. For AI harness generative AI to table chart our platform and help the security operations team make better informed decisions and respond to threats faster by simplifying the most complex tasks. Fortinet is available in FortiAnalyzer for the SIM and for storage and will soon be available in other Fortinet products. In addition, we are pleased to further expand our secured portfolio with the acquisition of Lacework and we believe that together, our solutions form one of the most comprehensive full-stack cloud security solutions available from a single vendor. Lacework's organically developed AI-driven cloud-native application protection platform will be combined with the power of the Fortinet security platform, ensuring broad protection across network, cloud, and endpoint. This acquisition increases our total addressable market by $10 billion and adds a team of talented engineers dedicated to cloud-native security while also expanding our sales force that can sell the entire Fortinet portfolio of solutions. Yesterday, we announced several enhancements to the Fortinet security platform, which are already recognized as the most comprehensive OT security platform on the market. Enhancements include newly recited plans, advanced secure networking capabilities, and expanded partnership with leading OT vendors, reflecting Fortinet's commitment to security for the growing cyber-physical system market. As further evidence of our innovation and commitment to excellence in OT, we recently earned a prestigious Red Dot product design award for the FortiGate Rugged 70G with Dual 5G model. Fortinet was the only security company to receive this recognition in the industry for next-generation firewalls. Before turning the call over to Keith, I wish to thank our employees, customers, partners, and suppliers worldwide for their continued support and hard work. Keith?

Keith Jensen, CFO

Thank you, Ken, and thank you, Aaron, and good afternoon, everyone. Let's start with the key highlights from the second quarter. Overall, we are very pleased with our execution in the quarter. We achieved record growth in operating margins at 81.5% and 35.1% respectively, while delivering top-line numbers at the high end of our guidance range. Revenue grew 11% as product revenue exceeded our expectations, driven by robust software revenue growth and sequential hardware growth that more closely aligned with historical norms. We also added 6,300 new logos as we continue to invest in our channel partners. As you'll hear in a moment, we believe we are on pace for another rule of 40 year. At the same time, we accelerated our investments in the fast-growing Unified SASE and security operation markets with the acquisitions of Lacework and Next DLP. Lacework strengthens our position in the high-growth CGNAT market and expands our total addressable market by $10 billion, while Next DLP improves our position in the stand-alone enterprise data loss prevention market. Combined, Fortinet will gain over 900 customers and talented sales and engineering teams. And I'll just pause here to offer a very warm welcome to team members from both companies. Continuing with our Q2 highlights, we've taken the lead in partnering with the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, through a secure-by-design pledge and are leading with our responsible transparency practices. We want to emphasize that we understand customer trust is paramount to our business. Our continued success across all customer segments in each of our 3 pillars represents hundreds of thousands of end customers testing and buying Fortinet security solutions. Simply stated, this is a significant scale advantage and a responsibility a few others have and also offers customers validation at a very robust level. We are committed to responsible updates, deployment processes, supply chain controls, product security measures, and transparency. To understand more about the proactive measures we take to safeguard our customers and our reputation, please visit our trust website at fortinet.com/trust. Looking at billings in more detail, total billings were consistent year-over-year at $1.54 billion, overcoming the headwind from the drawdown in backlog in the comparable quarter. At the same time, total bookings increased year-over-year and more importantly, the sequential growth rate approached pre-COVID, pre-supply chain norms. Unified SASE and SecOps delivered strong growth along with software while product sales recovered more than expected. We continue to see significant progress from our investments in both pillars and saw strong pipeline growth of 45% for Unified SASE and 18% for SecOps. Both pillars are gaining significant momentum within our installed base, with over 90% of Unified SASE and SecOps billings coming from existing customers. Larger enterprises continue to be our largest customer segment, with large and mid-enterprises combining to represent 86% and 82% of Unified SASE and SecOps solutions, respectively. Within Unified SASE, SASE billings continue to grow at triple-digit rates as existing customers can seamlessly integrate our solution within minutes to secure their hybrid workforce. We've also integrated FortiAP with FortiSASE for securing thin edges and unmanaged devices. Our Unified SASE solution continues to gain market recognition. For the second consecutive year, we've been recognized as a challenger in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for single vendor SASE with the third highest placement in the ability to execute access. And as mentioned earlier, we are further improving our FortiSASE solution by adding powerful data loss prevention capabilities from Next DLP. Rounding out the billings commentary, the SMB was again the top-performing customer segment, while international emerging was once again our best-performing geography. On an industry vertical basis, technology and transportation grew at double-digit rates, while service provider and manufacturing were more challenged. Turning to revenue and margins, total revenue grew 11% to $1.434 billion, driven by service revenue growth and software licenses. Service revenue of $982 million grew 20%, accounting for 68.5% of total revenue. Service revenue growth was led by 36% growth in SecOps and 27% growth in Unified SASE. As noted on Slide 5, Unified SASE includes SASE and related technologies together with SD-WAN. Product revenue decreased 4% but better than expected at $452 million. Excluding the impact of backlog, product sales growth improved 14 points quarter-over-quarter and a similar amount year-over-year. Software license revenue growth continued to accelerate at 26% and represented a high teens percentage of product revenue, a nearly 5-point increase in the software mix year-over-year. Combined revenue from software licenses and software services such as cloud and SaaS security solutions increased 32%, accelerating from 23% a year ago and providing an annual revenue run rate of over $800 million. Total gross margin increased 360 basis points to a quarterly record of 81.5% and exceeded the high end of our guidance range by 400 basis points, benefiting from higher product and services gross margin as well as a 5-point mix shift to higher-margin service revenues. Product gross margin of 66% increased 250 basis points year-over-year, mainly due to increased software mix and lower indirect costs. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, product gross margin increased from 56% to 66% as hardware demand increased and inventory levels and related inventory charges moved closer to historical norms. Service gross margin of 88.6% increased 240 basis points as service revenue growth outpaced labor cost increases and benefited from the mix shift towards higher-margin FortiGuard Security subscription services. Operating margin increased 820 basis points to a quarterly record of 35.1% and was 840 basis points above the high end of our guidance range, reflecting the record gross margin as well as cost efficiencies within the business. Looking at the statement of cash flows summarized on Slides 16 and 17, free cash flow was $319 million for the quarter and $927 million for the first half of 2024, or $1.1 billion after adjusting for real estate and infrastructure investments. Cash taxes in the quarter were $252 million. As a reminder, last year's second quarter benefited from the deferral of approximately $190 million in cash tax payments which were ultimately paid in the fourth quarter of 2023. Infrastructure investments totaled $23 million. Average contract term in the second quarter was 28 months, flat year-over-year and up 1 month quarter-over-quarter. DSO decreased 7 days year-over-year and increased 2 days quarter-over-quarter to 68 days. While we did not repurchase shares in Q2, share buybacks have totaled $5.3 billion over the last 4 plus years and the remaining buyback authorization is $1 billion. Now, I'd like to share a few significant wins from the second quarter. In a 7-figure deal, an international government agency purchased 12 solutions across all 3 pillars, including 8 SecOp solutions. This new customer selected Fortinet because of our operating system's ability to consolidate over 30 networking and security functions into a single unified platform, covering SecOps, SASE, and Secure Networking. The customer was impressed with the integrated security, end-to-end visibility, and automated response features of our FortiOS operating system. Next, in a 7-figure win, a large utility company expanded our partnership by signing their first enterprise agreement with us to safeguard their OT environment. This deal displaces 5 legacy vendors and includes ruggedized equipment deployed to the customers' power plants, control centers, and substations. Keys to this expansion win were our proven expertise in securing critical infrastructure and our price for performance advantage. And lastly, in a competitive displacement win, our retail store chain purchased our FortiSASE solution in a 7-figure deal. This customer chose Fortinet because of our integrated FortiOS platform, as they were able to seamlessly integrate FortiSASE with their existing Fortinet security solutions. Now I'd like to offer some comments on customer inventory digestion and the firewall refresh cycle. Last quarter, we pointed to a 25% improvement in the number of days of registered FortiGuard contracts from its peak and view this as an early but soft indicator that inventory digestion at end users appears to be normalizing and the firewall market could start to show signs of recovery. To provide an update on this indicator and other signs of possible improvement in the firewall market, we can share that as shown on Slide 19, in the second quarter, the days of registered security service contracts improved another 12 days and has now returned to 2020 pre-supply chain, pre-COVID crisis levels. Inventory commitments and levels are normalizing at our contract manufacturers and in the channel. And as noted earlier, the sequential increase in hardware sales in the second quarter aligned more closely with historical norms. While these indicators are positive, we believe customers are currently managing a tough macro environment and a key election year in the U.S., and we believe this is having an impact on our customers' purchasing decisions. As a result, we believe a full refresh cycle is unlikely to occur in 2024 but more likely in 2025. Moving on to guidance. As a reminder, our third quarter and full year outlook, which are summarized on Slides 21 and 22, are subject to the disclaimers regarding forward-looking information that Aaron provided at the beginning of the call. Before reviewing the outlook, I'd like to offer a few modeling notes in light of our Lacework and Next DLP acquisitions, covering estimates included in our Q3 and full year guidance. For billings, the acquisitions increased Q3 by approximately 0.5 point and the full year by approximately 1/3 point. Total revenue increased Q3 and full year growth by 1 point and 1.5 points, respectively. For gross margin, they decreased Q3 and full year margins by less than 0.5 point for each period. For operating margin, they decreased Q3 and full year margins by 3 points and 1.5 points, respectively. Inclusive of these acquisition-related estimates, for the third quarter, we expect billings in the range of $1.530 billion to $1.600 billion which at the midpoint represents growth of 5%, revenue in the range of $1.445 billion to $1.505 billion which at the midpoint represents growth of 10.5%. Non-GAAP gross margin of 79% to 80%. Non-GAAP operating margin of 30.5% to 31.5%. Non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.56 to $0.58 which assumes a share count of between $767 million and $777 million. Capital expenditures of $40 million to $60 million. A non-GAAP tax rate of 17%. And cash taxes of $125 million to $145 million. And again, for the full year, inclusive of the numbers we gave a moment ago, we expect billings in the range of $6.400 billion to $6.600 billion; revenue in the range of $5.800 billion to $5.900 billion which at the midpoint represents growth of 10%. Service revenue remains in the range of $3.975 billion to $4.025 billion which at the midpoint represents growth of 18%. Non-GAAP gross margin of 79% to 80%, Non-GAAP operating margin of 30% to 31.5%. Non-GAAP earnings per share of $2.13 to $2.19 which assumes a share count of between 767 million and 777 million. Capital expenditures of $320 million to $360 million. Non-GAAP tax rate of 17% and cash taxes of between $525 million and $575 million. I look forward to updating you on our progress in the coming quarters. Before we begin the Q&A session, it is with deep sadness that we recognize the passing of our friend, Peter Salkowski, our SVP of Finance and Investor Relations. Peter was an integral part of the Fortinet team for over 6 years and was renowned for his passion for mentoring and developing the next generation of leaders. We'll miss Peter and fondly remember his commitment to fostering talent and nurturing potential within our company. I know that Peter worked closely with many of you on this call and the outpouring of condolences and heartfelt memories you've shared since his passing clearly shows the positive impact he had on so many people's lives. Peter took great pride in his contribution to Fortinet and rightly so, having contributed to increasing shareholder value from $8 billion to $46 billion during his tenure at Fortinet. We'll miss Peter. Aaron, back to you.

Aaron Ovadia, Director of Investor Relations

Thank you, Keith. As a reminder, during the Q&A session, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up question to allow others to participate. Operator, please open the line for questions.

Operator, Operator

Our first question comes from the line of Brian Essex of JPMorgan.

Brian Essex, Analyst

Sorry for your loss. Keith, if I could maybe touch on the margins. I think it's incredible margin results for the quarter. Could you help me understand or maybe unpack outside of the obviously, the gross margin benefit that you saw in the quarter? Maybe help me understand where you saw better cost efficiencies, how sustainable are they particularly in light of the effort to incentivize the channel and the sales force to focus more on selling SecOps and SASE with maybe some incremental effort?

Keith Jensen, CFO

Yes. I think the gross margin is the largest driver of what you saw in the operating margin, particularly when you look at it on a quarter-over-quarter basis. We talked about or made reference to a more normalized environment for us in terms of inventory levels, turns, and what we're seeing with channel inventory but also commitments to our contract manufacturers. So I think that we've been working through that for probably the last 3 to 4 quarters, and with that, I would say, I think we've returned to a more normal state, and so I would expect that to continue on. I think we're getting a little more contribution from sales and marketing than maybe I'd like at the moment and I would expect us to make a bit more investments there as we go through the second half of the year. Keep in mind, we're getting a very large group of salespeople, as Ken made reference to, from both the Lacework and Next DLP acquisitions. But I think we feel certainly comfortable with the guidance that we've given for both Q3 and for the full year on the margin line.

Brian Essex, Analyst

Great. Maybe just a quick follow-up. How should we anticipate the impact of the operating margin to reflect on free cash flow as we look through the rest of the year? Should we look at the historical spread between margin and cash flow margin and maybe estimate kind of ballpark the same kind of spread? Or are there going to be more puts and takes like timing of tax payments that are going to mess with that free cash flow margin as we fine-tune our models?

Keith Jensen, CFO

Yes. I think a good starting point is to look at the improvement in operating margin flowing through to free cash flow. Some of the changes that we monitor would be things like contract duration but you've seen now that industries and companies have been talking about contract duration for several quarters and you really haven't seen that come through to us yet. I should say, yes, habits going to come through to us. And so I'm not sure we have the opportunity to leverage our balance sheet more with our customers and prospects that we have. But I don't see over the next 90 days or 180 days, a dramatic shift in that area.

Operator, Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Hamza Fodderwala of Morgan Stanley.

Hamza Fodderwala, Analyst

I'll echo my condolences for Peter and his family, we'll definitely miss him. Keith, I wanted to follow up on the margin question because obviously, it was a very strong beat, I think a lot more than any of us were expecting historically. Fortinet has kind of managed the business towards the 25%-plus type operating margin run rate. I'm curious, is this the new base that we should sort of think Fortinet goes off of longer term? Or is it sort of a one-time margin outperformance given what you saw on the gross margin side coming out of the inventory digestion headwinds?

Keith Jensen, CFO

Yes. Again, I think the inventory part of that is I think we've worked our way back to a more normalized state. So I think that is our business model going forward. There can always be something that changes but I don't see us anticipating something in the gross margin line and that is by far and away the biggest opportunity there. I think it also says that we clearly have the opportunity to invest more in go-to-market than we did in the first half of this year. And I think we've factored in some of that investment ideas in our forecast and our guidance.

Ken Xie, Founder, Chairman and CEO

Also, we'll benefit from the service revenue, which has a much higher margin compared to the product revenue. So once the product starts growing, because product has a lower gross margin, that probably will impact the margin, but the product is also the leading indicator of future service. So that's where we kind of also were happy to see the product also starting to grow now, which I think going forward, with the product having a higher percentage, that probably also will impact the margin.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Fatima Boolani of Citi.

Fatima Boolani, Analyst

I wanted to share my condolences for Peter, he was just a fantastic person and he will absolutely be missed. Keith, I wanted to zero in on your comments regarding software license growth. You talked about that accelerating 26% year-on-year, I believe, and now it constitutes a high-teens percentage of your product revenue, I wanted to understand what are the drivers behind that massive mix shift and how we should think about the trajectory of this mix shift in the context of your guidance for the remainder of the year and bringing into consideration some of the hardware digestion, potential prolonging comments that you shared as well, if you can help us square that away?

Keith Jensen, CFO

Yes. I think the software license, if you kind of step back and look at what the business model is not to make it overly simplistic, it's so compelling to start with the firewall and it's very compelling to start with the ASIC. So a physical part of it, we don't always do that but we almost always start with a firewall, whether it's physical or virtual. Really, what you want to do is get the operating system in the hands of the customer. And what form factor that takes is we're fairly agnostic about that. So once that happens, then you start to see the knock-on effect of either selling more firewall use cases and other form factors into organizations or you're seeing that the full portfolio, the SecOps product line take hold as it continues to expand throughout the organization. So I would expect that we're going to continue to see tailwinds and growth, no doubt about it from the software part of the business. Will there be a mix shift that slows a little bit when firewall and FortiGate starts to return? Sure, absolutely. But this has been a trend that we talked about a little bit, I think, last quarter and probably some earlier quarters about the software mix and the mix shift that we've been seeing. So I would expect that, that's going to continue on given the success we're seeing in the other 2 pillars.

Ken Xie, Founder, Chairman and CEO

In the FortiSASE and FortiOS, we see customers setting turn around more and more functions which also enable more service for us. At the same time, the FortiSASE Secure Ops has also fully pretty much our service base and plus a lot of secure a high percentage in software compared to the hardware on the secure networking part. So that's both helping drive the additional software and licensing growth.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Gabriela Borges of Goldman Sachs.

Gabriela Borges, Analyst

Either for Ken or for Keith. On the firewall refresh cycle, I can appreciate your comments on not expecting to see a recovery in 2024. Share with us a little bit more detail on why you think we'll see it in 2025. And to what extent are customers giving you an indication that they will be refreshing in 2025, perhaps as we get through the election and some of the macro or perhaps because of their updated depreciation plans? Any color on why you think the timing will be 2025 would be helpful.

Ken Xie, Founder, Chairman and CEO

I believe this is more in Keith's area. The remaining part of the year appears challenging due to the election and high interest rates. The cost of capital remains elevated, which may deter some companies from making long-term investments that drive product revenue and infrastructure development. Historically, every 4 to 5 years, networks and security systems require upgrades for enhanced performance and functionality. We feel that the ongoing supply chain issues have extended this cycle since 2001, and next year might complete a full cycle. Some companies may begin to consider upgrading the products they acquired 4 or 5 years ago, particularly in sectors like retail, where we have seen strong growth at the onset of supply chain difficulties, and we expect investment in infrastructure will start to return within the next 1 to 2 years. Additionally, we recognize a significant trend toward hybrid solutions. We have a robust SASE infrastructure, along with securing OT/IoT environments, which requires on-site appliances to support the work-from-home model. For SASE, we provide both cloud-based and on-premise private solutions, which also necessitate hardware for local customer support.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Tal Liani of Bank of America.

Tal Liani, Analyst

Can you go back to the billing information? You made two acquisitions this quarter and although you didn't change the billing guidance for the year, you exceeded the quarterly numbers by $20 million, which effectively reduces the billing for the next two quarters. What are the factors driving the billings? I know we've discussed this before, but could you clarify the drivers for billings and the outlook moving forward? Additionally, you grew revenues by 11%, but your operating expenses remain flat. Since you’re not doing buybacks at this time, what is the outlook for buybacks and how do you see operating expenses evolving now that you've started executing on revenue growth?

Keith Jensen, CFO

Tal, I think I missed the details of your questions. Could you provide a brief recap of the two questions you had?

Ken Xie, Founder, Chairman and CEO

I think that get some part about the 2 acquisitions impact on billing. I believe the post-acquisition, I think, Lacework maybe this year will contribute.

Keith Jensen, CFO

Yes. If you review the year, there isn't much variability. We had a slight shortfall in the first quarter, but we made up for it in the second quarter. Looking at the third quarter, we might adjust some of the Street numbers down a bit and expect to see a recovery in the fourth quarter. We're adjusting our third quarter expectations and reflecting that in the full year forecast. We are also expecting similar benefits from our acquisitions, so the full year range remains consistent. I realize the increase is quick; a portion of it comes from the inorganic growth we mentioned, while the organic side has been reduced. However, I believe we are discussing relatively small figures here.

Tal Liani, Analyst

Got it. My second question can hear me okay now. But my second question was about OpEx that was flat and no buybacks. What's the outlook on those items?

Keith Jensen, CFO

Yes. I think the OpEx is probably a little lighter on the sales and marketing line than maybe we would like to see, particularly as we start looking at more opportunities as we get into the second half of the year and into 2025. So hopefully, we'll find some opportunities there to make investments. Obviously, you're going to get a fairly significant movement there from the 2 acquisitions that we just did and we gave the number about what the OpEx impact is going to be, that will largely be in sales and marketing. Buyback, I think that we still remain being opportunistic and that opportunistic number changes every 90 days as we reset our plans.

Ken Xie, Founder, Chairman and CEO

Yes. And also, in the market, whether the private company, public company, we see the multiple is probably more friendly compared to the last 2 to 3 years. So we should go back to more reasonable so that we see some opportunity there.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Rob Owens of Piper Sandler.

Rob Owens, Analyst

Curious relative to the macro and obviously a lot of cross currents out there, maybe what you're seeing via your different customer sizes and different theaters?

Keith Jensen, CFO

Yes. I believe our diversification contributes to our success, with 70% of the business being international and just under 30% in the U.S. This year has seen numerous elections globally, and it seems that the U.S. election might be causing some hesitation among people. However, focusing on the international emerging sectors, they have been performing exceptionally well for several quarters and continue to do so. Many of these markets are in oil-producing countries, which have thrived during this economic cycle. Although there may be some geopolitical risks in those areas, so far, they have not significantly affected our performance. We are more likely to hold the number one market share outside the U.S., in areas like Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and parts of Asia Pacific. Having a longstanding presence in these regions gives us an advantage during challenging times, allowing us to engage with our existing customers more effectively.

Ken Xie, Founder, Chairman and CEO

In the U.S., the fastest growing area which also needs more direct marketing, direct sales. That's also need more investment. So that's where we do plan to invest more into sales and marketing to keep gaining market share in the U.S.

Rob Owens, Analyst

And Keith, if you contemplate these acquisitions and a little bit of mix shift to software and I realize hardware is weak right now with the potential recovery next year. But how are you thinking about billings duration? You shaved some off the back half and I think some of that's probably the mix shift towards software as we kind of look overall at the model and the increase in revenue but as we contemplate 2025, how should we think about billings duration and potential compression with more cloud-based or software deals that are likely shorter in nature?

Keith Jensen, CFO

I'm looking forward to seeing you in November at the Analyst Day when we will discuss 2025 and midterm numbers. In the meantime, I would suggest that accounts in emerging areas, like Lacework, might be more likely to have shorter duration contracts. However, for the 90% of the business that involves selling SecOps or SASE solutions to my existing customers, I'm observing that they continue to purchase contracts for similar durations as they have historically. For instance, when I sell something from the SecOps portfolio to a firewall customer, they usually opt for longer duration contracts compared to what a point solution vendor might offer.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Shaul Eyal of TD Cowen.

Shaul Eyal, Analyst

Keith or Ken, so listening to Keith's commentary about the potential refresh cycle not taking place in the second half of this year but most likely during 2025. And again, not trying to front-run the November Analyst Day but should we be thinking about 2025 accelerating over 2024? And again, I know you don't have the current visibility to guide to '25 but just conceptually, is it fair to assume another year of double-digit growth?

Ken Xie, Founder, Chairman and CEO

We believe that next year will show a long-term convergence of networking and network security, and we are committed to this path. That's why we project a compound annual growth rate of about 15% in the secure networking sector. While specific slides in the investor presentation provide more details, we also see many new opportunities emerging, particularly in the operational technology area and Unified SASE, as well as through upselling and cross-selling. This strategy has driven approximately 90% of our customers to initially adopt FortiGate for firewall and network security, where we hold a significant advantage over our competitors. Following that, customers tend to expand their usage beyond network security into other areas, which is evident with Unified SASE for Secure Operations. Currently, we are observing a return to normal growth in our FortiGate firewall products, aligning more closely with market trends. We anticipate that next year may mark the beginning of a refresh cycle, particularly for existing customers who have been using our products for an average of four to five years, signaling it's time for upgrades.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Brad Zelnick of Deutsche Bank.

Brad Zelnick, Analyst

Keith, I think you called out the service provider segment is more challenged this quarter after being a strong performer last quarter. And I know it's lumpy and remains a top vertical as it always has been for Fortinet. But can you share an update on what's happening in that segment? And in particular, how your value proposition and unified focus on Unified SASE and SecOps applies in this important vertical?

Ken Xie, Founder, Chairman and CEO

Yes. I don't feel the service provider telecom slowdown, it's really kind of lumpy and on the other side, we're also starting to see the telecom service provider more interest in offering their own SASE using our product solutions or kind of helping customers do the private SASE, localized SASE, which also will help drive our long-term growth. But I do believe long-term wise, the service provider will be if not the biggest, probably one of the biggest parts of the whole cybersecurity business because they have the infrastructure, they have the customer relationships, so we still want to keep a focus on the service provider area. But for them, it's really the sales cycle resting is long and the deals are pretty big, like 8-figure deals, so that's where the lumpiness probably impacted the quarterly. But if you look at it more long-term multi-quarter annually, I don't believe it's still keeping growing.

Keith Jensen, CFO

Yes, Ken is spot on, right? It's a lumpy industry. Financial services can be at times as well. But I think more importantly, I think the conversations around their own independent SASE solution that they can bring to market is something that's getting a lot more conversation from the service providers. I think we saw it first internationally and we're starting to see a little bit more of it here domestically. But that's a pretty exciting opportunity if it continues to move forward.

Brad Zelnick, Analyst

Just a quick follow-up on the very impressive operating leverage that you've shown to us, particularly on the sales and marketing line, where I know, Keith, you said that it's more than you'd like to see at this point. But just structurally, like to see it down, albeit very slightly sequentially on a dollar basis, especially as you outperformed on the top line and billings this quarter. I'm just trying to understand where it comes from? And is there anything structurally that change that we should be thinking about, whether it's commission deferral rates, channel rebates, or anything else other than headcount?

Keith Jensen, CFO

Yes. I think there's a few things going on there. I think probably 9 months ago, we looked at the cost structure pretty closely across a number of areas. The first place that people kind of look at when you're in that vote is marketing programs, and they get hit pretty hard early on. I think you're trying to see that roll through you do make changes to your compensation programs, whether it's for direct salespeople or for channel people or what have you. I think maybe as we're coming out of that environment now, it's important for us to kind of revisit some of those decisions and ensuring we kind of talk about the investment opportunities that we have in the sales and marketing line. And I think I would include the channel net as well. It is why I would say that to your point, or you're repeating me, probably a little bit lower than we would have liked it to have been in the second quarter. And I think we'll continue to make go-to-market investments here in the second half of the year.

Ken Xie, Founder, Chairman and CEO

Yes, I agree with Keith. We're starting to track more carefully for the ROI for each investment in marketing and sales and also try to improve the efficiency with the marketing and sales. On the other side, we are a little bit behind on hiring in the sales and marketing side, which we intend to accelerate. So that's actually what will drive the future growth.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Adam Tindle of Raymond James.

Adam Tindle, Analyst

I just wanted to continue the margin discussion. Obviously, you had great product gross margin performance this quarter on top of those tight cost controls. And the question really is around pricing dynamics in the core firewall business from here. The supply chain sounds like it's clearly normalized. You've had multiple years of price increases during this period of time. What are your expectations of the pricing dynamic in core firewall from here? What would it take to maybe even consider reducing price back to historical at some point? And any comments that you want to make on the competitive environment in light of this?

Ken Xie, Founder, Chairman and CEO

I think we have not increased the price in the last few quarters. I think that because we still believe we have a huge advantage with FortiASIC, FortiOS technology that offers more functions, better performance, lower total cost of ownership, and also energy cost. So we feel we're keeping that advantage over our competitors. On the other side, we don't see any pressure to also decrease prices or discounts more. So that's where we feel we're keeping pretty stable for the price. And at the same time, customers see the benefit of our product solution with better performance and more functions, which will also drive future service. I think the bigger environment also, we don't feel changed much. Definitely, we see that the inventory all go back to normal whether on kind of inventory and also the channel inventory. That's also more helpful in driving healthy behavior in the business also in the supply chain area. Maybe Keith has something to add.

Keith Jensen, CFO

Just to repeat what Ken said, maybe with a little more granularity. I think the price increases that you referred to were really probably a late '21, 2022 impact. And I don't think we're really raising prices at '23. We did take some prices down at the end of '23 and in the very beginning of 2024. But that's really been the only pricing actions we've taken in the last 6 months. And then to Ken's point, I think we're at a moment where we think the value for the solution is very, very strong. I think the energy costs that Ken mentioned is starting to get a lot of traction internationally in Europe but you're starting to see more conversation around that in the U.S., and that could be people concerned about energy consumption and issues with AI, EV, and government actions on manufacturing. So I do think the energy cost advantage is coming into play more. And then last one on that discounting was, I think, very much in line. I think we actually improved discounting meaning higher prices by about 1 point quarter-over-quarter and kind of a similar number one way or the other for the full year. So we obviously have room given the margins to use discounting and pricing as a lever. But I think there's other things that we'd like to push on first.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Adam Borg of Stifel.

Adam Borg, Analyst

Also, condolences on Peter's passing. He's certainly missed by all of us. We'd love to talk about the Next DLP acquisition. Maybe talk a little bit more about what's attracting you to the stand-alone enterprise data protection market overall and Next DLP in particular?

John Whittle, COO

This is John Whittle. There's a lot of positivity around that. We obviously just announced it today, we closed it yesterday. We did a lot of diligence on the company, the tech is great. And not only will we plan to offer it stand-alone but also integrated with our FortiSASE solution. And so I think it's another step in steadily bolstering our FortiSASE solution. We feel very, very confident in our strategy there. For the most part, as you know, I mean, we've done some tech and talent tuck-ins. Most of our technology is organic I think to some of the earlier questions, you think about the firewall market coming back next year. And we really just started kind of organizing our solutions into these 3 pillars less than a year ago, and the amount of progress we've made and the execution we've made in kind of developing very, very competitive solutions in SASE and SecOps in addition to secure networking is pretty impressive. And I think this is an important step along the way to continue to develop the best SASE solution out there to protect our customers.

Adam Borg, Analyst

That's great. And maybe just as a quick follow-up there, John. Maybe just could you comment on the current level of sales force productivity for SASE and SecOps and the opportunities for improvement from here?

John Whittle, COO

Yes, that's a great question. It definitely takes time, and we are very dedicated to broad sales enablement. The potential from our solution set is significant, and we always maintain a customer-first focus. In terms of protecting and serving our customers, our sales force has plenty of opportunities. I often say they'll face more challenges from having too many options rather than not enough. We're heavily invested in training our sales team, empowering them, ensuring proper incentives, and providing the right support. This way, when they identify various opportunities across different solutions, they have the necessary backing to make those sales. As Keith mentioned, we typically start with the firewall and then expand into SASE and SecOps solutions, where we're seeing considerable success.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Saket Kalia of Barclays.

Saket Kalia, Analyst

I want to acknowledge Peter as well. We'll miss him. Ken, let’s start with you. I’d like to discuss the firewall refresh for next year. You've experienced many refresh cycles over the years. How would you compare this upcoming cycle to those in the past? Also, could you touch on how SASE and what seems to be a higher emphasis on virtual might influence that?

Ken Xie, Founder, Chairman and CEO

Yes, I agree. The infrastructure is likely different from the last refresh cycle. We are seeing more hybrid working environments, which include remote work and broader connections that support various OT and IoT devices. With SASE, we believe it should also be a hybrid solution, not solely cloud-based. It's important to have private SASE options and local SASE provided by service providers. Additionally, SASE needs to secure devices that cannot have software agents installed, such as FortiAP or FortiSwitch used to secure those devices. This is why we think a unified SASE will be the long-term future, combining hardware, software, infrastructure, and appliances. On another note, network security continues to be the largest market in cybersecurity, as it has been for about 20 to 30 years, and it is still expanding due to the increasing number of connected devices and applications, including the cloud, which require network security. This is what drives the need for refreshing and highlights the long-term convergence of networking and network security. Gartner's research has indicated that this convergence is accelerating; initially, they projected that by 2030, secure networking would surpass traditional networking, but now they expect this to happen by 2026, four years sooner. This is why we are making long-term investments in this trend, focusing on FortiOS and FortiASIC to improve both appliances and infrastructure, while also increasing investment in sales and marketing to stay ahead and capture more market share.

Saket Kalia, Analyst

That makes a lot of sense. Keith, if I could fit in one quick follow-up. Just on the software mix in product, I think you said, call it, roughly $800 million run rate. Can we just touch on, even anecdotally, roughly how much of that is sort of virtual firewall versus SecOps? And I realize they're coming in at software gross margins. But can you put a finer point on that and sort of what that aggregate business might be coming in at from a gross margin perspective as we think about that gross margin shift long term?

Keith Jensen, CFO

Well, I think whether it's a virtual firewall or any other software product or the software licenses are all coming in at very, very attractive margins. I think that when you look at some of the SaaS solutions that are sitting in the services line for SecOps and so forth, you get a very wide range of margins there but it's only because of the relative size or maturity of the solution. Obviously, something that's very new and absorbing a lot of the hosting cost is a little harder. But those aren't as big numbers. As you see those SecOps solutions get greater and greater traction and more critical mass, the margins start to normalize. I think kind of what's really been exciting is the ability to absorb those data center POP, colo, everybody's got their hand in the products and on these things, cloud provider fees, and developing the SaaS solutions while still bringing up the services gross margin. And by the same token, being able to absorb the charge for Lacework on the operating margin line because we've managed the business in terms of cost of goods sold for the product side, I think we're really, really pleased with how those 2 things will work hand in hand.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Joseph Gallo from Jefferies.

Joseph Gallo, Analyst

I also want to echo my condolences to the team and Peter. Sadly, big shoes to fill. I just wanted to double-click on what drove the better performance in product in 2Q? Was there some large deals or region, segment, or vertical that stood out, especially since you don't expect the refresh benefit until calendar '25?

Keith Jensen, CFO

No, great question. I mean we've talked about 8-figure deals and our size 8-figure deals can kind of still revolve, as you saw in the fourth quarter last year, we did 6 of them. We had one 8-figure deal in Q1. We had 2 in Q2. So I wouldn't attribute it to that. I think what we saw in the last month of the quarter and particularly as we got into the last week of the quarter, what you see in a strong market is a lot of deals started to fall in place and we're getting across the finish line. I think we saw a lot more positivity at the end of Q2 than maybe we saw say at the end of Q3 or something like that last year.

Joseph Gallo, Analyst

Okay. And then just on a follow-up to that. And I think it was a follow-up to Fatima's question. Given that mix shift, you now expect in the second half, given the delayed refresh, what is your confidence or visibility into the billings re-acceleration in the second half? Do you, in theory, have more visibility now, given that it's less hardware-based? Or how are you thinking about that?

Keith Jensen, CFO

Yes. I don't think that the form factor really impacts the visibility in terms of what's in the pipeline or how we work with the sales teams in terms of forecasting. I've not noticed a difference, if you will, in close rates between a virtual machine and a physical machine.

Ken Xie, Founder, Chairman and CEO

Yes, we probably would do some more deep study to maybe on Analyst Day, we'll give some color next year and also some midterm model on November 18, which also the 15th anniversary of the IPO.

Operator, Operator

This concludes the question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn it back to Aaron Ovadia, Director of Investor Relations.

Aaron Ovadia, Director of Investor Relations

Thank you. I'd like to thank everyone for joining today's call. Fortinet will be attending investor conferences hosted by Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, and Oppenheimer during the third quarter. We will also be holding an Analyst Day on November 18 where we expect to update our medium-term financial model. The webcast link will be posted on the events in the Presentations section of Fortinet's Investor Relations website. If you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to contact me. Have a great rest of your day.

Operator, Operator

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.