Earnings Call Transcript
Globant S.A. (GLOB)
Earnings Call Transcript - GLOB Q1 2024
Arturo Langa, Investor Relations Officer
Good day, and welcome to Globant's First Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. I'm Arturo Langa, Investor Relations Officer at Globant. Please note, this event is being recorded and streamed live on YouTube. By now, you should have received a copy of the earnings release. If you have not, a copy is available on our website, investors.globant.com. Our speakers today are Martin Migoya, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Juan Urthiague, Chief Financial Officer; Patricia Pomies, Chief Operating Officer; and Diego Tartara, Global Chief Technology Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that some of our comments on our call today may be considered forward-looking statements. This includes our business and financial outlook and the answers to some of your questions. Such statements are subject to the risks and uncertainties as described in the company's earnings release and other filings with the SEC. Please note that we follow IFRS accounting rules in our financial statements. During our call today, we will report non-IFRS or adjusted measures, which is how we track performance internally and the easiest way to compare Globant to our peers in the industry. You will find a reconciliation of IFRS and non-IFRS measures at the end of the press release we published on our Investor Relations website announcing this quarter's results. I'd now like to turn the call over to Martin Migoya, our CEO.
Martín Migoya, CEO
Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Martin's AI-created digital twin. Let's get started with our first quarter's results. Revenue reached $571.1 million, representing a 20.9% increase year-over-year and above the guidance we provided last February. We are very happy to deliver another quarter of industry-leading growth. As Juan will mention later on, our expectations for the year continue to support a strong 2024 and solid exit rates going into 2025. At Globant, we are confident in our resilience despite macroeconomic uncertainties. With our diverse capabilities and authentic culture, we have become experts in growing our market share. Geopolitically speaking, we benefit from our geographic footprint with a leading presence in Latin America. It's a region free from international security threats as well as being democratically vibrant, culturally open, entrepreneur-focused and with no religious conflicts. All of this has put us in a forefront position, outpacing other players in the industry. It's important to consider that when we analyze Globant, we take into account our own performance, partnerships, product quality and team rather than comparing ourselves to average companies, industry benchmarks or sector performance. In the current scenario, where most IT services firms are struggling to deliver decent growth, we expect to achieve mid-teen top line growth for 2024 and foresee ample runway beyond. We're going to reinvent this industry that's stuck in the '90s, all while creating memorable and beautiful products that dare to delight. Moving forward, we envision 4 growth drivers for our business: One, our expanding market and the demand for our services; two, the revolutionary impact of AI across every global industry and how we can lead the implementation; three, our specialization with our studio networks and our presence in exciting growth sectors, including media, entertainment, the creative industries, sports and many others; and four, our geographic scale and presence in key regions. Let me double-click on each one. First, our expanding addressable market. The trends in AI adoption and generative AI only continue to accelerate with annual IT spending estimated to reach $1.5 trillion this year and up to $2.3 trillion by 2028 according to Gartner. According to the IDC, spending on generative AI alone is set to double in 2024. Our conviction is that the benefits from generative AI are only beginning to materialize. We've seen major inroads in customer service, at some of the more innovative companies 2/3 of the customer service conversations are already handled by GenAI-powered agents with customer satisfaction on par with live chat, leading to a drop of repeat inquiries by 25%. I believe that digitally mature companies such as ourselves with expertise in AI and software engineering will gain the most from this market expansion. We are primed to deliver groundbreaking experiences, blend physical and digital realms and drive loyalty like never before. With the growth of AI, AR, VR and the Cloud, businesses like ours are building the systems of the future and setting the pace for the digital economy of tomorrow. Far from AI hype we have understood for over a decade that this technology is to be implemented at every stage of the software development cycle. For this reason, we have led the innovation waves by introducing our proprietary AI-powered tools from GeneXus Next for code generation to Augoor to speed up code productivity to navigate to clear up bottlenecks and processes to magnify in product testing. The diversity in our AI offering is matched by the versatility of our studio networks, digital, reinvention, enterprise and create. Together, these studio networks offer long-term value to our clients as we advance on multiyear AI transformations. They blend the technology acumen, strategic growth outlook as well as deep industry expertise to make our solutions truly impactful and lasting. This quarter, we were thrilled to announce a global partnership with NVIDIA. We are integrating NVIDIA's AI technology with our own enterprise AI platform. Through collaborating with NVIDIA, we're ensuring seamless integration with existing tech stacks while prioritizing accuracy, security and scalability. Globant's products can now accelerate time to market for AI-driven solutions through the use of low code and no code and provide businesses with a competitive edge in an evolving ecosystem. Our third growth driver, our presence in key growth sectors. Several years ago, we identified the value in blending industry expertise with technology prowess. This led us to establish our AI reinvention studios, which aim to help clients to reinvent not only their own companies but to pave the way for the reinvention of their industries themselves. Globant's work in all sectors of the global economy is expanding. On this call, I would like to zoom in on 2 of them where we are cultivating a particular focus. First, sports. Over the years, we have steadily built our credentials on key projects for FIFA, Major League Rugby, the Los Angeles Clippers and more. This quarter, Formula 1 selected Globant as an official partner to elevate the digital experiences. To begin, we will be redesigning, supporting and upgrading critical information systems for racing teams while improving the fan experience through technology. As their digital partner and collaborator, we look forward to our growth together as we bring more innovation to what is the world's most technologically advanced sport. We are also rapidly expanding our market share within the travel and hospitality industry. Globant has built its expertise over 2 decades by working with the major players from amusement parks, cruise lines, hotels, airlines and more on the primary projects that incorporated the digital element to their customer experience, from mobile apps to wearables to smart reservation systems. Building this expertise has produced positive results as we have recently signed the largest deal in Globant's history with a major global airline. The Globant difference is that our teams do not work with our clients exclusively on current delivery but instead build into the future, transferring capabilities and know-how. Pato, our COO, will elaborate on our industry growth across different verticals later. Our fourth growth driver is our opportunities presented by our geographic scale. Now in 33 countries, we have the right presence in both talent and client markets that are resilient and growth oriented in this time of macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty. First, Latin America, the region where we were born and currently home to 69% of our workforce. In Latin America, the IT services sector is expected to grow 11% in 2024. By 2027, the region's 5,000 largest companies may spend an estimated 25% of their budget on IT according to Gartner. As the only global tech player from here, we already have a presence in 14 out of the top 15 cities for technology talent, and we are the employer of choice in the region. We also see strong business opportunities in the Middle East with its emerging economies that seek to transform themselves through developing sectors, including tourism, entertainment, real estate and others, all of which Globant has demonstrated its industry expertise. Our connected experience studio enables us with the expertise to focus on digital customer satisfaction as we compete to participate in many of the region's human-focused mega projects, such as smart cities, amusement parks, aviation, wellness and luxury apparel. With less than 3 years in the region, we are already working with nearly 20 clients. I'm pleased to see that Globant's hard work over this past quarter has been recognized by the industry. Everest Group named Globant as a star performer and leader in the software product engineering PEAK Matrix Assessment for 2024. It showcases the significant growth we've experienced in recent years in knowledge and offerings. Together with Rockwell Automation, our client for 6 years, we were recognized at the digital engineering awards. This was spearheaded by Globant's Sustainable Business Studio, which released a groundbreaking sustainability calculator meticulously back engineered to quantify energy, waste generation and CO2 emissions in repairing industrial automation assets versus buying new ones. We're particularly proud of this award because it's a mark of how we can not only make a difference for the top and bottom lines for our clients, but also have a positive impact on the environment as well. Now to some changes to our Board. After 12 years as a trusted adviser and Board member, I'm sorry to see Phil Odeen go with 7 decades of leadership experience, he was the rock of guidance to Globant. We'll miss you, Phil. I am also excited to welcome new members to our Board, Andrew McLaughlin and Nicolas Aguzin. Andrew brings a wealth of experience in tech startups, venture investing and digital rights advocacy. Co-Founder of Higher Ground Labs and Senior Adviser at Sandbox AQ, Andrew is a multifaceted leader. His career expertise spans from improving urban construction methods to AI and quantum technologies applied to cybersecurity, health care and financial services. His experience has brought him to many leadership roles, including Executive Director of the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale University, Deputy Chief Technology Officer of the United States during the Obama administration, among many others. He brings invaluable insight to our team. Nicolas Aguzin has a distinguished career spanning 3 continents and various leadership roles in finance and global markets. Formerly the CEO of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, CEO of JPMorgan Asia Pacific, Nicolas has consistently executed on a global growth vision. I'm looking forward to his counsel as we expand in Asia, a key growth market for Globant. I'll close out with a special message to our Globers who are the essence of Globant's authenticity and our different way of doing things. Their perseverance and creativity is the difference that makes us partners for our clients rather than suppliers. Our global presence, smart technologies and deep industry expertise will reinforce our leadership going forward. We have a robust pipeline of prospective clients, and we look forward to sharing their transformation stories with you in the future. With that, I'll hand it over to Diego to expand on our exciting technology offering.
Diego Tartara, Global Chief Technology Officer
Thanks, Martin. It's good to be back. Our studio networks continue to develop as ecosystems that organize, showcase and streamline Globant's capabilities. What most defines Globant at this key time in our evolution is our expanding optionality range of the services we create. Our reinvention studios continue to expand their offerings now with services focused on AI, reflecting how AI is changing the landscape across every single industry. In our health care AI reinvention studio, we are working with a global company that focuses on women's health. We are deploying a specialized team from all studio networks with expertise in pharma, AI development, creativity and sales force, combined with our Globant X platforms to accelerate AI developments. The ongoing service consists in gathering digital insights, crafting the omnichannel strategy, creating the medical content and as a consequence, engaging customers through digital channels. This service kicks off a new go-to-market model, digital and AI first. This new method will enable the company to propel brand awareness and results while scaling to other markets and products in an agile way. This project is iconic for Globant as we are deploying not a technology service but a business partnership to push the envelope of results with our own autonomy and responsibility for brand performance. Within the sports AI reinvention studio, we are proud to be working for the International Olympic Committee. Globant will be providing the technology behind the IOC's new fan engagement platform. This will enable the IOC to launch adaptive content to millions of fans and offers the scalability to provide a consistent user experience during peak times. Our Create Studio network continues on its journey to reinvent the creative services industry through tech. This offering is complementary with the talent from leading agency GUT. Together, Globant provides seamless creativity that leverages technology to reach global audiences. Within this network, we recently won a gold prize in the Annual International list Award for supporting Avianca to optimize its ticketing system through machine learning. Also, we are working with an Italian luxury automotive brand to improve its marketing communications, applying CRM and marketing automation techniques to timely reach niche audiences. In the launch of their latest model, specifically, we supported them building a fully digital customer journey and developing a multichannel campaign. GUT keeps expanding its work for some of the most beloved brands globally. They recently launched the joint global advertising campaign between Coca-Cola and Marvel released across cinema, television and streaming, which includes an immersive AR extension on Coca-Cola's website. Starting with our enterprise studio network over this quarter, we've seen a healthy response to the investments we made over the years to partner with the leaders of cloud migration and other transformations. We were awarded 3 of the 2024 Google Cloud Partner of the Year Awards, Industry Solutions Services Partner of the Year for Media and Entertainment for the second year in a row, Partner of the Year for services in Latin America and Partner of the Year for talent development in Latin America. We also achieved Amazon Web Services premier tier partner status, recognized for our technical expertise and success in adding customers with the design, architecture, building, migration and management of their workloads on AWS. We've been collaborating with AWS since 2011 and have seen this partnership grow not only from cloud technologies but also into gaming, metaverse, data, digital products, UX and AI from across the globe. We look forward to continuing these relationships into the future. Lastly, we are launching a new studio to fuse our experience in marketing technology with Adobe Experience Cloud. The new Adobe Studio offers our unique methodology and AI prowess, to ensure swift and effective implementation of Adobe solutions that can bring bottom line results for our clients. With a portfolio of successful implementations for some of the world's most recognizable brands across more than 20 countries. We have consistently demonstrated our ability to deliver value at scale. Within the digital studio network, we are seeing the opportunity to make our mark in the promising robotics sector. Many sectors seek to gain from the increased automation, speed and safety that the sector provides, yet we're already seeing growing pains that Globant can alleviate. That's why we recently launched our new robotic studio. There's a huge challenge that many of our clients will face as they integrate more robotics into their operations related to the orchestration of all of those robots, usually provided by different companies with each other and with their full digital ecosystem. The studio will have 2 key practices, robotics operations or Rob Ops, which is a growing field that ensures maximize performance of fleets of robots, reducing downtimes and optimizing integration of different vendors and robotics prototyping to support the customization and autonomy of robotic systems and autonomous machines. In all cases, our teams co-create complex autonomous robotic systems powered by advanced computer vision and telemetry. Globant will leverage a larger trend where robotics is central in connecting the physical world with the digital realm, incorporating elements of the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and process optimization. Lastly, let me share another example on how we are leveraging our signature digital products. One of our clients, a major U.S. retailer with annual sales of over $12 billion, has implemented MagnifAI, our AI-powered testing platform from Globant X. In retail, where online sales are growing at an unusual rate, to the extent that 24% of sales are expected to occur online by 2026. MagnifAI is key in improving their overall quality processes to meet the required pace. Testing time of some features across 5 devices previously demanded over 6 hours of work and is now just 30 minutes. By implementing MagnifAI and adding artificial intelligence to their quality assurance processes, the team was able to test more scenarios more frequently. It also provided better accuracy in the testing results. This generated a significant increase in testing coverage while saving time. With that, I'll hand it over to Patricia Pomies, our COO, to expand on our commercial delivery and people updates. Thank you very much.
Patricia Pomies, COO
Thank you, Diego. It's a pleasure to be back. Our 100 square strategy remains our North Star for strengthening the relationships with our clients and offering more services as we grow our collaboration over time. We currently have 17 clients bringing in more than $20 million of annual revenue, and we now have 318 clients that provide more than $1 million of annual revenue, 15.2% more than 1 year ago. Revenue from our largest client, the Walt Disney Company, grew 6.7% on a year-over-year basis and currently represents 8.3% of our total revenue. The rest of our accounts grew 22.4% year-over-year, reflecting the increasing diversity of our revenue sources and reduced risk exposure. In order to provide more granularity into our diversified regional performance, we have reported Europe as a stand-alone market with the Middle East being bucketed into new markets. This reflects how we operate internally, and it will help investors gauge the traction in our more up-and-coming markets. In Q1 this year, 56% of our revenue came from North America, 22.9% from Latin America, 17.2% from Europe and 3.9% from new markets, a region that encompasses our efforts in the Middle East, Asia and Oceania. Europe is the top gainer, growing by 56.1% year-over-year and 6.6% quarter-over-quarter. Additionally, the performance across our business verticals reflects our solid execution. We achieved notable year-on-year growth across virtually all of our business segments. Travel and Hospitality emerged as the fastest-growing vertical, experiencing a remarkable 66.5% year-over-year increase and contributing 11% to our total revenue. Also, our consumer, retail and manufacturing sector exhibited strong growth at 49.6% year-over-year. Media and entertainment, banking, financial services and insurance, and health care each showed robust double-digit growth as well. As Globant scales up both in the size of our team as well the array of our offerings, we are mindful of the opportunity we have to amplify the impact of our solutions. Embracing our new cultural value of being cross-selling heroes, we started the year launching a novel integration model. This model is designed to provide a seamless and streamlined experience for companies joining our family through M&A. The new transition team operates on a decentralized basis and is focused on each region, accelerating the integration process with new colleagues and ensuring more direct access to complementary business opportunities. As an example, Sportian, our joint venture with LaLiga, have already booked deals involving specific offerings along with Globant's pre-existing services. Second, we kicked off an initiative to develop industry-tailored multi-technology experience rooms in some of our flagship offices such as Los Angeles, Madrid, London, Sao Paulo and Mexico City. The AI playgrounds, as we will call them, will serve as immersive spaces highly enriched with AI-driven features where our top prospective and current clients will be able to accelerate their own digital journey by looking into real cases and best practices where Globant applied its capabilities. Now to our headcount. As of March 31, we are 28,991 Globers, of which 92.9% are IT professionals. Total headcount figures represent a year-over-year growth of 2,703 Globers. Our utilization rate for Q1 stood at 79.3%, up 10 basis points year-over-year. This quarter, I'm pleased to announce that Globant is now in the Philippines, further strengthening our global footprint. Our attrition rate over the past 12 months is 8.2%, 6.3 percentage points lower year-over-year. As our company grows, we are not only expanding our reach, but also constantly evolving our ways of working to foster autonomy, collaboration and innovation. During the last earnings call, I showcased different AI-powered platforms such as Geno and Sensei, which have revolutionized the way we assemble our teams and bolster global skills. Now through the lens of AI, we have an unprecedented opportunity to reinvent the agile approach that has so strongly shaped software development. A team of our most experienced Agilysts is working to redefine the rules of Agile itself in a concept we call cognitive Agile practices, already piloted in projects along the banking industry, where we are testing a more dynamic delivery system due to the acceleration of growing digital ecosystems we are seeing positive increases in response time and client satisfaction. Cognitive Agile practice is all about working toward customer purpose rather than in structured project goals. I look forward to sharing more with you as this method's application grows. Regarding our community, our role remains strong. Launched in 2020, our Code Your Future initiative is aimed at creating a pathway for more people, particularly women and socioeconomic minorities in developing countries to enter the technology talent market. We have already trained 12,000 people through this initiative, and we are now announcing 1,250 new scholarships. Finally, we launched the fifth edition of Women That Build Awards. This initiative spotlights the female role in tech with the objective of inspiring more to take the giant leap in their careers, academics or entrepreneurial projects. To date, we've evaluated over 6,000 candidates from over 50 countries, garnering more than 310,000 votes, the support of more than 150 organizations and the participation of 240 international judges. Now let me introduce Juan, our CFO, see you all in some minutes for the live Q&A. Thank you.
Juan Urthiague, CFO
Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. I am glad to be back here with you to discuss this quarter's results. In a complex macro and industry environment, we are confident Globant is on track to deliver another year of industry-leading results. Our first quarter revenues reached a milestone of $571.1 million, a remarkable 20.9% year-over-year growth and above the guidance provided to the market. More importantly, this growth continues to place us in a solid position to deliver upon our high-growth expectations for the year. This quarter, we saw growth in all of our geographic segments on annual terms and in 6 out of our 8 industry verticals pointing to a broad-based performance. On organic constant currency terms, Q1 revenues grew 12.7% year-on-year, above our guidance. We remain optimistic about the year. Secular technology trends are encouraging, driven mainly by AI. And as seen in the broader technology sector, it is already being reflected in tangible financial metrics. While macro-related concerns and soft IT spending will continue into the short term, we are encouraged by our short-term business indicators, which continue to support our quarterly growth outlook for the rest of 2024. Our pipeline is strong and at record levels, and recent booking trends in the past months support our outlook. Moreover, we see our growth driven by a robust set of initiatives across our geographic and industry segments. The performance across our regions reflects our solid execution. We saw year-on-year growth across all of our geographic segments. North America, which represents close to 56% of our top line, expanded at a 10.3% year-on-year rate. LATAM, 22.9% of revenue grew 27.2% year-on-year despite some of the exchange rate volatility seen in the region recently. Europe expanded at a 56.1% year-on-year rate and at a 6.6% quarter-on-quarter clip. The robust performance in Europe is a reflection of the recent investments made by the company in the region, a very strong performance in the sports industry, our ability to capture synergies from recently acquired assets and our differentiated value proposition in the region. Excluding inorganic contributions, Europe is still tracking markedly above the company average. Lastly, in new markets, we posted a 33.7% annual growth, all in organic terms. This is reflective of our advances, both in APAC and the Middle East, which are all gaining traction strongly. We closed the first quarter with an adjusted gross profit margin of 38%, flat on a quarter-over-quarter basis. We've managed to offset a tough pricing environment, currency fluctuations and macroeconomic pressures through improvements in our geographic mix and through our premium offering. Also, we've managed to maintain an adjusted operating margin of 15%, virtually flat on year-on-year terms. We remain committed to the long-term profitability of the company. And while we recognize there are some short-term headwinds around margins, we will continue to strive to maximize revenue and margins and walk away from a growth-at-all-cost approach. Our adjusted net income in Q1 reached $67.5 million with an 11.8% adjusted net income margin, up 10 basis points year-over-year. Adjusted diluted EPS for the quarter was $1.53, in line with our guidance, representing a 19.5% year-over-year increase based on 44.1 million average diluted shares. Our balance sheet remains strong. We've strategically managed our net cash position, ending the quarter with $237.5 million in cash and short-term investments. As of March 31, 2024, we continue to have ample funding stemming from our revolving credit facility, which has approximately drawn down $105 million out of the $725 million available. This should provide ample funding options for our organic and inorganic plans in the short term. The strong cash generation provides the company with solid funding to focus on growth, reinforce our strategic investments and finance our future growth initiatives. Turning to the future outlook. We remain optimistic for 2024. We are on track to deliver on our mid-teen growth guidance, and the short-term visibility supports that. We have continued to experience a positive momentum in bookings and large deals, which keeps us optimistic about our outlook for 2024. Moving forward, we'll be providing ranges rather than at least thresholds. This approach offers a more accurate reflection of our current industry dynamics and offers a view of where management's outlook lies within a range of scenarios. For Q2 2024, we project $585 million to $589 million in revenue, implying an 18% year-over-year increase at the midpoint of the range, with adjusted operating income margins between 14.5% and 15.5%. IFRS effective income tax rate is expected to be in the 22% to 24% range, and our adjusted EPS for Q2 is expected to be in the range of $1.47 to $1.52, assuming 44.2 million average diluted shares outstanding for the quarter. Now let's move toward the full year guidance. We continue to be very confident about delivering another year of industry-leading growth based on current visibility. We now estimate our 2024 revenues to be between $2.405 billion and $2.440 billion, implying a 15.6% year-over-year increase at the midpoint of the range. This range is very much in line with our previous growth guidance provided 3 months ago. For the full year, we expect our adjusted operating margin in the 14.5% to 15.5% range. 2024 IFRS effective income tax rate is expected to be in the 22% to 24% range. Finally, our adjusted diluted EPS for 2024 is expected to be in the range of $6.20 to $6.50, assuming 44.3 million average diluted shares for the year. As we conclude, I want to express my gratitude to all of our shareholders and investors. As a management team, we remain committed to creating value for our shareholders. Thank you, everyone, for joining the call today and for your continued support and belief in our vision and strategy. We look forward to updating you on our progress throughout the coming year.
Arturo Langa, Investor Relations Officer
Thank you, Juan, and hello, everyone. It's good to see you again. So the first question comes from Tien-Tsin Huang from JPMorgan.
Tien-Tsin Huang, Analyst
I would like to ask about the positive momentum in the bookings that you mentioned. I believe I heard about a significant airline win, as well as wins with F1 and IOC, among others. Do these achievements influence your outlook in any way? Do you anticipate that some of these bookings will convert in the second half? I'm trying to understand your confidence regarding the sequential growth suggested in the second half of the guidance.
Martín Migoya, CEO
Tien-Tsin, thank you so much for the question. Yes, those large bookings are quite interesting, and it will have an impact on our revenue, of course, moving forward. On the guidance that we provided, we tried to bake in all those things. So we are trying to be in line with the idea of what's going on in the market and what we already guided in the past. So that's the short answer to your question.
Juan Urthiague, CFO
Also, to expand on Martin's answer, when you consider the sequential growth for the second half of the year, there are bookings coming in. Additionally, there will be some extra days, particularly in Q3, which is usually our strongest quarter.
Martín Migoya, CEO
Yes. And the momentum on bookings that we referred to is real. I mean we are seeing some recovery, and it's quite interesting to see what didn't happen in the past, right?
Tien-Tsin Huang, Analyst
Right. Yes. So large deal wins, which are great plus some of the billing differences...
Martín Migoya, CEO
But it's not just large deals. I mean, it’s the large deals plus the whole thing moving forward, right?
Arturo Langa, Investor Relations Officer
Our next question comes from the line of Moshe Katri from Wedbush.
Moshe Katri, Analyst
Congratulations on the strong results once again. Some people are concerned that AI decisions or deployment are affecting overall spending or leading to a pause in spending. Are you experiencing this in your business? From our viewpoint, it seems like it will serve as more of an accelerator, but any further insights you can provide would be helpful.
Martín Migoya, CEO
Sure, Moshe. I'll address the first part and then let Diego take the second. Just like when mobile phones emerged and spurred digital transformation, people first embraced mobile technology, which prompted companies to adopt it in order to connect with their customers on a deeper level. This pattern is repeating itself today with AI adoption. The recent release of ChatGPT has over 100 million daily users, and this collective expertise will drive significant transformations within companies across various sectors. Every industry will need to integrate this new technology, leading to long-term transformation programs for nearly all organizations. The pace of this change may vary; we have noted some undergoing production and scaling, while others remain in exploratory stages. However, the key takeaway is that AI will be ubiquitous. It is central to our vision for the future at Globant and how we deliver solutions to our clients. The drive for enterprise transformation remains robust, with much work still to be done in digital development, digital marketing, and business reinvention through AI. We are strategically positioning Globant for this shift, investing significantly in tools that enhance software creation, enabling much quicker development than in the past. This acceleration presents new opportunities going forward. I am not worried about delays in decision-making. I believe economic uncertainties have contributed to cautious spending, but recent positive trends in U.S. inflation are encouraging. I anticipate that these factors will gradually restore investment in the IT and technology sectors, which is urgently needed by all businesses. Now, I’d like Diego to elaborate on how deeply AI is integrating into various fields.
Diego Tartara, Global Chief Technology Officer
So Moshe, like Martin said, we haven't seen AI as a decelerator for big programs. With the specific tracks for AI, companies continue to be pretty much exploratory. There are some concerns out there, and that's public with regards of putting this and connecting this to the clients directly. And that's why most of the projects have to do with internal tooling, processes, etc. We will get there, no worries. And there is also a factor that has to do with how big and how fast this is moving. So whenever you need to make a decision, technology is changing so fast that many companies are reluctant to engage in a lengthy project and see how the technology they have chosen matures and changes over time. And that is why GeneXus Enterprise AI plays a huge role as a middleware to the actual implementations, providing you with control over what model you use, higher degrees of security, control on the outputs, etc.
Arturo Langa, Investor Relations Officer
Our next question comes from the line of Maggie Nolan from William Blair.
Margaret Nolan, Analyst
Now that you have a guidance range in place for revenue, can you elaborate on the expectations for the economic backdrop and the demand environment at both the low end and the high end of the guidance range?
Juan Urthiague, CFO
So the new guidance basically has a more conservative number. The number that we feel is more realistic at the middle of the range, and I'm more optimistic number. The main difference is between those is basically whether the macroeconomic conditions deteriorate or improve. If things stay more or less the same, with the industry performing in line with what we are showing in our Q1 numbers, then we would probably land around the midpoint. If for some reason, things start to deteriorate further, there is a deterioration in some of the sectors and things like that, we're going to go to the lower end. If things start to recover a little bit faster, we see some recovery in tech. We see some more recovery in professional services, then we can end up towards the upper end of the range.
Arturo Langa, Investor Relations Officer
Our next question comes from the line of Bryan Bergin from TD Cowen.
Bryan Bergin, Analyst
Maybe I'll try margin. So maybe can you talk about what the incremental pressure points have been here since last quarter. How much of this has purely been FX versus the competitive markets? And the levers you may have to help offset it as you go through the year, understanding you revised the outlook. But what are you leveraging to help offset some of the pressures. And also, Juan, just anything as you think about beyond this year, any change in the overall profitability, anything to be aware of?
Juan Urthiague, CFO
Thank you, Bryan, for the question. We've adjusted the operating margin guidance from 15% to 16% down to 14.5% to 15.5%. The main factors contributing to this change are twofold. Firstly, we have not seen any improvement in foreign exchange rates, as currencies like the Colombian peso and Mexican peso remain strong against the dollar. Secondly, the utilization metrics for the first quarter came in slightly lower than expected, though we intend to maintain that figure. We hope to improve it, and we anticipate a recovery in certain industries. We are starting to see this recovery in the second quarter, where sequential growth is back at 2.8%. We also expect a recovery in the third and fourth quarters based on our recently announced bookings, which may lead margins to trend closer to the 15% range, prompting our adjustment. We are not expecting any improvement in foreign exchange rates, and it's crucial that we continue to focus on growth while protecting our margins. This is a long-term strategy, and safeguarding margins is a priority for us.
Arturo Langa, Investor Relations Officer
Now our next question comes from the line of Jonathan Lee from Guggenheim.
Yu Lee, Analyst
How should we think about the visibility you have in the project ramps for the remainder of the year? And what your customer conversations give you confidence around bookings conversion and realization through the remainder of the year given some of the project delays we've been seeing across the industry?
Juan Urthiague, CFO
Yes. When you look at our numbers, if you look at the guidance from last quarter back in February, 16.2%, look at the midpoint of the range, which is where we feel we should end up at this point, 15.6%. It's an extremely minor adjustment and a big part of that is actually coming from the euro and the GBP, which are playing against us. And at the same time, our European business is growing. So there's really almost no difference in the guidance from February and the guidance today. So visibility stays more or less the same. I mean, we still rely on new bookings. We are not living on the backlog. So it's a combination of backlog plus new bookings. It's good news that we are seeing some big deals closing, and that helps to improve visibility. But at the end of the day, it's a very similar number if we adjust for FX, and hence, the visibility stays more or less the same. Probably the most positive news as Martin was describing are these large deals that we just closed, one of which was announced here in the first part of the call. So visibility stays the same.
Arturo Langa, Investor Relations Officer
The next question comes from the line of Ryan Potter from Citi.
Ryan Potter, Analyst
Looking at your verticals, it looks like professional services and technology communications maybe are seeing softness. Can you discuss some of the demand trends you're seeing in those verticals? And we've seen some of your peers kind of call it softness within professional services and seeing some client restructurings lines in that area. So can you also comment on being impacted by any client restructurings in that area?
Juan Urthiague, CFO
In terms of professional services, we have observed a stable business over the past few quarters. It isn't experiencing significant growth or decline, with only minor fluctuations. Similarly, with technology, the decrease we mentioned last quarter has stabilized and continues to do so. Meanwhile, other industries are performing exceptionally well, such as travel and hospitality, which is growing over 50%. Our consumer and retail business is also experiencing similar growth rates. Ideally, we would like to see a recovery in tech and telecommunications, which have remained flat or down for the past two years. Professional services remain stable without major changes. We anticipate further growth in Media and Entertainment, with significant expansion in our sports business and positive trends from Disney, reporting nearly 7% year-over-year growth for the first quarter, following a slight decline last year. Overall, we have positive news in Media and Entertainment, retail manufacturing, and travel. In the BFSI sector, we are beginning to see momentum with large deals emerging. The only area where we are still seeking recovery is in technology and telecommunications, as well as professional services.
Martín Migoya, CEO
Yes. And one thing I would like to emphasize over there is that if you see Globant and if you see some of our competitors, you will see that Globant is consistently still capturing market share, right? And that's a very important ability to put on the table and to act on. While most of them are decreasing or growing at small numbers, we're still maintaining our ability intact to get that market share. So we're very proud of that. And I think that's a result of everything we are doing and the investments we have been making in the AI space, in the sports space, on every single platform that we are fostering and pushing to our customers, so that's beyond any sector. I would like to say that our growth remains pretty solid across the sectors because of that common factor of that ability to get market share.
Juan Urthiague, CFO
Yes, and of course, diversification plays a role, right? Because having exposure to all those sectors, diversification in terms of geographies going heavily into Europe, flowing heavily into MENA also pays off and helps to maintain industry-leading growth this quarter and, of course, for the 2024 guidance.
Patricia Pomies, COO
Sorry, adding to that, I think we have been, for the last 15 years or 20 years, very specific in the way we are doing product and software. That has to do with delighting our customers and the experience that the brand has with their customers and their users. And that is not changing right now. In fact, it's getting deeper. So that special place where Globant is right now is what is giving us the way to grow in different kinds of strategies on verticals. For example, as Juan was mentioning, in new markets, we have the same objectives of trying to build a new way of connecting with consumers, a new way of connecting with citizens. So there, the expertise of Globant is going beyond what we can do.
Arturo Langa, Investor Relations Officer
Our next question comes from the line of Divya Goyal from Scotia.
Divya Goyal, Analyst
I wanted to get more details on the geographic growth. You mentioned establishing an office in the Philippines. I've noticed a slight decline in the U.S., which has remained around the 10% mark for the past few quarters. I'm trying to grasp whether you're observing the same trend in outsourcing. Additionally, do you expect automation and outsourcing to positively impact your margins in the short term?
Juan Urthiague, CFO
Let me address the first part of your question. The new office in the Philippines is a delivery center, not a market we are targeting. Instead, it will serve as a location for sourcing talent to serve our customers globally, particularly in the MENA region due to time zone advantages. Regarding the U.S. market, the slight sequential decline we are experiencing can be attributed to two factors. First, as noted in February, we reported $5 million to $6 million in license sales in Q4, which was a one-time occurrence and not expected to recur. Excluding this effect, we are also seeing a contraction in our professional services and technology business, which is heavily concentrated in the U.S. However, aside from that, we are observing positive momentum and are anticipating growth for the second quarter and throughout the remainder of the year. There was a second part to your question.
Diego Tartara, Global Chief Technology Officer
It relates to automation and outsourcing. As you may know, our global delivery model allows us to provide the right services with Globant's quality from locations with suitable talent. This approach remains unchanged. Our strategy has involved expanding and opening offices in areas with the right talent and potential commercial opportunities. Regarding talent sourcing and market behavior, we have noticed an improvement in flexibility regarding service provision, which has been evolving over the past few years. However, I don't believe this has significantly impacted our global distribution.
Arturo Langa, Investor Relations Officer
Our next question comes from the line of Arvind Ramnani from Piper Sandler.
Arvind Ramnani, Analyst
I have a couple of questions about the overall outlook for the rest of the year. By doing some simple calculations, it appears that we could see about 6% sequential growth in the third and fourth quarters, which should lead to a solid full-year result. However, I understand it may not be exactly aligned. Could you share your thoughts on whether you anticipate a stronger performance in the third quarter or the fourth quarter? Additionally, in relation to the new ramps, is there any potential for upside, or are those already factored into the existing guidance?
Juan Urthiague, CFO
So the current guidance at the midpoint reflects our expectations and includes the bookings we announced and closed earlier in the year. For the second quarter, the sequential growth at the midpoint of the range is 2.8%. Q3 has nearly two additional days, and we estimate about 5% sequential growth for that quarter. The implied sequential growth for Q4 is around 4.5%. That's how the year is structured. We don't need to reach the 6% you calculated, as it is a bit lower than that. Those are the figures, Arvind.
Arturo Langa, Investor Relations Officer
Our next question comes from the line of Tyler DuPont from Bank of America.
Tyler DuPont, Analyst
I wanted to just ask about demand trends since the last call. Given the, call it, 6-ish basis points tweak in top line guidance at the midpoint, just sort of curious if you can discuss sort of what the main drivers are there. Would you say it's more driven by a slowdown in clients just releasing budget dollars to actual spend? Or are their clients actually changing sort of the scope of certain projects? Any other dynamics that we're considering. And just given where we are right now, what do you need to see from sort of a macro standpoint to gain confidence with sort of bottoming out and sort of entering this upward inflection in demand?
Martín Migoya, CEO
Thank you, Tyler. I believe demand has improved recently. The remaining concern is the challenging situation created by inflation not decreasing as quickly as anticipated. At Globant, we are seeing an improvement in bookings compared to before, but the uncertainty lies in how this will progress. If the trends we observed yesterday with inflation continue, things should be fine. However, as previously mentioned, the macroeconomic environment remains unpredictable, and we are cautious in our market guidance. That's why we're introducing this new range. Juan, would you like to add anything?
Juan Urthiague, CFO
No, no. What I'd add there is that in any case, we are at the midpoint of the range, we are talking about 15.6% growth, of which a little bit over 10% is organic growth. So we are discussing the level of growth here. We are not discussing whether the business is going to go down, minus 10%, minus 2% or plus 1%, right? We are talking whether it's 15%, 15.5%, 16.2% around those levels, but we are growing as a company on a year-over-year basis and sequential quarter starting into Q2. So more like what Martin was saying whether it's going to be a little bit more, a little bit less, there is, of course, some impact of the volatility in the macro that is affecting our customers in terms of their decisions. But in any case, again, we are talking about whether we're going to grow faster or a little bit slower than we were anticipating.
Arturo Langa, Investor Relations Officer
Our last question comes from the line of Leonardo Olmos from UBS.
Leonardo Olmos, Analyst
So my question is basically centered on Argentina. If you could discuss a little bit the macro conditions of the country. How do you expect the developers' cost to be impacted? And what are your view for the remaining 2024?
Juan Urthiague, CFO
Yes. So things are improving in Argentina. They are getting more stable. Of course, back in December, there was a depreciation that, as we discussed in the last quarter, had an impact on our Q1 revenues. The impact was around $15 million in that quarter. We already closed around $10 million of those $15 million. So we still have about $5 million in our Q2 numbers that depending on each negotiation with our customers will be fully sold or partially sold, but we have made very, very good progress compared to where we were back in towards the end of December. Customers understood the situation. In terms of the impact on costs, in our industry in Argentina, salaries tend to be dollarized so they tend to follow the U.S. dollar. So it doesn't really change much in the situation because salary has got a very good impact back in December. Now inflation is going a little bit faster than currency devaluation. So it's offsetting part of that benefit back in December. But all in all, we are not expecting big changes on that front in Argentina.
Martín Migoya, CEO
Yes. But just complementing a little bit more color on what's going on there. For the first time, we are seeing a government that is being very responsible on spending and that is creating a pretty healthy macroeconomic environment although still inflation is high, but it's coming down very, very fast. So we have bigger expectations of the Argentinian economy to start to recover again and recover very fast. So let's see. I hope this time we are lucky.
Arturo Langa, Investor Relations Officer
So that will be it for the Q&A session of today. Thank you all for participating. And now I will ask Martin to offer some closing comments. Martin?
Martín Migoya, CEO
Thank you. Thank you very much for everyone for participating today. Thanks to everyone that is following us on the streaming. And I want to highlight the support that we received from all the shareholders. So on our last shareholders' meeting that happened last Friday, where we had a record amount of people participating and a record positive votes for all our ideas and how we're managing the company. So we're extremely happy with that. I want to say a big thanks to that. We will keep on challenging every single thing we see in front of us. We will keep on being extremely proactive with our offerings and the way we get to our customers. So we are extremely positive about the future of the company and how Globant will reinvent this industry. So thank you to all the analyst community for covering us, for supporting us, for being here today and really looking forward to keep on interacting in the future. Thank you very much.
Patricia Pomies, COO
Bye. See you.
Martín Migoya, CEO
Bye.
Diego Tartara, Global Chief Technology Officer
Bye-bye.