Earnings Call Transcript - MSTR Q4 2023

Shirish Jajodia, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasury

Hello, everyone, and good evening. I'm Shirish Jajodia, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasury at MicroStrategy. I'll be your moderator for MicroStrategy's 2023 Fourth Quarter Earnings Webinar. Before we proceed, I will read the Safe Harbor statement. Some of the information we provide during today's call regarding our future expectations, plans, and prospects may constitute forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements due to various important factors, including the risk factors discussed in our most recent 10-Q filed with the SEC. We assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of today. Also, during today's call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations showing GAAP versus non-GAAP results are available in our earnings release and presentation, which were issued today and are available on our website at microstrategy.com. I would like to welcome you all to today's webinar and let you know that we will be taking questions using the Q&A feature at the bottom of your screen. You can submit questions throughout the webinar, and Michael, Phong, or Andrew will answer questions at the end of the session. Please be sure to provide your name and your company's name when submitting your questions. Now, I will walk you through the agenda for today's call. First, Phong Le will cover the business results and the key pillars of our business strategy. Second, Andrew Kang will cover the financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2023. Then Michael Saylor will provide a strategic review and discuss recent bitcoin market updates. And lastly, we will open up to Q&A. With that, I will turn the call over to Phong Le, President and CEO of MicroStrategy.

Phong Le, President and CEO

Thank you, Shirish. Hello, everyone. I'd like to welcome all of you to today's webinar. I want to start by providing an update on the state of the company and achievements over the past year. Today, MicroStrategy is the largest corporate holder of bitcoin in the world, holding 190,000 bitcoins with a total bitcoin market value of $8.1 billion as of yesterday. In 2023, we acquired 56,650 bitcoins for a total purchase cost of $1.9 billion, at an average price of $33,580. In 2024 so far, we've acquired an additional 850 bitcoins for a total purchase cost of $37 million. Over the past year, we've seen bitcoin mature further as an institutional-grade asset class with broader regulatory recognition and institutional adoption. We remain highly committed to our Bitcoin strategy with a long-term focus. Andrew will provide further details on our bitcoin purchase activity for this quarter later. MicroStrategy is also positioned as the world's largest independent publicly traded business intelligence company. Our objective is to grow in AI and cloud-powered BI software. We have over 1,900 employees focused on our software business, devoted to achieving our vision of intelligence everywhere. The past year has marked the most transformative in our 25-year history of being a public company as we released MicroStrategy ONE, MicroStrategy AI, MicroStrategy Cloud for Azure, AWS, and now the Google Cloud platform and continue to focus on growth in both cloud and AI plus BI. In 2023, we made important progress in our shift towards our cloud offering, resulting in annual subscription services revenue of $81.2 million, an increase of 34% year-over-year. The strong growth in our subscription services revenue was driven by both existing customer migrations to the cloud and new customer wins. Our customer renewal rates continue to be among the highest we've ever experienced, and our subscription billings remain strong. Overall, we continue to see further global adoption of our cloud platform as a result of transitioning our business strategy and product offerings from an on-prem perpetual license software company to a cloud-native organization. Further, we've transformed the way we function as an organization. We’ve reorganized and invested in our go-to-market approach to help develop sales opportunities, convert more customers to our cloud offering. We’ve created a customer success function to focus on the customer experience, including onboarding, adoption, retention, migration, and upsell. This enables our sales teams to focus on selling to new customers in the cloud. We’ve revised our sales compensation plans to prioritize new business and cloud transactions. We’ve rebuilt our marketing leadership team and have invested in product marketing, field enablement, brand development, and demand generation. We have expanded our partner sales channel with strategic partnerships with Microsoft, AWS, Google, and Snowflake, harnessing thousands of eager sellers ready to deploy MicroStrategy on their platforms. I believe MicroStrategy is entering 2024 stronger than ever and will continue to provide a unique value proposition for our shareholders. With our bitcoin strategy being so significant to our overall business value, while we also continue to pursue growth in our enterprise analytics business, some may ask, what kind of a company is MicroStrategy now? It’s a fair question and a question that takes on even more significance with the approval of Spot Bitcoin ETPs in the United States. We consider MicroStrategy to be unique. We consider MicroStrategy to be the world’s first bitcoin development company. Let me explain what we mean. We are a publicly traded operating company committed to the continued development of the bitcoin network through activities in the financial markets, advocacy, and technology innovation. As an operating business, we’re able to use cash flows as well as proceeds from equity and debt financing to accumulate bitcoin, which serves as our primary treasury reserve asset. We also develop and provide industry-leading AI-powered enterprise analytics software that promotes our vision of intelligence everywhere and are also using our software development capabilities to develop bitcoin applications. We believe that the combination of our operating structure, bitcoin strategy, and focus on technology innovation provides a unique opportunity for value creation. Being an operating company, our software business remains our core revenue and cash flow generator. In addition, it also enables us to acquire bitcoin through the use of excess cash or proceeds from equity capital raises or corporate debt capital raises and to pursue software innovations that leverage the bitcoin blockchain. We’ve deployed these levers to increase our bitcoin holdings in a manner which we believe has created shareholder value. Bitcoin development includes our bitcoin acquisition strategy and bitcoin advocacy initiatives. Our software development includes BI, AI, Cloud, or Bitcoin and Lightning related software development. Let me elaborate on our 2024 software strategic focus. In 2024, we will continue our transformation focus to wane and grow in AI plus BI, while accelerating our transition to a cloud-centric operating model. Our key strategic goals are to grow cloud, innovate with AI, and increase profitability. So first, let me cover growing with cloud. MicroStrategy Cloud is a key area of our research and development efforts as we expand our platform's flexibility, scalability, and security. In December, we successfully deployed our Google Cloud platform integration, furthering our multi-cloud capabilities, providing greater optionality to our customers. This offering is microservices and container-based and uses our most recent cloud innovations. As of today, MicroStrategy can be deployed and fully hosted on Azure, AWS, and GCP. Additionally, we’ll provide the ability to automate the deployment of MicroStrategy with many of the same benefits of a public cloud, but in a private cloud later this year. This distinguishes us from other BI platforms with the flexibility and automation that enterprise customers require. We believe such investment and capability will encourage current on-premise customers to embrace the benefits of MicroStrategy Cloud, such as containerized architecture, proactive cloud management from experts, seamless backups, and single click updates. Transitioning our customer base to the technology of the future remains a key focus, and our resource deployment underscores our commitment to the cloud-first approach. As customers and prospects move to the cloud to empower their AI-driven digital transformations, we expect a decrease in product license revenues. This will in part be offset by increases in subscription services revenues in the same year and will be more than offset with higher recurring revenues in the following years. This will be most pronounced in 2024 as we expect to increase the pace of cloud adoption. Besides more healthy recurring revenues, additional benefits of moving customers and prospects to cloud include more engaged and happy customers using our latest software, resulting in higher retention rates. The second area of focus for our software business is to innovate with AI. We will continue to focus on product innovation and AI-powered BI in the cloud. In September, MicroStrategy released its most innovative product to date, MicroStrategy AI. Our innovative, first-to-market AI solution offers capabilities designed to deliver an exceptional user experience on trusted data, featuring out of the box resources that streamline adoption on our multi-cloud platform. The initial reception from customers has been positive. Our platform's AI/BI capabilities enable customers to automate their BI workflows, including building data wrangling, dashboard creation, and data exploration. This elevates the role of data throughout the organization, allowing companies to make better data-based decisions and take actions. We believe that our continued thought leadership and innovation focus at the AI plus BI intersection will serve as a growth catalyst for MicroStrategy into the future. As businesses continue to search for efficiencies to reduce costs, increase productivity, and increase revenues, AI solutions and trusted data will continue to gain prevalence as a necessity. In addition, in December, we released our standalone bot feature as an extension of our MicroStrategy AI capabilities. With the release of build your own bot, MicroStrategy has entered the adjacent bot market with the capabilities and pedigree of our BI product to address a wide range of use cases. When considering the services currently offered in the bot market, we noticed customer demand for a bot builder that addresses generative AI resource constraints, improves structured data processing, and solves for the lack of enterprise trust provided by current LLM solutions. The current landscape of bot offerings, such as domain-specific bots, LLM, customizations, and flexible build bots either lack the flexibility to address broad use cases or face limitations with structured data. MicroStrategy bots are one of the easiest to use products we’ve ever developed. Combining our structured data horsepower with our open AI integrated LLM capabilities, we’ve created an AI bot flexible enough to support any industry vertical or departmental scenario with trusted analytics. Leveraging the MicroStrategy platform's advanced capabilities in the enterprise such as security, governance, integration with third-party tools, and system auditability, we enable customers to easily deploy chatbots for broad use on trusted data. The third area of focus for our software business is to increase profitability. We will continue to optimize our internal organizational structure in 2024. This means being mindful of financial objectives when choosing investment areas, collapsing organizational layers to improve internal velocity, reducing our dependence on low margin consulting in favor of external partners, and leverage our leadership team to guide both strategy and execution to deliver increased profitability. For 2024, operating goals for our software business are to increase overall top-line revenue compared to 2023 and target non-GAAP operating income, excluding impairment losses of $70 million to $90 million. Increased profitability would further enable us to increase our bitcoin holdings. As a bitcoin development company, we're focused on generating value for our stockholders by using various capital markets and technology levers. As an operating company, we can make use of intelligent leverage. Since our adoption of our bitcoin strategy, we’ve used three primary mechanisms to acquire more bitcoin. One, cash flow from software operations. Since August 2020, we’ve invested $726 million of total cash on our balance sheet in bitcoin. Two, equity issuances. We have issued $3.1 billion in equity in a manner that we believe to be accretive to existing shareholders to acquire bitcoin. And three, debt financing. We’ve obtained $2.2 billion in corporate debt proceeds through the issuance of both senior secured notes and convertible notes that we use to purchase bitcoin. The blended cost of our debt is fixed at 1.6% annually. We believe each of these techniques and our unique positioning as the world's first bitcoin development company have enabled us to generate tremendous value for our shareholders. I'll now turn the call over to Andrew to discuss our financials for the quarter in further detail.

Andrew Kang, CFO

Thank you, Phong. And thank you all for joining. I'll first start with our software financial results. Total revenues for the fourth quarter were $124.5 million, down 6% year-over-year. For the full year, total revenues were $496.3 million, down slightly 1% year-over-year. Our fourth quarter operating results were mixed with a decline in year-over-year revenues, in part due to the ongoing revenue shift to cloud and the lingering macroeconomic headwinds impacting overall customer spend. Product license revenues were $18.4 million, which was down 33% year-over-year in Q4, and $75.4 million, down about 13% year-over-year for the full year. However, as we transition our business to the cloud, we fully anticipate lower product license revenues as we migrate both existing and new customers to the cloud. More importantly, we continue to grow subscription services revenues, which reflect the recurring revenues from our expanding cloud business. In Q4, subscription services revenues were $21.5 million, which is an increase of 23% year-over-year, and $81.2 million for the full year, an increase of 34% year-over-year. Current subscription billings, which reflect new cloud bookings, grew 33% in the fourth quarter to $41.3 million and $94.8 million for the full year, a 23% increase year-over-year, which was our 15th straight quarter of double digit growth in cloud bookings. Q4 was an important milestone for us, where for the first time in both Q4 and for the full year, our subscription services revenues were higher than our product license revenues. This was a significant achievement to show the continued progress in our transition to stronger recurring revenues in the cloud. As I mentioned before, we expect the mix of revenue will continue to shift from product license to subscription services revenues in 2024 as we focus on delivering AI-based products to our customers in the cloud. Moving to costs, total non-GAAP expenses were $148 million in the fourth quarter, 52% lower compared to the fourth quarter of 2022. Bitcoin impairment charges for the quarter were $39 million compared to $198 million in Q4 of last year. Total non-GAAP expenses excluding bitcoin impairment were $108 million in the fourth quarter, down 3% year-over-year. While we're spending more on cloud hosting costs as we grow our cloud business, we have been able to offset those increases with cost reductions in corporate overhead and while optimizing headcount, which was down 10% year-over-year. We reported a total non-GAAP operating loss in the fourth quarter of $23 million, of which the loss on the bitcoin impairment was $39 million in the quarter. For the fourth quarter, we reported GAAP net income of $89 million, which included a $150 million tax benefit, primarily due to changes in the valuation allowance on our deferred tax asset, directly related to our bitcoin holdings. And at the end of Q4, fair market value of bitcoin as of December 31st was above our aggregate cost basis, resulting in a release of the previously established valuation allowance and a corresponding non-cash tax provision benefit. Turning to our bitcoin strategy, we had an extremely successful Q4 adding more bitcoin to our holdings, acquiring 30,905 bitcoins in the quarter, the largest single quarter bitcoin holdings increase since Q4 of 2020. After the end of the quarter, we purchased an additional 850 bitcoins using $37 million of excess cash. And as of February 5th, 2024, the company held a total of 190,000 bitcoins, acquired for an aggregate cost of $5.93 billion, or $31,224 per bitcoin. Bitcoins purchased through excess cash from the software business are held at MicroStrategy, the parent entity, and are secured under our 2028 secured notes. As of yesterday, there were 16,931 bitcoins held at MicroStrategy. Bitcoins acquired through proceeds from capital markets activities after the issuance of our senior secured notes, which include equity and debt issuances, are held at MacroStrategy, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of MicroStrategy. We hold 173,069 bitcoins, representing 91% of our total bitcoin holdings, or over $7.3 billion in current market value at the MacroStrategy level, all of which are currently unrestricted and unencumbered, providing us with optionality to potentially leverage this strategic asset in the future. In Q4, we purchased a total of 30,555 bitcoins for $1.2 billion using net proceeds from our ATM program. As noted a moment ago, these bitcoins are held at MacroStrategy and remain unencumbered. In Q4, we also purchased an additional 350 bitcoins for $13.4 million using excess cash from operations, which are held at MicroStrategy. And subsequently, in January 2024, we used additional excess cash from operations to purchase an additional 850 bitcoins for $37 million, which are also held at MicroStrategy. Our commitment to our bitcoin strategy remains unchanged and unwavering, and we plan to add more bitcoin over time using our excess cash from operations, as well as proceeds from any capital markets activities. MicroStrategy is the largest corporate holder of bitcoin in the world, and we have remained committed to our bitcoin acquisition strategy with the highest conviction, with a consistent track record, long-term focus, and a strong risk-managed approach to acquiring and holding more bitcoin on our balance sheet. Turning to Slide 15, we saw bitcoin outperform the US equity markets in 2023. As of December 31, 2023, the carrying value of our bitcoin holdings is approximately $3.6 billion compared to approximately $8 billion in market value based on the bitcoin price as of the last day of the quarter. Year to date, the market value of our bitcoin holdings is approximately $8.1 billion, which is significantly above our average purchase price of approximately $31,200. In late December, FASB approved a change in accounting rules for certain digital assets, including bitcoin, to be measured using fair value accounting. We are delighted by FASB's expeditious move to create more transparent reporting, and we are encouraged by the continuing maturity of the regulatory environment surrounding bitcoin and we hope these enhanced accounting rules will serve as a positive on-ramp for other corporates to adopt bitcoin as a treasury reserve. The new accounting rule requires companies holding digital assets, including bitcoin, to adopt fair value accounting treatment by Q1 of 2025. And while we have not yet elected to early adopt the new accounting standard, which was only just finalized late in the fourth quarter, we continue to evaluate the timing along with accounting and tax impacts of adoption. If we elect to adopt the new accounting standard in 2024, we estimate that our 2024 beginning bitcoin holdings value would be marked up to a fair value of approximately $8 billion as of January 1st, 2024. As Phong mentioned earlier, we have effectively used excess cash flows to grow our bitcoin holdings. At the inception of our bitcoin balance sheet strategy in 2020, we allocated a substantial portion of our cash reserves generated over many previous years into bitcoin, acquiring over 43,000 Bitcoin for $595 million. Beyond that initial acquisition, we have continued to acquire an average of $40 million of bitcoin each year with excess cash on our balance sheet, totaling approximately 3,500 bitcoins since 2022. Our ability to leverage cash from operations enables us to increase our bitcoin holdings in a manner that we believe is accretive to our shareholders. And in total, we have issued approximately $726 million of excess cash to acquire more bitcoin, accounting for approximately 48,000 bitcoin added to our balance sheet, or about 25% of our total bitcoin holdings. Now turning to our capital markets activities, also since the inception of our bitcoin strategy, we have raised $2.2 billion of debt through senior secured notes and convertible notes with an attractive blended interest rate of approximately 1.6%, with the earliest maturity not until 2025. Leverage remains a key component of our active capital management strategy, which when intelligently deployed enables us to accrete more bitcoin on our balance sheet at an attractive cost. We will continue to actively monitor the capital markets, evaluating liability management opportunities to manage our debt maturities as well as opportunities to raise additional debt in the future. In addition to raising debt, we have demonstrated a solid track record of issuing permanent equity capital in a manner that we believe has been accretive to our shareholders. Since the third quarter of 2021, we have raised a total of $3.1 billion in proceeds through our at-the-market or ATM programs, with the average price of approximately $457 per share across total equity raised. In Q4 of last year, we accelerated the execution of our current ATM program and raised $1.2 billion in aggregate net proceeds. And in Q4 alone, we issued approximately 2.27 million shares of Class A common stock, with approximately $138 million of capacity remaining under our current program. As we have done in the past, we will continue to carefully evaluate the most accretive use of proceeds from the sale of equity to be incremental value for our shareholders. The primary use of proceeds from the sale of equity to date has been to acquire additional bitcoin. But we also use proceeds of our ATM program to prepay the $250 million bitcoin back loan in Q1 of 2023, which generated a $45 million gain on extinguishment. Our capital allocation strategy continues to be focused on increasing the value generated from our balance sheet through the addition of more bitcoin while managing our debt very carefully. Also, at the end of the fourth quarter, we had $46.8 million in cash on our balance sheet, which is sufficient overall liquidity to manage our ongoing operating needs. 2023 was an extremely successful year for us where we generated approximately $5.8 billion of incremental value from both the increase in the price of bitcoin of our existing holdings, as well as through our strategic use of equity capital markets activities. We began the year with 132,500 bitcoins on our balance sheet with a market value of approximately $2.2 billion. As bitcoin prices increased from approximately $16,500 to approximately $42,500 by the end of the year, it resulted in an increase of over $3.4 billion in value based on our bitcoin holdings at the start of the year. In addition to the price appreciation of bitcoin we held as of the beginning of the year, MicroStrategy's issuance additional equity and use of excess cash from operations to purchase even more bitcoin in 2023 led to an increase of an additional $1.9 billion in value of our bitcoin holdings. In total, we added an additional 56,650 bitcoins to our balance sheet at an average price of $33,580, which generated an approximately $500 million of value from the increase in the price of bitcoin after those purchases were made. Again, overall, 2023 was a tremendously successful year, and taking into account our purchases and appreciation of our holdings, we increased the value of our bitcoin holdings by 267% to $8 billion over the course of the year. While the overall market benefited from the increase in Bitcoin prices, we believe our intelligent use of leverage and excess cash to acquire more bitcoin, as well as our equity capital market strategy contributed $2.4 billion of incremental value for our balance sheet, demonstrating our track record of generating value for our shareholders.

Michael Saylor, Executive Chairman

Thank you, Andrew. I'm Michael Saylor, the Executive Chairman of MicroStrategy. I want to start by discussing some performance metrics. Since we implemented our bitcoin strategy around August 10th or 11th, our stock has outperformed bitcoin, as well as every major asset class and big tech and enterprise software stock. We’re proud of this achievement, and for those who have followed us, this has been a consistent effort every quarter. I believe this chart effectively illustrates key aspects of our strategy and business outlook. Regarding bitcoin, 2024 marks its emergence as an institutional-grade asset class. Bitcoin is increasingly recognized as a new asset class and is the first such asset of the modern era. Unlike the transition of gold to ETFs or commodities, which were not new assets, bitcoin stands out as a fundamentally new concept. It represents the first institutional-grade digital asset. Over its first 15 years, bitcoin navigated an unregulated and often misunderstood retail landscape. I anticipate that the next 15 years will see it evolve into a regulated, high-growth institutional asset, contrasting greatly with the previous period. Bitcoin is thriving for several reasons, one being its role in the digital transformation of capital. If we examine other top performers like Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Apple, they all embody digital transitions across various fields, including corporate processes at Microsoft. Bitcoin’s profound idea lies in converting analog forms of capital—like land or physical shares—into a digital asset designed to overcome the limitations of analog assets. Imagine having the advantages of gold without any of its drawbacks. Increasingly, investors are recognizing this transformation, which is why bitcoin has increased by 260% since we adopted our strategy and is outperforming the S&P, NASDAQ, gold, silver, and bonds. It’s important to understand that bitcoin is not a company; it is an asset class, and based on this commodity, it has led to the development of a multitude of companies, products, and services. The performance of bitcoin is bolstered not just by its foundational characteristics but also by a growing industry of bitcoin miners, custodians, and exchanges. Numerous public companies now focus on bitcoin mining, and many firms are entering the custody space, including Anchorage, Bitco, Fidelity, and Coinbase, while exchanges like Block and Gemini are proliferating. There’s been significant growth in bitcoin wallets and devices, as well as new bitcoin ETPs, Spot ETPs, and derivatives that are now emerging globally, catering to diverse compliance needs. This expanding interest highlights how various entities are actively contributing to the scalability of the bitcoin network. MicroStrategy is currently the first company to focus on bitcoin development, and we aim to set an example for others. We expect more entrepreneurs to enter this field as awareness of bitcoin as a global commodity grows. Initially, many perceived bitcoin merely as currency, which led to misunderstandings and criticisms that are now declining with the advent of new ETPs. Awareness is shifting to bitcoin as a store of value, akin to digital gold or property. Currently, tech investors might compare bitcoin to major tech companies such as those in the Magnificent 7, like Microsoft and Google. However, as the market cap of a tech company increases, the workload required to sustain that growth also rises. Traditional finance techniques focus on returning cash flows or buying back stock, which requires continuous effort to maintain growth. Conversely, bitcoin represents an asset-rich strategy. As inflation rises to manage debt, generating cash flows becomes more complicated for traditional companies, while bitcoin's appeal will likely increase as its liquidity and holder network expand. We believe bitcoin may eventually draw technology investors, especially as it solidifies its position as an asset for the long-term. The introduction of ETFs represents a transformative moment; if bitcoin is viewed strictly as a medium of exchange, it faces many challenges. But as we recognize that most wealth is stored as value rather than just circulating currency, bitcoin's narrative is shifting. As it is viewed more as digital gold or property, past criticisms lose relevance. Bitcoin could potentially appreciate significantly in value as a store of value, supported by the ETPs making it more accessible for investors without the barriers of the past, like setting up crypto accounts or selecting custodians. This is a thrilling time for us. Next, let’s discuss MicroStrategy’s strategy to support the bitcoin network and benefit our shareholders. We consider ourselves a bitcoin development company, meaning we are committed to expanding the bitcoin network, acquiring more bitcoin, and doing so in a way that adds value for our shareholders. We have unique advantages, including active control over our capital structure, enabling us to operate in ways that other entities can’t. We will continue to develop software, both for business intelligence and bitcoin network improvements. We remain enthusiastic about creating applications using the bitcoin network. Additionally, we can generate cash from operations and have reinvested substantial funds into the bitcoin network. We expect to continue this pattern, as it is beneficial for our shareholders. Furthermore, we have successfully leveraged capital markets to acquire bitcoin through various means, including secured and convertible debt and equity issuance. We will evaluate all available options moving forward, ensuring they align with the interests of our shareholders. We're mindful about the level of leverage we undertake, aiming for a balance that supports our shareholders without introducing excessive risk. This thoughtful approach will guide us as we navigate the evolving bitcoin market and capital markets. We are well-positioned to seize opportunities in this upcoming era of institutional bitcoin adoption, which promises significant growth and potential for companies like ours as awareness and regulatory clarity continue to increase globally.

Shirish Jajodia, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasury

Thank you, Michael. We’re going to jump into the questions. And the first question is for Phong. Phong, if you can elaborate on the company's new positioning as the bitcoin development company? And does this mean any different allocation of R&D? And will you be allocating more R&D into Lightning and Layer 2 applications? If you can elaborate a little more on that.

Phong Le, President and CEO

Thanks, Shirish, and thanks for the question. I think our press release and our prepared remarks, and Mike actually did a really nice job of explaining our positioning as a bitcoin development company. We thought long and hard about the positioning and the right words to describe our unique value proposition. I suggest everyone take a quick look or a long look at that. On the R&D piece, we will invest more in R&D into bitcoin software development. It will not be at the expense of our business intelligence and AI and cloud-based software development. Some of the things that we’ve been doing, you’ve seen at our Bitcoin and Lightning for Corporations MicroStrategy World event last year, where we implemented a Lightning Rewards program on the Layer 2 network. We’re also looking at some things that will leverage the native bitcoin blockchain technology, some security applications that we’ll reveal at our next MicroStrategy World Conference. So we’re excited about bitcoin overall, but very excited about some of the software development capabilities that we’ll be able to create coming out of it.

Shirish Jajodia, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasury

Great. The next question is for Andrew. You talked about excess cash and leverage, highlighting the value proposition for MicroStrategy. How do you plan to acquire more Bitcoin in 2024?

Andrew Kang, CFO

Thanks for the question. I think Michael summed it up really well in the last few minutes of his remarks. I believe we have all options available to us, which includes excess cash, but also all the different forms of capital that we could issue through debt and equity markets. I think as we've done in the past, those are the levers that we'll use to acquire more bitcoin. I think 2024 will offer some opportunities for us to do so. I think as our market value increases with the increasing price of bitcoin, I think there will be additional opportunities to access the capital markets. And similar to what we've always said, we will look to assess which is the most accretive. We've issued debt in certain markets, we've issued equity in different types of markets. I think we've demonstrated the track record of our ability to think through those complex ideas. And so as Michael alluded to, I think we have all of those options available to us to acquire more bitcoin in 2024.

Shirish Jajodia, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasury

Thank you. The next question is for Phong, regarding cloud. So can you please elaborate on the progress of converting software clients to cloud from license? And how is the timing of transition looking overall?

Phong Le, President and CEO

Yes, 2023 is a pretty pivotal year for us. One, our subscription services revenue has now surpassed our product license revenue. And two, our subscription services revenue has surpassed our other services revenue. And so that was a pretty big transition. It's now the second biggest revenue line item behind product support, which represents the maintenance that on-prem customers pay us. Another data point I'll give you is, we are near or exceeding the $100 million of ARR in the cloud, which is a pretty major milestone for any software company and a very major milestone for us as we're transitioning from on-prem to the cloud. That said, we still have less than 25% of our recurring revenue in the cloud. So there’s still a pretty major opportunity, and there are greater than 75% of on-prem revenue that we need to move. I think 2024 is going to be an acceleration year in terms of moving existing customers to the cloud and getting more new customers to move to the cloud. Reasons for that I talked about, one is our partnerships with our hyperscalers including Microsoft, Azure, Amazon, AWS, and Google, GCP. Another reason is the maturity of our technology offering, container-based, microservices-based, and the fact that we’re going to roll out a private cloud offering this year. So a lot of progress, but more opportunity to move to the cloud. And I would say 2024 will be probably the most important year for our transition we’ve seen in the history of the company in terms of moving to the cloud. And we have the entire organization aligned behind it and our customers ready to roll.

Shirish Jajodia, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasury

Thank you. The next question is also for Phong. How is the initial reception of the AI product, and what do you think this will contribute to product mix or profit margins?

Phong Le, President and CEO

I think it's like a lot of AI products that are actually in the market. First, I'll remind everyone, we went GA with our AI plus BI product in September. So essentially four months ago, end of September, four months ago. And we were the first in the BI space to have done so. And we have a lot of customers who are starting to kick the tires, play around with it, getting excited about it. And what we’re really doing is trying to understand what are the production use cases that are going to drive further growth in AI plus BI. The exciting side effect, if you will, is because our AI product is build cloud-native and therefore only available in the cloud is accelerating our cloud migration even further. So while the revenue impact of AI directly may not be extremely significant in 2024, it could be, but we’re not positive yet. What will be significant is how it’s driving our customers to migrate to the cloud. And back to the previous question, that'll show up in our revenues and our transition to subscription services revenue and our increase in cloud ARR. And we're seeing that happen already. We're seeing CIOs, CEOs, COOs saying this gives us a real important reason to want to move MicroStrategy in all of our workloads to the cloud.

Shirish Jajodia, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasury

Thanks, Tom. The next question is for Andrew, regarding the debt maturity. So how do you plan to address your upcoming 2025 convert maturity? And what are the different ways the company can pursue?

Andrew Kang, CFO

Thanks, Shirish. I guess first to note, we still have a good amount of time before that maturity arises in December 2025. We've always managed our maturities from a timing perspective that gives us ample time to figure out these types of questions. But that being said, I think we are getting closer and we're continually evaluating the market opportunities in regards to 2025s. We could of course equitize at the conversion price, that's clearly one option. I think other options out there exist and potentially being able to refinance those converts, which could allow us to even stand out maturities further. Of course, all that would be based on market conditions. But the point is, I think we're evaluating everything. And I think it's something that we’ll keep very close consideration in the coming months.

Shirish Jajodia, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasury

Thanks, Andrew. I’ll ask one last question for Michael here, given that we are coming to the end of the time. How important is the SEC acceptance of Spot Bitcoin ETPs in terms of eventual mainstreaming of Bitcoin as a legitimate form of money?

Michael Saylor, Executive Chairman

I believe this is extremely important. The approval of the Spot ETPs signifies a pivotal moment in bitcoin's journey, transitioning from an era of unregulated offshore crypto adoption to one of regulated, onshore institutional investment by mainstream investors. These ETPs have already proven to be a remarkable success since their launch, capturing significant attention within the ETF space. They've quickly climbed the ranks to become among the top commodity ETFs globally. It’s evident that bitcoin is now positioned to overtake gold in terms of monetary value, and it’s become easy for individuals to move from gold ETFs to bitcoin ETFs with just a quick phone call. We’re seeing an increase in discussions comparing bitcoin to gold, and the frequency of bitcoin-related conversations with financial advisors is also rising dramatically. This trend has accelerated the acceptance and integration of bitcoin into the traditional finance sector. Consequently, bitcoin is likely to become a favored commodity investment, especially as traditional assets like gold and oil have not seen significant success recently. Initially, bitcoin will dominate the commodity sector, but it will soon permeate the broader traditional finance landscape in the US, entering discussions within politics, banking, and media. It is becoming more prominent in educational institutions and technology firms. Overall, this represents a significant turning point for bitcoin in the US, leading to global recognition and heightened interest. We are already witnessing increased attention on bitcoin internationally, with many countries looking to US regulatory examples. While discussions around bitcoin Spot ETFs are emerging in places like Hong Kong, I anticipate that the resistance to similar products in regions such as South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia will significantly lessen following the SEC's approval. The profile of bitcoin investors has shifted from five distinct groups, including deniers and skeptics, to a landscape where those who doubted its legitimacy are losing credibility. The skeptics, who once viewed it as a threat to be banned, are now recognizing it as an asset rather than a currency substitute, which is a crucial realization. If major institutions are willing to offer bitcoin products, it’s clear that it isn’t going away. As a result, the entire investment community is increasingly aligning towards being traders, investors, or maximalists, which is very encouraging for Bitcoin as an asset class. Awareness and support for bitcoin are growing globally, and individuals in banks and financial institutions are now more open to exploring bitcoin, something that would have been difficult just a few years ago. There is even political momentum to reconsider regulations that hinder banks from engaging with bitcoin. The launch of the ETP is a key milestone in the ongoing expansion of the bitcoin network, triggering a series of developments that will encourage institutions to invest more resources into bitcoin. Although we are still in the early stages, I believe we will witness a multitude of positive advancements that will bring bitcoin to a wider array of investors, organizations, and countries, ultimately enhancing its utility worldwide.

Shirish Jajodia, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasury

Great. Thank you so much, Michael. We received so many great questions that we couldn't answer, but we would like to thank everyone for attending and asking the questions. We will try to cover these in our future remarks. But this concludes the Q&A portion of the webinar. I will now turn the call over to Phong for closing remarks.

Phong Le, President and CEO

I want to thank everyone for being with us today, for your continued support of MicroStrategy. Before we wrap up, I'm pleased to share that our next in-person MicroStrategy World Conference will be held from April 29th to May 2nd in Las Vegas, Nevada. There will be a Business Intelligence track and a Bitcoin for Corporations track, and you can expect that we'll further expand on a lot of the discussion we had today at that MicroStrategy World event, and it's a great way for you to interact with us live and in-person. Registrations are open, and additional details can be found on our event website page, microstrategy.com/world24. We're excited and looking forward to seeing customers, prospects, and shareholders at this one-of-a-kind event. We're as enthusiastic as ever with both our enterprise software strategy, as well as our bitcoin strategy. We wish you a good quarter and look forward to seeing you again, if not at MicroStrategy World, again in 12 weeks. Thank you all.