Welcome to the Radware Conference Call discussing First Quarter 2024 results, and thank you all for holding. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, May 8, 2024. I would now like to turn the call over to Yisca Erez, Director, Investor Relations at Radware. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Radware's First Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me today are Roy Zisapel, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Guy Avidan, Chief Financial Officer. A copy of today's press release and the financial statements as well as the investor kit for the first quarter are available in the Investor Relations section of our website. During today's call, we may make projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of the company. These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, and actual results could differ materially from Radware's current forecast and estimates. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, impact from the changing or severe global economic conditions, the COVID-19 pandemic, general business conditions and our ability to address changes in our industry, changes in demand for products, the timing and the amount of orders and other risks detailed from time to time in Radware's filings. We refer you to the documents the company files and furnishes from time to time with the SEC, specifically the company's last annual report on Form 20-F as filed on March 25, 2024. We undertake no commitment to revise or update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances after the date of such statement is made. I will now turn the call to Roy Zisapel.

Thank you, Yisca, and thank you all for joining us today. We ended the first quarter of 2024 with revenues of $65 million and non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.16; both above the high end of our guidance. We diligently managed expenses and improved our profitability. Similar to the previous quarter, we witnessed a favorable business environment marked by an uptick in large CapEx deals, more customer engagement, and a healthier pipeline. In the first quarter, total adjusted ARR increased 8% year-over-year, driven by growth in our cloud and subscription business. Subscription revenues now account for 46% of total revenue compared to 41% in the first quarter of last year, demonstrating our ongoing shift to a SaaS model. Our cloud security business sustained robust growth with cloud ARR growing again 22% year-over-year. This performance is underscored by a record number of new bookings and new logos. The momentum behind our cloud security business is driven by four key growth drivers that we believe are sustainable. First, our product offering consistently draws security-conscious customers. Our cloud security offering leads with a large battery of AI-powered security algorithms designed to detect and block attacks without disrupting legitimate traffic flows. Customers highly value these unique capabilities, driving numerous new logos and expansion deals. Second, the ongoing expansion of our cloud security offering creates additional growth and upsell opportunities. During the first quarter, we announced the expansion of our cloud application and network security services to include a new load balancer as a service and enhanced cloud network analytics services. These services assist organizations in optimizing application performance, ensuring availability, and maximizing network monitoring and visibility. Third, the steady expansion of our geographical footprint creates new customer acquisition opportunities. During the first quarter, we expanded our global cloud service network and launched a new DDoS scrubbing center in Paris. We plan to introduce additional locations later in the year. Fourth, a pivotal factor is the surge in application and network attacks, in particular, layer 7 web DDoS attacks, fueling customer demand for enhanced protection. This new wave of web DDoS attacks has been motivated by major geopolitical conflicts and activist activities. A trend set during the Russian invasion of Ukraine has led to an increased frequency and sophistication of web DDoS attacks. These attacks emerged last year and intensified in the previous quarter with expectations for further escalation in frequency, complexity and sophistication throughout 2024. The growing demand for advanced real-time protection is evident in the success of our DefensePro X solution, which provides protection against web DDoS and advanced DNS attacks. DefensePro X has performed very well and been highly competitive. The AI-powered offering is unmatched in its ability to automatically detect and surgically block web DDoS attacks. This result in improved security and faster time to resolution, crucial for maintaining customer business continuity. The strength of this value proposition is evident in some of our first quarter wins. For example, we signed two major seven-digit DefensePro X deals: one with a Tier 1 carrier in North America that upgraded their DDoS protection. The other win was with a major European financial institution that experienced a large layer 7 attack. The latter also replaced their incumbent cloud DDoS provider with our hybrid cloud DDoS solution for complete protection. Our partnership with Cisco and Check Point was another contributor to our performance in the first quarter. We kicked off 2024 with record fiscal bookings following a record year in 2023, while Check Point also demonstrated a strong start for the year. To protect our customers, we're constantly innovating our offerings. With AI at the fingertips of attackers, threats are becoming not only increasingly complex and adaptive, but also with reduced time to attack. In response, we're taking a fight AI with AI approach to security. A good example of our fight AI with AI strategy is the enhancements we introduced to our bot manager. The newest addition of our bot manager is designed to automatically mitigate a new generation of aggressive AI-driven inhuman-like bots without blocking legitimate users. For our customers, this means better end-user experience and a reduction in costly business impacts like customer churn and lost revenues. Another example is the AI-powered rule-free DNS DDoS protection solution. Using our patented algorithms, it automatically distinguishes between legitimate and attack traffic and instantly adapts DDoS defenses based on the specific attack. According to our recent threat intelligence report, DNS Flood attacks increased nearly 400% between 2022 and 2023. And these new algorithms will significantly shorten time to resolution when countering even the most sophisticated DNS attacks. Our offerings continued to receive recognition by industry analysts. In the Quadrant 2024 SparkMetrics reports for DDoS mitigation, Radware was named the leader for the fourth consecutive year. Radware was also named as a leader in product innovation and market leadership in KuppingerCole's Leadership Compass report for web application firewalls. In GigaOm 2024 report for application and API security, Radware earned recognition as a fast mover and leader. In addition, we were the only vendor to earn GigaOm's top scores for AI-enhanced vulnerability detection and key bot management features. In one quarter, we were recognized as a leader in DDoS, in web application firewall and in API security. This is further evidence for our best-of-suite approach. We provide customers with an integrated suite to protect applications and data center attacks, while our capabilities in each of the core pillars of DDoS, WAF, API and bot security lead the market when evaluated as standalone capabilities. Our customers receive best-of-breed security alongside a fully integrated fleet, hence best of suite. In summary, we began 2024 with a solid performance. We delivered sustained growth in cloud ARR, improved profitability, expanded market presence and leveraged momentum with our OEMs. These results were supported by improvements in the business environment, rebounding customer spending, and heightened cyber-attacks. We believe Radware has the right offering to meet the market demand for best-in-class security and faster response and recovery times, and we intend to capitalize on that for ongoing growth and increased profitability. With that, I will turn the call over to Guy.

Thank you, Roy, and good day, everyone. I'm pleased to provide the analysis of our financial results and business performance for the first quarter of 2024 as well as our outlook for the second quarter of 2024. Before beginning the financial overview, I would like to remind you that unless otherwise indicated, all financial results are non-GAAP. A full reconciliation of our results on a GAAP and non-GAAP basis is available in the earnings press release issued earlier today and on the Investors section of our website. Revenue for the first quarter of 2024 was $65.1 million compared to $69 million in the same period of last year. Revenue was driven by cloud and subscription growth, offset by product decline. As Roy highlighted, we are encouraged by the recovery signs we see in customer demand and engagement even though customer spending is not completely back on track. The cloud security business continued to demonstrate strength with 22% year-over-year growth in cloud ARR, similar to last year and reached $67 million in the first quarter of 2024. Cloud ARR now accounts for 32% of total ARR compared to 27% in Q1 2023. On a regional breakdown, revenue in the Americas in the first quarter of 2024 was $27.1 million; similar to the same period last year and accounted for 42% of total revenue. On a 12-month basis, Americas revenue decreased 15% year-over-year. EMEA revenue in the first quarter of 2024 decreased 24% year-over-year to $22.7 million and accounted for 35% of total revenue. The decrease is mainly attributed to a large deal recognized in Q1 2023. On a 12-month basis, EMEA revenue decreased 15% year-over-year. APAC revenue in the first quarter of 2024 was $15.3 million, which represents an increase of 25% year-over-year and accounted for 23% of total revenue. On a 12-month basis, APAC revenue increased 5% year-over-year. I'll now discuss profits and expenses. Gross margin in Q1 2024 was 82% compared to 82.3% in the same period in 2023. Operating expenses decreased 6% year-over-year and totaled $49 million, which is at the lower end of our guidance. Operating income reached $4.3 million compared to $4.4 million in the same period last year. And with this level of OpEx, we believe that the company is positioned for better profitability in the coming quarters. As we highlighted a couple of quarters ago, we are committed to driving efficiencies and keeping our cost structure aligned with the level of the company's operations. We are confident in our ability to continue to improve our profitability and adjust expenses as necessary. Radware's adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was $6.2 million or $8.9 million, excluding The Hawk's business compared to $6.5 million or $9.2 million excluding The Hawk's business in the same period of last year. Financial income was $3.8 million in the first quarter. This level of financial income is expected to continue throughout 2024. The tax rate for the first quarter of 2024 was 15.3% compared to 14.8% in the same period of last year. We expect the tax rate to remain approximately the same next quarter. Net income in the first quarter was $6.8 million as compared to $6.1 million in the same period last year. Diluted earnings per share for Q1 2024 was $0.16 compared to $0.14 in Q1 2023. Turning to the cash flow statement and the balance sheet. Cash flow from operations in Q1 2024 was $21.1 million compared to a negative cash flow from operation of $1.2 million in the same period of last year. The improvement in cash flow from operations is derived from strong billing performance in the first quarter of 2024 and in Q4 2023 and higher net income. During the first quarter, we repurchased shares in the amount of approximately $840,000. As of March 31, 2024, approximately $66 million remain in our share repurchase plan. We ended the first quarter with approximately $383 million in cash, cash equivalents, bank deposits and marketable securities. I'll conclude my remarks with guidance. We expect total revenue for the second quarter of 2024 to be in the range of $65 million to $67 million. We expect Q2 2024 non-GAAP operating expenses to be between $49 million to $50 million. We expect Q2 2024 non-GAAP diluted net earnings per share to be between $0.15 and $0.17, representing an increase of approximately 60% year-over-year at the midpoint guidance. I'll now return the call over to the operator for questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. And your first question comes from the line of Alex Henderson of Needham.

Could you please discuss the pipeline and what the book-to-bill ratio looks like for the quarter, particularly in relation to the encouraging trajectory you mentioned? Is this reflected in the pipeline and the book-to-bill numbers for the quarter?

Alex. So definitely, as Guy mentioned and I mentioned in our remarks, we do see better customer activity, better market conditions. We want to be conservative. We say it's not yet back to previous levels, but there's definitely an improvement, improvement in the tempo of the customers. We see deals that were parking in the pipe for a long time starting to move. So overall, we are encouraged by the booking, by the pipeline. And hence, we are more optimistic for 2024.

If you could go into some of the deal mechanics, did the close rates improve? Did the duration of contracts improve, deal size improve deal process time, it sounds like that has improved? Just clicking off key mechanics.

Yes. I think in 2023, we saw the large customer stalling, meaning the pipeline was there, but the deals were not advancing, not at the tempo we used to see. Starting in Q4, we already discussed that in our last conference call, we started the first signs of those opening up. It continued in Q1, and we have also expectations for the coming quarter. With that, we're seeing the attacks forcing many customers to take faster and broader decisions on their application security strategy. Here, we are very well positioned with our cloud application security with the unique capabilities in web DDoS, in the broad application protection. And in this market, we are seeing very fast cycles. So it's a combination of the large deals, I would say, more architecture CapEx deployment starting to move with continued strong growth in the cloud application security business.

Okay. And is closure rates on deals improved as well? So it sounds like deal size has improved and deal process times improved? What about closure rates and duration of the deal durations?

I think duration is shortened and I don't think closure rates have changed. As I said, last year, it was mainly the stall, so you did not lose nor win the deal. It did not impact the rates. But now we are seeing faster deal cycles.

Could you talk a little bit about your traditional business? And to what extent you can bring down the inventory? What's going on in the traditional ADC market and what's going on in terms of your ability to bring the inventory down as a result of supply chain improvements?

Yes.

Yes. So I'll answer the inventory question. We came to a peak level at the end of 2023, reduced it a little bit in the first quarter of 2024, and we expect to continue to reduce inventory level. We talked about it last quarter, pushing DefensePro X and new versions for ADC put us in the place of a transition in terms of end of support, end of sale in the future. So we got extra inventory just to be on the safe side, but levels will go down throughout 2024.

Will it go down towards the $10 million level by the end of the year, do you think? So net improvement of $5.5 million.

Closer to 12%.

Okay, that's great. Did you mention that you are phasing out a part of your product line?

Yes. It's a common thing that when we refresh the platforms and we bring new generation of platforms, then the older line...

The older line. It's a new platform replacing the older line. That is very much typically you were saying. And any comment on the Cisco or other partners?

Yes. So as I said in my remarks, we had a record booking with revenues with Cisco in Q1. It's following a record year in 2023. Also, Check Point is in a very strong level of performance currently. So all in all, we continue to enhance those relationships. We're putting more and more offerings on the Cisco enterprise agreements. We broadened also the Check Point agreement to the new line of DefensePro X. So we are seeing good uptake by our OEM partners of the new offerings and overall better cooperation in the market. So both those relationships at this level are at a high level of execution.

Great. I'll see the floor and get back in queue.

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Reimer of Barclays.

Congratulations on the strong results. Could you elaborate on your comments about fighting AI with AI? I'd like to understand how AI is transforming the landscape and how products need to adapt in response.

Thank you. There are several points to consider. First, AI enables hackers to automate and expand their attacks much more rapidly. Second, it allows them to adapt their attacks on the fly, meaning we are witnessing attacks that begin in one form and then evolve within minutes. If we improve our defense in that time frame, the nature of the attack changes, which necessitates adjustments in our defensive measures. This creates challenges for traditional methods that rely on human intervention and static rules, as the attacks are constantly evolving. Therefore, to effectively counter these threats, our strategies must also become more algorithmic, adaptive, and automated. The third aspect is what we call the time to attack. In the past, when there was a vulnerability, you need experts to take that vulnerability that was discovered and write code, right programs that would take advantage of that vulnerability and create the attack. With GenAI, that time and that expertise is becoming a nonissue. The time is shortened considerably, and you don't need to be an expert to do that. This is what we call time to attack. The time to attack is now going from months or days to minutes, which means again on the defense side, we need to be way more adaptive, way ahead of the game. In order to do that, we continue to enhance our algorithms. And I've given several examples of what we've done in Q1. There's another set of algorithms going in Q2. This has been the core of our solutions indeed of WAF API over the years. This is why we are getting all those leadership statements by analysts, but it's becoming now our life or die, security solutions. And we believe we are very well positioned here. I mentioned the web DDoS attacks. Those are an excellent example of how the attacks are morphing very quickly to the extent of every 5, 10 minutes. It's an excellent example of the scale that hackers are able to attack mission-critical applications. And we are very strong in our ability with a completely automated algorithm set to mitigate those attacks within seconds with no human intervention and with no impact to our customer mission-critical applications. If you look at many of our cloud app security wins in Q4, in Q1, especially as we move from competitors, whether it was an on-prem deployment of an ADC and WAF or a different cloud security offering, those moves from them to us. This was a very, very strong contributor to that. So going forward, we believe those trends will actually accelerate. And as a result, on the different side, we are ramping up our investments in AI, in bringing those algorithms to be part of our cloud application, security, and data solutions, and we believe that will translate to meaningful benefits for our customers.

Got it. Great. That's really great color. Just also, if you could touch a little bit about on the different characteristics you're seeing in some of the geographies, the Americas and EMEA. I know you also gave a number of about a 12-month growth number. If you could just talk about what you're seeing for customers in the different geographies?

2023 was a challenging year for us in the Americas and to some degree in EMEA, but we are starting to see signs of recovery. Currently, we anticipate growth in both the Americas and EMEA for 2024, which makes us feel more optimistic about the business. There is significant potential ahead, and we are truly at the early stages of this cycle. We are definitely observing improvements in those two markets.

Great. Thanks. That's it for me.

Your next question comes from the line of George Notter of Jefferies.

I was just interested in your additional investments in scrubbing centers. I think you mentioned a Paris facility going in. I think it's been a while since you guys have added scrubbing centers. I'm just curious about what you're seeing in the marketplace that's pushing you to make the additional investment? And what do you see going forward in terms of new scrubbing centers that you turn up?

Thank you, George. We are observing an expansion into new regions as our customers, particularly in banking and government, require local facilities for processing traffic. This need arises more from localization and compliance rather than just global capacity and attack mitigation. Currently, we operate from a network of 40 different locations. However, we are identifying new opportunities, such as our recent openings in New Zealand and Taiwan. With our expanding Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) operations, there is a demand for additional data centers, and we plan to open more locations worldwide throughout 2024. This expansion is a key factor driving the growth we are experiencing in our cloud security services, and we intend to capitalize on it.

Got it. I'm sorry. And the MSSP is your traditional security point of presence, correct?

It's the MSSP is the managed security service providers around the world that want to enhance their offering into DDoS and application security. Now in the past, they were buying equipment from us or from our competitors and trying to stand up such a service. We're seeing more and more around the world, and I refer to our announcement about Spark in New Zealand, for example, or Viettel in Vietnam; they want to utilize today our cloud solutions because it brings them a global network, a state-of-the-art solution with portal, analytics, AI algorithms in the back end, and it really allows them to capture more market share. As we do that with them, there are certain markets, for example, Vietnam or New Zealand that we are opening additional centers to serve those local partners for us. It's a great business opportunity as we are enjoying their power to the market, and we've seen good outcomes with that. We're planning to continue.

Got it. Okay. That's very helpful. And then just a broader question. What are you seeing competitively in the marketplace, folks like Akamai or Cloudflare or F5, what's the picture?

Yes. So in our cloud security, it's really competing with Akamai and Cloudflare. And we feel very good about our competitive positioning as it relates to the products. You see all the feedback from the analysts, very strong large customer activity. But we also see the opportunity. The opportunity is very large. I think we are a very strong alternative, especially for the security-conscious buyers, those that put security on top. That's where we are excelling, and the market opportunity is huge, and we actually like our competitive position there. In the more traditional business of ADC, on-prem appliances, definitely, we continue to see F5 in the landscape. I would not say there are much changes to the competitive landscape there. Again, in DDoS, with DefensePro X, we believe we have the best mitigator in the market. And as we said in Q4 and now in Q1, we started to see the large customers doing those refreshes towards the DefensePro X, and we are quite satisfied with the level of activity. That's one of the reasons for beyond the cloud security for our optimism of 2024.

We have a follow-up question from the line of Alex Henderson of Needham.

AI is receiving significant attention, and it appears that enterprises are increasing their spending on it. However, there seems to be some hesitation in their decision-making process due to concerns around security and the implementation of AI. Last year, many were worried about the economy, but now there seems to be a substantial budget allocated for AI. Despite this, organizations are uncertain about effectively deploying and securing their AI solutions. Are you noticing this trend? When do you expect it to change? Could this lead to a stronger second half of the year, and how do AI applications influence your offerings?

Yes. So thanks, Alex. So I think there's some discussions about it, but it's very early on. The large enterprises are just starting the journey. And obviously, AI applications will need security, especially given all the models and teaching the models and ensuring the data is correct and right and the criticality of the data and information, but it's very early on. I don't see that yet as a driver behind our cloud application security growth. Having said that, once they are deploying that, we have a very strong platform, end-to-end that encompasses DDoS, web application firewall, API security, which is going to be very important with AI applications, bot security, which again, is going to be very important with AI applications. And that platform is getting stronger and stronger. So whether it's a mission-critical application or it's going to be an AI backed application, I think we are very well positioned. I don't think that wave has started. And also, in our analysis and forecast for 2024, we are not building or counting on that to start. We think what we have with the current attack landscape, the customer need for better application security, our offering can drive sustained growth in that area.

Over the last two to three years, you have signed numerous partnerships globally on a regional scale. It seems that some of those may have stalled due to macroeconomic conditions and supply chain issues. Are all those partnerships now recovering? Are we finally seeing some progress and positive signs?

Yes. So like you said, some have stalled, and I would not say they are contributing, but some are definitely increasing the contribution and increasing their participation. We do see some of those partners scaling their ARR with us and the new logo wins. So that's definitely helping our cloud application security. And we see a mix of partners, carriers, MSSPs, regular VARs playing in that area. And we definitely are enjoying some of the growth in our cloud ARR. This consistent 20% plus in the last couple of years is driven by those partnerships. We do plan to enhance that. If you look at our announcements around our MSSP programs, it's definitely targeting those partnerships.

Makes sense. Good. Congratulations. One more question. The no-name acquisition that Akamai just announced brings up the question about the API players that are in the private market. Are you seeing no names in the salts? And does that acquisition change the dynamics at all in competing with Akamai, do you think?

Yes. So I think it's another proof point to the fact that you really need DDoS, WAF, API, and bot security in your cloud application security program and the importance and the value that the players are putting into that. Definitely, we're seeing still a whole set of private companies in API security, but I believe that the winning solution will be an integrated platform for application security. And that's what we are working on and continue to develop. As I've mentioned, we just won leadership by GigaOm in API security. We feel very good there. I think based on our integrated platform and the algorithms we've put in place, we are positioned well. But I think those are good signs for investors. So the value and the potential that different market players are seeing in API security, and definitely another proof point to our strategy, and we are focused as well on building and scaling our API security.

Great. Look, congratulations on the quarter and the signs of life reacceleration. It's nice to see, it's been a cold winter.

Your next question comes from the line of Tim Horan of Oppenheimer.

Some competitors are also bundling networking with various types of compute. Do you believe that's an effective strategy, and what are the advantages or disadvantages of it? Does this make the competition more intense for your approach? Additionally, congratulations on the turnaround. What do you think are the one or two key factors that contributed to this improvement? I understand there’s a lot happening, but how sustainable do you believe this turnaround is?

So several points on the competitive landscape. There are offerings in the market that are bundling edge compute, networking, security and so on; we are focused on the security side. So best-of-breed security. And as we've mentioned, this best of suite, so taking everything in application and data center security and really providing the best integrated suite for that. We think that's the right definition for our security-conscious buyers in the large enterprises, that's the right definition. We are not planning to go into edge compute. We have our partnerships with AWS, GCP, and others. And if needed, we can leverage that. But we are not going to step into that. We're going to put the complete focus on the security arena. We think it's critical. We think that what drives the buying decisions in our large enterprise segment. Regarding the improvement in the business, I think it comes from three areas: one, the continuous growth of cloud. The cloud uptake, the ARR is becoming a bigger and bigger portion as we continue to grow it. And that's impacting the business. It drives a lot of new customer logo wins and so on. So that's the first item. The second item is that we're starting to see the large CapEx deals and the movement in the large enterprises back to investment mode, especially with the DefensePro X. It's a combination of the attacks that they're seeing, all those web DDoS attacks, DNS attacks; they do need better protection in running, and second, the overall improvement, they stalled for quite some time. They need to move forward in capacity in tools. So that is also assisting. And we believe we'll continue to contribute in 2024. We like the pipeline and the progress we're seeing there. And the third thing is that we've aligned our expenses better. And that also, like Guy mentioned, drives improvement in profitability and efficiency. So those are the three major building blocks, we believe we will continue to grow in cloud. We believe the movement we’re seeing in our overall security business in the large enterprises, driven by the attack landscape should continue. And as Guy mentioned, we are very prudent in managing the expenses though to ensure there is profitability leverage.

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference back over to Roy for the closing remarks.

Okay. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today, and have a great day.

Thank you. That concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.