8X8 Q4 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
May 19, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: 8x8 said fiscal 2026 was a turning point, with four straight quarters of year-over-year revenue growth and its first GAAP profitable full fiscal year since 2015. Management also highlighted stronger net income, EPS, and balance sheet improvement.
  • Positive Sentiment: Usage-based revenue continued to surge, with usage-based offerings up more than 70% year over year and reaching about 23% of service revenue in the quarter. Management said this reflects growing demand for CPaaS, AI, and digital-channel products.
  • Positive Sentiment: Q4 results beat guidance on multiple fronts, including service revenue, total revenue, operating profit, EPS, and cash flow from operations. Total revenue was $185.2 million, service revenue was $180.2 million, and operating margin came in at 10.7%.
  • Neutral Sentiment: The company is leaning into an AI-driven shift in communications, emphasizing an open platform that combines UCaaS, CCaaS, CPaaS, and embedded AI. It also launched 8x8 Engage and added native agentic AI through AI Studio.
  • Negative Sentiment: Management guided conservatively for fiscal 2027, citing limited visibility into usage-based revenue and some macro/geopolitical uncertainty. Gross margin is also expected to remain under pressure because of the expanding mix of lower-margin usage revenue.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
8X8 Q4 2026
00:00 / 00:00

There are 7 speakers on the call.

Speaker 4

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Kate Patterson, Head of Investor Relations.

Speaker 2

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Today's agenda will include a review of our results for the 4th quarter of fiscal 2026 with Samuel Wilson, our Chief Executive Officer, and Kevin Kraus, our Chief Financial Officer. Following our prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session. In addition to our prepared remarks, we have posted a more detailed letter to shareholders in the quarterly results section of our investor relations website. Before we get started, let me remind you that our discussion today includes forward-looking statements about our future financial performance, including investments in innovation and our focus on profitability and cash flow, as well as statements regarding our business products and growth strategies.

Speaker 2

We caution you not to put undue reliance on these forward-looking statements as they involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to vary materially from forward-looking statements as described in our risk factors in our reports filed with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements made on this call and in the presentation slides reflect our analysis as of today, and we have no plans or obligations to update them. All financial metrics that will be discussed on this call are non-GAAP, unless otherwise noted. These non-GAAP metrics, together with year-over-year comparisons in some cases, were not prepared in accordance with the U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP metrics to the closest comparable GAAP metric is provided in our earnings press release and earnings presentation slides, which are available on 8x8 investor relations website at investors.8x8.com.

Speaker 2

With that, I'll turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Samuel Wilson.

Speaker 6

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Fiscal 2026 marked a turning point for 8x8. Our Q4 results demonstrated improving execution, operating discipline, and a growing momentum across the business. We've delivered four consecutive quarters of year-over-year revenue growth, generated our first GAAP profitable full fiscal year since 2015, increased net income and earnings per share, and strengthened our balance sheet. Most importantly, I believe this year validated the strategy we've been building towards for several years. It is clear the business communications market is changing rapidly. The driver is straightforward. AI is beginning to handle low-level repetitive work that used to require people, routine inquiries, transactions, first-line support. We're still early, but the trajectory is clear, and customers are making architectural decisions today based on where this is going.

Speaker 6

As the market evolves, what customers buy and how they pay for it changes. Per seat pricing made sense when every interaction needed a human. As AI takes on more of the interactions, pricing needs to shift towards usage and outcomes. These shifts also change how customers buy. AI needs unified context to deliver real results. It doesn't work well in fragments. That's what's accelerating demand for integrated platforms, not as a preference, but as a prerequisite. We built 8x8 for this transition. Today, our platform combines carrier-grade global voice infrastructure, programmable communications APIs, UCaaS, CCaaS, digital engagement, and embedded AI into a single architecture designed to support both human and AI-driven interactions at enterprise scale. That matters more than ever in an AI era. Voice is not a legacy channel in an AI-driven world. In many ways, it becomes more important.

Speaker 6

Voice is the bridge between automated execution and human judgment. As enterprises move towards human-to-agent and agent-to-agent interactions, communications infrastructure stops being a utility and starts becoming a strategic control layer. Reliability, security, trust, and orchestration matter more than ever. The challenge is no longer leveraging AI to generate responses or drive engagement. It's already happening. We are seeing both generative and agentic AI drive a surge in communications APIs across voice, messaging, and digital channels. It is evident in our numbers. Usage-based revenue, including CPaaS communications APIs, AI solutions, digital channels, telecom usage grew more than 70% year-over-year and represented approximately 23% of service revenue, up from 14% a year ago. The real challenge is delivering interactions that feel seamless, secure, intelligent, and trustworthy.

Speaker 6

AI agents must be able to hear clearly, understand intent accurately, authenticate securely, and know exactly when to hand interactions to a human. That requires more than another AI voice model. It requires a highly reliable communications infrastructure and a platform capable of orchestrating interactions seamlessly across both human and agentic layers. This requirement is redefining where value accrues in enterprise communications. Customers do not want another closed ecosystem or another AI model that needs to be tested and integrated. They want platforms that can evolve as the AI landscape evolves. The new winners will be companies that combine carrier-grade infrastructure with orchestration across communications, workflows, APIs, analytics, and customer engagement, and do it at scale. Our approach has been different from many of our peers.

Speaker 6

Instead of building around a single AI model or a closed ecosystem, we have focused on building an open integration and orchestration layer directly into the platform itself. This allows customers to adopt new AI capabilities quickly and deploy AI across voice, messaging, and customer engagement workflows without rebuilding infrastructure. More importantly, this approach helps customers simplify increasingly complex technology environments by reducing operational friction, accelerating deployment, allowing them to adopt new innovation without constantly rebuilding infrastructure. That philosophy has shaped our innovation strategy, and we hit some important milestones in Q4. In March, we announced general availability of 8x8 Engage, extended customer engagement beyond the traditional contact center to frontline sales and operational teams. Customer adoption has been strong. With partners now fully enabled, demand is building. We also added native agentic AI to our Platform for CX with AI Studio.

Speaker 6

AI Studio allows customers to build and deploy AI-powered voice and digital agents directly on the 8x8 Platform for CX using natural language prompts. It could not be easier. Check out the video demo on our website. During the quarter, we expanded platform capabilities across analytics, authentication, CRM integrations, and orchestration workflows designed to simplify deployment and improve how AI-powered interactions move across human and digital engagement channels. Our outcome-focused platform strategy also shapes how we approach partnerships and technology acquisitions. Our partnership with Synthflow AI expands our capabilities for SMBs and strengthens our position in AI-powered agentic engagement. Maven Lab expanded our messaging and automation capabilities, while Callroute strengthens our Microsoft Teams integration strategy and will simplify platform-to-platform migrations. Most importantly, our customer wins reinforced that our platform strategy is aligned with where the market is going.

Speaker 6

In the U.S., an insurance company replaced 2 competitors with a full UCaaS/CCaaS deployment after evaluating 6 competing vendors. A healthcare organization operating more than 100 locations implemented an omnichannel engagement solution integrating voice, SMS, web chat, and Salesforce to modernize patient communications. Internationally, a U.K. automotive retailer selected 8x8 to replace a legacy environment that combined UC and contact center deployment, and a bank in the Philippines selected 8x8 to strengthen authentication and fraud prevention capabilities ahead of new anti-fraud compliance requirements. Yes, we are a security company in places. Across these wins, customers constantly prioritize integrated workflows, trusted infrastructure, AI-ready engagement capabilities, and flexible deployment models and security over disconnected point solutions. As our markets evolve, we are sharpening our go-to-market strategies, adapting our pricing models, and improving our processes.

Speaker 6

Partners have always played a central role in the communications and customer experience markets because they maintain trusted customer relationships and expanded geographic and commercial reach. We believe 8x8 remains significantly under distributed relative to the size of the opportunity. As a result, we are increasing our investment in partner recruitment, enablement, onboarding, automation, and deployment tools that make it easier to do business with 8x8 and easier for partners to deliver solutions to their customers. At the same time, we are exploring new consumption-based pricing and deployment models that reduce decision risk and traditionally associated with enterprise software purchases and simplify trial and activation. By reducing decision risk and removing traditional barriers to adoption, we can accelerate time to value and better align our go-to-market motions and sales cycles with product innovation cycles. Fiscal 2026 was also a year of operational discipline.

Speaker 6

We completed the Fuze migration process, integrated several financially immaterial but strategic acquisitions, reduced debt meaningfully, and maintained disciplined operating expense management while continuing to invest in innovation, infrastructure, and AI capabilities. The past several years has required focus, restructuring, and hard operational decisions. This year, we begin to see the benefits of that work show up across the business. As we enter fiscal 2027, our overarching objective remains straightforward. Drive sustainable growth, profitability, and cash flow. Our priorities remain clear. Expand our global communications infrastructure for AI-driven customer engagement. Deliver innovation that enables seamless interactions that build trust at every stage of a customer journey. Scale our partner and distribution ecosystems globally and continue to drive operational discipline and efficiency.

Speaker 6

Let me finish by saying that I believe 8x8 is operating from a position of strength with a clear strategy, solid financial fundamentals, and a growing confidence in our ability to compete aggressively in a rapidly evolving market. Thank you again to our customers, our partners, our employees, and our shareholders for your continued support. With that, let me turn it over to Kevin.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Sam. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our fiscal Q4 2026 earnings call. In addition to our shareholder letter, detailed financial results are available in our press release and on our investor relations website. I'll focus my remarks on a few key highlights. Unless otherwise noted, all figures other than revenue and cash flow are presented on a non-GAAP basis. Q4 was our fourth consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue growth, capping a fiscal year that returned 8x8 to growth, achieved healthy operating profit, and meaningfully strengthened our balance sheet. We exceeded our guidance ranges for service revenue, total revenue, operating profit, earnings per share, and cash flow from operations. We had another record quarter for service revenue, we have had positive operating profit and cash flow from operations in every quarter for over five years.

Speaker 3

Total revenue was $185.2 million, and service revenue was $180.2 million, growing 4.6% and 5% year-over-year respectively. These results reflect a continued strength in our usage-based offerings. Our usage-based offerings, which include our CPaaS communication APIs, digital channels, and AI solutions, set another all-time record and accounted for approximately 23% of service revenue in the quarter, compared to approximately 14% in Q4 2025. Gross profit was approximately $118.9 million, approximately $2 million above the gross profit implied by the midpoint of our Q4 guidance.

Speaker 3

Gross margin as a percent of revenue was 64.2%, modestly below Q3 due to the continued mix shift toward our usage-based offerings, which in aggregate carry a lower margin profile, but can add meaningful profit dollars as the business scales. As we have noted in prior quarters, our usage-based offerings can fluctuate, which may introduce some quarter-to-quarter variability in gross margin. We are actively working to expand margins within the usage portfolio, but as that part of the business grows, it does impact the consolidated gross margin %. Importantly, we are leaning into where the market is growing and not where the highest gross margin sits today. As we have articulated over the past few years, we manage the business to operating income, and we have consistently demonstrated the ability to offset gross margin mix impacts with disciplined operating expense management.

Speaker 3

Operating income came in at $19.8 million, resulting in a 10.7% operating margin, well above the high end of our guidance range and demonstrating our commitment to operating discipline. Operating expenses were favorable to expectations and down 5% year-over-year. For the full fiscal year, total operating expenses declined approximately 3%, reflecting our continued focus on our cost structure. We have meaningfully reduced our debt service cost through significant pay downs of debt principal over the past two years. Trailing 12-month cash interest paid declined approximately 51% from fiscal 2024 to fiscal 2026, from approximately $35.6 million to approximately $17.3 million.

Speaker 3

The combination of higher revenue, lower operating expenses, and lower interest expense resulted in net income of $16.6 million and fully diluted EPS of $0.11 per share, $0.03 above the high end of our guidance range. Cash flow from operations was $14.4 million for the quarter, significantly above the high end of our guidance range. The strong Q4 result reflects both operating over performance and favorable timing of collections and payments, and is a reminder that cash flow from operations can vary meaningfully quarter to quarter based on timing. We ended the quarter with $93.3 million in cash and cash equivalents, excluding restricted cash, an increase of approximately $6.4 million sequentially. We ended Q4 2026 with $323.9 million of principal debt outstanding.

Speaker 3

In early April, we made a $14.5 million principal payment on the term loan, bringing the principal balance down to approximately $309.4 million as we entered fiscal Q1 2027. This represents a reduction of approximately 43% from the August 2022 peak of $548 million. Turning to guidance, we are providing both first quarter and full year fiscal 2027 guidance. Our outlook reflects continued discipline and a measured view given the broader macro environment as we continue building a more diversified, durable business. We are leaning into where the market is growing fastest while protecting profitability through the operating discipline we have demonstrated quarter after quarter. For fiscal Q1 2027, we are providing the following guidance. Service revenue is expected to be between $175 million and $180 million.

Speaker 3

Total revenue is anticipated to be between $180 million and $185 million. We anticipate gross margin between 63.5% and 64.5%, reflecting the ongoing mix shift toward usage-based revenue. We anticipate operating margin between 8.5% and 9.5%. This results in a range for fully diluted non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.08-$0.09 per share based upon approximately 147 million fully diluted shares outstanding. In fiscal Q1, we expect to make cash interest payments of approximately $1.8 million, which reflects the term loan interest payment. The next semi-annual interest payment on our 2028 convertible notes occurs in fiscal Q2. We anticipate cash flow from operations to be between $10 million and $12 million.

Speaker 3

For fiscal 2027 full year, we are providing the following guidance. Service revenue is anticipated to be between $707 million and $727 million. Total revenue is anticipated to be between $727 million and $747 million. We anticipate gross margin to be between 62.5% and 63.5%, noting the increasing amount of usage-based revenue in our revenue mix and potential variability in the proportion of usage-based revenue. Full year operating margin is projected between 9% and 10%, translating to non-GAAP operating income of approximately $70 million at the guidance midpoint. We expect fully diluted non-GAAP earnings per share to be in the range of $0.33-$0.38 per share, assuming approximately 150 million average diluted shares outstanding.

Speaker 3

For the full year fiscal 2027, we anticipate cash flow from operations of approximately $45 million-$52 million. Our fiscal 2027 cash flow outlook reflects the timing of certain non-recurring items. We expect to make $39.5 million of principal payments on the term loan during fiscal 2027, in line with the loan's amortization schedule. Looking back, fiscal 2026 was a year of meaningful progress on the financial fundamentals of the business. We returned 8x8 to year-over-year revenue growth, expanded our usage-based offerings, and delivered positive operating margins in every quarter, meeting or exceeding our guidance each time. We also significantly reduced our debt and cash interest costs, driving net income growth to over 19% for the year.

Speaker 3

The discipline we applied to managing the business gave us the flexibility to invest where the business needed it most while still expanding profitability. Our forward planning reflects continued focus on the same priorities. We view the work ahead as a multi-year journey, and the foundation we built in fiscal 2026 positions us well for what comes next. With that, I will turn the call over for Q&A.

Speaker 4

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. One moment for questions. Our first question comes from Siti Panigrahi with Mizuho. You may proceed.

Speaker 1

Great. Thanks, guys. This is Chad Tevebaugh on here for Siti Panigrahi. Good quarter. I just wanted to start on sort of the fiscal year 2027 service revenue guidance. You know, you're obviously coming off four consecutive quarters of good growth. Could you sort of walk us through the guidance range and any puts and takes you're thinking about as you're entering the year, obviously with, you know, the low end, you know, implying slight slowdown in growth versus, you know, 2% growth at the high end?

Speaker 6

All right, I'm gonna just start by giving you some context, and then I'll let Kevin fill in the details. I think the thing that you need to realize and sort of generically the street and our investors need to realize is that usage is now 23% of our revenue, and we don't have as good of visibility in usage when we go out 3, 4 quarters. We are naturally conservative in how we forecast usage revenue out that far because it's not contracted. What you'll see from us over time, and we've tried to highlight this this last couple of years as usage has been growing steadily, is that, you know, we naturally will be slightly more conservative in our guidance because of those things.

Speaker 3

Sure. I think additionally, we look our revenue geography is changing too. We have about 40% international revenue. There's a geopolitical environment that's a little bit unpredictable at times, so there's no reason for us to lean forward, as Sam said. I just wanna point out that with respect to the revenue mix, we've been navigating through this for quite some time, and we're a fairly agile company, and we can manage our business to continue to deliver the operating income and the cash flows that are healthy for us.

Speaker 1

Got it. Super helpful. Just 1 follow-up here on the gross margin guidance. You know, understand there's a lot more usage revenue that's coming in and increasing as a % of the mix. Wondering if you could break that down a bit for us. You know, how much of that is driven by sort of more traditional CPaaS and messaging versus some of your newer AI solutions? Anything you can share on the gross margin profile of those newer solutions would be super helpful.

Speaker 6

I'll start with this one. Let me break it into a couple buckets. If you look at our traditional UCaaS business, those gross margins have been incredibly steady over the last couple of years with really no changes except for a little bit of quarter-to-quarter variability. If you look at, you know, SMS messaging, I think is kind of the question you're getting at the bottom of the stack, that commodity messaging. On a year-over-year basis, I would say the number of SMS messages we sent was not substantially larger. What's been changing is the mix of all the things in between. We've done in our CPaaS business a higher percentage of more margin-rich products over the last 2 years. That's been a positive, and that's offset by the new AI products.

Speaker 6

The new AI products when they launch, for example, AI Studio for our new customers, we're giving them some credits to get them started, those kinds of things. AI costs are very hard to predict. As you guys read the news as well as I do, Anthropic and OpenAI and others change pricing on a regular basis and those kinds of things. Those products themselves as they start, and I, you know, I find this with any really new product. As a new product starts, it starts at a lower gross margin, and then as we scale it and get economies of scale out of it, we'll grow the gross margins over time.

Speaker 3

1 thing I'd like to add onto the usage, you know, we do have a variety of margin profiles for the variety of usage products that we have. I think that over time, it'll also change perhaps a little bit as we expand some of our usage products geographically and not just focus in certain regions where maybe the pricing might be a little bit more competitive. The other thing I'll say about usage revenue is that it is much lower cost from an OpEx perspective. While you see the gross margin % might decline, we're focused on the dollars. The gross profit dollars is something we look at obviously very closely, and more can fall to the bottom line.

Speaker 3

We're interested very much in scaling that part of the business, and that's actually where the market is moving. We're going toward where the market is moving, and we're not focused on a particular gross margin profile at a given point in time.

Speaker 1

Awesome. Thanks very much, guys.

Speaker 6

Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Our next question comes from Peter Levine with Evercore. You may proceed.

Speaker 5

Thank you for taking my question. Congrats guys on the kind of close to the year. Maybe just to follow up to the prior question. You know, Sam, I know you said it's hard to get visibility, but maybe help us understand how these contracts are structured. In your prepared remarks, you kind of talked about outcome-based pricing. It's more usage-based, but are there kind of thresholds that these customers agree to in terms of usage? Maybe just help us understand, like how, you know, I know visibility is light, but just help us understand how these contracts are structured and, you know.

Speaker 6

Yeah.

Speaker 5

-what customers are actually committing to.

Speaker 6

Peter, no problem at all. Look, let me take a step back, and I swear to God I'll answer your question in excruciating detail in a second. If you think about new and emerging technologies, right? I think it's completely fair on our part, and we really think about the customer and put at the center of our universe. Going to a customer today and saying, "Hey, I need you to forecast how many voice AI interactions you're gonna do one year from now or two years from now," is, I believe, fundamental lunacy. They think it's fundamental lunacy too. The way we structure the contract is this: we charge a reasonable rate on a per usage basis with zero commitment.

Speaker 6

As you raise your level of commitment, we will put a discount in to your rate on a per interaction basis, per outcome, per transaction, per credit, per however you wanna think about it. At a very basic level, if you give us a commitment for a year or even month to month, we will give you a 5% or a 10% discount. If you give it to us for a year, we'll give you a bigger discount, those kinds of things. What we find is even when we get commitments, the customers just don't know a lot on the AI products and even on some of the CPaaS messaging products. How many marketing campaigns are you gonna run? How many authentications are gonna come in? How much OTP is gonna happen? Those kinds of things.

Speaker 6

They always wanna commit at a number that is substantially below what they think they're going to actually use. They're willing to capture some discount, but they always wanna really get away from this concept of shelf wear or unused commitment. It's why we've embraced the usage-based business model, because it was obvious years ago to us that CFOs were getting incredibly frustrated with unused seats and unused software. Trust me, my CIO is incredibly frustrated about it. That was why we were gonna see more and more of this consumption-based pricing, you know, driven by credits or dollars or however you wanna do it. Really, it's that notion. Long-winded answer, Peter, to say, a fair price on a per interaction basis and a discount when you're willing to commit.

Speaker 5

No, I appreciate the detail. Maybe, you know, for Kevin, maybe help us understand, like, what's the threshold then on gross margins, and then when can we see that kind of start to tick up? I know, again, to my prior question, it's hard to get the visibility, and we're still trying to figure out the seasonality. Like, what's the threshold for gross margin? Similar question on the OpEx side. You know, were Op margins, call it sub, you know, call it 9.5% this year. You talked about cutting costs out of the model. Just kind of help us the pull and take between, you know, the gross margin impact and where is the cost coming out on the operating side? Thank you.

Speaker 3

Sure, sure. Again, look, we don't have a precise answer on the gross margin threshold. This is about mix, right? We talked about it being a little bit more difficult to predict. What I would focus on the cost side is cheaper routes to market, okay? We're deploying AI internally to generate pipeline, to have customer interactions and sales processes that are much cheaper than they were in the past. We're focused there on not only increasing the revenue from that, but doing it in a much cheaper way. Other areas internally where we're deploying AI operational efficiencies across the entire org. We're covering more customers through the support systems that we have in place, and we're doing that more cheaply.

Speaker 3

Cost to deliver should come down naturally over time as we deploy these operational efficiencies. Again, from my perspective, we have a multi-year track record of being agile enough to adapt to any margin percentage change to have an operating income and cash flow that delivers what we need to delever and strengthen our balance sheet. It's difficult for me to have thresholds for you, Peter. It's something we're constantly looking at and, you know, I'd like to see us over the long term, again, if the usage goes up at a lower OpEx cost, you know, double-digit non-GAAP operating income percentages is really the target I have in mind, and I'd like for it to stay there and grow.

Speaker 6

Peter, one other thing I wanna just add on kind of riffing on what Kevin's saying, I need you to kinda keep this in mind, is forecasting token usage and cost is really hard right now, even for us as a software company, right? We have our developers running on, you know, one of the coding 5 coding engines. We have our marketing department using automation for content delivery and all those kinds of things. The cost associated with, you know, tokenization and what's happening is really hard. I think we're still not even we haven't even started the game yet or the top of the first inning around token optimization.

Speaker 6

I'm sure there'll be some startup companies that come about over the next few years that help optimize token usage, but it's still early, it is really hard to sort of have these notional thresholds. Something that's a low margin product, after you rinse and repeat it through AI a bit, can become a pretty nice margin product once you get it up that curve.

Speaker 3

Yeah. I think some of the things that companies do and that we did, Sam alluded to it earlier on the call, where you're seeding your customers with some free usage and so forth, that can really grow very rapidly, and drive a whole lot of top-line revenue with not a lot of operational costs. I look forward to that happening for us at some point.

Speaker 5

I appreciate taking my questions. Thank you.

Speaker 6

Thanks, Peter.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Our next question comes from Catharine Trebnick with Rosenblatt Securities. You may proceed.

Operator

Yeah. Hey, I have a question more on debt and free cash flow and capital allocation. You reduced the debt 43% from 2022 peak, and consistently, you've done a good job of generating operating cash flow. My question is, how do we look at 2027? Are you prioritizing cash flow, further de-leveraging, reinvestment in AI, usage-based products? Anyway, can you help me out there, Sam? Then I have a follow-on.

Speaker 6

I got it, Catharine. Look, I would say what's changed slightly for us is, you know, we did 2 acquisitions or 3 acquisitions last quarter. The acquisition engine is sort of back in at 8x8, and we're really proud of the acquisitions we did. We did 1 last year, and I think we did a total of 4 last year. Sorry. We did 1 a year ago, and then we did 3 last quarter. We're tucking in some really interesting technologies that we can use to sort of round out the portfolio and offer better solutions into our customers. The path of use of capital, we delevered another $14.5 million in April. That's the use of capital. We did buy back shares a couple quarters ago.

Speaker 6

Share buybacks are a little tougher because, you know, I gotta work around covenants and bank things and other things. My preference is sort of in rank order, acquire things that help us, you know, improve our customer outcomes, pay off debt, and then buy back stock number 3.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Catharine, we have, like thirty-nine and a half million, you know, $40 million of debt payback in this year's plan.

Operator

Okay. That helps.

Speaker 3

Including the, yeah, including the fourteen and a half.

Operator

Okay. Just a little bit that you had a good quarter, Sam, so congratulations on that. We do like your new color scheme, so you have to tell your marketing guy that. On the platform differentiation versus peers. You've been at, you know, your open orchestration centric platform versus more closed ecosystems of the peers. Can you kinda explain to me why on a competitive takeaway today that how these win rates or AI-enabled CX deployments, I mean, how are they coming together? I'm kinda curious.

Speaker 6

Yeah.

Operator

on that aspect.

Speaker 6

Sure. Two things. First, I'll cite a stat, right? 67% of CFOs and CIOs want to go to, you know, consolidate the number of vendors they have. You know, first and why, right? Lower total cost of ownership. What you're getting from us is if you consolidate your spending dollars with 8x8, you're getting a business communications platforms. I believe the walls are coming down with these categories of UC and CC and CPaaS, right? Our Engage product interactions was up 300% year on year. Is that a CC product? Is that a UC product? Yeah. It's somewhere in the middle between those two, right? The walls are coming down between these segments.

Speaker 6

Corporate America and corporate world wants to consolidate on the vendors, they wanna pick a vendor where they can get economies of scale in terms of spending and discounts, contract simplification, worldwide support, single throat to choke, all the things that you've heard over the past, right? You know, I would say when we pitched that story five years ago, there was a pretty big technology discount you had to get from 8x8 to get that story. Today, I think that technology discount doesn't really exist. We have world-class CPaaS. We're, we're number 11 or number 10 in the world in terms of CPaaS volumes, right? We're way in front of most of our, you know, normal competitors. We've got great contact center. We've got Engage, which completely is differentiated from others. We've got UC.

Speaker 6

On top of everything else, we've got AI Studio, which is absolutely amazing in the sense that it's, you know, prompted, et cetera. You see it. I think when we go into a company, what we're trying to do is have a business communications platform discussion and not have a UC, CC, let me dive bomb pricing, 'cause that's what my competitors like to do, conversation.

Operator

Got it. Well, thanks, Sam. Appreciate it.

Speaker 6

Thanks, Catharine.

Speaker 4

Thank you. I would now like to turn the call back over to Sam Wilson for any closing remarks.

Speaker 6

Thank you, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I'd just like to sort of end with this concept, right? We're operating from a position of strength. We have a clear strategy, which after four quarters of growth, which some of you doubted clearly, is working, solid financial fundamentals, and growing confidence in our ability to compete aggressively in a rapidly evolving market that let's not forget is somewhere between $70 billion, $80 billion, $90 billion in size, depending on which third-party analyst, you know, you use as a reference point. I think we're in a great position as a company to move forward. I thank you for a chance to sort of give you an update on where we are, and I look forward to talking to you again after the end of next quarter.

Speaker 4

Thank you. This concludes the conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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