PTC Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
November 1, 2023

Key Takeaways

  • PTC delivered 23% constant-currency ARR growth (13% organic) in Q4, with full-year revenue surpassing $2 billion and free cash flow up 41% y/y, marking its seventh consecutive year of double-digit top-line growth.
  • Deferred ARR rose by $20 million due to contract start-date timing, enabling PTC to raise its fiscal 2024 ARR guidance to 11%–14% growth from the prior 10%–14% range.
  • Product momentum remained strong, with PLM ARR up 34% (15% organic) driven by Windchill, CodeBeamer and ServiceMax, and CAD ARR up 10% fueled by Creo, Onshape and early demand for the new Creo Plus SaaS offering.
  • Operating efficiency improved by 620 basis points to a 38% margin in fiscal 2023, resulting in a Q4 free cash flow beat and sustainable leverage from its subscription business model.
  • A CEO transition is underway as Jim Heppelmann hands over to Neel Barua, who will emphasize disciplined, metrics-driven execution and capitalize on recent enterprise wins like the Volkswagen Group expansion.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
PTC Q4 2023
00:00 / 00:00

There are 11 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to PTC's 2023 4th Quarter Conference Call. During today's presentation, all parties will be in a listen only mode. Following the presentation, the conference will be open for questions. I would now like to turn the call over to Matt Shimao, PTC's Head of Investor Relations.

Operator

Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Good afternoon. Thank you, Danica, and welcome to PTC's 2023 4th quarter conference call. On the call today are Jim Heppelmann, CEO Nil Baruah, CEO Elect and Christian Talbotia, CFO. Today's conference call is being broadcast live through an audio webcast and a replay of the call will be available later today at www.ptc.com. During this call, PTC will make forward looking statements, including guidance as to future operating results.

Speaker 1

Because such statements deal with future events, actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward looking statements can be found in PTC's annual report on Form 10 ks, Form 10 Q and other filings with the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission as well as in today's press release. The forward looking statements, including guidance provided during this call, are valid only as of today's date, November 1, 2020 3, and PTC assumes no obligation to update these forward looking statements.

Speaker 1

During the call, PTC will discuss non GAAP financial measures. These non GAAP measures are not prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. A reconciliation of the non GAAP financial measures The most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in today's press release made available on our website. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to PTC's CEO, Jim Heppelmann. Thanks, Matt.

Speaker 1

Good afternoon, everyone, and

Speaker 2

thank you for joining us. As usual, I will focus on constant currency results when discussing top line metrics and Christian will cover currency effects later in the call. I'm pleased to report that in the Q4, PTC again delivered solid financial results in terms of ARR and free cash flow, which are the most important metrics to assess the performance of our business. Reflecting on the full year, which will be my last year in the CEO seat, Fiscal 2023 has been one of PTC's best years ever. Despite a challenging economy, we delivered a 7th consecutive year of double digit top line growth with ARR growing 23%, 13% organically and revenue crossing the $2,000,000,000 threshold.

Speaker 2

And on the bottom line, we delivered 41% growth in free cash flow. This performance is a great stepping off point for me as I hand the reins of the company to Neil Barua going forward. Given the CEO transition that's actively underway, during this call, I'll focus my comments on Q4 fiscal 2023 And let Neel take the lead on forward looking commentary. Coming back to the Q4 results And turning to slide 4, though the manufacturing PMIs have indicated a sluggish global environment for many quarters now, Our top line ARR continues to show good resilience. In Q4, we saw a broad based ARR strength across our product groups and geographies.

Speaker 2

Our churn remained low and for the full year we did better than the churn targets we had shared previously. Customer demand was solid in Q4, up overall and on an organic basis in line with the exceptional results we delivered in Q4 last year. Within this context, the portion of business that we signed in Q4, but that did not start in Q4 or fiscal 2023 was greater than we had modeled. Since ARR only kicks in when the subscription starts, Q4 ARR was $8,000,000 lower than we had modeled, while deferred ARR is consequently $8,000,000 higher. With this influx, our total deferred ARR is now $20,000,000 higher than it was at the beginning of fiscal 'twenty three.

Speaker 2

Christian will explain that because of this added strength in deferred ARR, we are now guiding ARR to grow 11% to 14% in fiscal 2024, higher than the 10% to 14% growth range we discussed previously. Moving to slide 5 and switching to our bottom line view, we delivered $44,000,000 of free cash flow in Q4, ahead of our guidance and up 52% year over year. For the full year, our free cash flow was $587,000,000 ahead of our guidance and up 41% year over year. Remember that ARR is the primary driver of cash flow. So this robust result was driven by a combination of strong ARR growth and higher operating efficiency.

Speaker 2

In fiscal 'twenty three, we delivered 38 percent operating efficiency, which was 6 20 basis points higher than fiscal 'twenty 2, well above our initial target to call for approximately 4.50 basis points of improvement in operating efficiency. We expect these operating efficiency improvements to be sustainable and we think our subscription business model will continue to provide us with operating leverage. Turning to slide 6, let's look at ARR growth by geography. ARR growth in the Americas was 25%, In Europe ARR growth was 24% and in APAC ARR growth was 18%. Regionally, compared to a quarter ago, the gap between as reported and constant currency ARR widened in Europe and narrowed in APAC.

Speaker 2

On a global basis in Q4, Our constant currency ARR growth was 3% less than our reported ARR growth. Versus prior quarters, we saw improved demand in China and in our SMB reseller channel. All three regions benefited from inorganic growth to varying degrees due to the acquisition of ServiceMax. Next, let's look at ARR performance of our product groups on slide 7. In CAD, we delivered 10% ARR growth in Q4.

Speaker 2

Within these results, the growth magnitude was primarily driven by Creo, but supplemented by strong percentage growth in Onshape. PTC is taking share in different parts of the CAD market with both products and we're excited about the potential of our new Creo Plus SaaS offering as well as Onshape. We launched Creo Plus at LiveWorx event this past May and the initial customer demand for Creo Plus has been encouraging. Regarding Onshape, with NPS scores that lead the industry by a considerable margin and solid retention rates, We see good opportunities to take share in the part of the CAD market that Onshape focuses on. Garmin's Recent decision to replace their incumbent CAD system with Onshape speaks to the product's maturing functionality and competitive differentiation.

Speaker 2

In PLM, our ARR growth rate in Q4 was 34% or 15% organic with the incremental inorganic growth coming from ServiceMax. ARR growth in Q4 was primarily driven by Windchill, but supplemented by strong organic growth in ALM, thanks to CodeBeamer. CodeBeamer has proven to be a great addition to our portfolio with strong demand coming from manufacturing companies that might already be proficient at managing hardware development, but are struggling to deal with a growing wave of software complexity. While demand is most notable in the automotive industry due to the rise of software defined vehicles, we see customer demand for ALM tools Not only do manufactured products contain more software than ever, but there has been an explosion of software configurations that need to be developed and maintained across a company's different product lines, including across model years, sales options and cloud deployments. That's why we supplemented our CodeBeamer ALM solution with the acquisition of Pure Systems.

Speaker 2

You probably know that on the hardware side of the manufactured product, Configuration management has always been the special sauce of Windchill. Now with the addition of the PureVariant solution, CodeBeamer will be able to offer equally robust configuration management for the software side of the product. The peer systems company is relatively small, but their breakthrough peer variance offering has already landed early wins at many of the same auto and industrial companies that are adopting CodeBeamer. Introducing this key competitive differentiator and value proposition into CodeBeamer makes our position in the ALM market even more promising. We've been taking significant share in the PLM market and are well positioned going forward With our strength in core PLM with Windchill and Arena, complemented by strong positions in the faster growing ALM and SLM parts of the market.

Speaker 2

Wrapping up my comments then, first, I'd like to say heartfelt thank you to all of you who have supported me and my team over the years. Your insights and support have helped us to transform PTC into the awesome company it is today, a $2,000,000,000 scale Growth and profit leader with a unique product portfolio that helps our manufacturing customers digitally transform their businesses. I'm personally very proud of what the PTC team has accomplished during my 13 years as CEO and much longer tenure as the company's technology and strategy leader. I feel things are in good position to transition the leadership to Neil Barua. Neil will be supported by the same team who drove our transformation, including Christian, Mike D'Tullio, Aaron Von Staats, Kevin Wren, Steve Dertin, Catherine Kineker And thousands of other PTC employees.

Speaker 2

I wish them all the best as they evolve the business in pursuit of new ways to create value for our customers and shareholders under Neil's leadership, just as they did during mine. I will remain in the background supporting Neil through February, but I plan to let him take the stage in investor discussions going forward. With that, I'll hand the call over to Neil to share his perspectives on the CEO transition and the future of the PTC business.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Jim. Hello, everyone. Let's turn to Slide 9. The CEO transition is progressing well and according to plan. I'm excited to soon step into the CEO role And I appreciate everything Jim is doing to ensure a seamless transition.

Speaker 3

I spent much of the past quarter traveling with Jim to visit customers, employees and partners. These meetings have been good opportunities for me to listen and to build relationships with key stakeholders. These meetings have also reinforced how relevant our software is to our customers' digital transformation initiatives. PTC has established a strong position with customers and it is clear to me that there continues to be a lot of opportunity ahead. We've also started to meet with investors and analysts, and I'm looking forward to continuing and deepening the two way dialogue.

Speaker 3

To that end, I'm looking forward to callbacks with many of you, as well as some investor roadshows upcoming and conferences. And we are working on nailing down a date for an Investor Day, likely in the spring after the CEO transition. More broadly, I've been immersing myself in all aspects of PTC's business. As one example, I work closely with our team on the win at Volkswagen Group that we announced yesterday. This significant expansion of PTC's footprint at BW Underscores the value PTC brings to customers and how customers rely on us to support their product development needs at scale.

Speaker 3

Our teams understand the digital transformation needs of our customers and we have the right strategy and product portfolio to help them achieve their goals. There is no other company that can help manufacturers drive closed loop product lifecycle management across engineering, manufacturing, quality and service. PTC is in a very healthy position and I am energized by the business that has been built and a job ahead. Next, let's turn to Slide 10. On the Q3 call, we shared this framework, which shows the layers of cumulative drivers that support our top line growth.

Speaker 3

Fiscal 'twenty four is expected to be our 8th consecutive year of double digit constant currency ARR growth. So PTC's ability to put up consistent double digit growth is well established. This is a good framework to understand the sustainability of our top line performance. I won't go through each of the drivers now, but the takeaway is that all the layers contribute to our growth. PTC is clearly moving in the right direction and my focus as a new CEO will be on ensuring a disciplined and metrics driven execution of the strategy.

Speaker 3

Moving to Slide 11. We also shared this framework on our Q3 call, which shows the layers of cumulative drivers that support our bottom line growth. It is important to recognize that our strong free cash flow growth in recent years is attributable not only to our solid top line growth, but also to our subscription license business model and strong operational discipline. Focusing on operational execution is essential to consistently deliver for our customers and our shareholders. As with the previous slide, All the layers in this framework are important and I see good opportunities to further expand our operating efficiency.

Speaker 3

I want to reiterate that with our subscription model and operational discipline, we expect our free cash flow to grow faster than our ARR over the midterm. As we reinvest in our business to drive growth, we expect to do so prudently such that non GAAP operating expenses are expected to grow at roughly half the rate of our ARR over time. Let's turn to Slide 12. Today, We are providing targets that reflect solid top line and bottom line growth over the medium term, which Christian will take you through in more detail. As you will hear from Christian, for fiscal 'twenty six, we are targeting AR growth in the mid teens and free cash flow of approximately $1,000,000,000 If there is one takeaway from my comments today, it should be that I am singularly focused on leading PTC to execute to its full potential.

Speaker 3

As the company's ex CEO, I strongly believe that we have the right strategy, organization and product portfolio to drive consistent customer and shareholder value in the years ahead. Over to you, Christian.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Neil, and hello, everyone. Starting off with Slide 14. In Q4 'twenty three, Our constant currency ARR was $1,941,000,000 up 23% year over year and in line with our guidance range. On an organic constant currency basis, excluding ServiceMax, our ARR was $1,770,000,000 up 13% year over year. In Q4, our as reported ARR was $38,000,000 higher than our constant currency ARR.

Speaker 4

Also in Q4, ARR was impacted by $8,000,000 due to start date timing. The key point is We contracted the overall amount of business that we guided to at the beginning of the quarter. Had in year starts landed as expected, We would have been around the high end of our guidance range. Now with approximately $20,000,000 more deferred ARR in fiscal 'twenty four Starting in fiscal 2024 compared to what started in fiscal 2023, we're increasing our fiscal 2024 guidance range to 11% to 14%. Moving on to cash flow, our results were solid and ahead of our guidance with Q4 operating cash flow of $50,000,000 and free cash flow of $44,000,000 For the full year, our free cash flow was 587,000,000 up 41%.

Speaker 4

When assessing and forecasting our cash flow, it's always good to remember a few things. The majority of our collections occur in the first half of our fiscal year and Q4 is our lowest cash flow generation quarter. And on an annual basis, free cash flow is primarily a function of ARR rather than revenue. Q4 revenue of $547,000,000 increased $39,000,000 or 8% year over year and was up 6% on a constant currency basis. For the full year, revenue was 2.0 dollars 97,000,000,000 up 8% or 12% on a constant currency basis.

Speaker 4

As we've discussed previously, revenues impacted by ASC 606, so we do not believe that revenue or EPS are the best indicators of our underlying business performance, but would rather guide you to ARR and free cash flow as the best metrics to understand Our business and cash generation potential. Moving to Slide 15, we ended the 4th quarter with cash and cash equivalents $288,000,000 Our gross debt was $2,322,000,000 with an aggregate interest rate of 5.7 percent. During Q4, we paid down $43,000,000 of debt. And at the end of Q4, we had $1,000,000,000 in high yield notes, a $500,000,000 term loan and approximately $202,000,000 drawn on our revolver. In October of 'twenty three, we made the final payment for the ServiceMax transaction totaling $650,000,000 including $30,000,000 of imputed interest, which will be included in our Q1 'twenty four free cash flow.

Speaker 4

We funded this payment with cash on hand and our revolving credit facility. The deferred payment was included in debt on our Q4 balance sheet and also factored into our debt to EBITDA ratio, which was 3 times at the end of Q4. Also in October, we drew an additional €85,000,000 on the revolver related to the Pure Systems acquisition. We expect to be below 3 times levered at the end of Q1 'twenty four and remain below 3 times throughout the remainder of fiscal 'twenty four. We're prioritizing paying down our debt in fiscal 2024.

Speaker 4

We expect to use substantially all of our free cash flow to pay down our debt this year and end the year with gross debt of approximately $1,700,000,000 We've paused our share repurchase program and we expect our diluted share count to increase by approximately 1,000,000 shares in fiscal 2024. Heading into fiscal 'twenty five, we'll revisit the prioritization of debt pay down and share repurchases. Our long term goal assuming our debt to EBITDA ratio is below 3 times remains to return approximately 50% of our free cash flow to shareholders via share repurchases, while also taking into consideration the interest rate environment and strategic opportunities. Next, turning to Slide 16, let's take a quick look at how we did against our initial guidance for the year. Summarizing our fiscal 'twenty three financial results, in a challenging market environment, We executed well in all four quarters and consistently delivered solid top and bottom line growth.

Speaker 4

With that, let me move on to fiscal 'twenty four guidance. Turning to Slide 18, We provide ARR on both a constant currency basis and on an as reported basis. You can see on the slide how FX dynamics have resulted in differences between our constant currency ARR and as reported ARR over the past 8 quarters. Clearly, As reported, ARR embeds a lot of FX volatility. We believe constant currency is the best way to evaluate the top line performance of our business because it removes FX fluctuations from the analysis, positive or negative.

Speaker 4

That's why we provide ARR guidance on a constant currency basis. For fiscal 'twenty three, we provided constant currency ARR guidance for the year and constant currency ARR results for all four quarters using FX rates as of September 30, 2022. For comparative purposes, we also provided constant currency ARR history at these FX rates. Next, on Slide 19, we're taking the same approach for fiscal 2024. Our as reported Q4 2023 ARR was $1,790,000,000 based on actual FX rates as of September 30, 2023.

Speaker 4

That rate is our baseline for our fiscal 2024 constant currency ARR guidance. For comparative purposes, we've recast our constant currency ARR history at these rates, which you can see on the upper half of this slide and is also in the data tables posted on our website. With that, I'll take you through our guidance on Slide 20. For fiscal 2024, we expect constant currency ARR to grow from 1.979000000000 to $2,190,000,000 to $2,250,000,000 which corresponds to growth of 11% to 14%. Our Q1 constant currency guidance range of $1,995,000,000 to 2,010,000,000 corresponds to year over year growth of 22% to 23%.

Speaker 4

Note that we closed the ServiceMax acquisition Right at the start of Q2 'twenty three, so Q1 will be the last quarter we exclude ServiceMax from our organic growth rate. On cash flows, we're guiding for free cash flow of approximately $725,000,000 in fiscal 'twenty four. Note that our cash flow guidance is not on a constant currency basis, so FX fluctuations can have an impact in either direction. For fiscal 2024, our guidance for operating cash flow is $745,000,000 We're assuming CapEx of approximately 20,000,000 It's worth noting how consistent and solid our free cash flow results have been since completing our transition to a subscription business model. In addition, we maintain consistent billing practices and we've optimized our AR, AP and budgeting processes over the past few years.

Speaker 4

The predictability of our cash generation is tremendously helpful as we manage our business and invest for growth. For example, we're able to maintain core long term investments even in a turbulent macroeconomic environment, which is great for customers and employees alike. Beyond our core investments, we adjust our shorter term or more discretionary investments accordingly given our business performance and outlook. The net result is solid and consistent free cash flow growth. In fiscal 2024, we expect approximately 55% or more of our free cash flow to be generated in the first half of the year, which is less than we've seen over the past 3 years.

Speaker 4

This is primarily because in Q1 of 'twenty four, Our free cash flow of $180,000,000 includes a $30,000,000 imputed interest payment related to the deferred payment on our acquisition of ServiceMax. Finally, on this slide, we're continuing to provide revenue and EPS guidance to help you with your models. But as a reminder, ASC 606 makes revenue difficult to predict in the short term for on premise subscription companies. More importantly, revenue does not influence ARR or cash generation as we typically bill customers annually upfront regardless of contract term lengths. Also, since revenue is impacted by ASC 606, it's important to remember that margins and earnings per share are also impacted, so we do not view these as meaningful indicators of the performance of our business.

Speaker 4

Turning to Slide 21. Here you can see how we're investing for growth while delivering solid free cash flow. On the slide in blue, you can see our absolute level of R and D spending, which has increased steadily over the years. But more importantly, you can see the slope of the blue line has inflected in recent years along with our transition to a subscription model. As our free cash flows expanded, this has enabled us to reinvest greater amounts year after year into R and D to drive future growth despite the turbulent macro environment we've been in.

Speaker 4

Moving on to Slide 22, Here's an illustrative constant currency ARR model for fiscal 'twenty four. You can see our results over the past 3 years and the column on the right illustrates what's needed to get to the midpoint of our constant currency ARR guidance for fiscal 'twenty four. The illustrative model indicates that to hit the $2,220,000,000 midpoint of our Guidance range, we need to add $241,000,000 of net ARR this year. While this is higher than the amounts we added in fiscal 2023 2022, there are some important drivers to consider. First of all, as we discussed earlier, we have more deferred ARR contractually committed to start in fiscal 'twenty four.

Speaker 4

In fact, that amount is approximately $20,000,000 higher at the start of fiscal 2024 compared to the start of fiscal 2023. Secondly, We expect CodeBeamer to be a tailwind for ARR growth in fiscal 2024. While we currently expect Pure Systems to have de minimis impact on our ARR results in fiscal 'twenty four given its overall size, we do expect that Pure Systems will help drive our CodeBeamer momentum. Also, fiscal 'twenty four will be our 1st full year of having ServiceMax under our roof. The broader PTC sales force has been equipped to sell ServiceMax and they also have quotas now.

Speaker 4

All things considered, we believe we've set our fiscal 'twenty four constant currency ARR guidance range prudently. Next on Slide 23, here is a similar illustrative model for Q1. You can see our results over the past 8 Because our ARR trends tend to see some seasonality, the most relevant comparison is the sequential growth in Q1 'twenty three and Q1 'twenty two. The illustrative model indicates that to hit the midpoint of our Q1 guidance range, We need to add $24,000,000 of net ARR on a sequential basis. We believe we've set our Q1 constant currency guidance range prudently.

Speaker 4

It's also worth mentioning that the incremental $20,000,000 of deferred ARR we have starting in fiscal 2024 is skewed to the second half of the year. Moving on to Slide 24, I know that most of you Model free cash flow using the indirect method, which uses the P and L and balance sheet as a starting point. Given the complexities related to ASC 60 6th, there are inherent challenges in using the indirect method to forecast free cash flow for PTC. The model on this slide is based on what we use internally. I know that looking at it this way may be unfamiliar to some of you, So please feel free to reach out if we can help.

Speaker 4

Starting at the top for fiscal 'twenty four ARR, we're using the midpoint of our Next, our perpetual revenue is primarily related to our Kepware business, which is moving to subscription over time. And the primary reason our professional services is modeled to decline in fiscal 'twenty four is because a portion of our professional services Revenue is transitioning to DXP over time. These three line items get us to our expected cash Generation for the year. Moving down the model, you can see that even while we continue to reinvest in the business, We also see room to expand our operating efficiency due to our sticky products and subscription business model combined with operational discipline. Continuing to move down the model, we provide guidance assumptions for stock comp, CapEx, interest payments.

Speaker 4

You can find these on Slide 29 of the earnings deck and also Pages 34 of the press release. Specifically, Interest payments are expected to be approximately $135,000,000 in fiscal 2024 driven by an increase in debt, Higher interest rates and the timing of our interest payments. Next, cash taxes are modeled higher in fiscal 2024, reflecting higher taxable income as well as the impact of Section 174. And finally, let's take a look at the other category. In fiscal 'twenty three, the $72,000,000 is related to FX movements, pre acquisition ServiceMax collections and working capital.

Speaker 4

For fiscal 'twenty four, the main driver of the $19,000,000 being modeled is working capital to support continued growth. All this sums up to expected free cash flow of approximately $725,000,000 If the demand environment is such If the demand environment is such that we're trending the higher end of the ARR guidance range, we would feel more comfortable increasing investments. We have a robust budgeting process internally and that helps us not only prioritize run rate spend, but also prioritizes additional investments For example, even in a muted demand environment, we may want to increase R and D investments, but it wouldn't necessarily make sense to increase sales and marketing spending. So turning to Slide 25, For fiscal 'twenty five, we're reiterating our previous targets and for fiscal 'twenty six, we're providing targets that extend the trajectory that we're on. We provide these targets to help you understand the potential of our business.

Speaker 4

But I also want to remind you that the macroeconomic environment, FX rates and interest rates have been volatile in recent years and could positively or negatively impact our midterm targets. It's also important to point out that global tax law changes are expected to have a significant impact on our midterm free cash flow, which we factored into our midterm targets. Next on Slide 26, I'd like to explain the progression of our free cash flow looking back 3 years and looking forward 3 years. Over the course of Fiscal 2021 to fiscal 2023, we delivered a 40% 3 year free cash flow CAGR. Over that time period, we had solid ARR growth and as expected, our non GAAP OpEx growth was roughly 50% of our ARR growth.

Speaker 4

It was actually 46%. Looking forward, we're targeting FY 'twenty six free cash flow of approximately $1,000,000,000 which reflects a 3 year free cash flow CAGR of approximately 20%. This factors in a continuation of operational discipline. It also factors in a hefty step up in cash taxes, particularly in fiscal 2025 and 2026 due to global tax law changes and the depletion of our deferred tax assets. We're focused on paying down our debt and while interest payments will increase In fiscal 2024, we expect them to decrease in both fiscal 20252026.

Speaker 4

In summary, turning to Slide 27. First, we have a strong portfolio and strategy. We have a solid position in CAD with a long term opportunity to disrupt this market with Onshape and Creo Plus. This year, we've expanded our category leadership in PLM, which has become a technology backbone for digital The acquisitions of CodeBeamer and Pure Systems significantly strengthens our ALM position, which is becoming increasingly important to our customers as their products add more software and complexity to their products. And the addition of ServiceMax further extends what was already a unique portfolio of interconnected Our strong execution.

Speaker 4

With organic growth at double digit levels already, we're in the early days of a major on premise to SaaS transformation driven by the evolving needs of our customers. But it's an oversimplification to focus only on SaaS as the one and only major driver of growth for PTC. The delivery model is important, But it all starts with our robust software portfolio that meets the needs of industrial product companies. We continue to benefit from cumulative layers of PTC specific growth drivers, including driving customer expansions through cross selling our differentiated portfolio and PLM expanding beyond the engineering department and becoming an enterprise wide system of record. Fiscal 2024 is forecasted to be our 8th consecutive year of double digit constant currency ARR growth.

Speaker 4

3rd, we have a well earned reputation for driving margin expansion that goes back more than a decade. We've been demonstrating that we're judicious with our investments, being mindful of both long term opportunities and near term macro uncertainty. From a cost and operational perspective, we're lean and a continuous improvement mindset is part of PTC's culture. 4th, with organic ARR growth in the low teens juxtaposed PMIs that are generally in the mid-40s, I trust you would agree We're actively demonstrating that our business model is very resilient. We're targeting solid top line ARR growth and bottom line free cash flow growth.

Speaker 4

And finally, we're led by a team that has deep expertise and a proven ability to drive growth and margin expansion. And while I personally will miss Jim, I'm also excited to have Neil join the team and help continue to drive and evolve PTC. For sure, the environment around us will continue to change and we will continue to adapt accordingly, We're still pushing the envelope of what we can do for our customers. With so many positive trends going our way, With that, I'll pass it back to Neil for a couple of closing comments.

Speaker 3

Thank you, everyone, for joining us and For the time today,

Speaker 2

we're

Speaker 3

going to move to Q and A now and then I'll give some closing remarks.

Operator

Wonderful. Thank you. Please limit yourself to one question only. If you have additional questions, please return to the queue. Your first question comes from the line of Daniel Chester with BMO Capital Markets.

Operator

Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hey, this is Kyle Aberastri on for Dan Jester. Thanks for taking my question. In the prepared remarks, you hinted at better than expected churn This year, which is great to hear, obviously. Could you dig a bit further into this, maybe what is driving the strength and how you guys are thinking about the retention into fiscal year 2024? Yes, sure.

Speaker 4

It's Christian. We've been on this journey really for a number of years now trying to drive programmatic change to help with the churn. And frankly, it's a few different things. 1 is we've been driving for longer term lengths, which has been helping. 2, we've had more commercial discipline, particularly around Price increase realization, 3, there's been a Both market and product maturity have been improving in some of our segments that have higher churn such as IoT and AR.

Speaker 4

So those are some of the levers that we've been pulling on. I think we're in a great spot as it stands. Candidly, I'd say I think there's Even more room to continue to improve from here, albeit it will be at a more muted pace than it's been over the past 3 years or so.

Speaker 5

Great.

Operator

Wonderful. Thank you. Next question comes from Ken Wong with Oppenheimer and Company. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Great. This question is for Neil. So Neil, I think in the past you had mentioned that you were very involved in the financial planning and obviously blessed The targets out to fiscal 'twenty five, perhaps there was some skepticism there, but with fiscal 'twenty six introduced, I guess it's fair to assume that you definitely put your stamp on that Any specific nuances or refinements to the strategic roadmap that might have gone into that fiscal 'twenty six Number that you can perhaps share with us?

Speaker 3

Yes. Hey, Ken. A few things and I've got more to share obviously as the CEO transition comes to And then here in February, and we're planning on something in Investor Day for a more comprehensive update here. But a couple of the themes that give me more confidence since the Last time we spoke around the business and again 90 days more of the transition, but around the PLM expansion capabilities is actually Something that is very interesting and some of the trends that we've seen this past year that I believe will continue And the focus of the company on that is giving me confidence around supporting the guidance that we put out there for the multiple years that you indicated As well as this ALM strength, I think that is something that we've shown momentum and we're building more momentum given Some of the things that we're seeing in the marketplace with that product and solutions have now augmented by Pure as well. And lastly on the SLM piece and the cross sell opportunities not only within SLM but connecting back to PLM, We're advancing those beyond what we were doing 90 days ago.

Speaker 3

And now given the fact that ServiceMax is In the quotas of the sellers, we've created enablement. I see also that area to be an area that we'll focus in on To keep building on the sustainable growth levers that we've been showing, but continue to show that trend into 2025 and 2026.

Speaker 7

Got it. Okay, great. Thank you

Speaker 6

for the color and good luck with filling those big shoes of Jim.

Speaker 2

Size 9s by the way.

Operator

All right. We'll move to our next question. It's Jason Celino with KeyBanc. Please go ahead.

Speaker 8

Great. Thanks for taking my question. Kind of follow-up on the CodeBeamer Yes, I'm just trying to this momentum that we're seeing and then with the Volvo deal, I don't know if any of us really PTC was doing in ALM 2 or 3 years ago. So when I think about the CodeBeamer pipeline and the ALM strength, Now how much of this is maybe from existing customers looking to upgrade existing legacy ALM products Versus wins and displacements of other tools versus customers who may not even had an ALM product for, If that makes sense.

Speaker 3

Yes. Let me take the front end of this. Thanks for the question. We indicated in a press release Large strategic relationship with Volkswagen across their entire enterprise where we are deploying CodeBeamer, to their enterprise users, for all the use cases that we talked about. One of the themes that we're seeing is this is actually a tip of the spear and an enabler for getting into new logos, particularly in the automotive segment.

Speaker 3

What we're seeing is that a displacement of other tools in the marketplace that now CodeBeamer With its differentiated capabilities, with also the element of the tie back to PLM within PTC is actually creating The momentum that we spoke about that we'll continue to push on over the course of this year as well.

Speaker 2

Maybe I can add Neil. Just if I could. In the Q4, we actually did Transactions with 5 auto OEMs. The big one with Volkswagen and then smaller in some cases put in the door type transactions with other Global OEMs and at least 3 of those we have no meaningful CAD, PLM or ALM business with prior to this CodeBeamer win. So I mean certainly we can upsell from the ALM position we had and sometimes from the PLM position.

Speaker 2

But what's really exciting is that we're knocking down Big name new logos that we have no previous relationship with.

Speaker 8

Great. Thanks, Jim. Thanks, Neil.

Operator

All right. It looks like our next question comes from Saket Kalia with Barclays Capital. Please go ahead.

Speaker 9

Okay, great. Hey guys, thanks for taking my questions here and nice to see the quarter and the guide and the new long term framework.

Speaker 2

Neil, maybe for you a little bit

Speaker 9

of a higher level question. I know that we've said that it's an oversimplification to focus On SaaS for PTC, but clearly you come from a SaaS background with at least ServiceMax, If not your time before that as well, so maybe the question is, as you met customers intra quarter, what are they saying to you about taking PLM and CAD

Speaker 5

to Cloud.

Speaker 3

Yes, great question. So first off, there is continued interest in our SaaS offering and it is an important layer of the cake that we mentioned in terms of the sustainable growth drivers. As a reminder, This is we expect an S shaped adoption curve. We've also told you and I agree with this is a decade plus long journey. We continue on this journey into 'twenty four.

Speaker 3

And in regards to feedback from customers, We're seeing opportunities by which the roadmap, the ability for Windchill Plus, Creo Plus for not only new logos by the way, but also conversions Continues to be interesting. That being said, one thing is important here in my upfront here that I mentioned, The overall growth drivers of our ARR has very little right now and quite frankly into 'twenty four to do with SaaS. That being said, we are making sure the SaaS opportunities we've already secured, The pipeline that we're working on, we're working hand in hand with those customers to ensure we're optimizing the conversion experience of those customers. Again, this will be multi year decade plus long journey across the base of our existing customers plus those that we're firing new, But it's a key part of our focus. However, there are many other layers of the cake that are working extremely well right now that I'm going to help push the team even further To accelerate.

Speaker 5

Got it. Got it. That makes a lot

Speaker 9

of sense. Christian, maybe for my follow-up for you and apologies, I joined the call a little late. Great to see the continued double digit growth in ARR continuing to next year and beyond that. Maybe the question is, can you just talk a little bit about your level of visibility here? I know we've talked about ramp deals In the past, I think you mentioned something on deferred ARR.

Speaker 9

Maybe going one level deeper into sort of the level of visibility or comfort that you have as you look out to 'twenty four, which It's clearly another sort of uncertain year of macro.

Speaker 4

Yes. I mean again, I think we have a pretty good level of visibility. A lot of our contracts are multi year contracts. So you don't they're not actually even coming up for renewal In fiscal 2024, you have some portion that's coming up for renewal. But again, our retention rates At this point are already quite high.

Speaker 4

And then also as you point out, We do have deferred ARR. We've had obviously deferred ARR for many years, But we have that, which also provides more incremental visibility.

Speaker 9

Very helpful. Thanks guys.

Operator

All right. Our next question comes from Andrew Obin with BofA. Please go

Speaker 5

ahead. Hi, guys. Good evening. Neil, Jim. Hello.

Speaker 5

Hi. Just a question on PLM and specifically Windchill, you guys have been very successful with growing The business and I guess the question I have as your customers digitize their operation and there is This build out of this digital value chain, what's the opportunity to monetize beyond Sort of existing users, right, as more people touch the digital thread, what are the revenue Are there sort of opportunities to sort of charge people for different services? If you could expand on that. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Yes, let me take the front end and maybe Kate, Christian and Jim could support here. As I mentioned, One of the drivers we've seen over many years right now is around wind chills adoption within our customers. And What we've also seen is that expanding not only within engineering, but as you mentioned, it's now going to other groups That is tied closer to engineering, like supply chain, like quality as an example. And as Christian said, We're seeing this migration of wind chill becoming more of an enterprise wide system of record. That will take some time, but we are seeing the trends moving towards that, particularly as we think about model base and the digital thread That is pushing on this lever.

Speaker 3

To be clear, some of the economic points that you're asking about revenue potential Outside of the already strong sustainable growth that we've been showing in Windchill, we're working on more of a metrics driven approach to that within ourselves internally

Speaker 9

to think about how do we sustain

Speaker 3

that over the period Currently, to think about how do we sustain that over the periods over the next medium and long term, that will be an area that we'll explain more in detail as we get into the Investor Day, hopefully in early spring. Jim, KT, do you want to add?

Speaker 2

Maybe I would add that our rule of thumb has long been That when a customer first adopts an engineering and then expands to a broader enterprise deployment, There's generally 10 to 15 times more users across the broader enterprise than there are in engineering. And so as companies digitize, They're basically saying we need to have everybody in the enterprise logging into this system and getting real time data as opposed to working with data that's been Supported out of the system and passed on and maybe on a date, maybe wrong, etcetera, typically drawings and PDF files and so forth. So I think that there is a real opportunity and yes, I think Neil is offering to quantify it a little bit more discreetly at the Investor Day.

Speaker 5

That's great. Jim, thank you and I look forward to working with you. Thanks.

Operator

All right. Our next Question comes from Steve Tusa with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Speaker 7

Hey guys, good evening.

Speaker 2

Hi Steve. Hey Steve.

Speaker 7

Jim, congrats again. Great run for sure. Thank you. Can you guys I think you guys Said you would update us kind of annually on the SaaS trajectory. I think you would put out an illustrative model or at least like Some sense of where you'd be as a percentage of ARR by year end 2023, maybe if we could just get a little bit of color How that turned out?

Speaker 4

Yes. I think what we had said was we plan to be in the mid-20s in 'twenty three and that's where we ended.

Speaker 7

Okay, great. And then just a question on the long term cash targets. You're kind of putting up some good numbers despite these other headwinds. I haven't gone back to the old model, but And anything incremental that moved around you on an operating basis because the numbers seem pretty strong despite the non fundamental headwinds?

Speaker 4

I'm not 100% sure I'm understanding the question, Steve. Like, no, there isn't When we talked about some of the puts and takes, meaning the interest payments are going to come down, cash taxes are going to go up, But otherwise, it's really just operating the business.

Speaker 7

Okay. All right. I'll follow-up offline. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Thank you. Looks like our next question comes from Jay Vleeschhouwer with Griffin Securities. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Thank you. Good evening. One thing that PTC does that

Speaker 10

I think is important and does rather well, for instance, at LiveWorx You share in some detail your product roadmaps for CAD, PLM and the other three letter acronyms. So with that in mind, for Jim and Neil, when you look into 'twenty four, what do you think are some of the principal product development or release Executables that you're working on, whether it's developing Atlas further or new forms of packaging like DPM or anything else I care to mention as far as the portfolio is concerned for 2024. And then for Christian, a question that's Often come up in the past, which is about your sales coverage, your customer account segmentation. Anything new that you've implemented, 4 24 in terms of, the channel programs, channel margins, anything of that kind Out in the field that we should be aware of.

Speaker 3

So Jay, thanks for the question. I'll start off and Jim could support here too. On roadmap, first, on SLM, I'll take that since this was a question in the last call. We are working on a release in December that ties ServiceMax closer to Servogistix with a combined offering, that we believe will have nice reception to the marketplace, As well as in the same release, a tie of ServiceMax to IoT for preventative maintenance Use cases between the two capabilities. In terms of the broader portfolio, Windchill Plus, Creo Plus, kepware Plus, as I said, this remains a strategic relevant Area that we'll continue to grow and emphasize and we've got a number of releases for all the plus strategies that we have in 2024.

Speaker 3

That includes, by the way, things that we're doing with Atlas in support of our Plus strategy. And then 3rd, an in order priority by the way here, CodeBeamer, right, the ALM to scale and continue to capture what we're seeing is strong demand and pipeline, We're making sure that we're taking Pure and CodeBeamer and working through how that looks to the customer As well as augments to CodeBeamer in general to make sure that it's enterprise scalable in the regard that companies like Volkswagen Are needing us to deliver for them on the end user experience piece. Jim, anything to add?

Speaker 2

Well, just maybe to observe listening to you talk here, You kind of called out projects that drive cross selling is a top priority. Projects that drive SaaS is a 2nd priority not far behind. And then, functionality, scalability, whatever of certain products in particular like CodeBeamer, Where we have a tiger by the tail and want to make sure we're being responsive to it. I think that'd be a way I could characterize it, just reflecting on what you said.

Speaker 4

Hey, Jay, it's Christian. So then to get the part 2 of your question. So yes, we actually have some incentives that we're rolling out to drive to Help to continue to drive growth in the channel as well as improve retention in that space. So there are some programs there and that's also focusing on enabling them Obviously, they do a great job already at selling CAD, PLM. We want to enable them to cross sell other parts of the portfolio better And obviously a focus on both on prem and SaaS, particularly Windchill Plus, Creo Plus.

Speaker 4

And then on the direct side, I would say that is really just continued refinement of The territory coverage that we have. So that's where we are.

Speaker 10

Understood. Thank you.

Operator

All right. Thank you. Our next question comes from Blair Abernathy with Rosenblatt Securities, please go ahead.

Speaker 7

Thanks very much. Just Jim, I wonder if you can just expand a little more on the Wind chill Plus, in terms of what have you seen there so far? I know it's only been Few months that you've been pushing that out there. Just wondering if you've got any sense at all as to what the revenue uplift might be And also how are you positioning Windchill Plus versus say Arena in the market?

Speaker 2

Yes. Christian, you want to address the what are we seeing in terms of uplift and then I can At the differentiation versus Arena? Yes.

Speaker 4

So from an uplift perspective, we're continuing to see at this point better than what we have modeled

Speaker 2

Or communicated, right, that kind of 2x uplift. I think we'll see as we continue to progress Through this, I still think that's the right way to think about the long term opportunity, but that's what we're seeing now. And maybe I could add on the Windchill versus Arena positioning. So Windchill Teams up with Creo and sometimes with other CAD systems to kind of enable this digital thread. So typically larger companies who have complex products And they're more vertically integrated, so they're thinking how does this engineering data get used by manufacturing, get used again by service and wind chills orchestrating all that complexity up and down the value Arena on the other hand is teamed up with Onshape in this agile product development and typically sold to Smaller fast moving high-tech companies.

Speaker 2

Typically companies have a lot of electronics, a lot of software And a tremendous amount of contract manufacturing. So it's a different problem that Arena is trying to solve and Arena excels How does an engineering team in one company work with a contract manufacturing team in another or perhaps even other suppliers involved To orchestrate that, it's much more Arena is much more focused on operations than on product configuration, Much more well suited to a contract manufacturing type of setup that you see so frequently in the electronics industry, for example. So I'd say Arena is a little bit of a special purpose product that pairs very nicely with Onshape sort of like a nice red wine with a steak or something like that and addresses this problem that a fair number of manufacturers have.

Operator

Great. Thank you. We will wrap up our Q and A session now and I will turn the call back over to Neil for closing remarks.

Speaker 3

Sure. Thank you everyone for joining us and for your questions today. Krish and I will be both on the road in the weeks ahead, participating in investor conferences. Christian will be at the RBC Conference in New York in mid November. Christian also will be going to London in early December and will be at the NASDAQ and Berenberg Conferences.

Speaker 3

I'll be at the Barclays Conference in San Francisco in early December. We also have 2 bus tours coming to visit us at our Boston headquarters In early November, those visits will be hosted by Christian and Mike Ditullio. Reach out please to BofA or Baird if you're interested. And on behalf of the team, thank you again and we look forward to engaging with you.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.

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