Earnings Labs

PTC Inc. (PTC)

Q3 2022 Earnings Call· Wed, Jul 27, 2022

$137.82

+1.03%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by and welcome to the PTC 2022 Third 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. And I would now like to turn the call over to Matt Shimao, PTC’s Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Matt Shimao

Management

Good afternoon. Thank you, Savannah and welcome to PTC’s fiscal 2022 third quarter conference call. On the call today are; Jim Heppelmann, Chief Executive Officer; and Kristian Talvitie, Chief Financial Officer. Today’s conference call is being broadcast live through an audio webcast, and the 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. Because such statements deal with future events after 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-K, Form 10-Q and other filings with the US 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, July 27, 2022. And PTC assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements. 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 to 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 Chief Executive Officer, Jim Heppelmann.

Jim Heppelmann

Management

Great. Thanks, Matt. Good afternoon, everyone and thank you for joining us. I’m pleased to report that PTC delivered an outstanding third quarter, with top line ARR results and bottom line free cash flow results above our guidance, and we’re raising our guidance for the third time this year. Before I dive in, I’d like to point out that Kristian will cover the effects of the strengthening dollar later during his section of the call. So to simplify things, I will focus my discussion of top line growth metrics on constant currency results. Turning to Slide 4, ARR and free cash flow results were very strong and the strength was broad-based across all segments and geographies. Of particular note, we saw organic ARR growth further accelerate to 15%, driven by the acceleration we saw across the board in Digital Thread Core, Digital Thread Growth, FSG and Velocity units. ARR growth was helped by the lowest churn the company has seen in many quarters. I’m pleased to see PTC’s organic growth rate move into that mid-teens range we’ve been targeting. We closed the Intland acquisition during Q3. I’ll refer to this business as Codebeamer going forward, because that is the product name we will retain. Codebeamer had an outstanding first quarter at PTC and added a point of inorganic ARR growth, taking PTC’s ARR to $1.63 billion, up 16% year-over-year. In Q3, we complemented our top line growth with even stronger bottom line growth. Despite strong FX headwinds and nearly $20 million of restructuring and M&A transaction payments, our free cash flow performance was strong at $112 million, which was ahead of our guidance and up 33% year-over-year. Remember that the restructuring we implemented at the end of last fiscal year was designed to drive a more aggressive and efficient SaaS…

Kristian Talvitie

Management

Thanks, Jim. Good afternoon, everyone. Before I review our results, I’d like to note that I’ll be discussing non-GAAP results and guidance and ARR references will be in both constant currency and as reported. Turning to Slide 17. As a reminder, when we provided guidance last quarter, we specifically excluded the Codebeamer and DxP transactions, which had not closed at that point. Codebeamer contributed $16 million of ARR in Q3. On an organic constant currency basis, our ARR was $1.61 billion, up 15% year-over-year, and ahead of the comparable guidance range we provided which was $1.58 billion to $1.595 billion. Including Codebeamer, our constant currency ARR was $1.625 billion, up 16% year-over-year. Aside from a non-operating cash inflow, the DxP transaction did not impact our results as most of the in-flight services contracts are still on our paper. We expect the transition of these services contracts to happen gradually over time, and will be reflected in future guidance as we provide it. However, we expect the impact to ARR and free cash flow to be de minimis. As Jim explained, our top line strength in Q3 was broad-based. We’re executing well against our strategy and we’re continuing to improve upon strong market position. Our SaaS businesses across our Digital Thread and Velocity groups saw continued solid ARR growth in Q3. On an as reported basis, we delivered 9% ARR growth, 8% organic due to the impact of FX headwinds, which were approximately $81 million, substantially higher than the $32 million of FX headwinds we estimated a quarter ago using Q2 ending exchange rates. Despite the FX headwinds, our cash flow results were strong coming in ahead of our guidance, increased ARR, solid collections performance, slower hiring and above planned perpetual license revenue from Kepware helped to offset the incremental headwinds…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] We do ask that you can limit yourself to one question only and then you rejoin the queue for additional questions. Our first question will come from Matthew Broome with Mizuho Securities. Please go ahead.

Matthew Broome

Analyst

Thanks very much. Hi, Jim and Kristian. So congratulations on the large DPM ramp deal. Just how would you characterize the pipeline for that particular solution?

Jim Heppelmann

Management

The pipeline is quite good. I mean, there’s a lot of interest in this solution. And in fact, we’ve already had a couple of follow-on orders from some of the earliest orders we received. So, I think it’s a good solution. You know there’s a lot going on in the world of manufacturing these days. So there’s a lot of competition for mindshare, but I think we have a very good solution and there’s a lot of interest in it.

Matthew Broome

Analyst

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from Saket Kalia with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Saket Kalia

Analyst

Okay, great. Hey, Jim. Hey, Kristian, Thanks for – thanks for taking my questions here or question. Kristian, maybe – maybe I’ll direct this one to you. Can you just talk a little bit about any pricing changes you know that PTC has done you know in the last year or so? How you’ve sort of you know approached pricing you know as – as part of this year’s guide? And just any anything on pricing that you would say with respect to this year’s ARR guide?

Kristian Talvitie

Management

Yeah, sure. Hey, a second. Thanks for the question. So you know like most of our peers, we evaluate pricing typically on an annual – annual basis and you know generally contemplate price increases around the October, kind of November timeframe. That’s been our pattern here for the past – past few years, depending on the overall macro environment and you know competitive environment, we try to take those things into consideration, as we – as we think about price increases. So for example you know, during COVID, we actually did a much smaller price increase than we normally would. And – and this year, we actually given the macro environment, we actually pulled the price increase forward a little bit. So you know effective in May, we did a price increase that was also slightly larger than normal, reflecting the macroeconomic situation that we’re all in right now. In terms of its impact to this year’s guidance and performance, I would say it’s been a modest, if you will, at best tailwind for fiscal ‘22. But we think that it’s one that will persist in the fiscal ‘23. And I think the way to think about that is if the price increase was effective in – you know effective in May, any quotes that were already in play would have had old pricing and so on. So you’re – you’re really talking about quotes that are going out after the price increase. So primarily impacting you know Q4 and beyond.

Jim Heppelmann

Management

And maybe to add on renewals. As we’ve discussed, our average term lengths around two years, which would mean each quarter on average, an eighth of renewals are up. And – and then actually a majority of those have contractual price increases uninfluenced by inflation or by price increases we did to the product. So, it was not a major factor. In fact, it was a pretty de minimis factor in Q3, but it will be helpful as we – as we get into next year.

Saket Kalia

Analyst

Okay, got it. Very helpful, guys. Thank you.

Jim Heppelmann

Management

Thanks.

Kristian Talvitie

Management

Thanks, Saket.

Operator

Operator

And our next question will come from Andrew Obin with Bank of America.

Andrew Obin

Analyst

Yes, good afternoon. Good afternoon.

Jim Heppelmann

Management

Hi, Andrew. Hi.

Andrew Obin

Analyst

Hi. Jim, Kristian. Just the question on Windchill-SaaS transition. Sounds like Windchill+ is more attractive to new logos versus lift and shift existing clients. How is the pipeline for lift and shift building relative to your expectations?

Jim Heppelmann

Management

I’m quite pleased with it. There’s a lot of interest. But you know it’s a project that has to be sold and planned and so forth. Sometimes I call it the last upgrade. Because you know, there’s a process to de-customize this system and upgrade it and then merge it into the running SaaS system. So there’s a lot of interest. But I think we never really didn’t feel like that’d be fast out of the blocks. What’s easier to do is if a new customers buying Windchill, we say, well would you like it SaaS and they say, sure, why not. So it’s a lot easier for us to get out of the blocks faster with new projects than with these lift and shifts. But the interest level, I assure you is quite high. And in fact, the growth rate in Windchill is strong overall, but it’s stronger you know as you would expect on a SaaS side than on the on-premise side.

Andrew Obin

Analyst

Thanks a lot.

Jim Heppelmann

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And our next question will come from Blair Abernethy with Rosenblatt Securities. Please go ahead.

Blair Abernethy

Analyst

Thanks very much. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Jim, I just wanted to maybe dig in a little more on the Digital Thread Growth that you sort of mentioned the IoT business and AR business, you know maybe not – not quite where you want them to be at. Can you just talk a little bit about what’s kind of happening in those end markets? And sort of what – you know what the competitive landscape is looking like for you guys these days?

Jim Heppelmann

Management

Yeah, sure. Blair. So yeah, I mean, I think all year you know we’ve over-performed in a long list of things. And there’s – and there’s one part of the business has a little bit underperformed, even though it’s growing at a rate that’s accretive to company growth. But that’s IoT and AR. And I think it’s really a – mostly a market issue, not a competitive issue. In fact, I’d say it’s not at all a competitive issue. There’s this factor that I call the hair-on-fire factor, which is a lot of this stuff is sold into environments that are in chaos right now. You know, if you run a factory, and we’re trying to tell you how we can make it more productive, you say, well, it’s shut down, because I don’t have any inventory. Or I’m in a lockdown mode or – or I have too much inventory or you know there’s just a lot of noise right now that, again, is competing for mindshare, and it’s not just competing for PTC’s mindshare, it’s competing for competitors’ mindshare too. So I’m unaware of anybody we compete with who has higher performance than we do in this environment. I think this environment will pass and we’ll get more momentum down the road. But meanwhile, what we said is, we have you know, we – we put our resourcing plans in place according to our growth plans. And the places that are surpassing that growth plan need more resources and the places that are behind I mean, honestly, we have too many resources stacked in there. So we’re just moving them around, it doesn’t mean we’re given up on anything we – we hope to get to and achieve this 20% growth rate, but I think as we look to next year, I think we feel like 20% would be a pretty good growth rate for next year. I’m not guiding to that here, but I’m just saying I don’t think the market supports more than 20% growth rate at this point in time, because of those hair-on-fire issues I’m talking about.

Blair Abernethy

Analyst

Great, thanks for the color, Jim.

Operator

Operator

And our next question will come from Adam Borg with Stifel. Please go ahead.

Adam Borg

Analyst

Great. Thanks so much for taking the question. Maybe just to follow-up along just the Thread from the last question. So as you allocate these resources from IoT and AR and presumably to CAD and PLM, how do we think about the ramp from the sales and marketing perspective to get these guys productive? I’m assuming it’s a hell of a lot easier to be more productive given they already familiar with the technology and the company versus a brand new reps. I’d love to hear more about the productivity of those reps as – as you make that transition.

Jim Heppelmann

Management

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think it’s the absolute most effective and efficient way to bring more resources to bear, because these are people who are already in the PTC sales organization, they already know the management team, they already know the customers, we’re just saying, hey, sell this product instead of that one to the same people in many cases. Not in every case, but certainly to the same types of people in every case. So I think it’s quite – it’s quite an effective way to ramp new capacity. And meanwhile, I don’t see much risk on the IoT and AR side, because we have ample capacity left to keep up with the demand we see. We simply or have too much capacity to be frank in IoT and AR selling. And so we’re shifting that over putting a couple of different products in their big and send them back onto the playing field. So I think it’s – it’s smart. I think it’s going to work well. And I think there’s very little risk.

Adam Borg

Analyst

Great, thanks so much.

Jim Heppelmann

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Jay Vleeschhouwer with Griffin Securities. Please go ahead.

Jay Vleeschhouwer

Analyst · Griffin Securities. Please go ahead.

Yeah, okay. Thank you. Hello, Jim. Hello, Kristian. Jim, you alluded in your comments to share gain in your Core CAD and PLM businesses. And I think that’s a reasonable observation. In addition to which you noted the strength in ALM, at least with the acquisition. And if perhaps raises a larger question of how the technical software market is evolving yet again, perhaps moving beyond what has historically been very [technical difficulty] centric industry to increasingly now with a – I think it’s simulation-centric industry in terms of revenue and process. So you know if that evolution continues you know where the world becomes simulation-driven, plus CAD and PLM. You know how do you – how do you think that positions or leaves PTC in terms of you know your growth, your – your competitiveness, your resource allocation et cetera?

Jim Heppelmann

Management

Yeah. Well, I sort of agree with you, but I’m not sure I agree with every piece of it. But let me – let me just talk about a few of them. So first of all, on taking share. Clearly PTC you know, Dassault had their earnings report yesterday, and you can go line item by line item in the CAD and PLM world. And our results are better than theirs. I think the SolidWorks’ business grew 8% and our Velocity business grew 29%. If I remember correctly, the Enovia and Catia business grew 11% and ours grew 14%. So, certainly on a dollars basis, we’re taking share. Now, I’ve always attributed some of that to a better business model. So I think we’re monetizing customer relationships better. And we may be taking more wallet share than sheet share, but we’re certainly not given up any share. There’s just no math that would get you there. So I think we’re doing well. Now, is simulation important? Absolutely. But you know so too is PLM. I mean, I don’t know, do you know what simulation company that’s growing like our Windchill PLM business at 17%? I’m not really aware of one. So I think that PLM is a much more strategic product and then people have given a credit for it. It’s sort of the age of PLM right now. Now, it may also be the age of simulation. And you know we have a great simulation partner in ANSYS, fantastic partner. And you know when a customer says simulation is important, we say great, let me tell you about our best-in-class simulation capabilities built right into Creo that come from ANSYS. So you know I’m happy if the customer thinks simulation is important, but I but I think at least is frequently, they think PLM is important and ALM too. And that’s really our strong suit. We’re absolutely best-in-class at PLM, Vernon.

Jay Vleeschhouwer

Analyst · Griffin Securities. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Jim.

Jim Heppelmann

Management

Thank you, Jay.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And again, we do ask that you limit yourself to one question and rejoin queue for follow-up. Our next question will come from Joe Vruwink with Baird. Please go ahead.

Joe Vruwink

Analyst

Great. Hi, everyone. You know, Jim, you brought up Dassault, but I think this topic has extended beyond just the strength a lot of your peers are seeing with the enterprise-type buyer and actually that type of account wanting to forge ahead if making new commitments and actually maybe pursuing things that are newer or more strategic you know cloud adoption has been coming up at the enterprise level. I’m just wondering is that true at PTC as well? And if this divergence was maybe happening, enterprise versus SMB? Does it cause PTC to maybe deviate some of the strategies that the company has been you know talking about and pursuing recently?

Jim Heppelmann

Management

Well, first of all, I think, Joe, that your thesis is at least directionally correct, that there certainly is a lot of interest amongst the larger enterprises, in digital transformation and in cloud. And those are places where PTC is well positioned. And you know kind of historically, we’ve had more exposure to the enterprise market than to the SMB market. You know, Creo and Windchill kind of don’t have near the representation in the SMB market that other products have from say, you know, Dassault or – or Autodesk or whomever. Now, with – with our Velocity unit, that’s really an SMB business. And that’s doing pretty well. And I think that’s all cloud-driven. You know what I mean? That’s – that’s a subset of the market who says, I really want to go to cloud, and PTC’s Onshape and Arena Solutions are virtually unmatched for those types of customers. But I think in general, yeah, the enterprise market really is leaning into digital transformation. I think COVID was very helpful for this. And I think it’s most helpful to PLM, because you just really can’t have a hybrid workforce. If people working at home can’t find the data, they need to do their work today, and they can’t walk down the hall to talk to somebody, because they’re not in the building. And even if they were in the building, the person they want to talk to is not in the building. So you really need a system, a system of record, and a system of engagement to allow you to you know do your job from anywhere in the office today, from home tomorrow, whatever. And – and PLM is that system. So you know, Dassault’s PLM results are pretty good. And ours were even better. And I think that’s indicative of you know a market that’s pretty healthy, which I think was the basic thesis, you know of your question.

Joe Vruwink

Analyst

Great, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from Matt Hedberg with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Matt Swanson

Analyst

Yeah, thanks. This is Matt Swanson on for Matt. Congratulations on the results for starters. And then another really strong guide, and in particular, the constant currency ARR. And that obviously accounts for FX. But you know as you mentioned, Jim, a lot of investor focus going into this earnings season was on the macro. And I think a lot of people are going to be surprised that there weren’t you know some greater demand headwinds from that macro. So can you just comment a little bit more on that environment? You know, it sounds like the hair-on-fire comments in IoT and AR, maybe that’s a little bit of macro, but you’re obviously overcoming it in a lot of other areas. So if you guys give us a little bit more color on that?

Jim Heppelmann

Management

We are definitely overcoming it. And even with IoT and AR, we did see a nice acceleration in the quarter. So I think if you look at our bookings, they were up strong sequentially. They were up strong year-over-year. You know if I think ahead to our Q4 forecast that is very strong sequentially. It’s not up year-over-year, because as Kristian said, we have a monster comparison in the – in the prior year, but it’s up quite strong sequentially from quite a strong quarter this quarter. So, right now our forecast looks good. Now, Kristian, and I say okay, I mean, I hope it comes in like that. But you know, if it doesn’t, we’re prepared for that, too. And that’s a little bit why I took you through the business model and the margin programs and so forth, because we want to win no matter what happens. But so far, honestly, the news is all pretty good. It’s just we don’t want to be a Pollyanna here. And you know, say this downturns never going to touch us. I mean, maybe it will, and if it does, I tried to show you we’re ready for it.

Matt Swanson

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from Jason Celino with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Unidentified Participant

Analyst

Hi, Jim. Hi, Kristian. This is actually [Devine] [ph] on for Jason tonight. Thanks for taking our question. I want to ask about APAC, despite a lockdown there in certain area of the region, PTC still posted a pretty strong growth there, 16%. Just want to ask if there’s anything you can call out around sales cycle, any changes there or any sort of particular strength that you saw from a specific customers or product groups? Thank you.

Jim Heppelmann

Management

Yeah. The strength, first of all was in our Core CAD and PLM business you know the so called Digital Thread Core, which is doing well everywhere. And we did see some, I mentioned this in the commentary, we did see some China lockdown issues, where you know companies just for whatever reason didn’t want to talk to us. But nonetheless, results were still good. You know we kind of had other good news to offset that. I think the key thing in China to know, if you don’t know this now is it’s now 5% of our business, 5% of our ARR. So we have very little exposure. It had previously been as high as I don’t know, 7% or 8%. But you know when President Trump was in the office, he went to war, as you know with our, let’s say, battle with our largest customer, which was Huawei. And by the time the dust settled on that, Huawei was Dassault’s customer. And you know because they pretty much got the message not to do business with American companies. And that hurt us in China, generally, all the – you know a large amount of the Chinese manufacturing market is state-owned. And having watched what Trump was doing with Huawei, an American suppliers like us that was not helpful. But you know good news is, we’re down to 5% exposure. And China’s not that material to PTC, which I actually feel kind of good about right now given you know, the – the scariness and the outlook of what might happen there in the coming years.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from Yun Kim with Loop Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Jim Heppelmann

Management

Hey, Yun.

Yun Kim

Analyst

Hey. Hey, Jim and Kristian. Congrats on a strong quarter. Obviously from the results and the guide, your business is accelerating. Looks like the macro is not really impacting you guys as much. Given your strong product positioning and a large core customer – customer base that continues to increase their investments in your solutions. Can you just talk about how aggressively are you cross-selling your products, especially if you look down next couple of years with your Windchill+ migration plan you know, how aggressive do you plan to cross-sell your IoT, AR into your Core CAD and PLM install base? Thanks.

Jim Heppelmann

Management

Yeah, well, Yun, those are good questions. So first on the specific question about cross-sell. I mean, that’s actually a pretty well developed muscle inside of PTC. You know, we built our PLM business largely by cross-selling from CAD and – and then other things we’ve sold have kind of been cross-sold from PLM. So definitely, we’re trying to make IoT and AR more focused on what we call the Digital Thread story, which is, it’s not only about solving problems with IoT, but it’s about solving problems with IoT using PLM data, which would include of course, CAD, digital markups and visualization and so forth. And then our Augmented Reality, of course, is a huge consumer of 3D data, because it trains its computer vision models against 3D, digital markup configurations, not to get too technical on you guys. But anyway, there’s a great cross-sell opportunity. It’s a – it’s a big, big focus. But you know, one thing I did want to say, your – your comment at the beginning said that our guide suggests we’re not that affected by the macro. I actually just want to say to all of our investors, you need to reconfigure your opinion of PTC a little bit, because we’re not a cyclical name anymore. And in fact, our guide, the low end of our guide contemplates a 30% decline in new sales in Q4. It’s just that our model is so resilient, that even a 30% decline in new sales still lands with 13% ARR growth. So like sometimes I read in a report that PTC is a cyclical name, and I say, show me a piece of data that supports that, because for five years, we’ve been steady as she goes, in good times and bad. And I just feel like we have a business model that’s underappreciated. And you know the worst that downturn is going to get, the bigger performance differential you’re going to see between us and people you compare us to you know particularly in our own industry here, because we’re – you know, our software’s 98% recurring, that’s substantially greater than ANSYS, than Dassault, than Siemens then basically any of the companies you might directly compare us against you know in the same market, let’s say.

Yun Kim

Analyst

Okay, great. Thank you so much, Jim.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from Tyler Radke with Citi. Please go ahead.

Tyler Radke

Analyst

Yeah, Hey, Jim. Hey, Kristian. Just wanted to follow-up on a couple of points. So first just on the price increase, just wanted to clarify that there was no tailwind to that in Q3. And then, you know, secondly, wanted to just hear how you know, customers so far are kind of taking that price increase if there’s you know, any – any pushback just given inflation concerns. And then finally for Kristian, as we think about free cash flow obviously you’ve been able to maintain and if not raised the guide for several quarters here despite currency headwinds, but – but obviously currency does impact ARR which – which drives free cash flow. So how are you just thinking about the cumulative currency impacts on – on your free cash flow targets and your ability to offset those either through slower hiring or you know other manners? Thank you.

Jim Heppelmann

Management

Let – let me hit the first question and you can take the second one. So the first question was about, was there any pricing tailwind? Yeah, sure, but it just was not significant. So there was a little bit of pricing tailwind. But again to go back through the kind of calculations here, only a small amount of our book of business came up in Q3 for renewal and most of these contracts have pre-negotiated price increases that we would get, despite whatever level of inflation is out there. There is a minority that you can argue, we have rights to raise the prices higher, and then some are actually tied to CPI, but most of our contracts are actually pre-negotiated fixed – fixed price increases. So we’d get them no matter what the economy and the inflation was. And then again, on the new sales, it’s just that our sales cycles are longer than two months. And so when you put a quote in front of a customer and you raise the price, you can’t take that quote back and stick a more expensive quote in front of them, because they get kind of angry. If they don’t take that deal. Well, now you can raise it or when you go meet the next customer, you can go in with a higher quote. But it’s just that we didn’t have enough time to work that price increase through our sales cycle, to have it be meaningful to what happened you know in terms of new sales. So you know like for example, Pepsi raised the growth rate by two points, because they raised the price of potato chips, and you walk in the store and they’re more than they used to be and you pay it, but we’re not selling potato chips, we’re selling complex software that has multi-quarter sales cycles.

Kristian Talvitie

Management

Okay, thanks. Hey, Tyler on the free cash flow. So, it – it – yes is a function of – of ARR as well as some other things, and also a function of timing. So as we think about free cash flow for the year you know, again, well over half of our – of our collections actually happened in the first half of the year when FX rates were much more favorable than they are right now. And as we think about you know the second half of the year, there are a number of dynamics that – that have contributed. One, we actually had ARR over-performance in the first half. Some of which shows up in you know, we’ll call it second half collection. So that also helps. That helps. We’ve had slower than anticipated hiring which is you know we’ll call it a cost offset which also helps on the – on the free cash flow generation. And then you know we’ve had modestly better perpetual license performance, Kepware is performing quite well, that’s really the only thing that – that’s left that we sell it even partially perpetual basis. So that – that’s been you know another – another tailwind. So, you net all those out and we’ve actually been able to outperform the free cash flow targets here now, three quarters in a row. And I think we have – you know we raised the – raised the outlook for Q4 and I think we have a good – good setup for that as well.

Tyler Radke

Analyst

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Operator

And our last question will come from Ken Wong with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Kristian Talvitie

Management

Hello, Ken.

Ken Wong

Analyst

Thanks for taking me in and [technical difficulty]. Just wanted to touch on FSG, I guess you know when you guys had a good performance previously, it seemed like a one-off and now this low single-digit business is going 9% organic, just wondering kind of what is the cause of that? Is it just ALM in there? Any color on FSG would be – would be fantastic.

Jim Heppelmann

Management

Yeah. It’s a good question, Ken. Because we did set an expectation, low single-digit growth and now it’s kind of put along in pretty high single-digit growth. I think you know we’ve just seen better demand than we had anticipated. So for example, if you look at some of the building blocks, Servigistics is a service parts management software and they’re having a great year. And then there’s what we call, FlexPLM, which is a special version of Windchill that we sell to retail companies, big box stores and clothing and you know apparel and footwear companies. And win rates been good and the demand has been good. There’s Arbortext you know our technical documentation type of technology that does structured documents and automated publishing and so forth, and that’s performed well. So I think there’s actually some good demand and frankly, pretty good execution. The renewal rates in all cases have improved too. So that’s also helpful. So, I don’t know maybe – maybe we shouldn’t say that FSG will be able to perform in mid single-digits, you know post-Codebeamer when it’s already doing better than that pre-Codebeamer. But you know we’ll try not to get ahead of ourselves. We’re pleased with what’s going on and with Codebeamer in there, you know we’re pretty sure it’s going to be kind of mid single-digits at least going forward.

Ken Wong

Analyst

Got it. Great, fantastic. Yeah, keep chugging along guys.

Jim Heppelmann

Management

Okay, is that the last question? All right, so Matt’s given me the – give me the signal here. I just want to thank everybody for spending time with us today. Appreciate you know you hanging in there and we look forward to seeing you in 90 days, if not before. Hopefully the economy will kind of – the macro situation will stay as it has been and we’ll have some really great news for you and if not, you know, I think will be – will be okay anyway. So I look forward to seeing you and have a good evening.

Kristian Talvitie

Management

Thanks, everybody.

Operator

Operator

And that will conclude today’s conference. Thank you for your participation and you may now disconnect.