Earnings Labs

Teradata Corporation (TDC)

Q2 2012 Earnings Call· Thu, Aug 2, 2012

$25.81

-2.49%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+8.02%

1 Week

+11.62%

1 Month

+15.04%

vs S&P

+11.82%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the Q2 2012 Teradata Earnings Call. My name is Kim, and I will be the operator for today's call. [Operator Instructions] Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Gregg Swearingen. Mr. Swearingen, you may begin.

Gregg Swearingen

Analyst

Good morning, and thanks for joining us for our 2012 second quarter earnings call. Mike Koehler, Teradata's CEO, will begin today by summarizing Teradata's Q2 results. Steve Scheppmann, Teradata's CFO, will then provide more details regarding our financial performance as well as our increased guidance for 2012. Darryl McDonald, Teradata's EVP of Applications, Business Development and CMO, is also in the room. Our discussion today includes forecast and other information that are considered forward-looking statements. While these statements reflect our current outlook, they are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to vary materially. These risk factors are described in Teradata's 10-K and other filings with the SEC. On today's call, we will also be discussing certain non-GAAP financial information, which excludes stock-based compensation expense and other special items as well as other non-GAAP items, such as free cash flow and constant currency revenue comparisons. A reconciliation of our non-GAAP results to our reported GAAP results and other information concerning these measures is included in our earnings release and on the Investor page of Teradata's website, which can be found at teradata.com. A replay of this conference call will also be available later today on our website. Teradata assumes no obligation to update or revise the information included in this conference call whether as a result of new information or future results. I'll now turn the call over to Mike.

Michael F. Koehler

Analyst

Thanks, Gregg, and good morning, everyone. Teradata had another strong quarter in Q2, with revenue growth of 14% as reported and 18% in constant currency. And for the first half, revenue was up 20% in constant currency while going against last year's record first half revenue growth of 17% in constant currency. Non-GAAP operating income grew 31% in the quarter to $188 million, and non-GAAP EPS of $0.77 was up 28% over prior year. Non-GAAP operating margin of 28.2% was 390 basis points higher than the previous best quarter of 24.3%, which was achieved in Q2 of 2011. The record operating margin was driven by solid execution across the company and a significantly favorable revenue mix. In the quarter, higher-margin product revenue grew faster than services revenue. And within the product revenue, higher-margin EDWs grew faster than the appliances. And within the services revenue, higher-margin maintenance grew faster than Consulting. It is rare when all 3 revenue mixes line up favorably like this in a quarter. Overall, we were pleased with our better-than-expected second quarter results and where we stand at the end of the first half. Turning to the regions, the Americas reported revenue growth of 17% and was up 18% in constant currency. For the first half, the Americas was up 22% as reported and in constant currency. Q2 marked the 10th consecutive quarter of double-digit growth, with 7 of those quarters growing more than 20%. The Americas had a large number of new customer wins in the quarter, including Groupon, which will be implementing a data warehouse to manage large-scale Web log data and differentiate offers by location and subscriber; Mutual of Omaha, which purchased a data warehouse to integrate data from across finance, marketing, insurance and retirement services to provide better information to their users; the…

Stephen M. Scheppmann

Analyst

Thanks for joining us this morning. Our Q2 2012 results continue to reflect the strong qualities of our business model, driving revenue that increased 18% in constant currency and record non-GAAP product and overall gross margins and record operating margin. This drove non-GAAP EPS of $0.77, which is a 28% increase from the prior year period. Second quarter revenue of $665 million was up 14% from the second quarter of 2011. Revenue for the first half of the year was up 18%, 20% in constant currency. As you're probably aware, currency moved against us during the course of the quarter a full percentage point, which resulted in approximately $9 million less revenue in our reported results than would have been the case using the April 30, 2012, exchange rates when we updated our 2012 guidance on May 3, 2012. In other words, our Q2 revenue would have been approximately $9 million higher than the $665 million reported. Product revenue of $321 million was up 19% from the second quarter of 2011, up 23% in constant currency. For the first half of the year, product revenue was up 25%, 27% in constant currency. Services revenue, up $344 million, was up 10% or up 13% in constant currency from the second quarter of 2011. Year-to-date, services revenue was up 11% or up 14% in constant currency. Within services revenue for the quarter, Consulting Services revenue was up 9%, up 13% in constant currency. And maintenance services revenue was up 12%, up 14% in constant currency. Year-to-date, both Consulting Services and maintenance services revenue were up 11%, with Consulting Services up 14% in constant currency, while maintenance services was up 13% in constant currency. During my discussion today, I will be addressing margins and expenses on a non-GAAP basis, excluding special items. A…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And at this time we have a question from Katy Huberty from Morgan Stanley.

Kathryn L. Huberty - Morgan Stanley, Research Division

Analyst

Despite the macro situation right now, you made a few positive comments, particularly about the size of the pipeline in Europe and expected better deal closings in China in the back half. So my question is, where does the 7- to 11-point deceleration in revenue growth come from in the back half if you feel relatively good about those 2 regions?

Michael F. Koehler

Analyst

The -- first of all, Katy, I would look at EMEA. We're having some pretty good results, especially when you look at it in constant currency. The currency headwinds for EMEA in Q3 are about 10 points. And basically, what we're seeing with EMEA as you look at the second half of the year, more impact from currency offset by the strong pipeline as well as we're getting some really strong results out of some of the newer markets, such as Russia, the Middle East and some others. So the net-net, because of the currency, if you look at EMEA organically without the favorable impact of eCircle, it's going to be challenged, as reported, as we look at the second half, but they should grow double digits in constant currency in the second half organically. In the case of APJ, they're pretty back-end loaded. As you mentioned, with China, we expect the deals that have been pushed out and delayed in the first half of the year to start closing, hopefully, some in the third quarter, but most of it's back-end loaded. And when we look at APJ overall, the third quarter, we see it more on the light side with more upside in the fourth quarter. And then overall, when we look at the Americas, the rate of growth they've had over the past several years, we're beginning to see a little bit of a slowdown in the rate of growth simply because of the magnitude of some of the prior year comparables that we're running against there. The activity in everything else in the Americas is very good, and we have pretty good visibility on the third quarter. And in the third quarter, we think we're more towards the lower end of the 9% to 13% we're talking about, the growth in constant currency in the second half. So on the third quarter, as it stands today, we see us more towards the low end of that. And the real upside or the real wildcard comes in the fourth quarter with product revenue. We've got a pretty good handle, as you can imagine, on maintenance and consulting, which operates with a pretty good backlog. The real wildcard will come down to product revenue in the fourth quarter. So -- and back to your original question. You look at first half, second half, we're feeling impacts of the macro. There's definitely some impacts, and it's not just EMEA. You can see it in our consulting business. Some of the customers are doing more in house. Some of the customers are working with smaller chunks of consulting as opposed to broader-based projects. And so we're feeling some of those impacts broadly.

Kathryn L. Huberty - Morgan Stanley, Research Division

Analyst

And just as a quick follow-up, similar to some of the comments out of your software peers, did you see weakness in the back half of the quarter and particularly, the month of June? Or was the modest macro weakness throughout the quarter?

Michael F. Koehler

Analyst

No, we didn't, Katy. So we had a very normal behavior in the quarter, and we had a fairly good close at the end of the quarter in Q2.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Wamsi Mohan from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Wamsi Mohan - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Analyst

Mike, you alluded to, in your prepared remarks, deceleration in consulting revenue, and as you were answering the last question, you noted a few factors here. But typically, when you see the macroeconomic environment deteriorate, historically, you've actually seen your consulting revenues go up. So I'm wondering what has changed over there, if anything. And have you actually slowed the pace of hiring consultants in anticipation of that?

Michael F. Koehler

Analyst

First of all, Wamsi, we've got to separate out some of the inorganic benefit we've had in our consulting results over the past several quarters from some of the acquisitions. So the magnitude of deceleration in Consulting Services revenue growth isn't quite as large as it appears. So I believe the number, in constant currency without acquisitions, for Consulting Services in 2011, I think it netted down to about 18% growth, okay? And now in the first half of this year, we're looking at a number that's like 13% or 14%. So I just want to get everyone grounded on the amount of deceleration that we're seeing. The -- as far as the consulting and its behavior and slowing down, there's several dimensions to it. So first of all, you can always have some lumpiness. So in the first half of the year, the lumpiness going against us was mostly in the Americas. It was more related to completion of some larger contracts. We had some in the federal government that came to conclusion. Of course, you need to replace them with more contacts. But as you go forward, the size of the contracts in this environment, and we're seeing it more broadly, is companies tend to go with smaller chunks and so forth. You mentioned, historically, our Consulting Services has performed well in a down economy, and right now, I think what we're dealing with is more of an uncertain economy. But the Consulting Services growth rates are good as it relates to our product revenue growth in a down economy. The Consulting Services growth rates are lower if you look at what we grew in 2008 and '09, so I wouldn't take anything there with that.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And at this time we have a question from Jesse Hulsing from Pacific Crest Securities.

Jesse Hulsing - Pacific Crest Securities, Inc., Research Division

Analyst

On the Aster Data side, proof-of-concept activity seems to be picking up. Are you starting to become more aggressive with how you position Aster data with your broader Teradata sales force? And can you talk about the dynamics of who's buying Aster? And are they buying it alongside your traditional EDW products?

Michael F. Koehler

Analyst

Okay. Well, first of all, we've been aggressively marketing Aster Data since the acquisition. So I think what we're seeing is things have matured. And as things have matured, meaning acquiring more customers, more use cases, template-type applications, if you will, it's easier to deploy, get in front of customers, do proof of concepts. And as the product and use cases mature, you can more aggressively get it out in front of customers. In addition, we've held several big data conferences. We did a roadshow. We're not finished with it yet. There's still one left in New York we're doing in October. And the attendance there and the interest has been very, very good. So like I said, the pipeline is up significantly. The proof of concepts is up very, very significantly. And although it's small numbers, we had a good amount of revenue, our highest Aster revenue in the second quarter.

Stephen M. Scheppmann

Analyst

Yes. The other thing that you talk -- who's buying the Aster. It really is across the board, so we're having strong interest in financial, retail, e-business and government. And as you can imagine, a lot of them are looking at this platform as an alternative to a lot of their Hadoop projects. So many of them have started to do projects and found that they needed a tool and platform that could help them access the data using some of the standard tools, and Aster, using SQL-MapReduce, is the perfect tool to allow them to apply some of their existing tools against the big data projects that we have going on. So again, we're seeing it in finance, marketing and the e-business side at many of those industries.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Raimo Lenschow from Barclays.

Raimo Lenschow - Barclays Capital, Research Division

Analyst

A quick question from me. I'm thinking more about Europe again. Obviously, we have the concerns on the macro. But then if I look at the revenue contribution you're getting from Europe, it seems that you are still not really at a mature stage. Can you maybe talk about how you see your revenue mix, from a geographic perspective, evolve over time? And maybe kind of help us to get more comfortable on the European development in that respect.

Michael F. Koehler

Analyst

In general, we see the market adoption of technology and analytics and data warehousing, generally, around the world, trailing the U.S. And I do believe one of the reasons we're doing fairly well in Europe -- doing fairly well is a relative term. But we are at that point in Europe where the market adoption of Enterprise Analytics and Enterprise Data Warehousing, as Teradata views it, is gaining a lot of traction. So we've gained a lot of traction in the telecommunications industry, financial services industry. The retail industry is doing very well in Europe, and we're gaining traction in newer industry segments, such as manufacturing, so forth. So in Europe right now, we're at a point where relative -- if we forget the macroeconomic conditions, relative to the Americas, the revenue contribution from EMEA is going to continue to increase. That is the trajectory we're on. And we are -- as a percent of our total revenues, EMEA is at a lower percent of contribution than a lot of the U.S.-based technology companies are that are global. So we do expect that to go up over time.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Matt Summerville from KeyBanc.

Joseph K. Radigan - KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc., Research Division

Analyst

This is actually Joe on for Matt. Given the strong start to the year, do you get the sense that there was any pull-forward perhaps maybe with customers looking to spend their budgets before the macro gets worse? And then kind of along with that, I just want to make sure we have the seasonality right. Historically -- and you've talked about this a little bit. But historically, the third quarter looks similar to the second quarter with the fourth quarter being the high watermark for the year. And I mean is that seasonal pattern expected to hold at least on the revenue side?

Michael F. Koehler

Analyst

It's interesting you brought this up. Historically, if you looked at Teradata, revenue declined sequentially between Q2 and Q3, and there's a number of factors in the third quarter that deals with holidays in certain parts of the world and things like that. But if you do go back and you look at 2000 to 2006 and into 2007, some of these years, we declined sequentially. When we started growing at a more rapid rate like we've done recently, we've been more on a sequential growth almost across all quarters except for, of course, Q4 to Q1. So it's -- yes, there's a little bit of -- we've increased sequentially the last 2 years, but we're not planning on seeing that type of growth going from Q2 to Q3. The other part of the question was on pull-forward and really, really flushing of budgets or us pulling forward or whatever, once again, Q2 behaved very normally. And as we entered the third quarter, we're entering in a similar condition that we entered Q2.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Edward Parker from Lazard Capital Markets.

Edward Parker - Lazard Capital Markets LLC, Research Division

Analyst

So you mentioned that you continue to be pleased with the ROI on the sales territories that you've been adding here the last several years, and I think you also mentioned that you're on track to be at the higher end of your 2012 plans. But I wanted to ask, have you given any thought about 2013 hiring plans? And do you see enough opportunity out there to keep your foot on the accelerator in terms of hiring?

Michael F. Koehler

Analyst

As it stands today and what we know today, we would be looking at similar number sales territories in 2013. We're pleased with the ROI. If anything changes between now and then, positively or negatively, maybe we'll tweak it up or down. But you can count on us continuing to expand the sales territories.

Edward Parker - Lazard Capital Markets LLC, Research Division

Analyst

To take in 30 to 50 is a good number to think about?

Michael F. Koehler

Analyst

Yes.

Edward Parker - Lazard Capital Markets LLC, Research Division

Analyst

I'm sorry, 30 to 35?

Michael F. Koehler

Analyst

Yes. Yes, 30 to 45.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Derrick Wood from Susquehanna International.

James Derrick Wood - Susquehanna Financial Group, LLLP, Research Division

Analyst

And it sounds like you're qualifying these good results with some cautious macro commentary, as you often do, but you are raising constant currency guidance in this kind of tougher market. Clearly, in aggregate, you guys are navigating the macro quite well. So just curious what you're hearing from customers in terms of why you're staying so high in priority. And would also be curious to just kind of get a sense of the magnitude of some of the new growth drivers, maybe 6690 upgrades or synergies with Aprimo or Aster, to what degree that's helping lift your outlook for the year.

Michael F. Koehler

Analyst

Okay, Derrick. The -- so 95% of our revenue comes from the customer base, and a lot of that revenue is segmented into a subset of our total customer base. And we do have pretty good communication with what's gone on with our customers. I think if you look in our customer base and especially ones with Enterprise Data Warehouses, it's a continual journey. So they're always building out. We're always working with them for return on investments and defining what the metrics are and everything. So as we complete each addition and build out of an Enterprise Data Warehouse, we can show meaningful ROI to the companies. So I think between having out there in the market place that analytics is a big thing and big data is a big thing and all this stuff, with that kind of air cover and then us actually working hand-in-hand with customers and actually delivering ROIs that the C levels can see it and understand it inside corporation, bodes well for our user base. The other macro thing that works in our favor is most companies out there right now have cost reduction initiatives that are somewhere near the top on the list. If it isn't cost reductions, it's trying to constrain cost. And we have a clear methodology documented how we can help take out cost in the process of providing better analytics. So these things tend to work in our favor. That all said, I'm very confident we can always be in the top part of the budget prioritization in corporations, right? But when the budget actually gets cut, it's difficult to have the customer, in many cases, spend more money with you than they did the year before as the budgets are getting cut, and you saw that in 2008 and 2009. So that bodes well for us. The 6690 does present an opportunity for us to accelerate a little bit more floor sweeps as more companies have older non-hybrid storage types of EDWs then they can hit the tipping point and switch over to the 6690. Aprimo and Aster clearly are good revenue growth opportunities for us this year and next year. Especially when we look at the software as a service subscription model with Aprimo, that bodes itself well for consistent revenue growth. Did I catch everything?

James Derrick Wood - Susquehanna Financial Group, LLLP, Research Division

Analyst

I think you did. Yes.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Aaron Schwartz from Jefferies. Aaron Schwartz - Jefferies & Company, Inc., Research Division: I just had a question on that gross margin. You were pretty upfront with the dynamics here in the quarter. But as you see maybe a little more macro pressure, some of the things you talked to, can you just walk through how you would expect the product mix shift to look going forward? Are there any historic trends you can point to? Or is there sort of any more constraint or trade downplay within the product mix?

Michael F. Koehler

Analyst

Yes. So there's actually a couple of components here. Aaron, first of all, if you're talking specifically about the product mix, it's a little less predictable as far as appliances versus EDW. Obviously, if a customer is upgrading or enhancing and adding to their EDW, we know the product mix, but there are some cases of specific use data warehouses within an EDW customer that may or may not go with an appliance, new customers that we win. Half the time we're winning with an EDW, half with an appliance. Don't take that as a precise answer on the percentage of which, but it's hard to predict the mix of these things in the quarter. So the dynamics of the gross margin is we kind of had the trifecta here in the second quarter, where we had the product revenue growing faster than the services revenue. As you look out to the second half of the year, they're kind of lining up closer or similar in terms of rate of growth, the -- yes, so that's the dynamics.

Stephen M. Scheppmann

Analyst

And Aaron, yes, what I would add to that, what Mike was alluding to, as we look at the configuration in Q3, Q2, as Mike said, was a perfect game with that trifecta, with everything lining up but with respect to margin -- gross margin performance. And I would expect Q3's configuration estimated to be more in line with our historical averages, not declining but maybe more in line with Q2 -- or Q1, I should say, and then we have total year 2011 with respect to margin performance. So not really declining but not really being at that high rate that you saw in Q2. Aaron Schwartz - Jefferies & Company, Inc., Research Division: Okay. That's helpful. And just a quick clarification question. But did you say that the non-GAAP tax rate is expected to be about 29% for the year?

Stephen M. Scheppmann

Analyst

29% for the year, yes.

Operator

Operator

And at this time, I hear no response. I'll now turn the conference back to our speakers for closing remarks.

Michael F. Koehler

Analyst

Okay. Once again, thank you all for joining us here this morning. In closing, I'd like to invite each of you, if you can, I know it's a busy time of the year, to our PARTNERS Users Group Conference in Washington, D.C. It's October 21 to 25, and that's our global customer conference. And if you're interested in attending, please contact Gregg to register. So once again, thanks, everyone, and have a good day.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.