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Well, a lot going on. It's fascinating times at Palo Alto Networks. Thank you so much, Nikesh Arora, CEO. Really appreciate your time. Have a great rest of the day and we'll keep following the company closely. It's time for you to crack that bottle of Canti, given where you are. Nice. Cheers. All the best.
I just wanted to ask if I could, first, as I think about your IQOS guidance for the year and obviously reducing that for Russia and Ukraine, I just wanted to be sure as you think aboutas thosethe new guidance incorporates your expectations, excluding Russia and Ukraine, is that the only adjustment you've made for volume in that estimate, the new 88 billion to 92 billion sticks, is that just taking out your expectation for Russia and Ukraine for this year ?
We've made considerable progress during the course of the year on improving access to Repatha. We've made considerable progress in both the commercial patients as well as prospectively for the Medicare Part D eligible patients.
In fiscal Q3, we achieved record quarterly client SSD bit shipments, driven by share growth in client SSDs, as customers adopted our industryleading solutions. Our SSD QLC bit shipment mix reached a new record for the third consecutive quarter, with growth in both client and consumer.
Increases in interest rates could negatively impact sales and create supply chain inefficiencies. Central banks and other policy arms of many countries may take actions to vary the amount of liquidity and credit available in an economy.
For example, when a user sets up a Venmo account, it is Plaid that enables the user to link their bank account to their Venmo account.
So, first, John, I think you're putting it in good context. And so, if you look at revenue performance of Embedded over the last several years, we've had that significant outperformance, as you pointed out, in 2017 and 2018. And last year, we probably gave some of that back. So, I'd just point out that in the most recent quarter, at the TI level, so Analog and Embedded, we saw those signs of stabilization, but in every market, so behaving similarly except communications equipment.
AnswerKevin A. Lobo: Well, certainly if the current marketplace continues, it will be much better, obviously, because July is trending better than June, as we mentioned and as long as we don't have an outbreak or have to go back to shelterinplace, as long as this trend line continues, we're feeling good about Q3. QuestionLarry Biegelsen: That's helpful. And then, does that improvement in July also apply to the US, and if so, qualitatively how are hospitals in the US dealing with the spikes that we're all obviously seeing here ?
And I think one of the reasons why that's remained that way is when we add to the business through M&A, those acquisitions tend to be a little bit less mature in rest of world. When we look at the next decade, we imagine a lot of the digital transformation we've already seen in the US and in Europe will spread to a lot of other geographies, which represent growth opportunity.
EVs are great for ADI.
Brian, thanks. That's a very efficient mechanism and will move up and down. As Carol said, it's a different type of price. AnswerCarol B. Tome: And I'm just so happy you asked about delivery density. Because we've tried to move the needle on this area for along time and we haven't been successful principally because we've been focused on downstream, improving delivery density through access points, or SurePost redirect, and we just really haven't moved the needle. Yes, the density was the best this quarter since 2019, but fractionally. So we're like all right what we'redoing isn't working. We've got to go upstream. This pilot has been working very well. Now you may say well, what about the service level agreement to the customer ? Well, the virtual hold is only as long as the service level agreement allows. But there's a lot of hours in that service level agreement, 9 hours, 12 hours. And just to make this real for you, and this is just an estimate, but we estimate the cost of the last mile for us is $5.50. That incremental package costs us $0.60 so imagine the value that can be released if we improve the density. So we're going to give some of that value back to our customers. Why not ? Their service level is not disrupted, and we are going to value share. So more to come, early days, but super excited because it's different from what we've done in the past.
I'll take your question. If you look at the Mac, the Macit was the best quarter we've ever had in the history of the company. It was helped by the product launch of the MacBook Air with M2. And so, we had a backlog exiting our Q3 headed into Q4. We were able to satisfy all of that demand during Q4 and fill the channel for the Mac. And so, that led to a incredible Mac quarter. The comp from a year ago, we launched iPads in September, we launched iPads this year in October. And so, that's the reason iPad contracted during this quarter. QuestionErik W. Woodring: Okay. That's helpful. And then, maybe Luca, if I were just to ask you, obviously, Tejas, at the beginning of the call, talked about the 14week quarter, maybe can you just elaborate a little bit on how you think that 14week quarter impacts different line items, whether it's Products or certain segments within the Products business or the Services standalone ? Just where we should see that 14week quarter provide a bit more of a tailwind versus maybe not have an impact at all ? And that'sit for me.
AnswerPierre R. Breber: Yeah, essentially and then we just restated. So, yeah, the $4 billion guidance wasdid not anticipate a transaction or an acquisition at the time. There are two sort of restrictions that we're operating under. So, we're just operating under a different regime here during the transaction. Postclosing, absolutely, we have talked about the gross debt ratio being below 20%, lots of capacity to increase it. QuestionBlake M. Fernandez: Very clear.
And, in fact, for the first six months it grew at 4%. QuestionDavid W. Barden: So I just was talking to Ronan Dunne at Verizon about the restructuring of the business that they did and all the new management teams that they have there and their roles. This summer, we've had a lot of changes now at AT&T as well.
If I'ma potential IFS customer and I start my design today, realistically, right, I'm not expecting my chip design to be ready for manufacturing conservatively for at least 2 years because that's just how long the design cycle times are for these leadingedge chips.
So the way I would think about the margin opportunity that we have and you will really see this kick in from an inflection point as you think about the 2024 margin opportunity that we have, which brings together the combination of us really ramping and accelerating the production volumes within the plant, combined with the move from our sort of preMarch 1 preorder cohorts, your post March 1 cohort. And embedded in that postMarch 1 cohort, there is a true step change that you will see in regard to the overall aggregate gross margin that you will see within the business.
Operator We'll take our next question from Michael Cyprys with Morgan Stanley.
As we've previously discussed, FPL historically utilizes more reserve amortization in the first half of the year given the pattern of its underlying revenues and expenses and we expect to continue this trend this year.
AnswerDavid A. Ricks: Yeah, thanks, Andrew. It's a deeply flawed assumption. Of course, the Executive Order method has other problems in terms of legal power, but if enacted under administrative rules, there isn't necessarily a requirement to square the budget. So savings can be assumed in other ways and there's a different authority doing the math. That said, I think there are headwinds on this point, both within the administrative executive branch as well as on The Hill. You talked about Senate Finance and Grassley reintroduced aversion of his bill to try to make one last push. I don't think that that package has much of a chance to advance. There are always ways stars get aligned and there's a number of health extenders due at the end of this Congress but it's a pretty big piece of legislation to throw on an extenders package. So I think that's still a narrow path, and the most likely scenario is that these EOs can't take a force and don't take force prior to a new presidential term, anew Congress sitting, and that Senate Finance doesn't go anywhere either, nor does H.R.
Keep in mind that the mucosal healing and corticosteroidfree remission definitions were more stringent in this trial than what we've observed in historical clinical trials.
So, that's a strong position for us. But that also means that our ability to compete is not simply a narrow handset subsidy, but it's about strong CRM, highly targeted offerings, differentiated propositions, bringing customers things they truly value, and particularly doing it in a way that'snot driving up our cost of acquisition and our cost of retention, because we're able to deliver based on our own scale, real value to customers. Disney and Discovery being great examples, where the Disney Bundle now, I think, next month (18.14) $18.99 if you take the three elements. Well, needless to say, we're not paying anything like $18.99, but the customer is getting all of that value. QuestionMichael I. Rollins: One of the themes that you've been describing is the opportunity to trade customers up in the tiers of unlimited rate plans. And so, did the strength of customers taking unlimited and these higher tiers continue in the fourth quarter ? AnswerRonan James Dunne: I think it probably breaks into three component groups. And then, you have within the unlimited family, you have those who are identifying specific elements which are of particular value to them and that could be anything from I love Disney or Discovery and I want more of that or Apple Music, but it's also on certain of my tiered plans, my connected devices are cheaper, and because I've got multiple devices in the home. Most homes over the last three years have seen the number of connected devices double. And while some of those will be WiFi only or ZigBee or whatever, there's quite a few of them that also have cellular within them. So, it's those combinations. And as I think about 5G and fixed wireless access, we will get to a point, Michael, where I think people will see their 5G router as just another line on a family plan. So thatthose are the trends, we see nothing that would suggest that any of those trends will slowdown. I think it's the direction of travel. And I think it affords us the opportunity both to increase ARPU within our existing customer base, to be more attractive relative to some of our competitors with the mix of partners that we're bringing, and then access new addressable markets, either through our Wholesale strategy, through our subject to regulatory approval access of TracFone, but also as we build out our own capability with new partnerships and new connected devices coming through, because we haven't even scratched the surface yet on things like laptops and other connected devices in the 5G space. QuestionMichael I. Rollins: Justin (21:34), we're going to pull up survey number two in a moment. Is this something that you think is going to be lasting in terms of a smaller switching pool going forward ?
We saw varied (00:33:18) COVID19 impact across countries in the region with South Korea emerging the fastest delivering 8% growth in the quarter and digital growth was nearly 80% led by strength in Japan, Korea and Brazil, with Women's growing two times the rate of Men'son NIKE Digital. As of today, approximately 65% of NIKEowned stores are open with a higher percentage in South Korea, Japan and Australia, while stores across Latin America remain largely closed due to efforts to contain the spread of COVID19. Fiscal year 2021 will continue to be a time of uncertainty as economies rebound from the effects of COVID19 and seek to contain further outbreaks of the disease. We remain focused on what we can control, so that NIKE can manage risk and aggressively attack opportunities created in this environment. Given the uncertainty that still remains, we will not be providing specific guidance. Today, however, I will share the approach we are taking to fiscal year 2021 planning. We expect revenue in the first half of the year to be below prior year levels, but less of a decline than experienced in Q4, as we continue to reopen stores and fuel our digital business. We expect revenue in the second half to be up significantly versus the prior year with a healthy marketplace and normalizing full price sellthrough across our channels. For the full fiscal year, we expect revenue to be flat to up versus prior year, and of course, we will have greater clarity on our full year outlook 90 days from now. Gross margin will continue in the short term to be a function of our supply and demand management actions, as we prioritize the return to normalized inventory levels in Q2. As I said earlier, we have tightened our buys in the first half and are focused on moving through the inventory we have as profitably as we can. We expect SG&A to decline versus the prior year. With that, we'll now open the call up for questions. QUESTION AND ANSWER SECTION Operator Our first question comes from Alexandra Walvis with Goldman Sachs. Analyst:Alexandra Walvis QuestionAlexandra Walvis: Good evening. Can you talk about the plan for new stores ? Do you have any color on the number of new stores that you're planning to roll out ? And can you talk about what is being planned for the wholesale business perhaps in terms of points of distribution or partners that you're targeting overtime ? AnswerJohn J. Donahoe: Sure, Alexandra. Ina funny way, I would characterize this investment in these new doors as continued investment in our digital future, and here'swe look at everything through the eyes of the consumer, and consumers, as you know, are becoming accustomed to getting what they want, when they want it, how they want it, right ? They don't necessarily just want to buy digitally and have it shipped from home. We envisioned having fewer of them, but focusing on those that will share our vision of providing a seamless experiencea consistent seamless experience with physical points of presence. We have actually seen this firsthand in China. As you know in China with a relatively modest investment, there are monobrand stores that dramatically upscale how we serve consumers. I had a chance to see this firsthand during my first weeks at NIKE in China. (00:39:59) to get back out on the road, get back out in the market, get back outwith consumers. That's coming again, I know, but I got to see firsthand the power of those monobrand stores, and so we'll be opening somewhere between 150 and 200 new stores, they will be small footprint, digitally enabled monobrand stores in North America and EMEA. We've been testing this format with NIKE Live and have a greater understanding of how to best deliver this experience. And again to be clear, we believe this is incremental to what'sin the market today. It's complementary to what we're already doing and our partners are doing, and at the end of the day, we believe that NIKEowned physical and digital working handinhand with our key partners online and offline, we can create OneNike marketplace that meets the demand of consumers now and in the future. AnswerMatthew Friend: And I might just jump in Alex and say that as John mentioned, we've been testing the NIKE Live concept.
But I think the biggest and most important part here is commercial execution on the ground and thinking about workflow in the hospital systems, right ? Managing that and addressing that and working with the hospitals to address this workflow has been probably the biggest impact that the team has had. And then we're going to continue to invest in more clinical data and product upgrade. So, I feel great about this product.
That's what we wanted to see. That's what we are seeing. And it then becomes a platform to do more. So, we're now at 3 million Flex boxes out in the field. And that can't be a bad thing when you think about 30 millionplus customer relationships that we have and the pandemic has shown network usage as we shared in our report. Still, some staggering amount, 70% or something like that of Internet activity data usage is video entertainment consumption despite what we'redoing now. And so, I think that all points to the logic for having a strong service like Flex available in the video space. But it'snot an abandonment of our other video strategies, I would just say; it's a complementit's a very strong complement to our broadband strategy. QuestionBryan Kraft: Okay. And let'stalk about wireless. You've recently made comments about focusing on accelerating growth in wireless this year. Can you be more specific on what you'redoing differently in 2021, and how your plans have changed since when you launched the business in 2017 ? AnswerMichael J. Cavanagh: So, I think our suspicion from when we launched the business has played out that with the Verizon network, the best wireless network, and with access to the best phone devices, which was all work we had to, kind of, stand up to activate. You recall, tremendous skepticism that MVNOs could ever work. We started, and Charter'snow very muchwe're together in this effort, and you see here we are several years down the road. I think we're real, right ? I think there's no one that doubts that anymore. Sort of, where do we go next is more of the question. And I think with the scale that we have and the learnings, we've alluded to just tuning up our MVNO agreement with Verizon whichI'm not going to jump our marketing teamsbut will give us more flexibility to offer packages of services that will do what we intended to do for customers, which is give them a great deal on the wireless packages that they want. Our initial wave was some very strong features ofthe number of lines free, the By the Gig, or unlimited, and you can mix and match in a household. And the net of it was great ability to bring a great service at a cheaper cost than otherwise available; which, when you put it together, is a great connectivity package when tied together with our own broadband which remember is still something like 70% of the data that flows over a cell phone is happening over a wired network through WiFi, either in the home or office. So, where we go nowand just like Flex, I think one of the things we hope for and the cohorts that have come through we've seen it is, again, significant reduction in churn fora broadband customer when you have Xfinity Mobile attached to it; 20 basis points or so of churn reduction versus the, sort of, control group. Some folks wondered why not more last year and what's theversus what the opportunity is. Those are backup.
This condo is a third off. This company is a third off. But you just have to realize you're dealing in a slightly different place... QuestionKash Rangan: Yeah. AnswerMarc Benioff: And not just in Japan, also in Europe... QuestionKash Rangan: Yeah. AnswerMarc Benioff:...and in other places in the world as well. So that is the complicated part. QuestionKash Rangan: You know, we're talking about the macro, you've lived through lots of economic cycles. AnswerMarc Benioff: It's a great question because when you'rein a tough economic environment, there's several things you can really do. AnswerMarc Benioff: So we're a company that's much larger than $31 billion, and that's the beauty of our cloud model and how we've signed contracts with customers. So, then it gives us the opportunity to kind of say, what's some adjustments we would like to make ? We listen very carefully to our investors, what kind of some adjustmentswe listen to our customers, what's some adjustments you like, and then we can tune and make things a little bit better across the board so that as we exit the economic cycle which, maybe it's 2024, I don't know what your economists say, then we're just stronger as a company and we're kind of we know where we're going. We're very fortunate the last five years to have acquired the three companies that you mentioned: Tableau, MuleSoft, and Slack. I think that when we roll into Dreamforce next week, one of the reasons that we sold out so fast is we also had to ingest all of those communities as well. And they're all coming to see how those products are now integrated, how it's one complete Customer 360, how it's a new day fora Customer 360, and they can take these solutions forward. QuestionKash Rangan: So, since you raised the acquisition, let's just talk aboutwell, let's start with Slack. Talk about the success of that acquisition and what your aspirations are for that platform. AnswerMarc Benioff: Well, when I start my keynote next week, I'll go through some of the things we're talking about. I'll talk to also like the expansion ofI took a couple of notes to kind of tell you, like, some of the crazy things that we get to talk about in terms of our ecosystem, where we're forecasting $1.6 trillion in our ecosystem by 2026 and 9.3 million new jobs created by our ecosystem. And a lot of those people are there. Their careers have been made with Salesforce. We call them trailblazers. You've seen them in your own company and they're wearing these hoodies and so forth. And then the keynote basically starts to move into it's a new day for work. And... QuestionKash Rangan: No screaming. AnswerMarc Benioff: No screaming, but good, solid discussion. And when we talk to our employees, when we talk to the market, even in a CNBC poll last week that'son Twitter, I think like 85% of people who have experienced work from office and work from home want to be working workfromhome. And now I've got everyone in an audio / video environment and I've created maybe I'm working on a deal and that'snow a deal desk. I'm working on a customer service case situation. I'm swarming this case to resolve this issue. And it's all dynamic with the video and audio at home and everything working together. And that, with the things that we do, which are all of the customer functionality as well as the analytics with Tableau and the integration with MuleSoft, I think will be demonstrations of technology the customers haven't seen. And we'll profile two incredible companies in the keynote. We're going to profile our work with Ford, which has been very pioneering and our work with L'Oreal, two very different companies.
AnswerMark Grant: Thanks, Seth, and welcome. Our next question comes from Manav Patnaik with Barclays. Analyst:Manav Patnaik Q i MP ikHi d iIj f hMkIlli I QuestionManav Patnaik: Hi, good morning. I just want to focus on the Market Intelligence revenue. I guess you lowered by 50 basis points. Did I hear you right by saying most of that was because of the, I guess, the sustainability trends you talked about ? And I was just curious, Doug, you mentioned the weakness mainly in the financial services end market. I'm guessing that's most exposed here in Market Intelligence. In the spirit of all the vendor consolidation and those kinds of things that pickup in this period, are there any, I guess, trends or what's your strategy to be a winner in that area ? AnswerEwout Lucien Steenbergen: Good morning, Manav.
In the US, we start from a smaller scale there. We've been bringing different parts of that business together. The Wealth at Work franchise is one that'shad particularly pleasing growth in it. And we've also been seeing some good growth as we pulled a comprehensive offering together for our customers. The biggest upside there is investment products. Then finally, I'd say there's also tremendous opportunity in the synergies. And we've been showing you this in terms of linkages between our commercial banks, our banking franchise, the referrals up from the US personal banking. We've had about 60, 000 referrals this year in the US alone from that. Markets also provides important referrals and even TTS. So, the client referrals, there are business synergies between them, common platforms, so we really see an opportunity for this multidimensional growth drivers in Wealth over and above the recovery in the investment space that everybody in the market should be able to benefit from. And we'll continue investing inappropriately in building out that front line as well. So, this is a very important part of our strategy.
And Salesforce is an incredible company to take that forward.
AnswerRyan Weispfenning: Thanks, Matt. Francesca, next question, please. AnswerFrancesca DeMartino: We'll take the next question from Larry Biegelsen from Wells Fargo Securities. Larry, please go ahead. Analyst:Larry Biegelsen QuestionLarry Biegelsen: Good morning. So for Sean, this quarter I probably got more questions on Renal Denervation than anything else related to Medtronic. So I guess my question is, Sean, when will you know if the interim look is positive ? What's your confidence it will be positive ? And if it doesn'tend at this interim look, when will the trial end ? And any readthrough from that TRIO trial which was another ON MED trial that showed about a 4, 4.5 millimeter mercury difference on ambulatory systolic blood pressure. Thanks for taking the question, Sean. You're on mute. AnswerSean Salmon: Can you hear me now ? AnswerGeoffrey Straub Martha: Yeah. AnswerSean Salmon: Listen. We don't reallywe have no information (00:38:01) AnswerGeoffrey Straub Martha: We lost Sean again. Okay, this is like our fifth earnings call. This is our first technical glitch, so I was feeling pretty good. I'll see if we can get back Sean. There you go. But, look, this is why we do these trials. AnswerSean Salmon: Yeah. So can you hear me now ? I am back.
I think as you pointed out, the fundamental issue is that while we see terrific results with KEYTRUDA in a substantial fraction of cancer patients that still leaves substantial fractiona very substantial fraction in some tumor settings who just don't respond and the question is why ? We've published data in which we presented two axes plot of inflammatory response versus tumor mutational burden which are related but only weakly. And it is the case that tumors with higher mutational burden, especially very high mutational burden as you've seen in the MSI population respond extremely well. The question that isthat we're asking in a whole variety of studies is how can we take these less responsive tumor populations and make them more recognizable and a better trigger for immune responsiveness ? Ultimately, that will bean important frontier. We do see KEYTRUDA as a foundation for that treatment. It will be KEYTRUDA plus other things that will enable us to gain access to these less responsive patient populations, but we're hard at work on it. AnswerPeter Dannenbaum: All right. Operator Our next question comes from the line of Mara Goldstein with Mizuho. Analyst:Mara Goldstein QuestionMara Goldstein: Hey. The first one is I recognize that China has had very good growth of 90% plus this quarter. But I'm just wondering what the thoughts are around economic sensitivity ? Should there be some type of projectedprotracted economic slowdown ? And then I wanted to ask a question on gefapixant and the endometrial pain study. We noticed in clinicaltrials.gov that there is a slight lengthening of the estimated completion and I'm wondering, if this is a function of Orilissa's rollout in that indication ?
It's also about trust, and I think the Trust Layer and the way that we've architected our platform so that our customers are not basically getting taken advantage of these next generation, large language model, these foundation models. We're not going to let them have it. We're going to separate ourselves from those models through a Trust Layer so customers can be protected. This is going to be so important for the future of how Salesforce architects itself with artificial intelligence. Now, revenue in the quarter was $8.7 billion. Revenue for the quarter was $8.7 billion, up 11% yearoveryear, incredible. And companies standardizing on Salesforce as their core technology platform, doing these multicloud deals with us, getting that growth, as I said, that incredible stat that Brian's going to come back to, the 80% growth in deals of more than $1 million, so exciting. Nine of the top 10 deals included 6 or more clouds. Think about that. Nine out of our top 10 deals included 6 or more clouds. So, you know that we have amazing cloud, Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, platform, our Commerce Cloud, Slack, Tableau, Mulesoft, but think about it how they're bringing all of those things together.
AnswerMichelle Clatterbuck: Oh, thanks, Kirk. When you think specifically about something like the expert platform, AI services on that, yes, we have employed and continue to employ, as we talked about at Investor Day, a number of data scientists who are coming into really help us continue to develop this critical capability. AWS is absolutely a key partner with us. We're continuing to move some of the backend stuff and we expect that to take maybe another 18 to 24 months. QuestionKirk Materne: Perfect. Thanks so much. Operator Your next question comes from the line of Scott Schneeberger from Oppenheimer. Scott, you are now live. Scott Schneeberger, your line is now live. Analyst:Scott Schneeberger QuestionScott Schneeberger: Oh, thank you. Can you hear me ? AnswerJerry Natoli: Yes. QuestionScott Schneeberger: Good.
Very good question. There is one really significant item, just to make sure that we're all aware of, and that's that we'rein an MLR collar or MLR rebate position in many of our Medicaid states currently. And as we look at what future rate actions or rate filings could do, the first thing that they will do is they will reduce the amount of the MLR rebates before we end up with our final read. But at the end of the day, we feel very good about our ability to negotiate actuarially justified rates with our state partners.
So if you look at the percentages, foundry / logic is really around twothirds of total wafer fab equipment.
I'm happy to address that. I think just to recap on some of those points, we do believe our climate risk framework is both credible and ambitious and addresses the realities of our Triple Mandate: meet transition pathway demand; deliver competitive returns; and achieve net zero emissions on the emissions we control, which is the Scope 1 and Scope 2. I mean, concerning Scope 3, of course, if everyone addressed Scope 1 and Scope 2 in a similar way, then Scope 3 would be addressed, and that is not a trivial point. It's a very important point. And we agree that enduse emissions need to be addressed. We've actively advocated for that really since 2003, and we really see that as the most effective way of actually dealing with Scope 3 emissions on the demand side. Operator Our next question comes from Alastair Syme from Citi. It's really just one question. ConocoPhillips is known a lot for the scenario modeling that you do. So I just wanted to get your perspective about how you think thatas US shale gets its act together, which I guess others will logically follow the lead that you're showing here, how that happens, how you think OPEC + might or should react to that scenario ?
It's a simple, reliable and private way to receive important updates from people and organizations. And I'm quite excited for more people to try it as we bring the product to more countries through the rest of this year. We partnered with Microsoft to opensource Llama2, the latest version of our large language model and to make it available for both research and commercial use.
AnswerGeorge Damis Yancopoulos: Well, we powered our futility analysis as well as our clinical trial to deliver what we believe would be clinically meaningful benefit if the study proves positive, which we hope it will. I remind you that in other settings, in asthma, in particular, Dupixent has distinguished itself from other immunomodulators in delivering pretty substantial improvements in pulmonary lung function. AnswerRyan Crowe: Thank you. Operator Our next question comes from the line of Carter Gould with Barclays. Analyst:Carter Gould QuestionCarter Gould: Hi, guys. You do have some APP data on the horizon here with Alnylam. And if I guess more of the former, how much of this is a gating factor to really kind of expanding the effort here potentially dramatically across the number of CNS diseases ? So this, the first study which is focused on APP, is really a proof of concept that, can we get this technology to work. And it's obviously very early in the program, but the goal is to establish proof of principle that this type of technology which looks like it could be pretty effective in the liver, can it work outside of the liver, particularly in the CNS ? So this would be a platform enabler. AnswerRyan Crowe: Thanks, George. Operator Our next question comes from the line of Brian Abrahams with RBC Capital Markets. Analyst:Brian Abrahams QuestionBrian Abrahams: Hey, guys. Congrats on all the progress, and thanks for taking my question. So with the potential approval coming this summer, I'm curious how we should be thinking about the launch cadence for highdose aflibercept just considering some elements like the introduction of prefilled syringe, a JCode.
For example, as a result of limited visibility into encrypted products, we have fewer data signals from WhatsApp user accounts and primarily rely on phone numbers and device information to match WhatsApp user accounts with accounts on our other products. In addition, such evolution may allow us to identify previously undetected violating accounts (as defined below).
Second, we are establishing a more disciplined innovation framework and a new path forward for increased marketing effectiveness and efficiency. Third, we are strengthening our RGM and execution capabilities to drive relevance and responsiveness.
HIV revenues increased 8% yearoveryear primarily due to higher demand driven by Biktarvy and, as I said earlier, the normalization of inventory purchases in the US partially offset by lower sales of Truvada.
The acquisition of PPD is a great example of how our capital deployment strategy is creating customer and shareholder value. The combination of a great business and a smooth integration is driving excellent financial performance.
And, again, how do you think about that opportunity ? AnswerNikesh Arora: So you guys are seeing likelook, there's a huge movement out of this whole, the GitLabs, HashiCorp, Atlassians of the world, where it's kind of developerled, developers pick up tools that make stuff up happen. That's why we don't have 4, 000 police forces in every state, because you can't. You need one consistent way of doing security. If you don't do it, it doesn't work. Now, developers prefer that because then they can just look at it, use it and then ship their code for production. So what we did was we bought a company called Bridgecrew, where developers can use that as part of their open source tool kit, but it checks everything you're doing g p pp y gy g against the enterprise version of Prisma Cloud. So, when you submit it to the CIO or CISO, it's passed all the security tests (00:29:39) told you that. We bought that company about a year ago almost now. We've integrated it into our Prisma Cloud platform. We launched it about, I would say, two months ago. I think it's very early days.
And I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Merck Oncology ESMO Virtual Investor Relations Event Conference Call. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a questionandanswer session.
Nothing is going to solve this with a snap of fingers. And so, one, we're carbon neutral. Two, we're leading the financing as we talked about (30:56). So, we have to think about this as an operator. We have to be carbon neutral, net zero and work on that. We have to think as an educator. We have this big staff they don't, how do we help them. And then, all those things are important. But our core is to provide the financial capital to allow people to make the transition and help them make it and that's kind of the most important thing we do. QuestionSavita Subramanian: Yeah. I know, absolutely. Andso, we've covered a lot in our few minutes. The World Economic Forum and your work with the IBC, the human capital reports, just our statistics around diversity and inclusion, the sustainable bond issuance recently. Just curious from your perspective, what are you most proud of from the ESG efforts that we've done ? AnswerBrian T. Moynihan: Well, first, I'd like to say I'm most proud of you guys being the best research firm in the world on this stuff, but that's a given. But I think it'shard tothis isif I pick one and everybody else say he likes that better, let's go that way and that's just (33:10). And so, I think the most important thing is we're proud of all of them. The one I'm most interested in more recently is this economic mobility question. So Raj Chetty and John Friedman and others have published these studies showingin the United States, economic mobility and the differences of ZIP codes and ethnicities and stuff. Charlotte, our corporate headquarters city was 50th out of 50th or something like that. The community put together a planbut what's been interesting is that the business community, a group of CEOs have come together to develop job and skills training and supported the preK programs, read by third grade, the STEM education in middle schools, educating high school principals, building the physical plan, changing the technical education and saying we'll give a person job if they have these skills. But I think what's most interesting is watching the business community realize this is going have to be done in the United States, especially communitybycommunity and the business community has to lead it because, in the end of day, we havewell, the business community has is the jobs at the end of line. In the end of day, the economic mobility is to be driven by the jobs. If you train these skills, you'll have them. So if you take our Pathways program, which we had 10, 000 people go through from LMI communities over the last three or four years, we said it'd take five years and we did it in three. These colleagues are coming from LMI communities, they're coming through our program into career pathing and they start at $40, 000 plus full benefits, which is a great starting position for them. But think about it, they'rein a career path job and that economic mobility is critical. And so I'm most proud of that because I think that that's something that is another part of the execution we need in this area. QuestionSavita Subramanian: Absolutely.
And maybe just one more on WarnerMedia actually that I wanted to ask you, can you just talk about your strategy as it relates to Turner given the secular pressures in that business from pay TV subscriber declines ?
Thanks, Erin. Erin, I don't know that I would call as an inflection point. I think we've seen now over at least the last two, maybe even three quarters a progressing level of stabilization. And we would measure that stabilization in terms of some things that caused some disruption in the past, a series of adjustments in the channel relative to exclusive relationships between manufacturers and distributors, some disruption among some channel sales forces, some inventory build that needed to be rectified, all of those things really overthat was really over a couple of year period, I think evolved to a point where we now have a much more stable end market. And we're seeing that both in terms of the alignment between our sellin and sellout through the channel. We look at it in terms of inventories. We look at it by category to see how the traditional consumables and equipment are trending versus the more specialized products. And so, in general, I would say, the overall trend in the market today could certainly be called a far more stable than it was a year or two ago. In terms of the broader trends that are happening in the market, I would say, a continued move towards what would be broadly described as digital dentistry. The importance of imaging systems, particularlyand that's an area where our KaVo Kerr business is a real leader in imaging technologies, and the linkage of those imaging technologies through software to treatment planning and treatment execution with important novel innovations happening in the specialty areas. Our implant business around Nobel continues to be a leader in those areas where digital dentistry really matters, where imaging leads to treatment planning, leads to novel implant systems and procedures that end up with greater levels of patient satisfaction. And I think that's a broadbased trend not just in North America, but really on a global basis. I think the other thing that's certainly noteworthy is the emerging middle class and the importance of dentistry in high growth markets. China being one that we've talked a lot about being double digits, but we're going to see good growth across our Dental platform in a number of markets where an emerging middle class is putting greater demands on the practice of dentistry. And then finally, around your question around the timeline of the spin, we remain focused on the timeline as we laid it out, which is to effect that spin late this year. The intention is to launch an IPO of that business. And that would largely be a business that would probably put 19.9% of that equity into the market and we would retain the balance of that fora period of time. And so, there's been no change to those plans. QuestionErin Wilson Wright: Okay. Okay, great.
In Africa, we have recently taken several steps to help accelerate the shift to digital payments. On the credentials side, mobile money wallets are already prevalent across Africa.
For example, we continue to expand the range of clinical services we provide via our HouseCalls initiative.
Phil ? Analyst:Philip Winslow QuestionPhilip Winslow: Yeah. Thanks guys for taking my question and congrats on a great Q3. I just wanted to focus in on the apps business. Obviously, Safra, you called out the acceleration there, but also some pretty strong growth rates, ERP Cloud 38%, HCM Cloud Fusion 27%. So, two questions here. First, what's actually driving this growth ? Is this the existing customers flipping over from onpremise to the cloud or is it net new customers to Oracle ? And I guess a question for Larry too, what are you hearing on sort of why customers are choosingor how much does the breadth of your ERP suite impact that buying decision ? AnswerSafra A. Catz: So, let me just say... AnswerLawrence J. Ellison: Wellgo ahead, go ahead. AnswerSafra A. Catz: I'm sorry. AnswerLawrence J. Ellison: No, no, no. Go ahead. AnswerSafra A. Catz: First of all, let me just answer your exact question which is yes, yes, yes, yes. Is it new customers ?
AnswerRobert A. Iger: Dan, before I answer your question, I just want to clarify two things. My number on the number of people who have been carried on the Millennium Falcon attraction was way low. Usually I pride myself on being right with statistics, it's 5 million, not 1.7 million. And secondly, we will have access to significant amount of user data when people use our apps that have been purchased through MVPDs. To your question about MVPD renewals, I can say that we have reached a deal in principle with AT&T and we'rein the process of papering that which is significant in terms of our progress. We've been candid and transparent about sub trends, as Christine mentioned, updating that today. There's been sort of continued erosion. It abated somewhat last It's grown a bit now. We can't predict where that goes. We just feel that as a company, the MVPD platform is still very important to us and very valuable to us and I think quite viable as well. I happen to believe long term that people will be interested in less channels. But I don't know what the floor is and nor do I think the floor is anything close to being insight. It's a combination of me, the IR team and our Treasury team, and we keep them very uptodate on our plans as well as our performance. We're planning on that shortly. We'll go back in and see them. But I think people saw that we had a significant bond offering in August, a $7 billion bond offering. The ratings were firmed at that time across all three agencies as midsingle A. And if you look at our leverage at the end of this quarter, you can calculate it. It comes in around 2.7 on a gross and about 0.3 turn lesson a net basis, and although the agencies make some adjustments to those calculations, suffice it to say that even when they calculate using their adjustments, the agencies are still well below 3 times. QuestionDaniel Salmon: Thank you both. Dan, thanks. Operator, we have time for one more question. Our final question comes from Steven Cahall with Wells Fargo. Analyst:Steven Cahall QuestionSteven Cahall: Yeah, thanks very much. I was wondering first off just how you think about the right amount of content spending for Hulu, maybe cash basis of both total and original, then do you think you'll need to do things like lockup some of the FX showrunners like some of your peers have done ? And then maybe just Christine, one on the Park side of things. How do you get comfortable that you're not seeing any underlying weakening demand and it's all just deferrals ?
AnswerDaniel O'Day: Thanks, Cory. I really appreciate the opportunity to answer that. I think they can both very much happen in parallel. I mean, I can just articulate that the Galapagos collaboration, for instance, I mean it involved teams of people within our organization that are absolutely dedicated to both the Discovery platform aspect of it, as well as the clinical programs. First of all, Robin is here and very active. So we don't lack a CFO by any means, and we'll certainly have a good transition of a CFO before Robin leaves. And Robin's appetite to continue to grow the portfolio is good, isn'tit, Robin ? AnswerRobin L. Washington: Very high. AnswerDaniel O'Day: Okay. So thatwe don't... (47:10) AnswerDaniel O'Day:...anything there. We have a very, very effective corporate development team in the organization that Andy has built up over the past couple of years. So Diana'steam and John'steam and the other clinical TA heads and then Bill Lee'steam and the entire research organization.
And you see it across the board. And MLs are becoming more and more part of everyday life. Soand whether you're frontend developer, backend engineer, whether you're an analyst or even HR, I'm sure you probably come across ML in your work. I know I have and I've had a lot of different roles in my career. And the problem is that most of the time a lot of the models are not the most accessible.
Are you seeing evidence of spot prices are stabilizing ? AnswerAndre Schulten: We see... QuestionJason English: In aggregate. I know there's going to be pieces going different directions. AnswerAndre Schulten: When I say stabilize, what we see is smaller increases than the increases we've seen at the beginning of the fiscal year for example. We see small increases weekoverweek, but it's significantly less than what we... QuestionJason English: Yes. AnswerAndre Schulten:...what we have seen early on. And the buckets change, right ? Now the freight tothe driver to freight ratio is improving a little bit. So that's the offset on the transportation side. Many of the suppliers that have produced through COVID are now taking long overdue maintenance on their lines, which is putting pressure into the supply chain. So, the dynamics are changing, but Iby no means, I think the supply chain is out of a very pressured period that is... QuestionJason English: Sure. AnswerAndre Schulten:...weighing on cost. QuestionJason English: Slight curve ball on this one, maybe you prompted a thought on this. We often have the debate.
AnswerMatt Hicks: Yeah. And I think for a lot of companies, it's picking that balance. AnswerWajahat Ali: Howard, I have a final minute. It's about marriage, it's about partnership. I am happily married so far for 10 years, knock on wood. What is an example right now where you see a great little marriage and symmetry between technology and people adapting to this current environment ? AnswerHoward Boville: The key element is to try and always make things as simple as possible and the complexity that kind of multicloud is actually taking us in a different direction in the IT industry. But that's kind of what always happens in a large transformation. Things have to be destroyed to move to the new paradigm.
So far this year, we've also introduced new price assessments for Black Mass in Europe and Asia and for RPET in India to improve transparency in pricing of battery raw materials and recycled plastics. We remain focused and disciplined in our M&A, completing the acquisitions of TruSight and ChartIQ within Market Intelligence and Market Scan within Mobility. These tuckin acquisitions strengthen our current offerings, though we expect even this type of M&A activity to be rare for the rest of the year.
The emerging markets have more problems. The government doesn't have another $1.5 trillion stimulus. A bank has to be prepared for both.
QUESTION AND ANSWER SECTION Analyst:Suraj Kalia QuestionSuraj Kalia: Yeah. So Scott, let me just start out, overall, COVID has disrupted the environment for a lot of companies. Entering into calendar Q1, how do you allare things getting better or things getting worse as you guys see it ?
That's what we think. And so, we've seen rationalization happen in other markets from China to Korea to India to even kind of Europe, UK now. As you look at the US, do we need consolidation and really just rationalization down to fewer players to make this a profitable country ? AnswerDara Khosrowshahi: So, I guess, if you see rationalization happen in every single other market, why would the US be any different ? The rationalization we think is going to happen. Every market rationalizes once capital discipline comes in. And we expect the US to follow suit. Economics apply here just as they do any place else in the world. So, we think rationalization is happening and we like our position. We're the number two in the US. Our Rides business is incredibly strong and I think we are just getting started in terms of using the power of the platform, the incredible user base that we have on the Rides side with our loyalty program, with our points program, subscriptions, et cetera, to continue to grow our Eats business not only in the US, but outside the US, but do so in a rational manner, in an ROI positive manner. Unidentified speaker QuestionUnidentified speaker: You mentioned the loyalty program and rewards. It's growing pretty fast. 25 million users... AnswerDara Khosrowshahi: Yes.
Is it one dose versusone dose versus two doses ? Is it a second line label versus something broader ? What's your latest thinking on where that could land ? AnswerMichael E. Severino: Well, we feel very comfortable with our ability to compete with either dose, but we've said previously, and we still believe that the benefit risk profile of both doses is appropriate, is favorable, and both doses, we believe, have a role in the treatment of atopic dermatitis. Both doses deliver very strong response. They deliver very deep response and very rapid response. And so, we would view them each as having a favorable benefit risk. And you can see the approval decisions that were taken in Europe as support of that point of view. With respect to restriction in the US, I think based on the safety communication that the agency putout in September of last year, it's reasonable to assume that there would be some degree of restriction to secondline therapy. Exactly how that's worded in atopic dermatitis we'll be in a better position to describe when the final label comes out. And in fact, our guidance at $1.7 billion does contemplate an additional upside international. So, there is a mix between US and international. International simply (20:57) offset the US, but we are seeing some very early returns that are very favorable for AD outside the US. QuestionChris Schott: And another point, Rob, can youmaybe I missed the slides, but could you remind us where the mix was of that $15 billion if we thought about US, exUS in the prior guide and where that's moving to in the update ? AnswerRobert A. Michael: Yeah.
And is that just kind of operating leverage in the business ? Are there any other explanations to discuss there ? AnswerEvan G. Greenberg: Larry, there isI'm going to give you three answers. Number one, we had the runoff, if you will, of all the projects we have put in place since the merger, and those had some runoff final benefits that emerged We have a constant expense control inhere. And yes, there's oneoff items that benefit the expense ratio during the year, but every year, we have oneoff items. They vary by quarter, and that sort of thing, but there always seems to be a number of them. It's just the nature of the business. Expense ratio is part of strategy.
Now, it will go more widely. Also recommender systems. We're also seeing the applying the technology to video and collaboration platforms, that's with our NVIDIA Maxine products. Those are obviously where some of these were invented last year. They're going to come to market now and activate. So, conversational AI is a huge market. We're having 500 million support calls, 200 million meetings a day. There's a huge area where AI has content and opportunity to add value. They're same with recommender systems. The challenge of recommenders is there'sis not a common input / output. We're not looking at one picture and I'll tell you what'sin it. So there's much richer opportunity there. With that, people have to figure out for different ways to apply the technology. So, I see inference definitely growing in conversational AI and recommenders being two big drivers in natural language processing in general. And they'll need the infrastructure in order to deliver and get it done. There's a lot going to happen this year. But certainly, from the AI front, that's the stuff I'm pretty excited about. I definitely want to comeback to some of the things you talked about therein terms of inference and the performance improvement with the NVIDIA A100. But before I go there, wanted to ask about software. And it's pretty clear, based on what you've accomplished and what NVIDIA has accomplished, software is a very critical component... AnswerIan Buck: Yeah. QuestionToshiya Hari:...that supports growth in the business. I was hoping you could take us back to when you were working on CUDA I guess in the early 2000s. What drove you and your company overall to create what is today a very critical platform that supports your business ? Explain to us how CUDA has evolved over the past... AnswerIan Buck: Sure. QuestionToshiya Hari:...14, 15 years, and how does it contribute to the competitive moat that you guys have in data center and accelerate computer. They needed a waypeople had been doing GPGPU on graphics cards using graphics APIs. First, they want to learn new language. They want easy access to take their programmers and developers and give them way to program these systems. And that's why CUDA was based on C and extended to Fortran and other languages, make it really easy for developers to grok what a GPU can do, how to express the kind of parallelism it can do without having to learn a whole new language, a whole new platform. I think we largely achieve that. It's veryI can teach a developer CUDA in a day as long as you understand the concept of the thread, you canand decent C or Fortran program you can get through that in the HPC space. That same model is extended to others. That quickly evolved to building out the platform because it's notyou can't just program the GPU. People expect a certain level of libraries and capabilities and get their work done. No software today has developed entirely on their own. So, our work has quickly grown to building a entire platform of SDKs and libraries that enable with, starting with basic math libraries, signal processing, linear algebra operations to now sparse algebra, DNN libraries, video codecs, DALI for input and output processing. We have over 80 SDKs now which track the different industries and give them not just away to program the GPU, that's one step, but all the libraries, all the capabilities that are even optimized for our GPUs, and are backward and forward compatible. So, if you'reusing today, you go from Volta (12:52) to Ampere, you just get the 10x right like that without havingand the customers who are on our platform get to enjoy that. The other thing that I thinkso, our platform has grown substantially since that first day where we know how to program a kernel, how to program one piece code in the GPU providing those different, must be hundreds of libraries now, and I mentioned over 80 SDKs to make that successful. The other thing we recognized and this was a big secret to our success is the fact that we're a full stack platform. We didn't try to like standardize or define the nextgeneration Isaac. In fact, we don't even release the assets for our GPUs. So that was a critical decision early on. Don't worry about Isaac compatibility. This is where the programmers meet us. They developed on Volta or Kepler or Fermi for that. They ride that wave, and that's why the platform is so enjoyable to so many people. Thank you for that.
For what it's worth, I think if we do that well, it will beI think we will be able to do better product work.
And as you saw in our first quarter results, where wireless EBITDA grew by 2.3%. And as you heard from John Stanke recently, we plan to realize incremental transformation, cost savings about between $1.7 billion and $2 billion by 2023, which in part allows us to reinvest to support the growth of our business. So we like the formula.
What are the puts and takes on why that would happen sooner, why that's the right timeline or why it would take longer ? AnswerAndy McLean: So I agree with your timeline. But let me... QuestionRick Schafer: Okay.
We also recently reached anew fleet product partnership agreement with Edenred, which is making their Edenred Essentials product available to commercial and public sector organizations with vehicles in the United States.
Earlier this year, investors used iShares bond ETFs to express preference for short duration treasuries, and more recently, our highyield, our corporates, long duration ETFs have been leading the flows.
And it is on Ford's website right now. But you said a lot just there, and I'd like to try to unpack it a little bit with you. Maybe just starting off within practical purposes, just running a company, what is running the business on the EV side and the ICE business differently really mean ? What does it mean organizationally ? What are you doing now that you weren't doing before ? AnswerJames D. Farley: What's really changed the most for our team is getting the talent. It'snot, please don't you're not going to get a press release from Ford saying, we'rehiring 20, 000 software engineers; although we'rehiring lots of software engineers. It's the quality of the talent. What's most important for us is that we need new talent, both on the ICE side and on the BEV side with that increased focus. And that talent, it'snot the quantity; it's getting the very best and new capabilities that can scale with Ford's ambition. On the ICE side, we know we're going to have to be reducing our structure cost more, improving our quality, and radically reducing our complexity at Ford. That takes some new talent and focus. It requires more tension in the organization. And that tension can't come with drama in politics; it has to be productive tension that results in better numbers. That's number one. On the BEV side to get the margins, not just the volumes, but the margins that we see at a company like Tesla, we need to have real experts that can drive that scale. It's almost like, Rod, we've had to rethink our intuitions as leaders. We can no longer brag about how much money we're spending on top hats and how much complexity we have at top end engineering if we want to make money on BEV. The most important thing on BEV is scale. That we quickly break down the silos of our organization in engineering to integrate the engineering of our vehicles in a different way than we do today. Look at our cooling system at MachE. We found $1, 000 a monthless than a year after launch when we ripped apart the MachE and compared it to benchmark. So, that scaling and that knowhow of simplification and scaling at the component level for BEV is something that we needed at the company. There's only a few people on the planet can do it. You've got to find them. It requires new talent on the consumer experience. If we want customers to go remote with their experience on our BEV side and we want those customers to have an easier price experience that saves time, and we want those customers to be fully digital and they have no inventory in the system. If we want to get that $3, 000 to $4, 000 out that we think would cost more than a Tesla distribution system, we need new talent. So, I think that transition is more focused, different compensation systems, more focused objectives, including stretch objectives, and integrating Aclass talent into the company both on the BEV and ICE side. That's what we need to do. That's what it feels like at Ford. QuestionRod Lache: Is there literally a separation between this new BEV team that you're standing up and the existing team that has been developing product over the years ? What's sort of happening operationally within the organization ? AnswerJames D. Farley: Thank you for doubleclicking on it. I'm not going to go there today. They would loveask RJ (00:19:37) right now, how much he would love to have our body shop or body engineering team. Ask someone who is engineering a fullsize pickup truck, whether they would want to know about Ford's testing standards for Built Ford Tough for our electric pickup trucks. I bet you, they would want at that. Even traditional components like that are really fresh perspective for the team. The supply chain knowhow that we're getting now, the embedded electrical system can be back cast into the ICE business. I can't turn to the ICE organization and say, go beat Tesla. They may do it on the body, they may do it in plant operations, but that'snot good enough.
Your line is open. Analyst:Doug Terreson QuestionDoug Terreson: Good morning, everybody. AnswerRyan M. Lance: Morning, Doug. QuestionDoug Terreson: So, Ryan, you guys are one of the few, if not the only Big Oil or E&P with higher rather than lower normalized returns on capital in recent years. And while your stock has been atop 5 performer in S&P Energy [ S&P 500 Energy ] three years in a row, for this reason, in my view, your cash position is building, it's strong. You have better valuation in your equity than a lot of peers. So my question is, with the ongoing decline in upstream values that we've seen in public and private E&P: One, if strategic actions become more appealing to you guys, are they more compelling ?
The other thing that we have been very focused on this quarter is continue to lead the market in wireless and for consumers. We also added in a lot of partnership as we now have network serviceasastrategy.
Google other revenues were driven by growth in YouTube's nonadvertising revenues primarily from subscriptions as well as by Google Play revenue growth.
AnswerCraig A. Menear: And again, we saw in all of our top 40 markets, doubledigit growth.
So we have powerful data there. I think the other thing we have is the device itself. We talked about Trulicity. Emgality uses the same platform and the same device as Trulicity. And we also know that, as I mentioned, primary care physicians were the ones prescribing here and there's a significant overlap between a physician who has had a history and experience prescribing Trulicity and what they'll do on Emgality. So we think that's an important piece. So I think the breadth of opportunity that we have in pain then potentially followed by tanezumab for osteoarthritis pain or chronic lower back pain. So we think we've got a franchise approach here as well that can work. QuestionSteve Scala: How is the lasmiditan review going ?
And so ADI has also, since those high margins generate a lot of cash, done a very good job of returning the cash to you, the shareholders.
Analyst:Jon Raviv QuestionJon Raviv: Hey, thanks. So what's going on there ?
Great question. I'll take that. I mean, I think just to sort of level set, last year, Ingenio, we really spent our time of ensuring a seamless transition, and we felt really good getting through the transition and finishing that. So, I'd say 100% of our energy was spent on that moving 16 million pharmacy members over, and we finished that a year ahead. So, we've shared before that only abouta little bit more than 20% of our feebased medical customers today have an integrated pharmacy benefit with us, and that's because of years of uncompetitive contract quite frankly and areal driver to why we decided to launch and build Ingenio. Going into the first quarter, I will tell you, we had an incredibly robust pipeline, and we still have a robust pipeline. So, we've talked quite a bit about moving the earnings ratio in our feebased business from a 5:1 to a 3:1. We were well on track to hit the 4:1, halfway point that we had as an expectation, with pharmacy being a very important driver. What I would say is, while we have certainly added pharmacy clients, the decision process has slowed down. And so while we have a number of RFPs still I'll call pending decision, my sense is it's going to be a slower season just because of what employers themselves are dealing with, and we will see a lot of that potential and opportunity move out probably a year or so. We built a growth organization. We have a team dedicated in our commercial business. So, I still feel really good about it. But I can report, as we came out of the first quarter, the pipeline was really robust; and we felt good about that. We also think Ingenio has a big opportunity obviously to embed in Medicare Advantage and in Group Medicare. Big advantage there. We just feel that timing of decisions, particularly from the embedded ASO clients, will just take longer. The last part I'll bring up is sort of the standalone PBM model where we'reselling to other Blues and things like that. But the reality is, that'snot the most important growth driver. So, that just gives you a sense of the capacity that we see. But we're very bullish on Ingenio. We feel that we built an incredibly effectivecapitally effective PBM, and it'splayed into the expectations that we set forth. If COVID hadn't hit, I think we would see more decisions earlier.
AnswerLance M. Fritz: Yeah, that's an excellent question. Thanks for allowing me to close upon it. The cool thing about our railroad is just how much cash we generate, right ? Even in a very difficult year last year, we had very strong cash generation. And to your point, our guidance basically says 17%ish ROIC looking forward. About $18 billion plus of cash given back to shareholders in the form of share buybacks 2022 through 2024. And a dividend that'sin the 45% ballpark. All of that is predicated on being smart capital allocators through capital spending, which we've committed to being less than 15% of revenue. Not because we force it there, but because that looks like where it naturally resides for us. And then also being efficient, which for us says 60% to high 60s incremental margins on growth. And the third thing is growth. That's going to be an important part of the overall strategy. QuestionKen Hoexter: Thanks. If I could just extend it one minute, if you don't mind, because just as a question came in from an investor. I just want to see if you don't mind answering it. What is key to that ? Is it adding more ? Or what g g y g g p y g haven't you done already ? Is it adding more railcars, locomotives ? Is it adding more headcount ? Is it adding surcharges to change customer behavior ? Maybe just help the investor understand what is needed... AnswerLance M. Fritz: Yeah. QuestionKen Hoexter:...to get those service levels up ? And I'm sorry if you don't mind, one extra minute, and then we'll end. AnswerLance M. Fritz: No, that's fine, Ken. So I'm going to break our service into two pieces. Let'stalk about carload, manifest service, and then let'stalk about intermodal based service. We'rewe did a lot in Englewood in Texas, consolidating a lot of business in that yard and changing the operation in order to do that. That'shad some growing pains. I see that improving everyday. And I can see it in our overall car dwell, as well as our trip plan compliance, as well as our car velocity. So I'm going to take manifest and say, that's pretty much on the road. And I see that moving in the right direction. When it comes to intermodal. So that supply chain there, we'reworking our ass off right now, working very hard with the customer base, both our direct customers and the shippers, the BCOs [ beneficial cargo owners ], to really understand, what'sit going to take ? There's none available, literally. And so we're just going to have to do a better job of utilizing what we've got. And that's an entire supply chain issue. Our job is from dock to intermodal ramp, ready to go, be on plan.
AnswerTed Cannis: I think there is nothere are no solid lines in this business. I think, like we said, there was a time to not announce egears and eMotors with our partners. We like the competitive friction. We like the access to technology. We've seen other OEMs make big bets on battery technology go along in that a decade later are useless. So, right now, we think we've got where the sweet spot needs to be. QuestionAdam Michael Jonas: I'm going tofor the questions here, I'm going to summarize some of them and just give you a chance to respond again. AnswerTed Cannis: Sure. QuestionAdam Michael Jonas: And I think you have touched on it in your prepared remarks, but I just want to give you some realtime feedback that I'm getting here, okay, from the questions. And I'm summarizing here folks because I'm not going to get through them all. But there're some questions about how can you convertcan a converted Transit EV ll b titi ith bilt ?
Michael E. Severino Thank you, Rick. When we set out as an independent company, we knew that building a productive R&D engine was an essential part of our success, and we're proud of the progress we've made over the past seven years. We've built one of the strongest latestage pipelines in our industry and brought to market six new assets, RINVOQ, SKYRIZI, IMBRUVICA, VENCLEXTA, MAVYRET, and ORILISSA, which collectively delivered approximately $9 billion in sales in 2019.
PSD2 is obviously something that is in the process of being rolled out in Europe and secure customer authentication, the FCA standard, has definitely come up throughout the conference in different panels.
But if you look at it fundamentally, nearterm, it's really about being able to have this bestinclass mobile, realtime, diagnostic quality CT imaging that really helps facilitate these complete procedural solutions, which is increasingly a trend we're seeing in spine. Operator Your next question comes from the line of Matt Miksic with Credit Suisse. Analyst:Matthew Miksic QuestionMatthew Miksic: Great.
On the enterprise side, as we have always said, it takes a bit longer because the sales cycles are a bit longer. We have made very nice progress with all of the top OEMs. I think the portfolios are continuing to expand. We are excited about not just the current portfolio, as you said, with Genoa, but as we expand to Genoa X at the very high end of the performance as well as Ciena that is athat just broadens our portfolio for telco. So, our expectation is that we continue to steadily grow share in the enterprise, as well as we go through 2023 and beyond. And I think there is a broader opportunity to sell the broader AMD portfolio. We have, not just the CPU, but I think the addition of the Xilinx assets and the Pensando assets, as well as our GPU portfolio, I think all lead to the overall growth in the data center business for us. Matt Ramsay AnalystCowen Thanks for that Lisa. As my followup, it's a question I would normally ask Devinder, but I have gotten a few emails on it in the last hour. So, I figure I would go ahead and ask it. The revenue, obviously, including Xilinx, up 70% or so yearonyear, but a few people have pointed out to me that the cash flow or the free cash flow was only up a tiny bit or very, very modestly. I am just wondering what the variables are thereon expanding the free cash flow leverage as we go forward. Devinder Kumar ExecutiveExecutive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Yes, I can do that. So, working capital numbers from an inventory and AR standpoint, they are up significantly yearonyear. We also have, as we said previously, a 3% tax rate going up to about 10%. And the cash taxes get paid. But the timing of the cash taxes sometimes is Q2. And in Q2, we did have some significant cash tax payment from a payment standpoint given the timing of payments of the Federal government. And then you have timing of shipments that does affect the free cash flow. And the last thing I will mention given the discussion, some of the questions that Lisa was asked about, supply for server and supply overall are with the share gain from the growth of the business. So, this is really, if you look at it, inventory and capacity investing for growth and investing for the future. Matt Ramsay AnalystCowen Investing for growth.
Can you maybe just put that in context of how you expect that ramp to maybe look like versus the prior wave of reimbursed procedures in Japan ?
We launched anew line of desktop workstations based on NVIDIA RTX Ada Lovelace generation GPUs and ConnectX, SmartNICs offering up to 2x the AI processing ray tracing and graphics performance of the previous generations. These powerful new workstations are optimized for AI workloads such as finetune AI models, changing smaller models and running inference locally.
Justin Post AnalystBank of America And then maybe, Ruth, on the CapEx, where is most of that going to and how do you think about that going forward ? Ruth Porat ExecutiveCFO The majority of CapEx does continue to be for our technical infrastructure. The technical infrastructure team has consistently focused on levers to improve utilization and efficiency and they continue to do so. We are investing, to Sundar's comments, in building out the compute in support of all that we'redoing with our AI teams and are excited about that. We feel good about where we are. That concludes our Q&A session. I'd like to turn the conference back to Jim Friedland for closing remarks. We look forward to speaking with you again on our fourth quarter 2022 call. Operator This concludes today's conference call.
I suspect you can. AnswerAndrew Philip Witty: No. I don't know whether you can do that literally in an annual, quarterly cycle. So it depends what you mean by every time you go through. You need to have great systems. But can you imagine that's a $1 trillionthat's probably a $1 trillionplus sat there as a fundamental inefficiency at the system that hasn't yet been tapped. Now, you step back and you say, okay, even before then going through, let's say, generation one, let's call that generation five or six; generation one, two, three much more basic way. That's kind of where people are at today; figuring out who the 6 in 100 patients who are really problematic and are driving truly the cost. That's kind of where we are. Difficult to execute. And then you've got this potentially huge opportunity to get traction. So I think the scope for valuebased care is very, very substantial multiyear. When you look at competition, we've been at this for in excess of a decade and I think we've learned a lot. I think the company has learned what works, what doesn't work. We've learned how to scale. We've learned how to bring organized Aclinics into our networks with very little bump in the road in terms of transition. A lot of our orientation is toward the MA (00:23:15). Obviously, that's where everybody fixate. And all of that evolution is work on the way to go. I don't worry about the competition. I think it's good.
AnswerThomas A. Kennedy: Yeah. So let me back up and say what is this LTAMDS outside of being a very interesting acronym. It's the next generation radar for the Patriot system and it's a radar that the U.S. Army wants to develop to essentially allow the Patriot system to continue to live on for another 40 years. And so it's an important program to Raytheon, it's an important program to the United States Army, it's an important program to our country because this program allows us to counter these evolved threats that are now comingare coming up and a lot of them due to Russia, China, but also some new threats like counterUASs and whatnot. Just remember radar starts with an Rand Raytheon starts with an R. Radar capability is in the heart and the soul of the Raytheon Corporation. This is back in 1922 when the company switched from refrigeration into electronics. One of the major areas was going into radar technology. Raytheon Corporation was a major player in turning around World War II by helping the UK relative to their radars. So we have this long, bottom line, along history in radars. But not just a history, also an investment profile in radars. So, we actually develop the very elementary part of a radar, the elementary part, it's called the GaN chip, gallium nitride technology. So why is that important and why did we go vertical on that ? Well, we went vertical on that because it allows us to do things with that GaN chip that are not done on the commercial production lines to significantly enhance that device to a point where it gives us a differentiator and a discriminator in the workplace, I mean, in the marketplace. And you see that in the wins that we've had way back in the AMDR radar that was taking away, the Aegis radar, and now we are the Aegis radar moving forward for all the DDG 51's, also working aback fit of that. Winning another radar from the Navy called the Enterprise Air Surveillance Radar using that technology, another radar for the Air Force called the ThreeDimensional Expeditionary LongRange Radar, all one of the main discriminators was this GaN technology. We've actually taken that GaN technology to the next step, and on that next step we'retaking that into this LTAMDS radar. We were there; they had something called a senseoff. On airplanes, they have flyoffs; back in the summer, they had something called a senseoff. We had that technology there. We demonstrated that advanced technology. So we feel very positive that we did a very good job on the senseoff. We think we have a very value proposal that we provided to the United States Army both in the performance of the system, but also in terms of the affordability of the system. Is that good enough ?
AnswerGeorge Damis Yancopoulos: Yeah. The opportunity for this class which is obviously dominated by Keytruda right now because, up until now, it was the only agent that had this strong data across the spectrum of monotherapy and chemo combination, we think that now we can be legitimate competitors here in the lung cancer space. But, in the short term, we expect to be a viable competitor now with these data and, in the future, we hope to use the combinations to take the standard of care and elevate results to another level. AnswerJustin Holko: Thanks, Gavin. QuestionGavin Scott: Thank you. AnswerJustin Holko: Next question, please. Operator Your next question comes from the line of Ronny Gal with Bernstein. Analyst:Ronny Gal QuestionRonny Gal: Hi, good morning. A question about the IMMUNECOV. AnswerGeorge Damis Yancopoulos: As you said, we think that the immunocompromised population which, as I'm sure you all know, represents 3% to 4% of the US population. That's several million individuals. A variety of studies are showing that somewhere around 50% or more of these individuals do not respond after two or even after three attempts with the vaccine. We already have very strong data, we believe, to support the notion that this agent can be y p y y g, , pp g used in chronic prevention settings, and we do intend to continue to explore future study opportunities where we can further enhance on the already existing data that shows that, after the first week or so, we seem to obtain somewhere upwards of 90% protection against infection in individuals who do not have their own antibodies and are being exposed to the SARSCoV2 virus. AnswerLeonard S. Schleifer: Let me just add that what's implicit in what George said is we'reworking with the agency to try and convince them that our data is strong, and the agency obviously has a lot on its plate and it's trying, I think, to sort through whether or not these individuals should try a third dose or not of the vaccine. That has to get sorted out, I think. And the FDA has our data. And as George said, we're looking at ways to enhance our data. QuestionRonny Gal: So am Ito understand you are seeking a label for chronic treatment of immunocompromised population and that you think you have the data at hand to obtain such a label ? AnswerGeorge Damis Yancopoulos: So, just to be clear, the current authorization allows chronic treatment, but allows chronic treatment for people, for example, who are immunocompromised but are in an institutional setting, working or living in a congregate setting where they're exposed to infected individuals. We would like to expand that to preexposure prophylaxis for the communityacquired infections. QuestionRonny Gal: Thank you. Operator Your next question comes the line of Geoffrey Porges with SVB Leerink. Analyst:Geoffrey Craig Porges QuestionGeoffrey Craig Porges: Thank you very much. So many questions.
To bring it all together on chart 11, the first quarter delivered solid operational performance that was largely inline withourexpectationsinspiteoftheeffectsoftherecentCOVIDspikesOurcashgenerationanddeploymentalsogot with our expectations, in spite of the effects of the recent COVID spikes. So with that, John, let's open up the call for Q&A. QUESTION AND ANSWER SECTION Operator Certainly. And first, we go to the line of Rob Spingarn with Melius Research.
I mean, if you think about premium amortization expense over time, it's going to depend on the path of rates and I just would remind you that prepayments lags movements in mortgage rates. People tend to focus on the 10year, it's about mortgage rates. And they lag that by a little more than two months. And I would also just remind everybody that as you think about premiumization expense, it's also important to really remember that the size of the sort of the securities portfolio has increased a lot yearoveryear. So, all those things sort of have to go into your modeling. QuestionSteven Chubak: Understood. Operator Our next question comes from Ken Usdin with Jefferies. Analyst:Ken Usdin QuestionKen Usdin: Hi.
And I think that's going to drive a whole other segment for us.
And for anybody who wants to ask questions, you can just scan the QR code on the table and submit them directly tome. Look, I think, we can dive, it's probably a short term question, but it's something that's been dominating some of the debate we've had recently. And I can see the smiles in your faces, we can... AnswerPeter J. Arduini: Let me guess which one it is. QuestionGraham Doyle: At contrast imaging, and I suppose just more generally the supply chain headwinds, and we've seen it with some of your peers, could you sort of give us some context, the background to that issue and where you think you are in sort of resolving that ? AnswerPeter J. Arduini: Yeah. I'll jump in, then Helmut, if you want to add a little bit of color to it. So contrast agents they'reused for imaging studies, iodinebased, primarily all of the Xray modalities. There's four major players.
But when interest rates rise, we reach out to clients and suggest they consider realigning their investment cash into other solutions, whatever the client sees fit, whether that would be a purchase money fund, purchase money market fund, a CD, a treasury security or other appropriate cash solution that the client is interested in.
Analyst:Stewart Kirk Materne III QuestionStewart Kirk Materne III: Thanks very much. I guess at the outset, I'd say thanks very much for the guidance with COVID. And I realize things are moving quickly, but even just the color you've given today I think is helpful to help us think through this as it continues to evolve. My question, Shantanu, would be on the Experience Cloud. Obviously, a year later, I think you've integrated the acquisitions. If you weren't talking about COVID right now, how is your feeling about just sort of the integration of the product and the setup for that business as we head into calendar 2020 ? AnswerShantanu Narayen: I think, Kirk, what we would have said absent COVID was good Q1, greater than 20% increase in the book of business, revenue growing nicely, highlighting the progress that we would have made.
Reconciliations of all nonGAAP financial measures can be found in our earnings press release or on our website at investorrelations.medtronic.com. And finally, our EPS guidance does not include any charges or gains that would be reported as nonGAAP adjustments to earnings during the fiscal year.
And the second, I was just curious how you'repositioning the PEO franchise to really win market share in a post pandemic environment, given the secular growth seems to be very favorable ? But how do you actually make sure that ADP wins share ? AnswerCarlos A. Rodriguez: Soon the first question, I think I said it in my early comments that all of the HRO solutions, the " outsourcing solutions, " are very, very strong across the board, right ? Upmarket, because we have HRO solutions in the up market. We have them in the midmarket. And we have them in the downmarket. In the downmarket and in the midmarket, we have PEO.
During this call, we will present both GAAP and nonGAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of nonGAAP to GAAP measures is included in today's earnings press release, which is distributed and available to the public through our Investor Relations website located at abc.xyz / investor.
Shared value is an important concept and something that we have fully embraced as we think about how to best: allocate our time and capital; deliver strong, efficient growth; reduce costs; and operate with discipline.
Let me start off answering the first question. We talked about that reflected continuation of the same operating model we delivered in 2019, so my comments about gaining share in accommodations with some deceleration of room nights, some modest pressure on operating margins, and for EPS to benefit from our share buybacks was to give you a flavor of the shape of our profile for the year coming into the year before the coronavirus. Yeah, and then on the SEO challenges, to pick up your second, I just want to kind of remind people that as we said, the SEO channel is a relatively small part of our business, and it has been fora period of time. The SEO channel continues to be under pressure as the primary provider of that channel focuses more upon their paid search rather than free search, but we continue to do well in that channel. We have teams dedicated to it. We are pleased with our share in that channel. QuestionLloyd Walmsley: Okay. And then anything on just marketing ROIs outside of the impact of the virus given competitive dynamics ? AnswerDavid Ian Goulden: Yeah, let me start, and then maybe Glenn can add. Again, I'll talk about Q4 because obviously, Q4 was a very clean quarter relative to not having a virus and it's only a few weeks behind us, so I think it's a good time to still talk about Q4. We were pleased with our ROIs in the channels in Q4. We didn't see any major shifts. ROIs didn't really change very much in Q4, nothing to really note. We're pleased with where they were, and I thinkdoes this answers all of your question, or were you also asking about current quarter as well ? QuestionLloyd Walmsley: That's great. AnswerDavid Ian Goulden: No, I just wanted to stop there. I think that's the right place to stop. QuestionLloyd Walmsley: Great. Operator We do have another question from the line of Mark Mahaney from RBC. Analyst:Mark S. F. Mahaney QuestionMark S. F. Mahaney: Thanks. I want to ask about two things. Just kind of attach rate with the Connected Trip and how far along do you think you are in tapping into that opportunity ? I noticed that both rental car days and airline ticket growth, unit growth rates nicely accelerated in the December quarter. I think it'sor maybe it was, but I don't think it was. Could you just explain the why behind that, why get a little bit more focused on streamlining costs this year versus last year, unless it was all coronavirus, but I didn't get that impression. Thanks, Glenn. AnswerGlenn D. Fogel: Hi, Mark. Yeah, let me take the first one, the attach rates, et cetera. And I think you called it out correctly. The rental car business has shown some good numbers. If you look in the supplemental statistics at the end of our press release and you can see some nice growth there, and part of that growth is coming from that crosssell part of our Connected Trip that we'rebuilding out, and you're also correct in your statement about the air business. Air business is so early we're just really are getting that up and running. It's very, very low attach rates. It's something that the more data we get, the better we'll know what the right thing to do, but it's something that's going to take time. So, that's the answer to that one. Regarding costs, you're also absolutely correct on that. One of the things when I took the job over in Amsterdam as CEO of Booking.com, and I've been there now a little more than six months, is looking at what are we spending on, where are we spending, what projects are we on, which ones are the right ones, which ones should we not be doing right now, and then taking that throughout our entire organization. One of the things I've mentioned in the calls over the last couple of quarters is us bringing all of our companies together better, and one of the benefits of that is to get some efficiencies in our spend, areal cost procurementtype project. Now, the state of the company where it'sat, now it's time to start bringing that in, and that's what we're going to be doing. QuestionMark S. F. Mahaney: Okay. Operator We do have another question from the line of Kevin Kopelman from Cowen. Analyst:Kevin Kopelman QuestionKevin Kopelman: Great. Thanks a lot. Could you give us more color on the latest trends in Europe travel bookings that you've seen over the last few days following the outbreak of the coronavirus in Italy ?
We've been, of course, giving some very careful consideration to it. We think that what we are coming up with reflects thewith accuracy the situation today.
In China, growth in urology was solid, in particular with growth in prostatectomy, nephrectomy and partial nephrectomy.