Altair Engineering Inc. (NASDAQ:ALTR) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

So we – without putting any kind of quantifiable metrics on it, which we’ll do after we, as we get through the end of this year. Really, the game plan is what you’ve seen over the last couple of years here, where we’re going to continue to drive revenue growth fueled primarily by software revenue growth and keep our costs in check.

Luke Mott: Great. Thank you so much. And then just kind of circling back to some of the earlier questions and commentary around your existing automotive accounts. I was wondering for some of those legacy customers, how much more room you see for cross-sell or upsell there? And how much more room there is to run not just within the simulation side, but also with the data products?

Jim Scapa: Yes. I think there’s a lot of – we’ve been looking at customers like the large OEMs in Detroit for years, and our business just continues to grow year-on-year for 25, 30 years. And I think that’s going to continue. There’s a huge amount of opportunity on the data side, a lot of opportunity on the designer side as well with products like SimSolid and Inspire. So if you look at the number of designers compared to the number of simulation engineers, it’s five, six, seven to one. So lots of opportunity there. A lot of opportunity on the data side as well and even on the manufacturing plant floor, you saw our ABI survey. If you look at the companies, we were compared against. And if you look at, they do a kind of I don’t know if I should say Magic Quadrant, but like Magic Quadrant, and we’re way at the upper right-hand corner and there’s a lot of well-known names that you might have thought of in that space that we beat out.

And so I think there’s a huge amount of opportunity there.

Luke Mott: Thank you.

Jim Scapa: Sure.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Charles Shi with Needham & Company.

Charles Shi: Hi, good afternoon. First, I want to clarify a little bit maybe this is an accounting question maybe to Matt. It looks like the third quarter guidance, you’re still seeing foreign exchange as a tailwind, but it will [ph] lower your annual guidance and there seems to be some foreign exchange-related headwind? How do I reconcile the two is? What was the assumption that was a little bit of, I guess, back, let’s say, three months ago in terms of the foreign exchange rate and that the currencies are exposed to? Thank you.

Matt Brown: Hey Charles, I’m not sure I caught all of that. Are you referring to the change in guidance at the midpoint from full year guidance that we gave last quarter to this quarter?

Charles Shi: Yes.

Matt Brown: Okay. Got it. So yes, so what we’re pointing out there is that as a result of changes in FX rates that we witnessed over the last quarter, the change in guidance in reported currency from a software product revenue and total revenue perspective is now down by $3 million on a reported currency basis, but it’s exactly what it was on a constant currency basis that we gave last quarter. So no change in constant currency. That impact flows down to EBITDA, but it’s partially offset actually by some FX benefit that you get in expenses. And so while the impact to revenue is $3 million, the impact to adjusted EBITDA is only $1 million because you get sort of a natural hedge there in expenses. Again, that’s all in reported currency. In constant currency, the guide is the same guide that we gave last quarter for full year.

Charles Shi: Got it. So maybe the next question to Jim. Jim, I heard your discussion with a response to another question in terms of lackluster versus fireworks going up. I want to be a little bit more specific and I want to ask you about automotive. Well, this may be my favorite question every quarter. But what do you see about 2024 in terms of that vertical still your largest one, although contributions coming lower, but is 2024 a lackluster or you think the fireworks are going to go up. This is a high-level question. Direction of color is very – will be really want to hear that. Thank you.

Jim Scapa: Well, I never should use that word. I mean, I think, generally, we’re going to start seeing an uptick in the spending for a lot of these companies. I think they’ve been holding a little bit tighter through this year, and I think they’re going to loosen up next year. And it’s not just about the sales that they make because the amount that they spend on engineering is actually a very tiny percentage of their total revenue and total expenses even. But I do think budgets have been – are a little bit more restricted. They’re also figuring out how to play the data game right now. So a lot of companies are selecting their solution corporate-wide for data analytics and data science. We’re in a lot of these conversations in a lot of companies.