Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Keith Jensen: Yes, the change in activation policies started February last week, I believe, February 1. So we’ll start to see that going forward. What I was referring to is the — is really all about linearity, right? That’s what it gives you insights to. And if I see my DSO go from, call it, 75 days to 89 or 90, you can kind of start doing the math there and see that’s a 20% increase in DSO, and it’s really driven by how linearity came through in the quarter. And when linearity starts shifting that much, we lose the opportunity to gain service revenue from sales early in the quarter that would normally activate. So we really didn’t get a lift in service revenue from in-quarter deals the way that we would have expected because of linearity.

Operator: Thank you. One moment please. Our next question comes from the line of Shaul Eyal of Cowen. Your line is open.

Shaul Eyal: Thank you. And good afternoon and congrats on the great performance and guidance. Keith, given the slightly lower-than-expected 4Q service revenue, how should we be thinking about the first quarter service revenue growth?

Keith Jensen: Yes. I think that we kind of remain truthful to or faithful to the notion of providing service revenue guidance for the full-year and kind of leave the Street work out the numbers from that point going forward. I think that certainly, as we kind of look at laying out the year and with the backdrop of the macro that we’re all concerned about, I don’t think we really wanted to push too hard on some of the metrics that we didn’t need to push on. And I think where we ended up with is pretty consistent in the quarter with our consensus when we look at our internal allocations between product and service revenue.

Shaul Eyal: Understood. And maybe one more. As we think about the non-GAAP operating margins and really great performance, should we be thinking of the target to be sort of an average of 25% over the period or a floor of 25% over the course of the next few years?

Keith Jensen: I’m going to answer yes. Yes, you should be thinking about one of those two ways. Look, I think we’re driven by being above 25% operating margin, right? I think the ones that — the last few years have taught us is life full of surprises. And so locking into a fixed commitment is a little bit challenging sometimes. But clearly, we manage the business as if it’s the floor.

Shaul Eyal: Understood. Thank you so much.

Operator: Thank you. One moment please. Our next question comes from the line of Adam Borg of Stifel. Your line is open.

Adam Borg: Thanks so much for taking the questions. Maybe for Ken or Keith, just on sales headcount. Obviously, you guys have been aggressively growing sales and marketing headcount in recent years, and it’s nice to see the enterprise success you talked about. Just curious where we are in sales force productivity. And how we should think about sales headcount growth and even overall headcount growth in ’23? And I have a follow-up.

Ken Xie: Yes, we are continuing hiring. But at the same time, we want to keeping the efficiency and is not dropping the efficiency for the sales and marketing. And at the same time, there’s some long-term investment, whether in R&D, the infrastructure supporting, we will continue to need to make. So that’s why we do expect the total head count will keep it increased, but probably the rate that just like the last few years will be below the top line increase.

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