Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (NYSE:HPE) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator: The next question will come from Samik Chatterjee with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Samik Chatterjee: Congrats on the strong results here. I guess I just wanted to see if you could talk about backlog or the order book in context of the segments of it and how to think about the supply improvement, particularly if you can shed some color on where backlog or order book remains most elevated related to sort of normal exiting the year and as supply improves next year as you outlined, where can we see the most likelihood of sort of digesting that backlog down to a bit more closer to normal levels? And it seems like you’re expecting supply to remain sort of a constraint. So, backlog probably doesn’t come back to normal by the end of next year, but any thoughts on that also would be appreciated. Thank you.

Antonio Neri: Well, as Tarek said in his comments, going forward, we’re going to move away from all of these backlog orders and the like to focus on the revenue. That’s why we gave the revenue guidance in Q1 because I think it’s a better indicator of what we’re going to see. I will say, in Q4, what we were able to incrementally convert from the backlog was mid-single-digits, or order book, as we call it now, is very, very large. And in fact, in such segments, particularly in the Edge business, the order book is now bigger at the end of Q4 than it was at the end of Q3. So, the bottom line is that we see that enduring steady demand and we’ll take up the entire 2023. And honestly, I’m not sure we will ever exit 2023 to back to historical level.

I don’t think that will be the case. Because as good as we are trying to convert some incremental aspects of the order book as we go forward to some easing of the supply, the demand continues to be there. So, I think it’s going to take a little bit of time. And I think that the order book will return to normal, I would say, historical level, once the incremental capacity comes on line. Because when we saw in this particular quarter some easing, it was because some reallocation of substrate came at the expense of the consumer business, which obviously is down but the incremental capacity is not yet on line, particularly in those older technology nodes, call it, 28, 40 and 65 nanometers, which is where the constraint is.

Operator: The next question will come from Toni Sacconaghi with Bernstein. Please go ahead.

Toni Sacconaghi: Your guidance for Q1 implies double-digit revenue growth on a year-over-year basis. For the full year, you’re at 2% to 4%. So, is what you’re seeing in Q1 really a reflection of confidence in backlog drawdown, or are you implicitly seeing demand slow over the course of the year? And then related to that, your free cash flow guidance is well below your net income for fiscal ’23, despite the fact that you believe you can dry down the inventory further. Maybe you can help us with the bridge there. Thank you.

Antonio Neri: Yes. Thanks, Toni. Let me start, and I will give it to Tarek. As we said, we gave the revenue guidance $7.2 billion to $7.6 billion. I’m not sure it’s double digit, but maybe high single digit compared to Q1 2022. But in any case, that guidance includes the recognition of the remaining part of Frontier, which obviously is an important aspect of the HPC. And then the ongoing ability to convert the order book as it comes in, plus the larger order book we already have. And then maintaining a certain level of margin, obviously, which we are confident based on our pricing and operating leverage actions we have taken. So, that’s where we stand, and that’s where we gave the guidance. As we go through the quarter — through the year, sorry, we felt prudent at this point in time to maintain it because of the FX uncertainty.