Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

The MX 304 is the fastest-growing product in the last five years, the PTX product family, which really goes to the heart of the 400-gig opportunities that are out there is performing really well as well. I just finished answering questions about the cloud-ready data center. One of the things that’s actually driving momentum in our CRDC solutions is the fact that there is a strong diversity of interest among all of our segments especially including Service Providers that are moving to more of a virtualized approach to delivering the kind of services that we’re delivering in the past. So there’s a number of elements of this business that I think are positive for us long term. In the short term, we’re going to get through this normalization of order patterns to revenue, as we just discussed.

But long term, being in line with our long-term model, minus two to plus two or even better is definitely possible.

Operator: The next question is from Sami Badri with Credit Suisse.

Sami Badri: I had two questions. When you talk about 8%, you’re using the words at least versus prior, I believe the word you would use is floor. Is it — should we assume 8% is the floor of growth for 2023? So that’s the first question. And then the other question is of the product orders that were submitted in 4Q of ’22, how much of the growth was driven by price increases versus volume just so we can get a better idea on composition of the backlog and how that change in 4Q?

Ken Miller: Yes. I’ll take both of those questions. So when we do — the words we use officially is at least 8%. And when I describe it often times, I referred to that as the floor, right, because we’re setting a range starting at 8%, and we’re not really putting a ceiling on it. That’s why I described the at least 8& as the floor. But if not, much confuse you, it’s meant to be really — it’s the same guidance. As far as price versus volume, again, I would say we are definitely getting a benefit from the pricing actions we’ve taken. It is impacting growth, but it is the minority of our growth, right? And the vast majority of our growth is tied to volume sales and quite honestly, taking shares in some of those markets that we’re absolutely taking share and such as AI-driven enterprise in the campus branch base and I think we had a very strong quarter in data center as well.

So I do prescribed our growth to the success and execution of the team much more than I do the pricing actions we’ve taken.

Operator: Okay. The next question is from Simon Leopold with Raymond James.

Simon Leopold: I wanted to get a better sense of the trends coming from Service Providers in that. It sounds like you’re blaming this quarter’s relative weakness on supply chain, but there’s been some others exposed to that vertical that have talked about. Inventory absorption and some of the operators slowing down either in the fourth quarter or first half of ’23 as they maybe manage their own cash flow or manage their inventory of gear. I’m presuming that your customers haven’t been able to stockpile your equipment and warehouses and don’t have that inventory issue for you in the first half of ’23. But I just want to get a sense directly from you if that’s a factor of what’s going on here or whether it’s really concentrated around component shortages.