Samsara Inc. (NYSE:IOT) Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Dominic Phillips: Yes. So I think that our – we’ve done a lot of hiring across the company over the last one to two years. And we’ve done a good job of ramping that capacity and making them productive in a lot of – three consecutive quarters now of accelerating net new ARR growth year-over-year as a result of adding additional capacity that has driven some of that. I think going forward, we see a really large opportunity. We’re operating in a big TAM, physical operations, again is 40% of global GDP. And we think we’re just getting started. So I do expect us to continue to make investments next year at a consistent pace. And our goal is to operate within the guardrails of being free cash flow positive. We think about things like Rule of 40 in terms of balance, but beyond that, we want to drive high levels of growth for as long as we can and we think we’re set up well to do that.

Derrick Wood: Great. Congrats. Thanks.

Dominic Phillips: Thank you.

Mike Chang: Our next question comes from Alex Zukin at Wolfe, followed by Matt Pfau at William Blair.

Alex Zukin: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. And again, just sounds like truly marvelous quarter. I guess, one thing that stood out to me was that four out of the five largest customers in the quarter were kind of net new logos and lands. And I guess, is there anything that you’re seeing, you’ve been operating at a pretty high rate of execution through what some would describe as a pretty challenging macro backdrop. So anything you sensed or saw in the quarter that kind of was changing that maybe led to some incremental momentum that you’re starting to see and pick up on in the marketplace? Is it pure execution? Anything there kind of from a macro perspective that you’d comment on with respect to the business?

Sanjit Biswas: Hey, Alex. It’s Sanjit. We spent a lot of time out in the field talking to customers, understanding their business. I think there’s a broader trend towards digitization that’s occurring in physical operations. These are folks with lots of assets, lots of labor. They’re trying to find ways to be safer, more efficient, more sustainable. So they’re now looking to tools like us. And I think word is getting out that this is a product that delivers very clear and fast ROI. As far as what they’re seeing in their businesses, many of them have strong books of business where they’re booked out a couple of years in advance. And so as we focus on these large complex physical operations customers, I think there’s more stability there than you might expect maybe if you were to look at the other end of the market with SMBs or something like that.

Alex Zukin: That’s super helpful. And then as we think about next year – for either you Sanjit or Dom. As you think about stack ranking the growth drivers, can you maybe talk about just where does pricing packaging, where does more verticalized products, maybe gen AI skews, like what’s the right way partner influence selling like any of those kind of stack rank some of those more exciting opportunities that’s going to drive the net new ARR next year?

Dominic Phillips: Yes. Maybe I can start. I think for us it’s just going to be continued execution and I think we need to continue to rollout more and more products. We have a track record now, three products over a $100 million of ARR all still growing really quickly. And on top of that, we’re rolling out additional products that we think that we can sell into our existing install base. So continue product innovation will be key. And then the other key driver for us is, is continuing to add sales capacity at a consistent rate, making sure that we’re ramping that capacity and that they’re staying as productive as they were before and we think that we can continue to drive a lot of growth.

Alex Zukin: Perfect. Thank you, guys. Congrats.

Dominic Phillips: Thanks.

Mike Chang: Our next question comes from Matt Pfau at William Blair, followed by Daniel Jester at BMO.

Matthew Pfau: Hey guys. Thanks for taking my questions and I will echo my congrats on the quarter. Wanted to ask and apologize for the multi-part question, but about the win with the low cost carrier. So first was the win with the previous airline of factor in driving this win. And then the prior airline, I believe was just in couple airports, is that the case with the low cost carrier? And the previous airline win, have you seen an expansion beyond the initial deployment within a few airports? Thanks.

Sanjit Biswas: Sure. Matt, I’ll take that. This is an interesting story. We held our customer conference Samsara beyond last June. And one of the airlines was on stage with us and a few of the other airlines were in the audience. And so I do think that folks are learning from each other. They’re seeing what others are doing in their industry. And this idea of increasing asset utilization is really fundamental in physical operations. These are companies that have hundreds of millions, sometimes billions of dollars of assets, and they’re trying to figure out how to get the most [bang for their buck]. So I think that’s something where once you have a case study, it kind of sets the pattern and others kind of run with that same idea. As far as the deployments, I don’t know off the top of my head. I do know that one of the airlines has expanded with us recently. I can’t remember exactly which one.

Matthew Pfau: Great. And then just a quick question for Dom on the gross margins. I think you’ve been sort of guiding us to expect that to be down and it keeps going up. How should we think about that going forward? Thanks.

Dominic Phillips: Yes. Look, I think there’s some timing puts and takes within any given quarter with – throughout our P&L. And so I would just continue to focus investors on the kind of the full-year color that we provided in the modeling notes. We’re really happy, again, quarterly record getting to 75%. But most of the leverage, I think, in the model going forward in the out years will really come from below the gross margin line, sales and marketing, G&A and maybe a little bit more out of R&D.

Matthew Pfau: Perfect. Thank you.

Dominic Phillips: Thanks.

Mike Chang: Our next question comes from Dan at BMO, followed by Junaid at Truist.

Daniel Jester: Great. Thanks for taking my question. Actually, can we just follow-up on that last one about sales and marketing expense and R&D. It’s been really impressive that you’ve been able to keep those expenses kind of flat to down sequentially for the last couple of quarters and still sort of drive really strong strength on the topline. So maybe just – can you expand about sort of the ability to drive leverage on those expense items?

Dominic Phillips: Yes. Look, I think there’s always some timing stuff at play within quarters. I do expect that our overall OpEx, which decreased in Q3, will be higher in Q4. And you can see that in the – we just did 5% operating margin in Q3, I’m guiding to 2% for Q4. So I do think there’s a little bit of timing at play. But I just want to be clear, I think we’re definitely investing, and trying to sustain high levels of growth. And so you may see some timing in the quarter-to-quarter.

Daniel Jester: Got it. Thank you. And then as you continue to kind of expand products kind of beyond the fleet, any update on how you’re thinking about pricing models for those new products, any evolution and kind of customer conversations or how you’re thinking about going to market with price? Thank you.