A10 Networks (NYSE:ATEN) Q1 2026 Earnings Call

0:00 Greetings. Welcome to the ATEN Networks First Quarter twenty twenty six Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Tom Baumann. Sir, you may begin. Thank you. And thank you all for joining us today. This call is being recorded and webcast live and may be accessed for at least ninety days via the ATEN Networks website at a10networks.com. Hosting the call today are Dhrupa Trevedi, ATEN's President and CEO and CFO, Michele Caron. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that shortly after the market closed today, ATEN Networks issued a press release announcing its first quarter twenty twenty six financial results.

0:55 Additionally, ATEN published a presentation and supplemental trended financial statements. You may access the press release, presentation and trended financial statements on the Investor Relations section of the company's website. During the course of today's call, management will make forward looking statements, including statements regarding projections for future operating results, demand, industry and customer trends, macroeconomic factors, strategy, potential new products and solutions, our capital allocation strategy, profitability, expenses and investments, positioning, and our dividend program. These statements are based on current expectations and beliefs as of today, 04/28/2026.

1:42 These forward looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, some of which are beyond our control that could cause actual results to differ materially and you should not rely on them as predictions of future events. ATEN does not intend to update information contained in these forward looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless required by law. For a more detailed description of these risks and uncertainties, please refer to our most recent 10 ks and quarterly report on Form 10 Q. Please note that with the exception of revenue, financial measures discussed today are on a non GAAP basis, unless otherwise noted, and have been adjusted to exclude certain charges.

2:29 The non GAAP financial measures are not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP and may be different from non GAAP measures presented by other companies. A reconciliation between GAAP and non GAAP measures can be found in the press release issued today and on the trended quarterly financial statements posted on the company's website at a10networks.com. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Dhrupa Trivedi, President and CEO of ATEN Networks. Thank you, Tom, and thank you all for joining us today. ATEN continued to deliver on our strategic plan centered around the current AI driven demand cycle, while simultaneously focusing on disciplined execution.

3:19 Our customers are seeking solutions to address two major challenges, accelerating traffic volume and complexity and emerging security threats in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. ATEN is well positioned to address both these challenges. We delivered 13.4% revenue growth in the first quarter. This was our third quarter in the last four with double digit growth. On a trailing twelve month basis, we have grown revenue by 12.1% and delivered TTM adjusted EBITDA margins of 29.7, in line with the rule of 40 we outlined several years ago.

4:05 During the same period, we have grown service provider revenue by 11% and enterprise revenue by 13%, demonstrating the importance of the strategic shift we have made. A key contributor to our growth is the relevance of our core platform to the demands of AI infrastructure build out, which create new challenges with greater traffic within the networks. As a result, traffic management is returning to the forefront of build out plans, and this trend is aligned with ATEN's history and core expertise. Second, AI is evolving rapidly, creating new threats and expanding the footprint of security concerns.

4:52 For most of the last decade, ATEN has prioritized security advancement in each of our solutions. During this period, we have built a security portfolio that is now directly in the path of AI driven threat expansion. This quarter, we were selected as a technology partner for a new application at one of the most significant AI infrastructure build outs in our industry. As a result, the customer behind this build out represents a high percent of total revenue this quarter. The expansion of the customer's commitment to their enterprise applications reflects our focus on and relevance of next generation networking.

5:38 Deployments of this scale are time sensitive and technically demanding, and it required prioritized allocation of product, inventory, and engineering resources. This was a deliberate choice to support a strategic customer and partner through a time sensitive deployment window. We believe capturing this opportunity at the right cadence creates long term value for the business. I also want to highlight a dynamic I believe is increasingly important to our story. AI is transforming the distinction between how large enterprises and service providers build their networks. The workloads are the same, the performance demands are the same, and security requirements are the same.

6:27 What this means practically is that a Fortune founded customer standing up an internal AI cluster is now evaluating the same architectural choices as a cloud provider. A service provider hosting AI workloads for their enterprise tenants is being held to the same standard as its customers' own data centers. We have built our platform for exactly this world. One architecture, one operating model, one security framework across both segments. That is a meaningful competitive advantage as this convergence accelerates driven by AI. Our disciplined operating model balances targeted investment with margin expansion, converting growth into profitability and cash, while dynamically reinvesting in strategic priorities.

7:27 We continue to meet our objectives for EBITDA margin, reflecting our ability to reallocate resources based on best business opportunities. This results in consistent revenue and EPS performance. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Michelle Caron, our Chief Financial Officer to review the numbers in more detail. Michelle? Thank you, Dhruvind. As a reminder, with the exception of revenue, all of the metrics discussed on this call are non GAAP basis unless otherwise stated. A full reconciliation of GAAP to non GAAP results are provided in our press release and on our website. So let me turn to the results. As Dhrupad noted, Q1 results were aligned with our business model goals and delivered revenue growth of 13.4% to 75,000,000 Turning to mix, product revenue was 44,000,000 or 59% of total revenue, growing 22.3% year over year with service revenue comprising the remainder.

8:36 Security led revenue was a strong driver of our product revenue growth and continues to meet or exceed our long term goal of security led revenue as a percentage of total revenue. Security remains the dominant revenue driver across our next gen networking, legacy networking and network security solution areas. Turning to our major verticals, enterprise customers represented 56% of Q1 revenues, with Americas continuing to outpace overall enterprise revenue growth. Our first quarter benefited from timing of large orders. This segment continues to grow above company average in terms of results as well as outlook.

9:22 Enterprise momentum reflects the combination of our focus on this segment as well as continued strong demand for our next gen networking solutions, as customers prioritize modernizing their infrastructure. Our customers across both segments are aligning on the same underlying requirements for performance, security and scale. From a financial lens, this convergence is showing up in larger opportunities with our enterprise customers. Service provider revenue was 44% of total revenue in the first quarter. Both verticals align with our strategy and reflect the alignment of our offerings with AI infrastructure build outs.

10:08 A10 has evolved its solutions to be well positioned to capture this next gen networking demand, while also addressing legacy refresh opportunities as this market transition progresses and customers resume investment while continuing to align their evolving priorities around performance, scale and security. From a geographical perspective, our Americas region represented 67% of global revenue, driven by continued investment in AI infrastructure build outs. In EMEA, we saw headwinds related to regional conflicts. In APJ, spending remains conservative as customers navigate an uncertain capital environment.

10:56 We're not losing market share or experiencing competitive displacement, rather customers are extending asset lives and deferring discretionary spend. Q1 operating results reflected our continued investment in our strategic initiatives as well as our financial discipline amidst temporary input cost pressures. Non GAAP gross margin was 80.6% in line with our stated goals. Operating expenses were $41,500,000 as we prioritized investments in AI facing innovation, next gen networking and security. Operating margin was 25.2% resulting in net income of $17,700,000 or $0.25 per basic and $0.24 per diluted share.

11:50 Q1 diluted weighted share count was 72,900,000 shares. Operating cash flow and therefore free cash flow in the quarter was temporarily impacted by the timing of receivables as well as inventory investments. Neither item reflects a change in underlying business fundamentals and we expect both to normalize over the course of the year. Full year free cash flow expectations remain unchanged, expanding on a year over year basis. Adjusted EBITDA was 22,500,000 30% of revenue, consistent with our business model goals, as we balance investment in growth initiatives with our commitments sustained and expanding profitability.

12:42 Turning to the balance sheet, cash and marketable securities were $369,700,000 as of March 31 and deferred revenue was $147,200,000 During the quarter, we paid $4,300,000 in cash dividends and repurchased 2,500,000 worth of shares, returning a total of $6,800,000 to our shareholders. The Board has approved a quarterly cash dividend of $06 per share to be paid on 06/01/2026 to shareholders of record on 05/15/2026. The company has $53,400,000 remaining on its $75,000,000 share repurchase authorization.

13:29 As is true for everyone in the industry, we are seeing delivery and cost challenges related to pricing of certain components. We entered this environment with strong supplier relationships, and we will keep evaluating the evolving market and adapt as needed. I'll now turn the call back over to Dhrupad for an update on our 2026 outlook and closing comments. Thank you, Michelle. ATEN continues to strengthen its position as a partner of choice to address the evolving traffic and security needs of next generation networks. The strong financial results, including double digit growth and solid EBITDA margins, validate the strategic investments we have made.

14:18 As a result, ATEN is well positioned in front of multiple durable secular catalysts. We continue to invest to enhance our position across our portfolio while preserving profitability and shareholder returns. We are retrading our 2026 outlook with 2026 revenue growth within our guided range of 10% to 12%, adjusted EBITDA margins between 28% to 30% and EPS growth of 12% to 14%. In addition, we remain confident and committed to our long term operating model. Operator, you can now open the call up for questions. Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session.

15:37 First question comes from Gray Powell with BTIG. Please proceed. Okay, great. Thanks for taking the question and congratulations on the very strong set of results. It was really good to see the product revenue growth accelerate to 22% this quarter. So I guess my first question would just be, where do you think we're at in the investment cycle around AI? And if you start to see a further acceleration in traffic growth, would you think about prioritizing faster revenue growth over the historical 28% to 30% EBITDA margin framework that you've always talked about? Yeah. First of all, thank you, Vivek. Good question. So in terms of, I think, the investment cycle, as I think we have said in the past that we see this as there is a large build out phase, and where we are actually focused with customers is in that phase, but also with customers who will over time deploy their own solutions, whether it's around sovereign AI and things like that. So the second part of that cycle, I think, is very early stage, and we expect to see that benefit next few years.

16:58 The first part of the cycle, think, is pretty active build out. I don't know how much higher it will go or lower it will go, but it is pretty solid and stable in terms of the significance. Committed to the build out, and even though the build out itself takes several quarters, right? So I think we are in the midst of that build out phase, and we are at very early stage of where enterprise and other, you know, entities will use AI for their own business more directly, whether it's on prem or cloud or combined. And I think your second question is is this correct and appropriate? So we certainly continuously look at that trade off. And I would say, the focus for us is if there are opportunities to grow faster, typically that also helps in growing EPS faster, right? So I think we look at it from a point of view of revenue and EPS being the ultimate top and bottom line.

18:01 And the EBITDA margin is a reflection of our ability to drive kind of OpEx productivity as well as maintain sufficient margin that the fall through is good. But absolutely, think as we navigate the market and if we see opportunities for significantly faster growth while still delivering EPS expansion, we continue to look at those. That's perfect. And then just my follow-up question, if that's okay. So you called out the large customer win. I'm assuming that hit in the enterprise segment because the revenue growth there really spiked. Is there any additional detail you can give? Like, was that one of the larger frontier models?

18:49 And if not, just, like, just how should we think about, you know, sort of the split between growth in enterprise and and and service provider going forward? Yeah. Yeah. No. Look. Perfect question. And, you know, I I think I touched on it very briefly, but that's a great question. So I think, first of all, what we are seeing is that many of our large customers that were traditionally SP or enterprise side, there is a complication where a lot of our SP customers, when they are doing AI, are sort of also doing a lot of enterprise applications. And so that's really where that becomes hard to segregate completely. And then enterprise customers are planning to build their own on prem, you know, inference models and build out. So in that case, they look like a service provider. Right? So So that's the demarcation.

19:44 And I think this is a case of, you know, an existing large customer expanding their deployment. And it's really around an enterprise application, so it's not the DDoS type product. And it's an enterprise application that enables their delivery of AI. Understood. Okay. Thank you very much. Yeah. No problem. Thank you. The next question comes from Hamed Khorsand with BWS Financial. Please proceed. Hey. Thank you for taking the call. Just for clarification purposes, is it was this one that accounts receivable build, was it all related to this one large project? And did you already receive payment for it?

20:30 Oh, good question. Mitra, you can answer that in. So this is a calendar event and not a credit event, right? So our business fundamentals remain strong. There was no meaningful uptick in our aged receivables, or there were no deterioration in our payment behavior. There were no concessions on standard payment terms with any customers. So we see the business fundamentals as favorable. And I think, Harman, you are correct. We expect it to be in Q2 in addition to the original Q2. Expect it to normalize over the course of the next couple of quarters and expect the full year to be on track. And then just given the growth that you saw in Q1, why the hesitation to keep guidance unchanged if you're growing in excess of 10% to 12% in Q1?

21:30 Yeah. I think it's more that we are still in Q1, and I think we want to see the progression through the year. And if we see that momentum continuing in Q2 and beyond, obviously, we will revisit that. So it's not it's just that we are navigating, obviously, things that from a time perspective, right, including supply, lead times and cost challenges for some components. And obviously, our EMEA business has little impact from some conflicts there, etcetera. So we feel really good about 10% to 12%. And if we see that progress in terms of pipeline growth and execution into Q2, obviously, we will revisit that, Amit. Fair question.

22:18 All right. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from Michael Romanello with Mizuho. Please proceed. Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. So yes, I mean, in the press release, you guys noted that you're seeing expanded commitments from some of your top customers. Just want to dive a bit deeper into that comment. So outside of this large project, like how is business activity across the installed base? I'm just trying to get a feel for, I guess, the magnitude or size of this and just how business was excluding that large project? And then I have a follow-up. Yes. I think that the intent of that, Michael, was really to highlight that many of our existing customers who were service providers or large enterprise are all beginning to allocate more spending and priority to AI, whether it's building it or using it.

23:17 And so in general, what we are seeing is even if they were buying certain other product categories from us, this is an area of expansion for us, and that's the basis for the comment of expanded commitment. Right? So it could be a service provider in Europe who's also now doing enterprise, or it could be somebody like that, as well as an enterprise customer who is now deploying or expanding their AI infrastructure and build out. So it could be any of those kinds of things. Okay. Got it. That's helpful. Thanks, Dhruv. And then just as my follow-up, you touched on this in the prepared remarks, but can you maybe just characterize demand and business activity across your primary geos?

24:06 It sounds like some parts of the business are still challenged. Anything worth highlighting or falling out this quarter? Yes. No problem. So I think the maybe I'll go into reverse order, right? So we talk about Japan, and that market is, if you look at all their macro factors and spending pattern, there is caution with a lot of reasons, right, that keep hiding. And what we see is typically what would have been a spending profile of the large customers there is getting pushed out more to the right. Because it's both ends of it, it's not just being worried about cost or international issues or something.

24:53 It's also concerned around deploying more CapEx when there is not that much GDP growth and expecting to recover it, right, so from an ROI as well. So I think we see that as a region where we are very focused on maintaining those customers, staying close to them, helping them solve problems now, and expect that to come back. But we don't see imminent, right? It could be later, and we don't know exactly. EMEA, I think, as you can imagine, there's section of EMEA which is quite challenged with active activity with international news, obviously. And so I think that is part that is not kind of growing well. But we continue to see progress and improvement in our business in core Europe part of that segment, right? So but obviously, the Middle East part is a little bit harder right now.

25:53 The and then when it comes to Americas, I think there's obviously two categories. Right? So we see customers who are leaning more into AI are more optimistic and spending more and are more out outward looking towards wanting to be participating in that. On our traditional sort of telco customers, what we are seeing is stability, I would say. So I think it's not where it's declining anymore for sure. And it's not growing, but it's very stable right now, right? And it could improve in the future as those customers as well figure out their AI spending and deployment patterns.

26:39 We certainly see the spending on AI as being the biggest in Americas or U. S. And I think and then EMEA and then Japan, we continue to make progress, including on AI solutions in Japan, but the spending is correlated obviously to economy and outlook, and we are mostly focused on ensuring customer satisfaction. That's helpful color. Thanks, Trudy. Yes. No problem. The next question comes from Anja Soderstrom with Sidoti. Please proceed. Hi. Thanks for taking my questions and congrats on the nice quarter. I'm just curious, in the past, you said that the product revenue is indicative of the of the services growth.

27:29 Right? But and we've seen the product growing quite nicely over the past couple of quarters, but the services have been lagging. What what's the lag do we see there? When do you expect the services to pick up? Yeah. No. Good question, Anya. So I think, you know, if you think about it, typically the way the product is sold is when you have product growth in four quarters' time that contract or support comes up for renewal. And so typically, you would see that in the fifth quarter right after that. Meaning for four quarters, they already are covered. And then at the end of fourth quarter, they have to renew, which goes into the support pool again. And so product growing faster will show up in service improving in, you know, four quarters later, roughly, right?

28:22 So that's one dimension of it. The second, I think is, you know, I think our renewal rate is fine, very stable. Think and we continue to manage, you know, services with customers. There is sometimes timing fluctuation a little bit because of large contracts and renewal time and early or late collections and so forth. So but you are correct. It should be a lead indicator for service revenue growing faster in roughly four quarters. Okay. Thank you. And then in the past, you also said that talked about you've you're taking shares from competitors. Have you seen any changes to the competitive dynamics recently?

29:13 Good question. So, we really have not seen any significant changes since the last quarter or '2. And I think, you know, I feel confident in, you know, what our trajectory is and what we are doing, because if you look at even our peers and even their recent kind of reports or outlook, 10 to 12% is still a little bit north of most of them. So we feel, you know, if we continue that and can continue to improve on that as well, we we are in, you know, good competitive position. And no I would say no real change in the dynamics in terms of the specific landscape there. Okay. Thank you. That was all for me.

29:58 Thank you, Anya. Next question comes from Ben Textall with Craig Hallum. Please proceed. Hey, guys. I'm on for Christian Hey, Schwab Ben. Just a quick question on the 10% to 12% reiterated. Is that going to be kind of a step function every quarter? Is it a stronger second half? And then with that, is that tied to just the continued growth and market share gains? Or or is that concentrated of a few customers? No. I think that's a good question. So I think it's broad market share, obviously. And the reason I think, Ben, we reiterated this here is because we had our Investor Day subsequent to the earnings call in Q1.

30:51 So this is not indicative of a new trend where we will be doing that every quarter. This was just retrading, and recapturing in one place, because we had announced that again at the Analyst Day. Right? So, so that's the objective. And, so it's it's not indicative of us saying we will be guiding every quarter. Mhmm. So Alright. And then just thinking about I I believe you guys said it was 12% was a long term target. Is there you know, with legacy decreasing in their stronger CAGRs, you know, mid teens even, was previously stated at Investor Day. Is there any with those mid teens CAGRs and legacy down, is there a path to exceed that 12%?

31:39 Is is there anything that you guys think that needs to happen to get there? Yeah. Sure. No. I think so I think the fact is right. I think there's two, and we touched upon one in one other earlier question. So certainly, if we see stability in demand and supply as we go through the year, we will continue to evaluate. I think certainly AI spending could be one of those factors that helps us improve that in terms of our participation in that spending profile. So that's probably evolving, right, obviously. And the second factor was, we had talked about the notion of the mix shift. So as we grow next generation network and security solutions faster than legacy, we are also automatically exposed to higher growth rate markets.

32:34 Right? So I think through that evolution, I think we had said obviously, right, more than 12% next year and beyond. So I think the mix shift is helpful in being exposed to higher growth market. Second is, to the degree that we can get more embedded into AI build out, whether infrastructure or applications, is the second factor, right? And third is long term, we don't know, but when SP spending resumes to more normal rates, that obviously helps us, right? So we don't need all three, but we need one or two of them, right, to be more confident of raising it immediately. Great. That's perfect. A lot of my other questions were hit on. Thanks, guys.

33:22 Thank you, Ben. The next question comes from Simon Leopold with Raymond James. Please proceed. Hi, guys. This is Victor in for Simon Leopold. Hey, Victor. Can you provide some color around the supply chain and kind of memory shortages? You mentioned you observed some impacts around that this quarter. Have adjusted pricing around this? And if so, how is that impacting kind of the demand dynamics that you're observing? Yeah. It's a good question, right? So I think, obviously, as well known, right, the memory is the biggest. There's other component shortages. But you know, and certainly, sort of the DDR category is the most specifically the biggest one.

34:07 And we have seen the same price increases. And I think it's more than just price increase. It's also lead time and allocation, right, from the suppliers. So we absolutely see that phenomenon as well, and we are continuously ensuring that, on one hand, obviously driving demand, but on the other hand, trying to do as much as we can to line up enough supply in the next few quarters, right, where it's not expected to get better in, like, let's say, four quarters, maybe at least, maybe more. So absolutely we see the same phenomenon. All of us use almost the same three or four major memory suppliers, right? And we are navigating it the same in terms of securing supply, managing costs, but also managing our ability to fulfill kind of customer needs.

35:05 And, you know, we'll continue to do that. And I think it's it's it's obviously something we have to navigate, and there's no as of now, when we say 10 to 12%, that is not an area we are worried about. We can achieve that, and we'll continue to work towards improving that and making it, you know, not be an issue for us. But it is certainly a cost issue. We, I think as we said in the past, we try to split that with customers as much as we can. And it doesn't always work, and sometimes it does. And, you know, we'll we'll continue to navigate that. Okay. Great. And I think you also mentioned the benefit of timing, you know, of some large orders. Was that related to that that large enterprise order specifically? Or was there some maybe some kind of pull ins that maybe you observed from customers kind of pulling in orders ahead of these shortages?

36:04 No. No. I don't think it's that. I think it's not it's not yet. Good question. So it's not a question of, you know, people kind of overbooking it to book capacity. Right? I don't think that's the issue. I think in our case, it's more our customers are looking at building out things fast, and we are trying to keep up with them to make sure we get them everything they need. So it's more more of that phenomenon versus I don't I don't think, at least, we don't have a concern around double bookings and things like that at all. So Thank you. No problem. Thank you. We have reached the end of the question and answer session, I and will now turn the call over to Dhrupad Trivedi for closing remarks.

36:58 Thank you. And thank you to all of our employees, customers and shareholders for joining us today and for your continued support. I am increasingly confident in our strategic orientation with security and AI infrastructure spending patterns. Thank you for your time and attention. This concludes today's conference and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.