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ATEN earnings call analysis

ATEN. AI-assisted transcript summaries focused on management tone, evasions, goalpost moving, catalysts, risks, and data-center exposure.

3 storedOct 9, 2026

Research summary and source transcript

readyOct 9, 2026

ATEN's FY2026 Q2 call is best read as a thesis-quality check, not a transcript recap. The upside case is that AI and compute-heavy infrastructure demand are becoming real drivers of customer activity. The key investor question is whether that activity converts into durable revenue, royalties, margins, and cash flow rather than remaining a strong-sounding demand story.

Framework #1 asks what management may know now that the market may not fully recognize for 6-24 months. For ATEN, the possible information gradient is whether current demand, backlog, customer activity, or AI/data-center engagement is an early signal of durable conversion rather than a one-quarter narrative. The transcript still needs follow-through in future quarters before that can be treated as proven.

The business engine appears to be demand conversion into revenue at acceptable incremental margins; the fallback needs management's KPIs and historical conversion data to grade it more precisely.

  • Management centered the story on AI, compute, or data-center demand, which is the key thesis variable to verify in future quarters.
  • Backlog and demand visibility were important to the quarter's credibility.
  • Profitability and margin durability should be treated as quality-of-revenue checks, not just headline metrics.
  • Customer renewal and new-logo activity are the clearest checks on whether demand is broadening.
  • Management's strongest emphasis appears to be around demand momentum and AI/compute-related opportunity; the useful investor question is whether that enthusiasm is backed by conversion and customer economics.

The tone reads constructive but still needs investor skepticism. Management appears to have enough operating evidence to discuss momentum, but the call only becomes high-quality if the numbers support conversion, margins, cash flow, and customer breadth. Local fallback reason: model analysis failed during on-demand transcript rendering: Earnings call analyzer failed with status 403..

  • No clear dodged analyst question was detected by the local fallback; manual review should still check whether Q&A answers quantified conversion, margins, and guidance.
  • There may be a benchmark or metric-framing issue worth manual review, especially around adjusted metrics, timelines, or changed expectations.

Competitive position looks potentially improving, but not proven. Customer activity and AI/compute exposure suggest the company may be in the right demand pools; the missing proof is market-share data, pricing power, win/loss detail, and retention economics.

  • Key figure to verify: We generated 15.5% revenue growth in the second quarter on a year-over-year basis and 14.5% growth year-to-date.
  • Key figure to verify: This marked our fourth quarter of double-digit growth in the last five and as a result, we have increased our full-year outlook to 12 to 14% for the full year versus previous guidance of 10 to 12% reflecting continued confidence in the demand environment ahead.
  • Key figure to verify: We delivered revenue growth of 15.5% to $80.1 million.
  • Key figure to verify: Year to date, Our revenue was $155.1 million, an increase of 14.5%.
  • Key figure to verify: Turning to mix, product revenue in the second quarter was $49 million, or 61% of total revenue, while service revenue was $31.1 million, or 39% of total revenue.
  • The quarter appears to be moving from story to evidence: operating momentum is showing up in revenue, royalties, or backlog rather than only in management narrative.
  • Customer activity looks healthier than a one-quarter spike because the transcript points to both retention/renewal work and new-account activity.
  • AI and data-center exposure look strategically relevant rather than cosmetic, because management ties demand to compute-heavy end markets instead of treating it as a generic buzzword.
  • Profitability is a quality signal here, but the investment value depends on whether margins can hold as mix, hiring, and customer concentration evolve.
  • The main open question is conversion: AI or data-center engagement has to turn into recurring royalties, cash flow, and repeatable design wins before it deserves full credit in valuation.
  • Backlog lowers some demand uncertainty, but investors still need timing, cancellation risk, concentration, and conversion economics before treating it as de-risked revenue.
  • Margin strength is not itself a risk; the risk is whether that margin level is sustainable if revenue mix, investment spend, or pricing changes.
  • There is enough downside language in the transcript to require follow-up on execution, timing, or disclosure quality rather than reading the quarter as fully clean.

The data-center angle appears investable but still needs sizing. The call connects the company to AI or compute-heavy infrastructure demand, which is directionally positive, but the thesis should depend on how much of that activity becomes durable revenue, royalties, and cash conversion rather than on thematic exposure alone.

  • How much of the AI or data-center engagement converts into recurring royalties or repeat revenue within the next four quarters?
  • What portion of backlog is cancellable, delayed, concentrated, or dependent on a small number of customers?
  • Can current margin levels persist as mix, headcount, and product investment change?
  • Did management quantify cash conversion and operating leverage, or only highlight revenue and demand?
  • Are customer wins broad enough to imply share gain rather than a few isolated projects?

FY2026 Q2 earnings call transcript

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NYSE:ATEN Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript Generated on 10/9/2026 Operator | Conference Operator: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the A10 Network's second quarter 2026 financial results. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode, and we will open the floor for questions following the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Tom Baumann of FNK Investor Relations. Tom, the floor is yours.

Tom Baumann | FNK Investor Relations

Thank you. Thank you all for joining us today. This call is being recorded in webcast live and may be accessed for at least 90 days via the ATEN Networks website at atennetworks.com. Hosting the call today are Dhrupad Trivedi, ATEN's President and CEO, and CFO, Michelle 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 second quarter 2026 financial results. Additionally, ATEN published a presentation, Complemental Trend 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, or Capital Allocation Strategy, Profitability, Expenses and Investments, Positioning, and or Dividend Program. These statements are based on current expectations and beliefs as of today, August 5, 2026. 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-K and quarterly report on Form 10-Q. Please note that with the exception of revenue, financial measures discussed today for running non-GAAP bases, unless otherwise noted, and may have been adjusted to exclude certain charges. 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 financial 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 www.a10networks.com. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Dhrupad Trivedi, President and CEO of A10 Networks.

Dhrupad Trivedi | President and CEO

Thank you, Tom, and thank you all for joining us today. A10 continues to deliver top and bottom line growth driven by the increasing relevance of our platform to the demands of next generation networking. From our foundation in advanced traffic management solutions to our more recent focus on integrating security in all our offerings, we have built exactly the platform that today's customers need to address the host of challenges impacting their operations. AI is creating new challenges for customers across the industry. Greater traffic volume, expanding security threat, and the need for lower latency. Our focus on next generation networking, which combines advanced application management with integrated security represents the future of ATEN and increasingly the standard our industry is being held to. Subsequent to the quarter, we announced a significant expansion of our relationship with Microsoft. This agreement reflects a shared commitment to a long-term partnership with mutual performance commitments on both sides. As a result, we are more firmly aligned with the long-term roadmap of this industry leader. It also serves as powerful validation of ATEN's relevance to the customer and market and speaks to the depth of the relationship we have built over multiple years. We also continue to advance our product roadmap. In June, we acquired Trojai, an AI security company that helps organizations secure, test, and govern AI applications and agentic workflows. This acquisition adds two layers to our platform. Red teaming, which uses AI to probe models and agents for vulnerabilities at build time, as well as real-time protection at runtime. We generated 15.5% revenue growth in the second quarter on a year-over-year basis and 14.5% growth year-to-date. This marked our fourth quarter of double-digit growth in the last five and as a result, we have increased our full-year outlook to 12 to 14% for the full year versus previous guidance of 10 to 12% reflecting continued confidence in the demand environment ahead. AI continues to erase the distinction between how enterprises and service providers build their networks. Today, enterprises and service providers face the same workloads, performance demands, and security requirements. We have built our platform for exactly this world. One architecture, one operating model, One Security Framework across both segments. Through this period of improving demand, our operating discipline has remained constant. We balanced targeted investment with EPS expansion and we delivered on both goals in the second quarter. Our goal is to convert growth into profitability and cash while continuing to invest in the technical capabilities Thank you Dhrupad. As a reminder, with the exception of revenue, Michelle Caron | Chief Financial Officer: All of the metrics discussed on this call are on a 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. Let me now turn to the results. As Dhrupad noted, Q2 results were aligned with our business model goals. We delivered revenue growth of 15.5% to $80.1 million. Year to date, Our revenue was $155.1 million, an increase of 14.5%. Turning to mix, product revenue in the second quarter was $49 million, or 61% of total revenue, while service revenue was $31.1 million, or 39% of total revenue. From a product mix perspective, Security-led revenue continues to drive product revenue growth and meet our long-term goals as a percentage of total revenue. From a vertical perspective, enterprise customers represented 60% of Q2 revenues. On a trailing 12-month basis, enterprise represents approximately half of total revenue, in line with our previously stated corporate goals of driving balanced growth. Service provider spend in the Americas has begun to normalize. EMEA service provider demand was impacted by the geopolitical environment, while Japan, within our APJ region, continues to experience macroeconomic pressures that are impacting spending cycles. We remain confident that our service provider relationships around the world remain a strong foundation for continued growth within international markets Both verticals align with our strategy and reflect the strength of our offerings supporting AI infrastructure build-outs. From a geographic perspective, our Americas region represented 68% of global revenue. This reflects our deliberate focus on the Americas as a growth region driven by AI infrastructure build-outs and strengths in the enterprise market. Non-GAAP gross margin was 80.3%, in line with our stated goals. Operating expenses were $43.9 million, as we continued to prioritize investments in AI-facing innovation, next-gen networking, and security. Operating margin was 25.5%, resulting in net income of 18.7 million or 26 cents per basic and 25 cents per diluted share compared to 21 cents in the year-ago period. Q2 diluted weighted share count was 75.7 million shares. We generated 26.9 million in free cash flow in the quarter as the Q1 timing items we noted recovered as expected. On a year-to-date basis, free cash flow was 26.2 million. We continue to expect full-year free cash flow to grow year-over-year from approximately 65 million in 2025. Adjusted EBITDA was 25.4 million 30.5% of revenue consistent with our business model goals. Turning to the balance sheet, cash and marketable securities were $357.3 million as of June 30th and deferred revenue was $154.8 million. We continue to return meaningful capital to shareholders. During the quarter, we paid $4.3 million in cash dividends and repurchased $2.4 million worth of shares, returning a total of $6.7 million to shareholders. The Board has approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.06 per share to be paid on September 1, 2026 to shareholders of record on August 15, 2026. The company has $53 million remaining on its $75 million share repurchase authorization. Consistent with the industry, we continue to navigate cost and delivery challenges related to the supply chain. Customer satisfaction and on-time delivery remain our top priorities, and the strength of our business model gives us the confidence to raise our ETS outlook even as we navigate near-term cost dynamics. I'll now turn the call back to Dhrupad for an update on our 2026 outlook and closing comments.

Dhrupad Trivedi | President and CEO

Thank you, Michelle. ATEN continues to strengthen its position as a partner of choice for next-generation networks, and we are positioned to benefit from multiple durable secular catalysts. We continue to invest to enhance our position across our portfolio while preserving profitability and shareholder returns. Based on the results through six months and our visibility ahead, we are increasing our full-year 2026 outlook. We now expect 2026 full-year revenue to increase by 12 to 14% on a year-over-year basis, up from 10 to 12%, and EPS growth of 14 to 16% up from 12 to 14% previously. Operator, you can now open the call up for questions.

Operator | Conference Operator

Thank you very much. We're now opening the floor for questions. If you have any questions, you can press star one on your phone keypad now to join the key. We ask that while you're posing your question, you please pick up your handset. If you are listening on the speakerphone, to provide optimum sound quality. So, star one if you would like to ask a question. Please wait a moment whilst we poll for questions. Thank you. Our first question is coming from Gray Powell of BTIG. Gray, your line is live.

Gray Powell | Analyst at BTIG

All right, great. Thanks for taking the question and congratulations on the really strong set of results.

Thank you. Dhrupad Trivedi | President and CEO

Thank you.

Gray Powell | Analyst at BTIG

Yeah, okay. So on product revenue growth, it's consistently been strong the last 18 months. 25% growth in Q2 versus a tough comp last year. I thought that was particularly impressive. Can you maybe talk about how the drivers of growth on the product side have been changing this year versus last year? And then just how should we think about the duration difference? of this spending cycle that you're currently benefiting from?

Dhrupad Trivedi | President and CEO

Yeah, no, great question. And I think, you know, as we have said before, when we get new customer or new business, product revenue is the lead indicator. And relative to your question, Gray, two things, right? So, A, over the last several quarters, we have spoken about things that we are strengthening on the commercial side and the product side to be able to better address and win opportunities including in the enterprise segment, right? So that's one aspect of where as we get new business, the product growth is the lead driver and grows faster than service at that point. Second, I would say is as we have continued to engage customers with longer term roadmap and solutions related to what they can do with AI when they actually deploy it in the next two, three years. That has also naturally led to broader conversations with other products that they could be engaging with us today while they do that. So I think those two dimensions have helped us kind of drive that product growth a little bit more substantially. And our goal is obviously to continue to maintain that as much as we can.

Gray Powell | Analyst at BTIG

Okay, that's really helpful. And then just, I guess it's a related question, but the last quarter you called out some pull-forward dynamics with your largest customer. So I guess I was a little bit surprised to see product growth accelerate in Q2. Can you maybe just talk about what surprised you the most in the quarter? And was there any similar pull-forward dynamics in Q2 to what you saw last quarter?

Dhrupad Trivedi | President and CEO

Yeah, no, fair point. And I think maybe a minor concern So the pull-forward dynamic was not sort of a relocation of demand. It had more to do with supporting a significant project that had a timeline that needed to be completed. So when I look at Q2, similarly, I would say we continue to balance the customer needs and deployment needs, but there's no concern that this is Demand from Outer Quarters that's coming into the period, if that's helpful.

Gray Powell | Analyst at BTIG

That's really helpful.

Thank you very much. Dhrupad Trivedi | President and CEO

Thank you.

Operator | Conference Operator

Thank you very much. And our next question is coming from Christian Schwab of Craig Hallam Group. Christian, your line is live.

Christian Schwab | Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group

Great. Thanks for taking my question, Craig Quarter, and Outlook. Can you just give a better description and discussion on the growth drivers, which appear to be, you know, a large degree of increased traffic that is going through the network, in particular through enterprises as AI adoption is accelerating. Is that also part of the expansion of the Microsoft relationship and In addition to that, as more and more traffic becomes localized on the enterprise, and as enterprise deploy specific AI applications that they'll run dedicated on their networks versus going to the cloud, should we think of that as a meaningful growth driver for you over time?

Dhrupad Trivedi | President and CEO

Yeah, great question, Christian. So I think I'll maybe talk about that in three So first, as you mentioned, our approach is around the notion of helping whatever type of company uses the product, that when there is more traffic, more complicated traffic, and people are worried about latency, that's a good fit for our solutions, independent of what exact application maybe. So certainly the growth in traffic driven in some part due to AI, which is much more burst traffic, high volume traffic, and different than what we used to see. It results in two parts. One is just managing that traffic efficiently and with low latency. And second is dealing with the new kinds of threats that arise because of and many more. Second, I think you talked about Microsoft and obviously we have been partnered with them and it's been a great customer for us for a long period of time. The expansion is that over the next couple of years time frame again, we are more and more aligned on the roadmap that as they build out their own architecture and infrastructure, that we are continuing to be embedded with them in broader areas than we used to before. So it's continuing to expand that. At the same time, obviously, we are very focused on ensuring we do our part to help them continue to be successful. So that's simply kind of a reflection and joint commitment from both sides that we want to make it work for an extended period of time and this is just a reflection of that and ultimately has to be that we have to deliver the right technology they need and we are obviously focused on that from a technical point of view. The last point you mentioned actually is an interesting one. So I would say this is not a big demand driver immediately but certainly in the next two to three years as You see in the news, large enterprise particularly chooses to do sometimes their own models or because of sovereign AI reasons outside of US as well, they choose to do actually more things on-prem than even in the cloud. Our solution can go across all of that. So as we see uptake in the next two, three years with enterprise doing more AI, like inference AI and generally The large ones preferring to do their own. We see that obviously as a strength for us, again, based on the nature of our solution and the ability that we have maintained how we deliver these capabilities in any kind of form factor.

Christian Schwab | Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group

Great, thank you for that. I just have one more question. Regarding your first sustainable growth driver, as more complicated traffic and latency and security threats are a huge issue, your success there, can you just remind us who your first or second biggest competitor for those products are?

Dhrupad Trivedi | President and CEO

I think there's two class of people that we would compete with, right? So one is traditional companies that deliver infrastructure products obviously are also trying to add similar capabilities. So that would be one category of that, right? And I would say, though, the way we are approaching it, we try to do it based on our differentiation. So we believe we can be competitive The second part of that is, which is an evolving market, is because of the nature of funding, there is a lot of small and startup companies that is trying to compete in those slots. But ultimately, I think one of the factors that plays into it is, would you trust, you know, if you're a large bank, would you trust your data to an AI with a 6% team, right? So I think... and if you do, then the technology has to be really, really good. So I think the balance for us is we overlap with both the direct competition I would say though would be with companies that do networking and infrastructure, trying to add on AI products and capabilities.

Christian Schwab | Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group

Great, thank you, no other questions, thank you.

Dhrupad Trivedi | President and CEO

Thank you, Prish.

Operator | Conference Operator

Thank you very much. and our next question is coming from Hamed Korsand of BWS Financial. Hamed, your line is live.

Hamed Korsand | Analyst at BWS Financial

Hi, so first off, were there any pre-buy requirements on the part of Microsoft for the expanded relationship and how are you going to manage the business given that Microsoft is so large of a percentage of revenue at this point?

Dhrupad Trivedi | President and CEO

Yeah, so I think the You know, so I think the agreement that we have is linked to more their demand and us working jointly with them in a much more longer timeframe. So there's no pre-buys or anything like that. It's very much aligned with their business needs, rollout, forecast, and us being much more operationally intertwined than before, as well as the product side. The second part of your question, Hamid, I would say is, you know, if you put aside that and maybe where one or two countries where there's macro issues, our overall business excluding those factors is also growing close to double digits, right? So it's not that this is the only place that is growing. So our objective continues to be to increase our relevance more and more in enterprise, obviously including cloud and AI, as well as maintain durability where We should also benefit when service provider CapEx rebounds and does better, right? So we are not losing those slots. We are maintaining those positions, but obviously we are taking advantage of the current spending profile of customers by quarter.

Hamed Korsand | Analyst at BWS Financial

Okay, and then is there a higher drag on earnings because of where memory prices is, or are you... have been able to stabilize that?

Dhrupad Trivedi | President and CEO

Great question. So I think we have been able to maintain it in the last couple of quarters. As people talk about that memory constraint, whether it's supply or pricing or combined, is expected to last for a while. So we are continuing to navigate that, but our bias is customer satisfaction and delivery. So if we were forced to make that choice, we would figure out what to do and still deliver EPS. But so far, we have been able to manage that, but it's unknown, right? Everybody's expecting it to last for many more quarters, so we are just staying focused on the customer delivery.

Hamed Korsand | Analyst at BWS Financial

Okay.

Thank you. Dhrupad Trivedi | President and CEO

Thank you, Amit.

Operator | Conference Operator

Thank you very much. Our next question is coming from Michael Romanelli of Mizuho Securities. Michael, your line is live.

Michael Romanelli | Analyst at Mizuho Securities

Great. Hey, guys, thanks for taking the questions here. Maybe to start off, you know, obviously the New Microsoft Agreement, you know, provides, you know, some validation around demand and deployment activity. So, you know, congrats on that. I guess just looking beyond that relationship, can you talk a little bit about the broader pipeline today, how that compares to You know, perhaps 90 days ago, whether that be size, quality and visibility, you know, particularly for just the larger enterprise and, you know, any AI related opportunities that you can comment on, you know, just trying to, you know, understand, you know, how demand looks for, you know, outside of the Microsoft agreement. And then I have a follow up.

Dhrupad Trivedi | President and CEO

Sure. Yeah, no. Good question, and I'll maybe answer it in two ways. So first is, when we look at our overall pipeline, compared to 90 days ago, and let's say enterprise SP separately, I would say on the service provider side, we certainly see slight improvement in the North America market. And some of it is, right, the products we sell help them run networks better, cheaper, faster. whether they replace the network or not. So we certainly see that as a trend where that pipeline is improving and so we expect that to be a contributor more in the future. On the enterprise side, obviously we have put a lot of effort and I think because our focus is typically on large enterprise, the sales cycles tend to be six to nine months and are pretty complex. So I would say the pipeline is good We see kind of the trend being pretty positive as well. But I think we should start seeing the results, you know, later this year, early next year, more so than before, based on that, right? So the pipeline compared to 90 days is definitely better. And I would say the quality of deals is better. So it's obviously the last part is the most important, which is we have to execute. So And the second thing, Michael, you asked, on the AI side, like many companies, we are engaged with a lot of customers, proof of concept kind of things right now as they are themselves figuring out what to do with AI. So there I would say our measure of success is more around how many customers are we engaged with and are we deeply involved with their business problems and how we can solve them.

Michael Romanelli | Analyst at Mizuho Securities

Got it. Okay. Thanks, Dhrupad. That's helpful. And then, you know, maybe as, you know, for my follow-up, you know, congrats on the recent acquisition of Troj AI. I guess what made this the right asset for A10? And, you know, where do you see the strongest fit within the portfolio? And I guess just more broadly, you know, could AI security become a more meaningful growth vector for A10 over time? Or should we think of it more as an important capability that enhances the relevance of the existing portfolio?

Thanks. Dhrupad Trivedi | President and CEO

Yeah, great question. So I think, first of all, I think one of the most important things for us in going with Troj was the team there had developed a very strong technical solution, which was very much in line with kind of the roadmap we were driving towards and somewhat complementary to some other things we were doing. So in a way, it was adding that capability to strengthen a portfolio that we can sell standalone, but also as part of broader bundles in the future. I would say the near term, of course, it adds capability to the overall solution for sure. But at the same time, the roadmap that we are driving has more to do with kind of native AI solutions that we can bring to market in the next one or two years that are not even predicated on people using all of our other products, right? So it's more of the first thing today, but it could be both in the future as the market matures.

Tom Baumann | FNK Investor Relations

Great, thank you.

Operator | Conference Operator

Thank you very much. And our next question. is coming from Simon Leopold. Raymond James. Apologies, Simon.

Your line is live. Simon Leopold | Analyst at Raymond James

That's okay. I wanted to check. Historically, you've included Microsoft within your service provider vertical, I believe. I want to confirm that and just verify that That's still how you categorize it. Just to make sure that essentially the sort of shift in mix isn't reflective of recategorization of a customer.

Dhrupad Trivedi | President and CEO

Good question and clarification. So, Simon, you are correct. Historically, we characterize it as service provider. We have not recategorized that portion of the business. But as I mentioned before, we are also doing different and new business with Microsoft as well as others. And that's where it's sometimes difficult for us to kind of split in that enterprise SP mix because many of our customers, including in Europe, do both. And so you are correct. There is no historical revenue that has been recategorized. And so what is sold to them as a service provider is still counted in the service provider segment.

Simon Leopold | Analyst at Raymond James

So then in the most recent quarter, is there Microsoft business showing up that you do categorize as enterprise? Yes, correct. Based on a completely different product set.

Dhrupad Trivedi | President and CEO

Yeah, based on a completely different product set. Correct, yeah.

Simon Leopold | Analyst at Raymond James

Okay, that like totally now things make so much more sense to me. so helpful. So then stepping back, last quarter you did disclose in the queue that you did have a 37% end customer. Can you give us a similar metric for the June quarter?

Dhrupad Trivedi | President and CEO

I think obviously we will come out in the queue but it will be a similar number and we'll publish the queue next day or two. But it will be a similar number and It's linked to kind of completing the rollout, right? So it will change probably in the future, but as of now for Q2, it will be a similar number just for those exact reasons.

Simon Leopold | Analyst at Raymond James

Okay, and so I guess kind of trying to just put a button on this line of questioning. It looks like service provider excluding Microsoft declined in 2025, and I think you're talking about it stabilizing. So if we're trying to think about service provider excluding Microsoft in 2026, we should be thinking about that as similar to the 2025 level. Is that what you mean by normalizing? I just want to make sure I'm interpreting that commentary correctly.

Dhrupad Trivedi | President and CEO

Yeah, so I think a very good question. I think so I would say expecting it to be slightly better than 2025 level and the puts and takes are the North America segment we see as improving. Japan is equal or slightly worse and Europe is neutral, right? So between those factors overall, we expect it to be slightly better versus 2025.

Great. Simon Leopold | Analyst at Raymond James

Thank you.

I appreciate the clarification. Dhrupad Trivedi | President and CEO

Appreciate it. No problem. Thank you. Thanks, Anand.

Operator | Conference Operator

Thank you very much. Well, we appear to have reached the end of our question and answer session, so I'll now hand back over to the management team for any closing comments.

Dhrupad Trivedi | President and CEO

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 next-generation networking spending patterns. Thank you for your time and attention. jsPDF 3.0.3 D:20261009125542-00'00'

Research summary and source transcript

readyJun 10, 2026

A10 Networks delivered strong Q1 2026 results with 13.4% revenue growth and 30% adjusted EBITDA margin, driven by AI infrastructure demand and security-led product growth. The company highlighted a significant enterprise customer win tied to an AI application deployment, reinforcing its positioning at the intersection of AI traffic management and security. While near-term execution remains solid, the sustainability of growth beyond the current AI build-out phase and the ability to convert large project wins into recurring revenue remain unproven.

Management knows today that the large AI infrastructure customer win referenced in the call represents a high percentage of Q1 revenue and is tied to a time-sensitive, technically demanding deployment requiring prioritized engineering and inventory allocation. This level of customer commitment and the specific nature of the AI application (non-DDoS, enterprise-facing) are not yet reflected in public filings or analyst models, and the long-term value of this partnership — including expansion potential, renewal likelihood, and spillover to other enterprise AI projects — will only become clear over the next 6–24 months as the customer scales its AI initiatives and A10’s role evolves from supplier to strategic partner.

Revenue growth is driven by AI infrastructure build-out (traffic management and security), enterprise and service provider convergence on AI workloads, and security-led product innovation. Profitability is sustained through disciplined operating expense management, gross margin stability (~80.6%), and reinvestment of operating cash flow into strategic priorities. The core engine is the alignment of A10’s unified platform with the dual demands of AI-driven traffic growth and expanding security threats.

  • AI infrastructure build-out as a secular growth driver
  • Convergence of enterprise and service provider networking needs due to AI
  • Security as a dominant and growing revenue driver across product lines
  • Disciplined investment and margin expansion framework
  • Geographic variability in demand (Americas strength, EMEA headwinds, APJ caution)
  • Timing of large orders and deployment cycles affecting quarterly results
  • Detailed description of the large AI infrastructure customer win as a technology partner for a significant build-out
  • Emphasis on the enterprise application nature of the win (non-DDoS, enabling AI delivery)
  • Repeated references to the uniqueness of A10’s unified platform for both enterprise and service provider AI workloads
  • Confidence in long-term value creation from timing-critical, strategic customer deployments
  • Strong linkage between AI traffic growth and renewed relevance of core traffic management expertise

Management exhibited a confident, direct, and credible tone throughout the call, particularly when discussing strategic positioning, customer wins, and financial discipline. Executives provided specific, evidence-backed responses to detailed questions about revenue mix, customer segmentation, and supply chain impacts without evasion. While optimistic about AI-driven opportunities, they tempered expectations with acknowledgment of near-term uncertainties (geographic headwinds, supply chain) and avoided overpromising on guidance revisions. The consistency between prepared remarks and Q&A responses suggests alignment and transparency, reinforcing credibility.

  • No clear dodged analyst question was detected by the local fallback; manual review should still check whether Q&A answers quantified conversion, margins, and guidance.
  • There may be a benchmark or metric-framing issue worth manual review, especially around adjusted metrics, timelines, or changed expectations.

A10 Networks appears to be winning competitively in the AI infrastructure networking and security niche, leveraging its unified platform to address converging enterprise and service provider needs. The company differentiates itself through its early focus on security and traffic management — now both critical in AI build-outs — and its ability to serve both segments with a single architecture. While no direct displacement of competitors was cited, A10’s growth outpacing peers (10–12% guided range) and its positioning as a 'technology partner' for significant AI projects suggest relative strength. However, the sustainability of this advantage depends on continued innovation and the ability to avoid commoditization in a rapidly evolving market.

  • Q1 2026 revenue: $75 million, up 13.4% year-over-year
  • Product revenue: $44 million (59% of total), up 22.3% year-over-year
  • Security-led revenue: strong driver of product growth, meeting or exceeding long-term goal as % of total revenue
  • Non-GAAP gross margin: 80.6%
  • Adjusted EBITDA: $22.5 million, 30% of revenue
  • Cash and marketable securities: $369.7 million as of March 31, 2026
  • Deferred revenue: $147.2 million as of March 31, 2026
  • Q1 operating cash flow: temporarily impacted by receivables and inventory timing, expected to normalize
  • Continued expansion of AI infrastructure spending in the Americas, particularly enterprise-led AI cluster deployments
  • Renewal and expansion of service provider commitments to AI workloads for enterprise tenants
  • Successful conversion of large project wins into recurring service and support revenue over time
  • Geographic recovery in EMEA and APJ as macroeconomic and geopolitical headwinds ease
  • Product mix shift toward higher-growth next-gen networking and security solutions
  • Sustained security-led revenue growth exceeding long-term internal targets
  • Growth may be overly dependent on timing of large, episodic AI infrastructure deployments rather than broad-based demand
  • Enterprise AI spending could plateau or shift to in-house solutions, reducing reliance on third-party vendors like A10
  • Geographic weakness in EMEA (conflict-related) and APJ (uncertain capital environment) may persist or worsen
  • Supply chain constraints, particularly in memory (DDR), could constrain fulfillment despite strong demand
  • Ability to convert large project wins into recurring, high-margin service revenue remains unproven
  • Competitors may replicate A10’s unified platform approach, eroding its differentiation in AI networking

A10 Networks is directly exposed to AI-driven data center build-out through its role in managing accelerated traffic volume and complexity within AI infrastructure. The company positions its core platform as essential for traffic management in AI build-outs, a function returning to prominence due to AI workloads. Additionally, A10’s security portfolio is cited as being 'directly in the path of AI-driven threat expansion,' indicating indirect but significant exposure to AI-related security spending in data centers. There is no evidence of A10 providing AI compute, training, or inference solutions; its impact is limited to networking and security layers. The convergence of enterprise and service provider AI workloads expands its addressable market within data center environments, but the company does not appear to be a direct beneficiary of AI server or accelerator demand.

  • What is the expected duration and renewal likelihood of the large AI infrastructure customer win referenced in Q1?
  • How much of Q1’s product revenue growth is attributable to non-recurring, project-based shipments versus sustainable demand?
  • What is the anticipated timeline for geographic recovery in EMEA and APJ, and what specific indicators will signal improvement?
  • How is A10 measuring success in converting large enterprise AI project wins into recurring service and support revenue?
  • To what extent is security-led revenue growth driven by new AI-specific threats versus legacy network security demand?
  • What specific product or feature wins caused the 22.3% product revenue growth, and how defensible are these against competition?
  • How does management define 'time-sensitive deployment window' in the context of the large customer win, and what are the risks if delays occur?
  • What portion of deferred revenue ($147.2M) is tied to the large AI infrastructure customer or related AI projects?

FY2026 Q1 earnings call transcript

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NYSE:ATEN Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript Generated on 6/6/2026 Operator | Conference Operator: Greetings. Welcome to the A10 Network's first quarter 2026 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 Bauman. Sir, you may begin.

Tom Bauman | Host, Investor Relations

Thank you. And thank you all for joining us today. This call is being recorded in a webcast live and may be accessed for at least 90 days via the ATEN Networks website at atennetworks.com. Hosting the call today are Drupal Trivedi, ATEN's president and CEO, and CFO Michelle Karan. 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 2026 financial results. 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, April 28, 2026. 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. K-10 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-K 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. The non-GAAP financial measures are not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP. It 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 Drupal Trivedi, President and CEO of ATAN Networks.

Drupal Trivedi | President and CEO, ATEN Networks

Thank you, Tom, and thank you all for joining us today. ATAN continued to deliver on our strategic plan centered around the current AI-driven demand cycle while simultaneously focusing on disciplined execution. 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 12-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. 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. For most of the last decade, ATAN 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. 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. What this means practically is that a Fortune 500 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. 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. Michelle Karan | Chief Financial Officer, ATEN Networks

Thank you, Dhruvid. As a reminder, with the exception of revenue, all of the metrics discussed on this call are a 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 Drupad noted, Q1 results were aligned with our business model goals and delivered revenue growth of 13.4% to $75 million. Turning to MIX, product revenue was $44 million or 59% of total revenue, growing 22.3% year-over-year with service revenue comprising the remainder. 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. While first quarter benefited from timing of large orders, this segment continues to grow above company average in terms of results as well as outlook. 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. ATEN 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. 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 $41.5 million as we prioritized investments in AI-facing innovation, next-gen networking, and security. Operating margin was 25.2%, resulting in net income of $17.7 million, or 25 cents per basic and 24 cents per diluted share. Q1 diluted weighted share count was 72.9 million 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 $22.5 million, 30% of revenue, consistent with our business model goals as we balance investment and growth initiatives with our commitments to sustained and expanding profitability. Turning to the balance sheet, cash and marketable securities were $369.7 million as of March 31st, and deferred revenue was $147.2 million. During the quarter, we paid $4.3 million in cash dividends and repurchased $2.5 million worth of shares, returning a total of $6.8 million to our shareholders. The board has approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.06 per share to be paid on June 1, 2026, to shareholders of record on May 15, 2026. The company has 53.4 million remaining on its $75 million share repurchase authorization. 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 Drupad for an update on our 2026 outlook and closing comments.

Drupal Trivedi | President and CEO, ATEN Networks

Thank you, Misha. ATAN 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. 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 re-trading 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.

Operator | Conference Operator

Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Once again, please press star one if you have a question or a comment. Our first question comes from Gray Powell with BT IG.

Please proceed. Gray Powell | Analyst, BT IG

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 today? 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 percent, even the margin framework that you've always talked about?

Drupal Trivedi | President and CEO, ATEN Networks

Yeah. First of all, thank you. 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. The first part of the cycle, I think, is pretty active build-out. I don't 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. So I think we are in the midst of that build-out phase, and we are at a very early stage of where enterprise and other 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 correct and appropriate. So we certainly continuously look at that trade-off and I would say, you know, 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. 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, I 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.

Gray Powell | Analyst, BT IG

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? Was that one of the larger frontier models? And if not, just how should we think about sort of the split between growth and enterprise and service provider going forward?

Drupal Trivedi | President and CEO, ATEN Networks

Yeah, no, perfect question. And 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, 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 inference models and build out. So in that case, they look like a service provider, right? So that's the demarcation. And I think This is a case of 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.

Gray Powell | Analyst, BT IG

Understood. Okay, thank you very much. Yeah, no problem.

Thank you. Operator | Conference Operator

The next question comes from Hamid Corson with BWS Financial.

Please proceed. Hamid Corson | Analyst, BWS Financial

Thank you for taking the call. Just for clarification purposes, was this one accounts receivable bill, was it all related to this one large project, and did you all receive payment for it?

Drupal Trivedi | President and CEO, ATEN Networks

Oh, good question. Michelle, you can answer that.

Michelle Karan | Chief Financial Officer, ATEN Networks

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.

Drupal Trivedi | President and CEO, ATEN Networks

And I think you are correct. We expect it to be in Q2 in addition to the original Q2.

Michelle Karan | Chief Financial Officer, ATEN Networks

We expect things to normalize over the course of the next couple of quarters and expect the full year to be on track.

Hamid Corson | Analyst, BWS Financial

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, you know, 10 to 12% in Q1?

Drupal Trivedi | President and CEO, ATEN Networks

Yeah, I think it's more that we are still, you know, 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, et cetera. 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 habit.

So fair question. Yeah. Hamid Corson | Analyst, BWS Financial

All right.

Thank you. Thank you. Operator | Conference Operator

The next question comes from Michael Romanello with Mizuho.

Please proceed. Michael Romanello | Analyst, Mizuho

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. So, yeah, 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, you know, a bit deeper into that comment. So outside of this large project, like how is, you know, business activity across the install base? You kind of get a feel for, you know, I guess the magnitude or size of this and just how business was, you know, excluding that large project. And then I have a follow-up.

Drupal Trivedi | President and CEO, ATEN Networks

Yeah, so I think that the intent of that, Michael, was really to highlight that, you know, 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. 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.

Michael Romanello | Analyst, Mizuho

Okay, got it. That's helpful. Thanks, Drupal. And then, you know, just as my follow-up, you know, you touched on this in the prepared remarks, but you maybe just, you know, characterize demand and, you know, business activity across your primary geos. You know, it sounds like some parts of the business are still challenged. Anything worth highlighting or calling out this quarter?

Thanks. Drupal Trivedi | President and CEO, ATEN Networks

Yeah, no problem. So I think, you know, maybe I'll go in 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 they keep siding. 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. It's also concerned around deploying more CapEx when there is not that much GDP growth and expecting to recover it from an ROI as well. 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. AMIA, I think, as you can imagine, there's a section of AMIA which is quite challenged with active activity with international news, obviously. And so I think that is uh, part that is not, uh, kind of growing well. Uh, but we continue to see progress and improvement in our business in, uh, core Europe, uh, part of that segment. Right. So, uh, but obviously the middle East part is a little bit harder right now. The, uh, and then when it comes to America, I think, uh, uh, 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 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. But we certainly see the spending on AI as being the biggest in Americas or U.S., And I think, and then Namiya 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.

Michael Romanello | Analyst, Mizuho

That's helpful, caller. Thanks, Ruben.

Operator | Conference Operator

Yeah, no problem. The next question comes from Anya Soderstrom with Sudoti.

Please proceed. Anya Soderstrom | Analyst, Sudoti

Hi, thank you for taking my questions and congrats on the next quarter. In the past, you said that the product revenue is indicative of the services growth, right? And we've seen the products growing quite nicely over the past couple of quarters, but the services have been lagging. What's the lag that we see there when they expect the services to pick up?

Drupal Trivedi | President and CEO, ATEN Networks

Yeah, no, good question, Ania. 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? So that's one dimension of it. The second I think is, you know, I think our renewal rate is fine, very stable. I 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. But you are correct. It should be a lead indicator for service revenue growing faster in roughly four quarters.

Anya Soderstrom | Analyst, Sudoti

Okay, thank you. And then in the past, you also talked about taking shares from competitors. Have you seen any changes to the concept? competitive dynamics recently?

Drupal Trivedi | President and CEO, ATEN Networks

Good question. So, no, we really have not seen any significant changes since the last quarter or two. 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 if we continue that and can continue to improve on that as well, we are in a good competitive position and I would say no real change in the dynamics in terms of the specific landscape.

Anya Soderstrom | Analyst, Sudoti

Okay, thank you. That was all for me.

Drupal Trivedi | President and CEO, ATEN Networks

Thank you, Anya.

Operator | Conference Operator

Next question comes from Ben Textall with Craig Hallam.

Please proceed. Ben Textall | Analyst, Craig Hallam

Hey, guys. I'm on for Christian Schwab here. Hey, Ben. Just a quick question on the 10% to 12% reiterated. Is that going to be kind of a step function every quarter, or is it a stronger second half? And then with that, is that tied to just the continued growth and market share gains, or is that concentrated of a few customers?

Drupal Trivedi | President and CEO, ATEN Networks

Oh, 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. So this is not indicative of a new trend where we will be doing that every quarter. This was just reiterating 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 not indicative of us saying we will be guiding every quarter.

Ben Textall | Analyst, Craig Hallam

All right. And then just thinking about, I believe you guys said it was 12%. was a long-term target. Is there, you know, with legacy decreasing and there's stronger keggers, you know, mid-teens even was previously stated on Investor Day. Is there any, with those mid-teens keggers and legacy down, is there a path to exceed that 12%? Is there anything that you guys think that needs to happen to get there?

Drupal Trivedi | President and CEO, ATEN Networks

Yeah, sure. No, I think, so I think the factors, right, I think there's, too. And we touched upon one in one other earlier question. So certainly if we see stability and in demand and supply, uh, as we go through the year, we will continue to evaluate. I think certainly, uh, AI spending could be one of those factors that helps us, uh, improve that in terms of our participation in that spending profile. So that's probably evolving, right? Obviously. And the second factor was, uh, 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, 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 application 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 to be more confident of raising it immediately.

Great. Ben Textall | Analyst, Craig Hallam

That's perfect. A lot of my other questions were hit on. Thanks, guys. Thank you, Ben.

Operator | Conference Operator

The next question comes from Simon Leopold with Raymond James. Please proceed. for Simon Leopold\ Hi, guys. This is Victor in for Simon Leopold. Hey, Victor. Can you provide some color... Hi, guys. 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 you, you know, adjusted pricing around this? And, you know, if so, how is that impacting kind of the demand dynamics that you're observing?

Drupal Trivedi | President and CEO, ATEN Networks

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. 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, you know, on one hand obviously driving demand but on the other hand also trying to do as much as we can to line up enough supply in the next few quarters right where it's like it's not expected to get better in like let's say four quarters maybe at least maybe more so so absolutely we see the same phenomenon we 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 uh managing costs but also managing our ability to fulfill kind of customer needs and you know we'll continue to do that and i think it's uh 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 doesn't always work. And sometimes it does. And, you know, we will continue to navigate that. for Simon Leopold\ Okay, great. And I think you also mentioned the benefit of timing, you know, some large orders. Was that related to that large enterprise order specifically or was there maybe some kind of pull-ins that maybe you observed from customers kind of, you know, pulling in orders ahead of these shorties?

Drupal Trivedi | President and CEO, ATEN Networks

No, no, I don't think it's that. I think it's not, yeah, good question. So it's not a question of, people kind of overbooking it to book capacity. 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 of that phenomenon versus I don't think at least we don't have a concern around double bookings and things like that at all. Thank you.

No problem. Thank you. Operator | Conference Operator

We have reached the end of the question and answer session, and I will now turn the call over to Drupad Trivedi for closing remarks.

Drupal Trivedi | President and CEO, ATEN Networks

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.

Operator | Conference Operator

This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation. jsPDF 3.0.3 D:20260606085944-00'00'

Research summary and source transcript

readyJun 10, 2026

A10 Networks delivered record Q4 and full-year 2025 revenue, driven by strong performance in security-led solutions and AI infrastructure-related demand, particularly in North America and among cloud/service provider customers. The company achieved its long-term target of 65%+ security-led revenue (72% for full year) and demonstrated margin expansion with adjusted EBITDA at 29.6% of revenue. While growth is supported by secular trends in AI and security, the business remains dependent on enterprise and service provider spending cycles, with APJ showing weakness due to macro headwinds.

Management knows today that the shift toward security-led solutions is not only sustained but has become a structural component of the business model, with security now representing 72% of full-year revenue and consistently exceeding the 65% long-term target. This reflects a durable change in customer purchasing behavior driven by encrypted traffic growth and AI-related workloads, which is not yet fully reflected in market perceptions that may still view A10 as primarily a legacy ADC or load balancer vendor. The company’s ability to win large, strategic deals in regulated industries (e.g., global data/analytics provider, global airline) indicates deeper integration into customer infrastructure than the market may appreciate, suggesting a longer runway for growth than current valuations imply.

Security-led revenue growth, AI infrastructure-driven demand (particularly from cloud/service providers), and enterprise customer expansion in North America.

  • Security-led solutions as a core and growing revenue driver
  • AI infrastructure and workload demands as a growth catalyst
  • North America enterprise and service provider strength
  • Geographic diversification and resilience to macro variability
  • Disciplined operating model balancing investment and profitability
  • Capital return via dividends and share repurchases
  • Record Q4 revenue of $80.4 million and full-year revenue of $290.6 million
  • Achieving and exceeding the 65% security-led revenue target (72% for full year)
  • Strong wins with large global customers in regulated industries (data/analytics provider, airline)
  • Adjusted EBITDA margin expansion to 29.6% of revenue
  • 30% year-over-year revenue growth in the Americas

Management exhibits a confident, direct, and credible tone, grounding optimism in specific customer wins, financial metrics, and strategic progress. Claims about market positioning (e.g., top 10 telecom and cloud provider relationships) are stated plainly without exaggeration, and forward-looking statements are qualified with references to visibility and execution. There is no evidence of overpromising or vague hand-waving; instead, excitement is tied to observable outcomes like security-led revenue mix, geographic performance, and deal traction. The tone reflects earned confidence from consistent execution rather than speculative enthusiasm.

  • There may be at least one Q&A answer that needs manual review for a possible dodge or lack of numerical follow-through.
  • There may be a benchmark or metric-framing issue worth manual review, especially around adjusted metrics, timelines, or changed expectations.

The company appears to be winning competitively, particularly in security-led solutions and AI infrastructure enablement, as evidenced by large strategic wins in regulated industries, growing share of security-led revenue, and strong performance in North America and among cloud/service provider customers. Management notes no change in the competitive landscape but cites improved alignment with customer needs as a driver of success, suggesting gains are coming from better execution and product relevance rather than competitor weakness.

  • Q4 2025 revenue: $80.4 million, up 8.3% YoY (record quarter)
  • Full-year 2025 revenue: $290.6 million, up 11% YoY (record year)
  • Adjusted EBITDA: $86 million (29.6% of revenue) for full year 2025
  • Security-led revenue: 72% of total revenue for full year 2025
  • Americas revenue: 64% of global revenue in Q4, up 30% YoY for full year
  • Q4 free cash flow: $16 million ($22.7M operating cash flow minus $6.7M CapEx)
  • Cash and marketable securities: $378 million as of December 31, 2025
  • Deferred revenue: $142.8 million as of December 31, 2025
  • Continued AI infrastructure build-out by cloud and service provider customers
  • Sustained enterprise investment in security and network modernization
  • Ability to win large, strategic deals displacing legacy infrastructure
  • Ongoing R&D investment in AI-integrated solutions
  • Strong cash flow generation supporting capital return and reinvestment
  • Macroeconomic headwinds in APJ (particularly Japan) affecting service provider and enterprise spending
  • Dependence on uneven service provider capex cycles, even with recent improvement
  • Potential for AI-driven traffic growth to outpace current solution capabilities
  • Intense competition in security and networking spaces despite strong positioning
  • Supply chain vulnerabilities (e.g., memory segment) despite mitigation efforts
  • Risk that security-led revenue mix shift may not be sustainable if legacy refresh slows

A10’s solutions are directly positioned within data center and AI infrastructure environments, particularly for managing east-west traffic, workload prioritization, and security at scale. The company explicitly states it facilitates AI-driven workloads in data centers and CSP environments, with hardware acceleration and deep automation. Growth is tied to customers building AI infrastructure, managing encrypted traffic, and modernizing networks—all core data center functions. While not a GPU or server vendor, A10 plays a critical enabling role in AI-ready infrastructure, making its exposure to data center trends direct and structural rather than speculative.

  • What is the expected trajectory of security-led revenue as a percentage of total revenue beyond 2026, and what factors could cause it to decline?
  • How sustainable is the recent improvement in service provider spending, particularly among traditional telcos, and what is the expected growth profile for 2026?
  • What specific AI-related use cases are customers deploying that are driving demand for A10’s solutions, and how is the company adapting its product roadmap?
  • Given the strength in the Americas, what is the long-term growth potential for enterprise revenue outside North America, and what barriers exist in EMEA and APJ?
  • How is free cash flow expected to trend over the next 12–24 months, and what portion will be allocated to reinvestment vs. shareholder return?
  • What are the key competitive differentiators in A10’s wins against incumbent vendors in large enterprise and service provider deals?
  • How does the company define and measure success in its AI-related R&D investments, and what milestones should investors expect in 2026?
  • To what extent is the current revenue growth dependent on discrete large wins versus broad-based, repeatable demand?

FY2025 Q4 earnings call transcript

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NYSE:ATEN Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript Generated on 6/6/2026 Operator | Conference Operator: Greetings. Welcome to 810 Network's fourth quarter and full year 2025 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow a formal presentation. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Tom Bauman. Sir, you may begin.

Tom Bauman | Host

Thank you, and thank you all for joining us today. This call is being recorded and webcast live on and may be accessed for at least 90 days via the A10 Networks website at atennetworks.com. Hosting the call today are Drupal Trivedi, A10's President and CEO, and CFO, Michelle Karan. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that shortly after the market closed today, A10 Networks issued a press release announcing its fourth quarter 2025 financial results. Additionally, A10 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, February 4th, 2026. 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. A-10 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 most recent 10-K 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. The non-GAAP financial measures are not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for prepared remarks in accordance with GAAP and may be different from non-GAAP financial 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 www.atennetworks.com. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Drupad Trivedi, President and CEO of ATEN Networks.

Drupad Trivedi | President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Tom, and thank you all for joining us. Today, ATEN reported record quarterly and full-year revenue results. These results reinforce ATEN's strategic position. A key contributor continues to be the sustained investment in an environment supporting AI-driven workloads. As customers scale high-performance computing, inference platforms, and data-intensive applications, they are increasingly focused on traffic management, availability, and security at massive scale. These requirements play directly to ATEN's strength. For the full year, revenue grew 11% year over year, outpacing growth rates across much of our competitive landscape and underscoring the increasing relevance of our portfolio with customers. We entered 2026 with momentum supported by macro trends as a result of our agile strategy, strong execution, and excellent industry reputations. Increasingly, we are considered a foundational piece in the development of AI and other infrastructure, in addition to being a critical component for customers operating their current environments. As our customers grow, we grow. In the fourth quarter, we delivered 80.4 million in revenue, our largest single quarter ever. Revenue expanded 8.3% year-over-year in spite of an unusually strong seasonal fourth quarter last year. Our investments in targeting North America customers has resulted in this portion of our business growing faster than ever.

Operator | Technical Support

We seem to have lost Drupid's line. Just one moment while we get him reconnected. Okay, Drupad, your line is live. Okay, great.

Drupad Trivedi | President and Chief Executive Officer

In the fourth quarter, we delivered 80.4 million in revenue, our largest single quarter ever. Revenue expanded 8.3% year over year in spite of an unusually strong seasonal fourth quarter last year. Our investments in targeting North America customers has resulted in this portion of our business growing faster than our overall revenue. And we continue to be well positioned with these customers while maintaining our geographic and customer diversity. Our global diversification continues to enable consistent performance despite macro variability. For full year 2025, we delivered revenue of 290.6 million up 11% year over year, and adjusted EBITDA of $86 million, which represents 29.6% of revenue. These are all company records and continue to demonstrate the inherent strength of our strategy, operating model, and disciplined execution. Security-led solutions are now sustainably at our long-term goal of 65% of total revenue. This shift reflects not only the breadth of our portfolio, but the increasingly central role security and encrypted traffic play in legacy networks as well as next generation networks. During the quarter, we closed a win with a large global data and analytics software provider serving customers across highly regulated industries. The customer was experiencing rapidly rising encrypted traffic volumes driven by platform expansion and recent acquisitions, creating both performance and cost challenges. ATEN was selected for its ability to deliver high-performance solutions supporting the next-generation network with hardware acceleration and improved security, enabling the customer to consolidate infrastructure, support future growth, and materially improve cost efficiency. We also closed a significant new win with a large global airline operating highly distributed mission-critical digital platforms. The customer was focused on improving automation, performance, and centralized management across a complex hybrid environment while reducing operational costs at scale. ATAN was selected for its ability to deliver state-of-the-art cybersecurity, resilient next-generation networking solutions with deep automation, while supporting consistent performance and availability across an always-on customer-facing operating model. Importantly, these wins are representative of the type of demand that aligns well with our operating model and our strategic growth drivers. They reflect customers prioritizing performance, security, and efficiency at scale. Use cases where ATEN can deliver strong value without incremental complexity or disproportionate cost. We continue to drive a disciplined operating model that balances targeted investment with margin expansion converting growth into profitability and cash, while dynamically reinvesting in strategic priorities. As previously noted, investing in organic growth is one of our strategic priorities, in addition to returning capital to shareholders. We have reallocated our research and development budgets, focusing on accelerating some of our future AI-related solutions and integrating AI across all our offerings, supporting current and future growth. We remain committed to our long-term operating model, driving revenue growth more than 10%, adjusted EBITDA margins of 26 to 28%, and EPS growth faster than revenue growth. ATEN is well positioned to serve our customers, and our solutions are well aligned with the dynamic needs of today's customers. Today, ATEN works with nine of top 10 telecom operators, eight of the top 10 cloud providers, and more than 7,000 customers globally. The investment cycle to support AI specifically and network capacity generally continues to drive sustained demand. ATEN is positioned to grow with our customers and our proven capabilities and industry leading total cost of ownership are helping us win new business as well. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Michelle Caron, our Chief Financial Officer, to review the numbers in more detail. After that, I will discuss our 2026 outlook.

Michelle. Michelle Caron | Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Drupad. As a reminder, with the exception of revenue, All of the metrics discussed on this call are on a non-GAAP basis unless otherwise stated. A full reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP results are provided on our press release and on our website. So now let me turn to the results. As Drupid noted, we delivered a strong Q4 and entered 2026 with encouraging momentum. Fourth quarter revenue grew 8.3% to $80.4 million. This was a record revenue level for A10. From a mixed perspective, product revenue accounted for 61% of total revenue and service revenue represented 39%. Product revenue of 48.8 million grew 13% year over year and typically is representative of future revenue trends. Within our product revenue category, the fourth quarter achieved our long-term target of generating more than 65% of our total revenue from security led solutions. This demonstrates our ability to deliver differentiated solutions, leveraging our strengths in performance, scale, and reliability. Looking at our major verticals, Enterprise customers represented 42% of Q4 revenues. The Americas continued to outpace overall enterprise revenue growth for the company in line with our stated strategy. Service provider revenue, which was 58% of total revenue, was weighted towards cloud providers, further indication of our success in strategically aligning our offerings with AI infrastructure build-out. In fact, non-cloud service provider revenue was flat year over year, reflecting an ongoing mix shift as customers prioritize security and next generation networking initiatives over legacy infrastructure. A10 has evolved its solutions to be well positioned to capture legacy refresh demand as this market transition progresses and customers resume investment while continuing to align with their evolving priorities around performance, scale, and security. From a geographical perspective, our Americas region represented 64% of global revenue, reflecting the benefits of ATEN's investments in our enterprise segment and strength of AI infrastructure build-out. Macro-related headwinds such as persistent inflation and threat of tariffs in the rest of the world were more than offset by strength in Americas. Q4 operating results reflected our continued investment in our strategic initiatives as well as our financial discipline. Non-GAAP gross margin was 80.8% in line with our stated goals of 80 to 82%. Operating expenses were $43.6 million, with an operating margin of 26.6%, reflecting increased investments mainly in R&D, focusing on next generation networking and security. Our non-GAAP effective tax rate was 15.7%, resulting in net income of $19.1 million, or 26 cents a share. Q4 diluted weighted share count was 72.7 million shares. Adjusted EBITDA was $24.9 million, 31% of revenue. We generated 22.7 million in cash flow from operations in Q4, with CapEx coming in at 6.7 million, bringing free cash flow for quarter four in at $16 million. We've continued to invest in the business while also returning capital to our shareholders. Now I'll turn to the full year results. Revenue grew 11% to 290.6 million with non-GAAP gross margin coming in at 80.6%. At the same time, we delivered record adjusted EBITDA of $86 million or 29.6% reflecting disciplined execution and a highly productive operating model. Net income was $66.3 million, or 90 cents a share, and was up from 64.8 million, or 86 cents a share, in the prior year, while we invested significantly throughout the year in strategic investments such as AI and security. As a result of this, we were still able to increase EPS on a year-over-year basis. Our growth was driven by increased demand for security-led revenue, which represented 72% of total revenue for the year. Revenue from the Americas increased 30% for the year, while revenue from EMEA increased 12%. offsetting a decline in revenue from APJ where the region has been experiencing macroeconomic headwinds such as low GDP growth, persistent inflation, and concerns with tariffs. We continue to have deep customer relationships in these regions to preserve our geographic diversity. Turning to the balance sheet, cash and marketable securities were $378 million as of December 31st and our deferred revenue was 142.8 million. During the year, we paid $17.4 million in cash dividends and repurchased $68.9 million worth of shares, returning a total of 86.3 million to shareholders. The board has approved a quarterly cash dividend of 6 cents per share to be paid on March the 2nd to shareholders of record on February 16, 2026. The company has 53.4 million remaining on its 75 million share repurchase authorization. Now, we're closely monitoring the broader supply environment, including the memory segment, which has been widely discussed across the industry by customers, partners, and competitors alike. Based on our supply management processes, we don't expect this to impact the delivery to our customers, and we continue to navigate cost pressures alongside our suppliers and our customers. As a result, we've taken proactive steps around supply planning, supplier engagement, and component flexibility to mitigate potential impacts. We deployed similar measures in previously supply constrained environments such as 2020, so we feel well positioned to navigate this dynamic. I look forward to speaking with many of you in the coming weeks, gathering your feedback on our strategy and operations. I'll now turn the call back to Drupad for a discussion of our 2026 outlook and closing comments.

Drupad Trivedi | President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Michelle. The results for the fourth quarter and full year validate the strategic investments we have made over the past half decade to reposition ATEN as a valuable partner for addressing the new and emerging challenges related to the evolving technology environment. The demands AI brings to a data center or a CSP are challenges that ATEN has a proven track record of addressing. We facilitate east-west traffic, efficiently managing workloads, and dynamically prioritized traffic emphasizing high throughput and low latency, all with integrated security. As a result, ATAN is positioned squarely in front of multiple durable secular catalysts. We are investing to enhance our position across our portfolio. Our business model dynamically allocates resources to address changing market conditions while preserving profitability and shareholder return. In the press release we issued today, we laid out our initial 2026 outlook. On a full year basis for 2026, we expect to deliver both top and bottom line growth, including revenue growth of 10 to 12% over 2025 levels. We also expect non-GAAP gross margin in line with historical trends and within our stated business model goals of 82% while navigating input cost pressures. We expect to expand our net and EBITDA margins from current levels, and we expect EPS growth to exceed our revenue growth rate. We will provide additional strategic and solution context around our growth drivers and market positioning at an upcoming investor day. including a deeper discussion of the factors that drive these expectations. Operator, you can now open the call up for questions.

Operator | Conference Operator

Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Once again, please press star 1 if you have a question or a comment. The first question comes from Gray Powell with BTIG.

Please proceed. Gray Powell | Analyst, BTIG

Hey, great. Thanks for taking the questions, and congratulations on the good results. Thanks, Gray. Absolutely. So maybe a couple questions on my side. Just to start off, it was really good to see the improvement in service provider growth in 2025. Just, you know, as we think about 2026, how sustainable is the trend there? And then I know you hit on this in the prepared remarks, just like how should we think about the different growth drivers within service provider, you know, like a recovery in traditional communication companies? versus continued growth from the cloud providers deploying AI infrastructure?

Thank you. Drupad Trivedi | President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, great. No, thank you. Good question. Yes, I think as we went through the period this year, right, I think you can see in the results, we saw certainly relative to 2024 an improvement in the service provider segment overall. I would say the two things to note, first is Majority of that growth did come from cloud-oriented companies, whether it's in US or elsewhere, building out infrastructure towards AI or towards more cloud services. However, I would say as we went through the year into Q3, Q4 period, we saw not return to original levels, but certainly improvement in spending patterns with also the traditional telcos. And the nature of their investment, I would say, is twofold. One was relative to improving their security position and posture for the networks or the enterprise services that they provide. And second, I would say that because of the nature of our portfolio, the other part of that growth was them simply needing to add capacity to manage more data and more users and more traffic on the network, right? So without them needing to build like a kind of a greenfield new network, both those drivers were relevant to us. One was making their networks more secure, and second is continuing to modernize the network as well as adding capacity while they do that.

Gray Powell | Analyst, BTIG

Got it. Okay, and then just a quick follow-up, if it's okay. I know it's probably really hard to quantify, and maybe it's too early, but are you seeing AI drive higher traffic volumes, like higher levels of DDoS attacks or something else, and that's driving part of the refresh cycle, or am I getting ahead of myself there?

Drupad Trivedi | President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, no, that's a good question, Gray. I think, you know, we certainly monitor that. And I think your question, it may be a little early. I don't think we are past that point where we could quantify or talk about it. But absolutely, there is two sides of the coin, right, is where AI also facilitates kind of ease of deploying more complex, more sophisticated attacks, and therefore also drives volume. And some of it is related to also the nature of traffic that did not exist on the network before AI, right? So that certainly is a factor. A little early to quantify, I don't think that service providers are investing yet on that, but they are certainly viewing that as something to worry about. But they do expect and anticipate increasing volume just from the nature of the volume increase when people constantly feed prompts and get feedback as opposed to not having that traffic before. So that certainly also feeds the growth. And the security is something that is on, I would say, everybody's radar, but hard to quantify that yet.

Gray Powell | Analyst, BTIG

Understood. All right.

Thank you very much. Thanks. Operator | Conference Operator

Our next question comes from Sandy Soderstrom with Sudoti.

Please proceed. Sandy Soderstrom | Analyst, Sudoti

Thank you for taking my question, and congrats on the quarter and the outlook for 2026. Thank you. You had quite an outperformance in the fourth quarter. What was the main surprise here? What changed during the quarter, and sort of how did the quarter trend for you?

Drupad Trivedi | President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, I think for us, as we had talked about, right, Anya, is that our focus is Obviously, we have a strong position with the service provider segment globally, and as that improves, maybe not fully recovered, we'll continue to see some benefit from those deep relationships that we continue to build upon. So that, obviously, you can see in the numbers helped a little bit. Second is we continue to focus on growing our footprint around larger customers, including in the enterprise segment. And we highlighted a couple of new customers. So our ability to land new large customers obviously is also helpful to that growth while we benefit overall, right? And third, as we said in our comments that to the degree where some may be a lot, some may be not so much. People are investing in AI infrastructure. Our portfolio is well positioned, so we see that. So I would say SP becoming slightly better was, I would say, better than we expected. Not all the way back, but certainly something that helped us in the quarter. Our growth on enterprise side as well as on AI-led infrastructure was what we were expecting.

Sandy Soderstrom | Analyst, Sudoti

Okay, thank you. And you mentioned some new customers. Did you displace someone with them?

Drupad Trivedi | President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, I think typically in most of those cases, we would be displacing them. I think the only exception to that is When we work with customers on some of our security solutions, they may not be using anything today, right? And they are implementing new security protocols or standards. So in that case, it's not replacing somebody. But outside of that, it would be certainly in a competitive situation.

Sandy Soderstrom | Analyst, Sudoti

Okay. And is it like one specific... competitor are you replacing or is it more broadly and has it changed at all recently, the competitive landscape?

Drupad Trivedi | President and Chief Executive Officer

No, so I would say no real change in the landscape, right, as we have talked about in the past, right, on enterprise side and security side, it's the same competitive landscape. I think we just continue to work at improving our solutions and be more in tune with customer needs. So I think as that is better aligned, we I've seen better opportunities as well.

Sandy Soderstrom | Analyst, Sudoti

Okay, and just one more from me. If I heard you right, there was an uptick in the CapEx spend. What's driving that, and how should we think about that for 2026?

Drupad Trivedi | President and Chief Executive Officer

Sure, yeah. So I think, you know, If you kind of look at our trend, there was a little bit of taking CapEx in Q4. There's two real drivers to it. I think one of it is related to our need to invest in some of the backend infrastructure. So when we, you know, acquire a company like ThreadX and we are offering some more services, what that translates to is not necessarily cost from a traditional sense, but on hosting services, data centers, SOC, and doing our security right to strengthen our own security operations and so forth. So some of that investment is really around enabling the solutions that are helping our solutions be more relevant to customers in terms of either hosted solutions or backend infrastructure. So a lot of that is in IT. And then some part of it is as we are in the early stage with customers doing demos and POCs on AI infrastructure. Obviously, we are investing a little bit of that capex in new kinds of processors and chips and GPUs and things like that.

Sandy Soderstrom | Analyst, Sudoti

Okay. Thank you. That was all for me.

Drupad Trivedi | President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Anil.

Operator | Conference Operator

The next question comes from Hamid Khursan with BWS Financial.

Please proceed. Hamid Khursan | Analyst, BWS Financial

Hi. Could you just walk through your your guidance a bit here. This is the first time you've been willing to provide any kind of guidance this specific in like two, three years. How are you seeing that visibility? Is it enterprise, the service provider? And how certain are you that this is going to actually be there compared to two, three years ago when you stopped giving guidance?

Drupad Trivedi | President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, I think that's a good question. I think if you look at how kind of the environment has evolved and our products and business has evolved over the last two, three years. Certainly, right, we were much more exposed to just the SP or the traditional SP spending cycle, which is capex cyclic and capex intensive and so harder to predict over long periods of time. What we did guide even the last three years, as you know, Ahmed, was delivering on the gross margin and EBITDA percent, but not as much on top line because of the level of variability with everything going on, right, with macro as well as micro. So as we see the last few quarters, I think we have continued to make the base of our revenue more durable. And as we are getting more more of that from enterprise or large enterprise, as well as SP, as well as AI spending. I think in an aggregate, we think we can sustain kind of the momentum where we are, where, you know, we just finished the year at 11% year-over-year growth. So we feel that based on the visibility we have with the six to nine-month cycle and more diversified exposure across these markets, that's all it is, right? fundamental outlook of saying you know EBITDA 26 to 28 percent gross margin 80 to 82 percent and EPS growing year over year has not changed I've given that guidance every year right so okay great and my other question was related to the your APJ performance was that country specific or was that multiple countries Yeah, no, I would say that the majority of it was related to Japan, and I think it's heavily related to the environment there with the low GDP concern over what, you know, tariff environment could mean, and therefore large SPs as well as enterprise holding off on investment. So I think we certainly are not seeing us losing share, but we are certainly seeing depressed spending in line with all the macro news you would see out of Japan. Outside of Japan, I think we were fine. It was not that negative, probably close to company average.

Hamid Khursan | Analyst, BWS Financial

Okay. Thank you. No problem. Thank you, Ahmed.

Operator | Conference Operator

Again, if you have a question or a comment, please press star one on your touchtone phone. The next question comes from Michael Romanelli with Vizuho.

Please proceed. Michael Romanelli | Analyst, Vizuho

Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking the question. So, you know, enterprise revenue growth was 8% this quarter, obviously much improved from the 10% decline reported last quarter. I guess, did you, you know, close any notable deals that perhaps push from the 3Q? And, you know, I guess going forward and, you know, in relation to the, you know, 10% to 12% growth outlook for 2026, how should we be thinking about enterprise business growth for the full year?

Drupad Trivedi | President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, so I think, good question, Michael. And I think if you remember last call, right, I talked about the fact that because we are early in expanding our footprint into that marketplace, it's going to be a little bit choppy. And therefore, even the last quarter, we were highlighting, focusing on the TTM growth versus every quarter, right? So every quarter could be up or down. But on a trailing 12-month basis, we are confident that that segment will grow at least at the fleet average of 10 to 12%.

Michael Romanelli | Analyst, Vizuho

Okay, got it. That's helpful. And then, you know, as part of your presentation, prepared remarks through PID. You know, you highlighted a few encouraging wins in Q4, which was, you know, great to hear. You know, I guess, like, overall, how would you characterize, you know, net new enterprise logo activity this quarter? And, you know, as part of the, you know, 2026 guide, like, you know, obviously you have a very large install base, but, you know, how should we be thinking about, you know, your ability to sign up, you know, many more new enterprise customers?

Thanks. Drupad Trivedi | President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, no, it's a good question. And I think, you know, what I would highlight again, right, is as a company, based on our technology and value proposition, we are not really focused on an SMB market orientation. So really, we are not looking at how many hundred customers we acquire every quarter and how many churn and everything else, right? So our goal is really to continue to get new customers, typically in large enterprise who operate complex network with thousands of users, mission critical environments, right? So in that context, obviously acquiring new customers is very, very important. but it's very different than a typical SMB model. And we don't need to acquire hundreds of customers to get that growth, right? So we absolutely have a good pipeline of adding new customers, but even once we have those customers, typically we continue to expand and sell them more product categories as well over time. So that's an important metric for us, but I would say, It's different than maybe an SMB-oriented business.

Tom Bauman | Host

Got it. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you, Michael.

Operator | Conference Operator

The next question comes from Hendy Susanto with Gabelli Funds.

Please proceed. Hendy Susanto | Analyst, Gabelli Funds

Good evening.

Drupad Trivedi | President and Chief Executive Officer

Hi, Hendy.

Hendy Susanto | Analyst, Gabelli Funds

Hi, Drupad. You highlighted how AI can drive growth in three categories like modernization, network capacity, and security. How do you rank among those three?

Drupad Trivedi | President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, I think, you know, obviously core of our growth comes from capacity, whether it's existing or new or new build-outs or growing as the network. Security is not decoupled from capacity, right? So obviously our goal was to get security-led revenue to be, 65% of total and we are there and we'll stay there. And we are confident we can continue doing that. Modernization, I think there's two aspects to it. One is when people are modernizing applications and use cases, then obviously we are relevant. The second part of it is where modernization means somebody has to build a brand new 5G network, obviously that's not a growth we bet upon and we will benefit when that happens more, when somebody builds, you know, kind of a greenfield network. But in the current economic environment, we don't count upon that as a major driver. And our goal is to find growth independent of that. And if that happens, then that's good, right? So it's really, around working with our customers on their current networks and capacity and security while enabling them with more and more capabilities and then obviously benefiting more than that if they build new networks.

Hendy Susanto | Analyst, Gabelli Funds

Thank you, Drupad. And then one more question. There's a growing conversation about agentic AI as a growth opportunity in 2026, like an early stage of growth. of agentic AI. I would like to check in in case you have seen some use cases emerging for agentic AI application and how we should be thinking about ATAN networks in that context.

Drupad Trivedi | President and Chief Executive Officer

Sure, yeah. So I think, you know, like all of, you know, we hear from a lot of the people in industry and others as well, right, Dan? It's early in the cycle where we are engaged with customers really is... While we do have AI products per se, where we are much more engaged with customers is how do they plan to use AI for their business goals and what they do with it. Some of the examples we have talked about is for our service provider type customers, in the next two to three years, having an ability to do predictive analytics, and getting predictive insights into their network and performance and capacity planning is important to them. It's still early because companies are themselves figuring out how to take advantage of AI. Second is, of course, as we talked about, as companies use more AI, whether it's a you know, onsite model or a global model, they will have new kinds of traffic, new kinds of thread, and new capabilities needed to manage those, and particularly with low latency and more distributed networks. So in that environment, obviously, we are working with customers also on how to continue to improve their security posture with new types of traffic, and also enabling the architecture where they can manage that kind of traffic better on their networks.

Okay. Hendy Susanto | Analyst, Gabelli Funds

Thank you so much, Drupad. Thank you, Andy.

Operator | Conference Operator

We have reached the end of the question and answer session, and I will now turn the call over to Drupad Trivedi for closing remarks.

Drupad Trivedi | President and Chief Executive Officer

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.

Operator | Conference Operator

This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation. jsPDF 3.0.3 D:20260606085946-00'00'