AUTODESK, INC. ANNOUNCES FISCAL 2024 THIRD QUARTER RESULTS

- Third quarter revenue grew 10 percent, and 13 percent at constant exchange rates, to $1.4 billion.
- Current remaining performance obligations were $3.5 billion, up 12 percent year over year.

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 21, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) today reported financial results for the third quarter of fiscal 2024.

All growth rates are compared to the third quarter of fiscal 2023, unless otherwise noted. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP results is provided in the accompanying tables. For definitions, please view the Glossary of Terms later in this document.

Third Quarter Fiscal 2024 Financial Highlights

• Total revenue increased 10 percent to $1,414 million;
• GAAP operating margin was 24 percent, up 4 percentage points;
• Non-GAAP operating margin was 39 percent, up 3 percentage points;
• GAAP diluted EPS was $1.12; Non-GAAP diluted EPS was $2.07;
• Cash flow from operating activities was $18 million; free cash flow was $13 million.

"Autodesk AI and Platform Services will enable Autodesk, our customers, and partners to build more valuable, data driven, and connected products and services in our industry clouds and on our platform," said Andrew Anagnost, Autodesk president and CEO. "Our customers remain committed to transformation, and to Autodesk, evidenced by our largest-ever EBA signed during the quarter, and record contributions from our construction and water verticals to our overall EBA performance."

"Overall market conditions and the underlying momentum of the business remained similar to the last few quarters. Our financial performance in the third quarter was strong with much of the outperformance coming from larger-than-expected expansions of existing EBAs," said Debbie Clifford, CFO of Autodesk. "Given that, we are raising revenue, earnings per share, and free cash flow guidance."

Additional Financial Details

• Total billings decreased 11 percent to $1,204 million.
• Total revenue was $1,414 million, an increase of 10 percent as reported, and 13 percent on a constant currency basis. Recurring revenue represents 98 percent of total.
• Design revenue was $1,192 million, an increase of 10 percent as reported, and 12 percent on a constant currency basis. On a sequential basis, Design revenue increased 3 percent as reported, and 4 percent on a constant currency basis.
• Make revenue was $134 million, an increase of 15 percent as reported, and 16 percent on a constant currency basis. On a sequential basis, Make revenue increased 3 percent as reported and on a constant currency basis.
• Subscription plan revenue was $1,314 million, an increase of 11 percent as reported, and 13 percent on a constant currency basis. On a sequential basis, subscription plan revenue increased 3 percent as reported, and 4 percent on a constant currency basis.
• Net revenue retention rate remained within the range of 100 to 110 percent, on a constant currency basis.
• GAAP operating income was $334 million, compared to $256 million in the third quarter last year. GAAP operating margin was 24 percent, up 4 percentage points compared to the third quarter last year.
• Total non-GAAP operating income was $547 million, compared to $465 million in the third quarter last year. Non-GAAP operating margin was 39 percent, up 3 percentage points compared to the third quarter last year.
• GAAP diluted net income per share was $1.12, compared to $0.91 in the third quarter last year.
• Non-GAAP diluted net income per share was $2.07, compared to $1.70 in the third quarter last year.
• Deferred revenue increased 6 percent to $4.02 billion. Unbilled deferred revenue was $1.22 billion, an increase of $322 million compared to the third quarter last year. Remaining performance obligations ("RPO") increased 12 percent to $5.24 billion. Current RPO increased 12 percent to $3.52 billion.
• Cash flow from operating activities was $18 million, a decrease of $451 million compared to the third quarter last year. Free cash flow was $13 million, a decrease of $447 million compared to the third quarter last year.

Third  Quarter Fiscal 2024 Business Highlights

Net Revenue by Geographic Area

Net Revenue by Product Family

Our product offerings are focused in four primary product families: Architecture, Engineering and Construction ("AEC"), AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT, Manufacturing ("MFG"), and Media and Entertainment ("M&E").

Business Outlook

The following are forward-looking statements based on current expectations and assumptions, and involve risks and uncertainties, some of which are set forth below under "Safe Harbor Statement."  Autodesk's business outlook for the fourth quarter and full-year fiscal 2024 considers the current economic environment and foreign exchange currency rate environment. A reconciliation between the fiscal 2024 GAAP and non-GAAP estimates is provided below or in the tables following this press release.

Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2024

Full Year Fiscal 2024

The fourth quarter and full-year fiscal 2024 outlook assume a projected annual effective tax rate of 24 percent and 18 percent for GAAP and non-GAAP results, respectively. Shifts in geographic profitability continue to impact the annual effective tax rate due to significant differences in tax rates in various jurisdictions. Therefore, assumptions for the annual effective tax rate are evaluated regularly and may change based on the projected geographic mix of earnings.

Earnings Conference Call and Webcast

Autodesk will host its third quarter conference call today at 5 p.m. ET. The live broadcast can be accessed at autodesk.com/investor. A transcript of the opening commentary will also be available following the conference call. 

A replay of the broadcast will be available at 7 p.m. ET at autodesk.com/investor. This replay will be maintained on Autodesk's website for at least 12 months.

Investor Presentation Details

An investor presentation, Excel financials and other supplemental materials providing additional information can be found at autodesk.com/investor.

Key Performance Metrics

To help better understand our financial performance, we use several key performance metrics including billings, recurring revenue and net revenue retention rate. These metrics are key performance metrics and should be viewed independently of revenue and deferred revenue. These metrics are not intended to be combined with those items. We use these metrics to monitor the strength of our recurring business. We believe these metrics are useful to investors because they can help in monitoring the long-term health of our business. Our determination and presentation of these metrics may differ from that of other companies. The presentation of these metrics is meant to be considered in addition to, not as a substitute for or in isolation from, our financial measures prepared in accordance with GAAP.

Glossary of Terms

Billings: Total revenue plus the net change in deferred revenue from the beginning to the end of the period.

Cloud Service Offerings: Represents individual term-based offerings deployed through web browser technologies or in a hybrid software and cloud configuration. Cloud service offerings that are bundled with other product offerings are not captured as a separate cloud service offering.

Constant Currency (CC) Growth Rates: We attempt to represent the changes in the underlying business operations by eliminating fluctuations caused by changes in foreign currency exchange rates as well as eliminating hedge gains or losses recorded within the current and comparative periods. We calculate constant currency growth rates by (i) applying the applicable prior period exchange rates to current period results and (ii) excluding any gains or losses from foreign currency hedge contracts that are reported in the current and comparative periods.

Design Business: Represents the combination of maintenance, product subscriptions, and all EBAs. Main products include, but are not limited to, AutoCAD, AutoCAD LT, Industry Collections, Revit, Inventor, Maya and 3ds Max. Certain products, such as our computer aided manufacturing solutions, incorporate both Design and Make functionality and are classified as Design.

Enterprise Business Agreements (EBAs): Represents programs providing enterprise customers with token-based access to a broad pool of Autodesk products over a defined contract term.

Flex:  A pay-as-you-go consumption option to pre-purchase tokens to access any product available with Flex for a daily rate.

Free Cash Flow: Cash flow from operating activities minus capital expenditures.

Industry Collections: Autodesk Industry Collections are a combination of products and services that target a specific user objective and support a set of workflows for that objective. Our Industry Collections consist of: Autodesk Architecture, Engineering and Construction Collection, Autodesk Product Design and Manufacturing Collection, and Autodesk Media and Entertainment Collection.

Maintenance Plan: Our maintenance plans provide our customers with a cost effective and predictable budgetary option to obtain the productivity benefits of our new releases and enhancements when and if released during the term of their contracts. Under our maintenance plans, customers are eligible to receive unspecified upgrades when and if available, and technical support. We recognize maintenance revenue over the term of the agreements, generally one year.    

Make Business: Represents certain cloud-based product subscriptions. Main products include, but are not limited to, Assemble, Autodesk Build, BuildingConnected, Fusion 360 and ShotGrid. Certain products, such as Fusion 360, incorporate both Design and Make functionality and are classified as Make. 

Net Revenue Retention Rate (NR3): Measures the year-over-year change in Recurring Revenue for the population of customers that existed one year ago ("base customers").  Net revenue retention rate is calculated by dividing the current quarter Recurring Revenue related to base customers by the total corresponding quarter Recurring Revenue from one year ago. Recurring Revenue is based on USD reported revenue, and fluctuations caused by changes in foreign currency exchange rates and hedge gains or losses have not been eliminated. Recurring Revenue related to acquired companies, one year after acquisition, has been captured as existing customers until such data conforms to the calculation methodology. This may cause variability in the comparison. 

Other Revenue: Consists of revenue from consulting, training, and other products and services, and is recognized as the products are delivered and services are performed.  

Product Subscription: Provides customers a flexible, cost-effective way to access and manage 3D design, engineering, and entertainment software tools. Our product subscriptions currently represent a hybrid of desktop and cloud functionality, which provides a device-independent, collaborative design workflow for designers and their stakeholders.  

Recurring Revenue: Consists of the revenue for the period from our traditional maintenance plans, our subscription plan offerings, and certain Other revenue. It excludes subscription revenue related to third-party products. Recurring revenue acquired with the acquisition of a business is captured when total subscriptions are captured in our systems and may cause variability in the comparison of this calculation.   

Remaining Performance Obligations (RPO): The sum of total short-term, long-term, and unbilled deferred revenue. Current remaining performance obligations is the amount of revenue we expect to recognize in the next twelve months.  

Spend: The sum of cost of revenue and operating expenses.

Subscription Plan: Comprises our term-based product subscriptions, cloud service offerings, and EBAs. Subscriptions represent a combined hybrid offering of desktop software and cloud functionality which provides a device-independent, collaborative design workflow for designers and their stakeholders. With subscription, customers can use our software anytime, anywhere, and get access to the latest updates to previous versions.  

Subscription Revenue: Includes our cloud-enabled term-based product subscriptions, cloud service offerings, and flexible EBAs.  

Unbilled Deferred Revenue: Unbilled deferred revenue represents contractually stated or committed orders under early renewal and multi-year billing plans for subscription, services, and maintenance for which the associated deferred revenue has not been recognized. Under FASB Accounting Standards Codification ("ASC") Topic 606, unbilled deferred revenue is not included as a receivable or deferred revenue on our Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheet.  

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including quotations from management, statements in the paragraphs under "Business Outlook" above statements about our short-term and long-term goals, statements regarding our strategies, market and product positions, performance and results, and all statements that are not historical facts. There are a significant number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from statements made in this press release, including: our strategy to develop and introduce new products and services and to move to platforms and capabilities, exposing us to risks such as limited customer acceptance  (both new and existing customers), costs related to product defects, and large expenditures; global economic and political conditions, including changes in monetary and fiscal policy, foreign exchange headwinds, recessionary fears, supply chain disruptions, resulting inflationary pressures and hiring conditions; geopolitical tension and armed conflicts, extreme weather events, and the COVID-19 pandemic; costs and challenges associated with strategic acquisitions and investments; our ability to successfully implement and expand our transaction model; dependency on international revenue and operations, exposing us to significant international regulatory, economic, intellectual property, collections, currency exchange rate, taxation, political, and other risks, including risks related to the war against Ukraine launched by Russia and our exit from Russia and the current conflict between Israel and Hamas; inability to predict subscription renewal rates and their impact on our future revenue and operating results; existing and increased competition and rapidly evolving technological changes; fluctuation of our financial results, key metrics and other operating metrics; our transition from up front to annual billings for multi-year contracts; deriving a substantial portion of our net revenue from a small number of solutions, including our AutoCAD-based software products and collections; any failure to successfully execute and manage initiatives to realign or introduce new business and sales initiatives, including our new transaction model for Flex; net revenue, billings, earnings, cash flow, or new or existing subscriptions shortfalls; social and ethical issues relating to the use of artificial intelligence in our offerings; our ability to maintain security levels and service performance meeting the expectations of our customers, and the resources and costs required to avoid unanticipated downtime and prevent, detect and remediate performance degradation and security breaches; security incidents or other incidents compromising the integrity of our or our customers' offerings, services, data, or intellectual property; reliance on third parties to provide us with a number of operational and technical services as well as software; our highly complex software, which may contain undetected errors, defects, or vulnerabilities; increasing regulatory focus on privacy issues and expanding laws; governmental export and import controls that could impair our ability to compete in international markets or subject us to liability if we violate the controls; protection of our intellectual property rights and intellectual property infringement claims from others; the government procurement process; fluctuations in currency exchange rates; our debt service obligations; and our investment portfolio consisting of a variety of investment vehicles that are subject to interest rate trends, market volatility, and other economic factors. Our estimates as to tax rate are based on current tax law, including current interpretations of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and could be affected by changing interpretations of that Act, as well as additional legislation and guidance around that Act.

Further information on potential factors that could affect the financial results of Autodesk are included in Autodesk's Form 10-K and subsequent Forms 10-Q, which are on file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Autodesk disclaims any obligation to update the forward-looking statements provided to reflect events that occur or circumstances that exist after the date on which they were made.

About Autodesk

The world's designers, engineers, builders, and creators trust Autodesk to help them design and make anything. From the buildings we live and work in, to the cars we drive and the bridges we drive over. From the products we use and rely on, to the movies and games that inspire us. Autodesk's Design and Make Platform unlocks the power of data to accelerate insights and automate processes, empowering our customers with the technology to create the world around us and deliver better outcomes for their business and the planet. For more information, visit autodesk.com or follow @autodesk. #MakeAnything

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Autodesk, AutoCAD, AutoCAD LT, BIM 360 and Fusion 360 are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product and service offerings, and specifications and pricing at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document.
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