Xero Limited

Yeah, thanks, operator. Well, good morning, and thank you for joining Xero's investors briefing today. I'm David Thode, Xero's chair. I don't get to come to many of these meetings, so I'm delighted to be here in Sydney with the whole Xero team. In a moment, I'm going to hand over to Steve and Kirsty for an update on Xero's first half year results for 23. But before I do that, I want to comment on the announcement we made today that the board has appointed Sikinder Singh-Cassidy as our new CEO from the 1st of February, 2023. And we're very excited about this appointment. Sikinder will succeed Steve, who after serving close to five years as CEO, has decided to retire from this role and he plans to return to his previous portfolio in business coaching and leadership development as an advisor, director and investor which I'm sure he will continue to do incredibly well. So on behalf of the board, I really am delighted to appoint someone of Sikinder's caliber as CEO to really lead Xero through this next phase of growth. And I really stress that because the board has looked at what we think are the requirements for this company as we scale it globally. It has been a rigorous global recruitment process where we considered a number of really exceptional candidates. But Secinda has this broad experience across different organizations, role types, geographies within the tech sector, and in particular, building product and scaling go-to-market businesses. And we think this is just a unique set of capabilities that will really be beneficial to the company as we go forward. Secinda is a purpose-driven and human-centered leader who is passionate about supporting our customers, which is so important to us and is committed to growing and nurturing Xero's unique and very vibrant culture. So just a little bit on the timing. Secinda will start at Xero on the 28th of November. And she's going to work closely with Steve to manage the CEO transition. And Steve is going to remain available to advise her and the board through to the end of May. I'm glad to say we have Secinda here with us today. And she's going to say a few brief words before we hand over to Steve and Kirsty for the first half results. But just before I do that, I really do want to acknowledge Steve's enormous contribution to Xero's growth over the last four to five years. In fact, it's seven years that he's been involved with the company, and he really has taken the company to really be on the global stage. And he's overseen significant expansion in many different respects. And of course, he is a highly respected leader, both within the organization, but across Australia and New Zealand, and on the global stage. So at the end of the results presentation, I'll be really happy to take any questions about Secinda's appointment. But let's leave plenty of time for Steve and Kirsty to ask the questions on our results. Secinda won't be taking any questions today, but is looking forward to meeting with you all and engaging with you in the near future. So with that, let me just pass over to Secinda to make a few comments.

Thanks, David. I'm thrilled to be appointed as CEO and appreciate the Xero board's confidence in me. What excites me about Xero is the people, the culture of the company, the passion Xero's partners and customers clearly have for our product, as well as, of course, is the large total market opportunity globally. I believe Xero is a critical business tool for small businesses and their advisors. There are huge opportunities in front of us, and I'm committed to building on the business's great momentum already in line with Xero's values. I'm looking forward to getting to know Xero's people, partners, customers, and shareholders, of course, around the world and leading the business through this next exciting stage of growth. I'll hand now back to David.

Well, thanks, Sakinda. And let me just again say it's really great to have you on the team. So let me now pass over to Steve and then Kirstie for the results. Over to you, Steve. Thank you, David.

And hi, everyone. Look, it is great to have David and Sakinda here with me and Kirstie and And obviously, before I get into the results, I really want to extend my sincere congratulations to Sikinda on your appointment. I absolutely know you are well placed to lead zero through its next phase of development. And I'm really looking forward to working with you on the transition. So let's move to the business at hand and the momentum in our business and progress on our strategic priorities is demonstrated by Xero's strong revenue growth and SaaS metrics. It shows more customers are increasingly using Xero to run their business and meet critical compliance needs. Despite its complexity and challenges for our customers, the current macro backdrop strengthens the case for small businesses to adopt cloud technology to make their business more efficient and effective. And Xero's high-value cloud accounting product and connected applications and services and needed more than ever. We remain focused on helping more small businesses use Xero, given we are still early in the journey of small business cloud software adoption, and I'll talk more about that later. We appreciate the higher interest rate environment has placed greater scrutiny on the spend and returns of growth companies. This, along with inflationary pressures, means cost discipline and the returns we generate from the investments we make are an important ongoing focus for us. Our disciplined approach to investment contributed to the positive free cash flow growth this half as we saw the benefits of emerging efficiencies. We'll continue to invest focusing on growth and efficiency for both the short and long term. So with that, let's move to an overview of our results on slide seven. We delivered 30% revenue growth on the prior year or 27% on a constant currency basis, reflecting strong growth in our portfolio across all markets. Subscriber growth remained a key driver, growing to nearly 3.5 million, up 16% on the prior year. Net subscriber additions totaled 483,000 over the year and 225,000 during the half. Subscriber additions were subdued in some markets, such as the UK, and I'll touch on that later. Annualized monthly recurring revenue, or AMRR, grew to almost $1.5 billion, increasing 31% or 23% on a constant currency basis. ARPU increased 12.7% versus the prior year, or 6.3% on a constant currency basis. Subscriber lifetime value, or LTV, increased to $13 billion from $9.9 billion, reflecting the contribution of subscriber growth and higher ARPU. EBITDA increased 11% versus the prior year to $108.6 million, although this did include an impairment to the WADL business and some non-cash adjustments which Kirsty will talk to. Excluding these, EBITDA increased 28% compared to the prior period. We reported a net loss of $16.1 million, which compared to a loss of $5.9 million in the prior comparable period. Free cash flow was up $9.2 million to $15.6 million. Our ability to invest is a function of sustained revenue momentum and the SAS unit economics we produce, and I'm going to touch on that on the next slide. LTV is a high-level measure of the value customers bring to Xero over their lifetime, which on average is around nine years. The chart on the left shows the expansion in LTV we have generated in recent years, with more customers doing more with us and staying with us longer. This is reflected in the key contributors of LTV being ARPU of $35.30 and churn of 0.91%. LTV to CAC of 6.9 also reflects the efficiency in the way we generate value. The unit economics we generate in New Zealand and Australia reflects the value of the zero proposition and what it can deliver in a more developed market with LTV of 9.4 billion and an LTV to CAC ratio of 15.1. Now, while we don't expect to reach the same LTV to CAC in our international segment, we do see substantial opportunity to further grow LTV. So I'll now discuss the performance in each of our regions over the half. Slide 9 shows the continued momentum in subscribers and strong revenue growth that the Australia and New Zealand regions have delivered. Both countries contributed to this, with Australia growing revenue by 31%, and adding a further 126,000 subscribers in the half. New Zealand grew revenue by 16% and added 24,000 subscribers. This resulted in 27% revenue growth across the segment with subscribers reaching just over 2 million and ARPU expansion of 13%. Turning to the international segment, we delivered 34% revenue growth year on year and nearly reached 1.5 million subscribers, up 15% year on year. ARPU grew by 12% year-on-year to $35 or 6% on a constant currency basis. We had a busy half reconnecting face-to-face with our partners at Xerocon in London and New Orleans after almost three years. In the UK, revenue increased by 32% to $175 million on a constant currency basis. This was up 34%. Net subscriber additions of 44,000 for the period for its subscribers in total to just shy of 900,000. Revenue growth was pleasing. However, as we said at the AGM, net subscriber growth in the UK remained more subdued than we'd like. This UK performance reflects slower uptake of the final stages of MTD for BAT, a less than buoyant macro economy, and changes we have implemented to our partner sales approach, which have impacted partner channel productivity. These partner sales changes will benefit us going forward but have taken some time to bed down. We expect Xero's momentum in subscriber additions in the UK to improve over the remainder of FY23, with performance in H2 FY23 expected to be similar or better than the prior comparable period. In North America, revenue increased by 44% to $44 million. In constant currency, revenue grew 30%, reflecting subscriber growth, Xerocon revenue, price changes and the contribution of the Locate acquisition. We've announced price rises for our US and Canadian dollar business additions that will come into effect in the middle of this month. Total subscribers in North America reached 354,000, up 15% on the prior year, adding 15,000 net subscribers in North America in the period. Subscriber performance in the first half was impacted by seasonality related to the tax year end. We expect Xero's momentum in subscriber additions in North America to improve over the remainder of FY23, with performance in H2 FY23 expected to be similar or better than the prior comparable period. In our rest of world markets, revenue grew 35% or 25% in constant currency with net subscriber additions of 16,000, resulting in total subscribers increasing by 20% year on year. You can see on slide 11 that Xero continues to deliver a high rate of top line growth against what remains a complex backdrop. The continued momentum in revenue reflects the benefits of both subscriber growth and ARPU expansion during the period from price changes and the continued uptake of our platform products by our customers. Platform revenues grew 31% or 29% in constant currency over the prior year as further take up and usage our financial services offerings and adjacent products continued. Platform revenues remained at 11% of operating revenues in the first half. There remains a significant opportunity to grow the usage and associated revenue of our platform products and services as cloud accounting adoption increases further. So let's turn to some of the underlying drivers here. On the next slide are the activity indicators for the three largest elements of platform revenues. Plan Day, payroll and payments. Plan Day continues to perform well in a challenging environment in Europe. We've launched our beta for Plan Day in Australia and we're continuing to test and refine Plan Day for the Australian award system. We plan to launch Plan Day to Australian customers early in calendar year 2023. On the left, we show the number of Plan Day users each quarter since September 2021. Average employee use has increased by approximately 18% from the prior year period in the three months to 30 September 2022. The middle chart shows employees paid through zero payroll over the same time and this increased 21% since this time last year across Australia, New Zealand and the UK where we offer this product. The right hand chart shows monthly invoice payment value has continued to show strong growth up 40% since September 2021. So we're pleased with the operational progress and the revenue momentum we are delivering. So now over the next few slides, I'm going to update you on the execution of our three strategic priorities and highlight the progress we've made in the half. Our strategic priorities are to drive cloud accounting adoption, grow our small business platform, and to build to global scale and innovation. These priorities guide our investment and go to market, product and technology during the course of the current financial year and beyond. We remain strongly focused on collaboration with our accounting and bookkeeping partners and other important stakeholders in the digitization of the small business economy. We continue to make good progress, adding more than 1.4 million subscribers over the past three years. It is still early in the journey of cloud adoption and the opportunity is very large and untapped. We estimate the total addressable market is more than 45 million small businesses in the regions where we operate. New Zealand and Australia lead the world in the penetration of small business cloud accounting adoption. The scale of our progress with 2 million cloud accounting subscribers reflects Xero's innovation in the region, significant policy initiatives by government to encourage digitization of small business tax, and payroll compliance, and also collaboration with the financial services sector. To underscore the global opportunity, in Canada and the USA, where these conditions are at an earlier stage of development, we estimate the penetration of cloud accounting to be about 25% of that in Australia and New Zealand on a per small business capita basis. So we continue to invest in several important product initiatives to drive cloud accounting adoption for the short and long term. In H1FY23, we delivered what we promised in meeting the needs of customers with less complex needs with our launch of XeroGo in the UK and deeper product localization in North America with the announcement of the Avalara partnership sales tax in the US. We continue to invest in practice management solutions and more efficient workflows for our accounting and bookkeeping partners. Solutions for annual tax and sales tax management and compliance and improving the quality and range of bank feeds and the seamless entry of data into our accounting platform. The shift to the cloud is inevitable as the elements of digitising the small business economy evolve further in each market and deliver strong benefits. We are a catalyst and we continue to invest to develop and address this opportunity. Now moving to our second strategic priority to grow our small business platform. Our vision is to be the most trusted and insightful small business platform. Growing a small business platform is a natural extension of the adoption of cloud accounting and the financial system of record to help solve more customer problems with the products we build and of equal importance through our ecosystem of more than 1,000 connected applications. We've made good progress executing our strategy over the past three years, more than tripling platform revenues and increasing the percentage of revenue from 6% to 11%. We are directly investing in the growth and development of applications and services that support critical business needs, including managing cash flow through payments, lending and other tools that provide insights and analytics, managing people through our payroll and workforce management products and services, managing inventory, developing our new inventory solution for small business following our acquisition of Locate Inventory. No single vendor is likely to ever meet all the needs of accountants, bookkeepers and small businesses. This is why we are committed to being an open platform and to the continued investment in our technology to encourage and enable third-party innovation and new ways of surfacing Xero with more customers in the future. On the slide, you can see how a microbrewery business in the US is leveraging our technology stack using build.com for payments automation and Gusto, our payroll partner. Another example is an adventure experience company in the UK, which has utilized Rocket Spark for online store construction and Zero Stripe integration for payments. We are investing to grow our app ecosystem and app store to enable and facilitate access to these third-party solutions. Our app store utilizes machine learning to recommend applications to small businesses while helping our app partners scale their business and streamline billing. We're pleased with the progress we've made in our app store, where the majority of those ecosystem partners we targeted, based on their fit, have signed up with Xero, receiving a referral revenue share of 15% on any of the new connections through the app store. Turning to our third priority of building for scale and innovation, this involves ongoing investment in attracting and retaining talent, evolving how we operate to scale, and building important capabilities for the future. We also continue to direct spend to technology investment to ensure we can capitalize on the long-term growth presented by the scale of the cloud opportunity in front of us and to add capabilities that drive revenue growth in the short and medium term. This next evolution of our product and technology investment is focused on improving efficiency, accelerating our speed to market, ensuring our people are supported to work in the best possible environment to innovate. Technology investment is also important to enable our data, AI, and machine learning-driven vision of providing predictive, proactive, and responsive insights for our partners and our customers in the future. As with all investment decisions, we consider the short and longer-term benefits and returns of investment in the strategic priority, which competes for capital with other priorities and investment opportunities. All this exists within a well-considered overall product and technology investment envelope that reflects our focus on optimising our short-term and long-term revenue opportunity. So in conclusion, we're pleased with progress in executing our strategy, evident in the increasing breadth and relevance of our offering to customers and our financial results. So I'll now pass to Kirsty to cover our financial results before coming back to you to talk about Xero's FY23 outlook.

Thanks, Steve, and good morning, everybody. I'll now provide some further detail on our financial results for the first half of FY23, starting on slide 19. The results Xero has delivered show continued growth momentum across the group, against what remains a complex macroeconomic backdrop. As you can see on the left, headline AMRR increased 31% to nearly $1.5 billion, driven by both subscriber growth of 16% and APU increases of 13%. There is some FX benefit within this metric due to recent currency movements, Excluding this, AMRR increased 23%. The chart in the middle shows EBITDA of $108.6 million. This reflects the impact of a $25.9 million non-cash impairment due to a change in operating conditions for the Waddle business, offset by non-cash revaluation gains of $10.8 million. I'll talk through the details of these on a later slide. Excluding this, EBITDA increased 28% compared to the prior period, reflecting strong revenue growth alongside controlled operating spend against current inflationary pressures. I will point to the areas where this is evident as we discuss expenses. This demonstrates our willingness and ability to pull levers to address inflationary pressures while also delivering operating momentum. The chart on the right shows we generated free cash flow of 15.6 million. This free cash flow result shows how we continue to manage strong positive operating free cash flows generated against our investment objectives. Moving to the next slide, Steve talked to you about the importance of SAS metrics and reflecting the value our proposition generates. I'm now going to discuss the movements in the period in a bit more detail. In the chart on the left-hand side, we show development of Xero's LTV over the half by driver. Moving left to right, Subscriber growth was the largest driver of LTV uplift, with an $800 million contribution. Apu, on a constant currency basis, contributed $480 million to their LTV uplift. FX contributed $760 million benefit to LTV. The contribution of gross margin and churn to LTV was unchanged, with both holding broadly flat at 87% and 0.91% respectively. which was a great outcome, and I will discuss this further on the next slide. I wanted to touch on some of the related metrics which are highlighted in the chart on the right. LTV per subscriber, the average cost of acquiring a subscriber, and LTV to CAC. You'll also find these metrics in the appendix. LTV per subscriber grew 12%, broadly in line with the increase in ARPU over the period, to $3,706. CAC spend, per gross net ad was $540 for the period, H1 FY22 to H1 FY23. This bin covers three broad areas. The cost of acquiring new subscribers, retaining our current subscribers, and finally helping subscribers uncover value and enhance the usage of our platform. A majority of acquisition costs are expensed in the period. in contrast to the revenue from subscribers added which is earned over multiple years. This metric increased by 21% compared to H1 FY22 due to the return of three zero-cons, lower subscriber additions and also inflationary pressures. The year-on-year growth also reflects our investment ahead of making tax digital for VAT and ITSA in the UK, which remain positive catalysts for adoption in this key market over the next one to two years. CAC spend per gross add is reflected in CAC months, increasing slightly from 14.2 months in H1 FY22 to 15.3 months. Trends were broadly flat in the ANZ segment and increased in the international segment. LTV to CAC decreased to 6.9 from 7.4 in H1 FY22. The reduction here primarily reflected in the international segment, where CAC costs are higher compared to our more developed ANZ business. Now I want to come back to Apu and Churn. As we show on the left-hand side of slide 21, Apu has increased by 13%, or close to $4 over the half. The main elements of this movement are price increases, which came into effect during September FY23 across business addition plans in ANZ and the UK, continued take-up of financial services and ecosystem products where APU accretive, offset by product mix, which was a slight drag over the period. FX movements were a tailwind, increasing APU by approximately 7%. To give you an idea of revenue sensitivity to FX for AMRR, we estimate that a further 1% weakening of the New Zealand dollar across all our major currencies, we would expect to see about a 12.9 million increase in AMRR. And the right hand chart shows the decline seen in churn since COVID has been sustained and remains under 1% per month. While the trends are reassuring, given a complex macro backdrop, we're monitoring churn performance closely. We are aware of the pressure and uncertainty that small business owners are operating under. However, as we saw through COVID, macroeconomic challenges and disruption can contribute to greater awareness of the value and importance of cloud accounting. Having discussed our progress on key SAS metrics, I'll move on to gross profit and expenses on slide 22. Together, these two charts show the benefit of our continued disciplined investment. Overall, our results show healthy progress in gross profit and top line growth, which we have reinvested into the business to drive momentum this year and help build toward our longer term objectives, as Steve has highlighted. On the left-hand chart, a strong gross margin combined with the revenue results of this year have seen gross profit increase by 30% to $573 million. Total operating expenses increased 31% from H1 FY22 to $552 million, as we show on the right-hand chart. This equates to 83.9% of operating revenue. We are focused on demonstrating cost discipline and emerging scale efficiencies So let's take a look at the cost base in more detail on the next slide. Sales and marketing costs increased 26% compared to the prior year, comprising 36.3% of revenue in the half as we hosted three zero-coms. Excluding these, cost growth was well controlled given inflationary pressures over the period, increasing 16% compared to the first half last year and only 1% against the second half. When Xerocon costs are excluded, the ratio falls to 33.7% of revenue. This proportion has fallen consistently over the past five years, reflecting scale benefits particularly in our ANZ business, as well as continued cost discipline in our go-to-market strategy as we build for global scale. We have made good progress when it comes to brand awareness, in particular in our international markets. We are looking forward to the upcoming FIFA Women's World Cup Australia and New Zealand in 2023, where our multi-year partnership with FIFA Women's Football will help build brand awareness to Xero around the world. Moving to G&A. These costs are a smaller but important part of our business. We saw some scale benefit in the half in this area, with expenses falling to 12.5% of revenue. This reflected the past work we did to build out important capabilities in strategy, corporate development, and other support functions. Finally, on product design and development costs, these increased to 35% of revenues in the half. The growth in these costs reflected continued investment in our product roadmap and platform, alongside the impact of new hires that joined in FY22 and inflationary cost pressures. We continue to invest in our technologies team capability and development of the zero product, but cost control is evident in the way we have tempered the pace of hiring against the inflationary backdrop and put a rigorous process in place to ensure we're hiring the people critical to our growth plans. Moving to slide 24. Here we present a summary income statement for the first half of the year showing year-on-year changes. Operating revenue increased 30% year-on-year to reach $659 million. Revenue progress was above the growth seen in subscribers of 16%, with the ARPU drivers already discussed a factor. As I've mentioned, gross margin was sustained at 87%, a pleasing outcome reflecting the benefit of scale efficiencies. Reported EBITDA was 108.6 million, 11 percentage points higher than the first half last year. This reflected strong revenue growth alongside controlled expense growth. It has also partially reflected the non-cash accounting adjustments, including a $25.9 million impairment to the carrying value of Waddle, reflecting the impact of a change in operating and market conditions for the Waddle business. A $6.3 million benefit from derivative revaluations relating to our convertible notes. This is higher than in previous periods, reflecting the volatility in financial markets, and benefits from a revaluation of contingent consideration and other management incentives, totaling $4.5 million. Excluding these items, EBITDA was 28% higher at $123.7 million, as you can see in the table on the left. These items contributed to our reported net loss of $16 million, which compares to a net loss of $6 million in the prior half. Moving to slide 25, cash generation was largely offset by investing activity in the period, resulting in a $118 million increase in Xero's total cash position, including short-term deposits to just over $1.1 billion at the 30th of September. This comprises cash and cash equivalents, along with short-term deposits. Short-term deposits increased as a percentage of overall liquid assets, and we decided not to renew our undrawn $150 million New Zealand dollar standby debt facility, which matured in August 2022, as part of our capital optimization strategy. We had another strong half of cash flow generated from operating activities, reaching $160 million. We reinvested $145 million of that, largely to drive growth, contributing to a free cash flow of $15.6 million. Our improved free cash flow outcomes reflect emerging efficiencies in our business as we reinvest to generate the best returns over the short and long term. Our long term debt entirely reflects our zero coupon convertible note that matures in December 2025. The increase here reflected exchange rate impacts as the note is US dollar denominated. Given the nature of convertible note funding and another strong half of operating cash flow generation, We are comfortable with our net cash position at the end of the half at $24 million, down $101 million from the same time last year. I'll now pass back to Steve to provide some more detail on our outlook for FY23. However, I would first reiterate that our commitment to our guidance reflects our willingness and ability to pull levers to address inflationary pressures while delivering operating momentum. Thank you.

Well thank you Kirsty, I'll now cover the outlook and on slide 26 you can see the outlook statement we provided at our FY22 results and there's been no change here. We continue to expect FY23 total operating expenses including acquisition integration costs as a percentage of operating revenue to be towards the lower end of a range of 80 to 85%. The next slide provides more colour on the expected composition of this ratio as well as the longer term evolution of Xero's financial profile. While we continue to expect a reduction in sales and marketing costs to revenue alongside flat G&A costs to revenue, we now expect the ratio for product design and development to increase slightly compared to FY22. This reflects Xero's investment in global product innovation, platform delivery, the impact of new hires who joined in FY22, while managing inflationary cost pressure. While we have tempered the pace of hiring, we continue to invest in our product roadmap and the technology underpinning our platform. Our commitment to our expense to revenue ratio outlook reflects our willingness and ability to pull levers to address inflationary pressures to deliver both efficiency and operating momentum. Noting our FY23 guidance implies an H2 FY23 operating expense to revenue ratio of around 80%. Managing our investments such that we see the best returns and efficiencies possible short and long term is a key focus now and a priority for us in the next phase of our strategy from FY24 to 26. It would be natural to expect further progress as outlined on the slide in the form of our long-term aspiration. And while we haven't put a specific timeline on this, our aspiration is to see significant improvement in Xero's operating expense ratio as Xero and the global cloud accounting industry continues to mature. Having said this, it's important to highlight that from period to period, our operating expense ratio and other ratios on the slide could vary as we identify growth opportunities that are consistent with our long-term objectives and adapt to market conditions. So as I close, and given this is the last Xero results announcement that I'll present, I do want to finish my remarks by especially thanking all our Xero people for their hard work and commitment over the last five years. I'm so proud of our talent and how it now extends further around the world. I also want to thank our partners and customers. Their success is at the centre of our purpose and exemplifies every day the difference Xero has made. I want to thank Xero's board, our chair David Thode and founder Rod Drury for the support and opportunity to lead Xero as a company's second CEO. Thanks also to our shareholders and all who support our business. I really appreciate it. I know all Xero's really appreciate it too. I leave this role with a very strong belief and confidence that our vision and strategy for the future is exciting and that Secinda is the right person to lead Xero through its next phase of development. Congratulations again, Secinda. As a shareholder, I'm excited about you joining Xero and look forward to watching you work with our great people, partners and customers to take Xero to the next level. So that concludes our presentation. We'll now move to Q&A, and David is happy to take a few questions at the start on Sukhinder's appointment, or we can move straight to results Q&A. I'll now hand back to the moderator.

Thank you. We will now have a short question and answer session. Just a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Please limit your questions to one question at a time. Your first question comes from Bob Chen from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Morning, guys. A question for me. Obviously, we've seen very strong ARPU growth on the back of recent price rises. How should we think about the cadence of price rises going forward and your thoughts on reinvesting this versus delivering operating leverage?

Thanks, Bob. Yeah, I mean, it has really helped our APU, and it just really shows, I think, the value of the cloud to small businesses. We don't, as some of our competitors say, that we will do an annual price increase. However, we do always look at the increase in value and feel that we can put our prices up to reflect that as we invest more and more into the business. Thank you. Your next question comes from Gary Sheriff from Royal Bank of Canada. Please go ahead.

Good morning David, Steve and Sekinder. Question for David. The new CEO, well welcome Sekinder, will you permanently reside in New Zealand and the second one for Steve on the UK, could we maybe just get a sense on the percentage of businesses that are yet to comply with the VAT requirements in your view?

Great, let me handle that one firstly. Look, very much the board's thinking around here is that as the company goes global, we're less concerned about where people live. The reality is for all of us, including myself, we all are located in many different places. So, Kendra will remain where she lives now, but she can spend a lot of time in Australia, New Zealand, Also in the Northern Hemisphere, where our major markets are quickly developing. So let me pass over to Kirsty and Steve for the second part of the question.

Yeah, so as far as, Gary, as far as the UK and making tax digital. So, you know, as I'm sure you're aware, we are at phase two of making tax digital for VAT for those businesses that are under £85,000. And, you know, it was actually, it was our expectation that we may see subsequent sub growth back in even the last financial year as we've seen in the first phase and that didn't happen, it didn't come through our subs really for H2 and we haven't really seen it come through in H1 either. Now the government, the HMRC as we've been told, are going to turn the technology off during November and then also penalties will start to come through to small businesses if they stick with their original plan in January next year. So, you know, it's still a massive opportunity for us and, you know, that also helps give us that comfort in the statement that Steve made around, you know, really expecting our UK subs for H2 to be similar or better than H2 last financial year.

Very clear. Thanks very much.

Thanks, Gary. Thank you. Your next question comes from Lucy Hung from UBS. Please go ahead.

Good morning David, Steve and Kirsty. My question is also on UK. I'm just wondering if you can give us some colour as to whether the slowdown of making tax digital or the sales restructure caused a bigger, I guess, slowdown in the first half in terms of subscriber momentum. And I guess on the ground, what kind of feedback or indicators are you seeing that gives you confidence around the second half guidance on self-momentum tracking similar to the PCP?

Thanks. Yeah, hey, thanks for the question. Look, we have a very rigorous process of managing our sales teams around the world and the pipeline associated with achieving our revenue objectives. And so, Without sort of trying to break down factors because it's very challenging to do so, the one thing I can say and the reason for the statement that Kirsty just repeated again is that the feedback from our salespeople, the way the organisation has now settled down along with the changes we've made, gives us a sense for the pipeline that makes us able to make the statement we are about seeing those levels return to around or better than what we had in the similar half last year.

Thank you. Thanks, Steve.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Roger Samuel from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Hi, Moniol. Maybe a question for David on to Tinder. Yeah, we could see the compensation structure. But can you tell us more about the LTI hurdles? And if I can just squeeze in another one just on the international LTV to CAC ratio, which has been pretty consistent around that three times for the last four years. And I'm just wondering when we can expect that LTV to CAC ratio to improve in the international markets. Thanks.

Right, so let me take the first one that I'll pass to Kirsty, I think, on LTV to CAG. Yeah, look, on the REM structure, you know, again, the board's taken a sort of global perspective on this and has very strongly driven it to performance outcome to align with shareholders. And that's really been part of the discussion Sikinda wanted. And, you know, she was very much aligned with shareholders. So in terms of the LTI structure, as you know, we've put in a relative TSR metric, and we will continue to have good growth metrics around revenue, and I think over time EBITDA, but it's getting the balance right as the business scales, and we'll continue to work through with Secunder what makes the best sense for the business going forward.

So to you, Kirsty. Thanks, David. And hi, Roger. So, yeah, I mean, you know, as we've spoken about before, Xero is a portfolio of different regions, which are all at different stages along the timeline of cloud penetration. And so, you know, that's where you see the ANZ segment, you know, increasing up to 15.1 LTV to CAC, which is just phenomenal and shows the, you know, half ever. And so then we've got the portfolio of the regions where we still see, you know, masses of opportunity, you know, and then with the balanced portfolio, I suppose, you know, coming up with, you know, with 6.9 is actually incredibly high LTV to CAC. If you remember a few years ago, we were, you know, we were down at the six mark. So it is showing that over time we are improving it. But with ANZ being up at 15.1, it does give us the ability to be able to really invest in those newer markets. We've got the opportunity in the UK at the moment with Making Tax Digital, which we definitely want to ensure that we're spending the right amount of CAC to make sure that we get our fair share of that. And then also ensuring that we're putting the right level of investment into our newer markets of North America and the rest of the world. So we always see Xero as a as a portfolio of regions. And so, you know, as we've got that, you know, we're able to invest into international. Remembering, of course, in international, there are, you know, businesses within that that are higher than the three and, you know, those that are more, you know, newer businesses that are slightly under that three to give us the average. Thank you. Your next question comes from Kane Hanan from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Good morning guys. Just that second half OpEx comment around 80%, I mean if I run that through my model I get something around 82% for the full year. So the question is, is there a risk that we're more at the midpoint of that 80% to 85% range or are there still scenarios where you could be 80%, 81% for the full year? And then just a quick second one, just the UK business, I mean what was the difference in the revenue growth for sort of subscriber trajectory, you know, versus your initial expectations for the year. I mean, clearly it's a very strong revenue outcome, but with the weaker subs, I mean, is that all APU? Is that plan day? Just trying to understand what was different in your expectations. Cheers.

OK, I'll start off, and then if Steve wants to add anything, he can at the end. So from our... Operating expense perspective, we do say lower end. And so therefore, that means the lower end of 80 to 85. I'm not going to tell you exactly where that is. But it's obviously a range that's not mid, but lower. And that's where we're not saying definitely 80 either. It's 80-ish. And we'll continue to work within those guidelines and ensure that we work to that lower end of 80 to 85. From a difference in the UK between revenue and subscribers, that is the thing that drives revenue is subscribers and also Apu. And so therefore, you can see really strong Apu growth going through the UK, which has helped us. And coming back to the pricing question earlier on in the call, we do feel, particularly with the amount of investment that we put into Xero in the core, that we are increasing the value of our core product and that gives us the ability to be able to pull the pricing lever. Apu also obviously reflects where subscribers are on the product stack and also additions of platform revenue too. So that's all in the mix in the UK.

Perfect. So it's a better quality mix of subscribers and more transaction revenues than you were potentially thinking initially.

Well, I don't know. Quality is a, I think all of our subscribers are quality subscribers, but certainly higher APU, which is a higher dollar value.

Perfect. Thanks very much.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Siraj Ahmed from Citi. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Just a quick clarification, maybe Steve, on your comment on the UK subs. You mentioned that you're expecting improvement, but just clarifying whether you've seen improvement to date in the second half. And I guess my key question, just on the, there's quite a mention of efficiency in the presentation. So the exit run rate of 80%, should we be thinking it's lower next year or just cognizant that you still need to invest in zero-goal? And on that, David, just on the LTI structure, surprisingly, it does not bear if you're saying the next phase has efficiency as a metric.

I didn't get the last part.

What was the... So I think the first part was around whether or not we could continue to see that operating efficiency run through the business into future years. I mean, I suppose if I refer you to the slide in the investor deck, slide 27, You know, our long-term aspiration as cloud adoption does increase is that absolutely we should see efficiencies coming through all of our cost lines. I mean, the amount of positive operating cash that we generate shows us that, you know, if we chose to stop investing, we would be an incredibly profitable business. However, we do see huge amounts of opportunity and so therefore do want to ensure that While we're able to show that definitely the scale efficiency is coming through, we also do want to ensure that we are investing the appropriate amounts to be able to take hold of that opportunity.

Siraj, can you just repeat the question regarding the UK subs? Sorry, mate, I didn't hear it.

Yeah, just my UK subs. Have you seen an improvement? Because November was the deadline for the whole system to be stopped. So have you seen an improvement in the cadence for the sub-ads in the UK? Or is that yet to come?

Well, look, I can't comment on that. But the statement that I have made is a bit of a pointer. I can't. Now, clearly... It's all about the forecast execution of our sales teams during the half that we have confidence in. And I won't say any more, but it's there. That is a pointer.

Right, and then I think of the last part of the question, I think the last comment was around with the efficiency of coaches, where's EBITDA in the LTI? But just remember that what we've put out there is the current LTI and we review LTI every year. So and as I mentioned, know the board will work with secondary and what looks like the best metrics going forward so that's all we can really say at the moment thanks thank you your next question comes from eric choi from baron joey please go ahead um morning guys and maybe a high level one for you david um

I guess you've appointed both Sikinder and Chris O'Neill, both of whom have a Canadian background. So just wondering if they've got any extra perspective on what hasn't worked with the US strategy and how that might shape the go-to-market strategy in Canada going forward? if at all possible to stick in a second one. I was just wondering, I mean, with that international churn, it's still really low, but it's ticked up ever so slightly. And I'm just wondering if that's correlating to a higher uptick in business insolvencies at all. And therefore, if that's the top-down metric we should start to be more mindful of. Thanks very much.

I think I'll get Steve to answer some of that. But let me quickly say, I think

To Canadians wasn't our plan, so we'd quite like Canadians, to be quite honest, but there's nothing you can read into there, but Steve, let me... Yeah, look, we're really fortunate to attract the calibre of talent we have at Xero, and Chris's contribution has been really valuable in understanding where our business is at in North America, and I think that we'll benefit from that and are benefiting from that, so... When we talk about the North American business, we talk about the amazing opportunity. We talk about the fact that the functions that really drive small business cloud adoption are still developing. Things like bank feeds, things like government initiatives to encourage digitization. And then there's the work we have to do to fill out our product portfolio to really meet the needs of accountants, bookkeepers, and our small business customers. In Canada, we've... We've got provincial sales tax now. We've got annual tax with tax cycle. US, we've announced the Avalara partnership for sales tax, the acquisition of Locate for inventory. So all those fundamentals that really define the success we've had in Australia and New Zealand apply to those other markets around the world. And we're investing to really be that catalyst for accelerating growth. And I have to admit, I can't remember the second part of your question. So if you don't mind repeating, that would be great.

Sorry to sneak a second one in, maybe more for Kirsty anyway. Just looking at the international trend, it's picking up ever so slightly. So I'm just wondering if a rise in UK business insolvencies is driving that at all.

Yeah, I mean, it hasn't really gone up too much. From March, at March it was 1.23, it's now 1.26, which is, you know, it has gone up very, very slightly. But I think the thing to really remember is that that is still rates that are far better than we were at pre-COVID. And so, you know, very tiny uplift. I don't think we need to read too much into it at this stage, keeping an eye on it. But, you know, still incredibly pleased with the churn rate. I mean, Steve said it in his script. At the moment with churn at 0.91%, it means that a zero subscriber hangs around with us for about nine years, which is pretty amazing. Way, way longer than a normal small business life.

Thank you.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Waysim from Macquarie. Please go ahead. Pardon me, Wei, your line is now live.

Hi, can you hear me now? Okay, great, sorry. So thank you for taking my question. Slide 14, the TAM, I was wondering if you could give us some background as to all the assumptions behind our TAM. That's the first one. And the second one, very quickly, is just locate inventory if you might be able to give us an update as to the status of that business. Thank you.

Yeah, thanks. Well, look, I think on the slide it actually does point to the fact that the TAM as described there is based on the best reporting of the number of small businesses that are registered in each market, which is quite interesting because it doesn't necessarily describe the potential of what a Xero subscriber is because we have subscribers who are not just registered small businesses. They're just using Xero for their own personal use. But that's the background to that particular aspect, Wade. The Locate team have settled very, very well into the Xero business. very visible at Xeracon in New Orleans. The project is well underway and we're really looking forward to making sure our US customers benefit from that product first up and then we'll take it further after that.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Matt Ingram from Bloomberg Intelligence. Please go ahead.

Hi there, thanks all for the very detailed pack and presentation. Sorry to bang on about the costs theme, I just wondered your CAC months in international are obviously substantially higher than in ANZ. I just wondered if you could give us some more colour on the US versus the rest of the international business and I guess how you're going to overcome that being a blend problem to the group margins as the U.S. presumably gets much bigger as your focus in that market increases?

Yeah, so thanks, Matt, for the question. As I was talking around before, you know, ANZ, Altibeta CAC is far better, as is our CAC months. And that gives us the view that once a market becomes more mature, if you like, when we have more relationships with the account as a bookkeeper, when our brand has more of a presence there, we can work towards very, very efficient CAC spend. Now, within the international segment, and I'm not going to split out each of the regions individually, but there is a portfolio. The UK has got higher cloud adoption and so therefore we are more efficient. The US that you specifically mentioned, you know, has huge amounts of TAM. And so, therefore, we want to ensure that we have those relationships with the accountants and bookkeepers there, the brand recognition, to really be able to take our fair share of that market. And I think, you know, we are seeing indicators that that is happening. You know, the Xerocon that we had in New Orleans was incredibly well received by the accountants and bookkeepers that attended it. And so, you know, we absolutely, we make sure that we spend the right amount of money based on the traction that we're getting in each of the markets. But, you know, longer term, we absolutely feel that the US, as with all of the different regions within the international segment, are well worth the level of investment that we're making at the moment.

Okay, that's great. Thank you.

Thank you. Participants, please note that we have now reached the hour mark for this call. The Xero team will continue to take questions for up to the next 15 minutes before the call closes. Your next question comes from Elise Kennedy from Jarden. Please go ahead.

Thanks, guys, and thanks for your time over the years and all the best in your future endeavours. I have two questions. One, I wanted to ask on the plan day rollout and monetisation that was previously announced across ANZ, US and UK, just where that sits at the moment. And then the second question was just on ANZ. It seems to continually surprise on the number of subscribers that come through that market, particularly in relation to the number of SMEs that exist. I'm wondering how that can pan out in a more mature market than it is. with a softer backdrop? Is the guide the extra subscribers coming from competitors or is it more business creation?

Well, hey, Elise, thank you for your comments. I appreciate it. I'm having a little bit of trouble tracking questions, so I'm going to do the second one first. So the opportunity in Australia to continue to grow subscribers... is one that Joe and Will and the team are really focused on because we do see opportunity to continue to do that. And part of that is around winning the customers of other suppliers, but it's also about continuing to extend the benefits of the Xero platform beyond that tam of small business customers because, as I said earlier, the benefit of Xero can apply to many other structures and individuals beyond the registered number of small businesses. So there's still very much a growth mindset in the Australia business as there is in New Zealand. On plan day, we have released a beta and we are learning a lot from obviously putting the product in the hands of the customers who are testing the product. We're continuing to refine it and looking forward to announcing it or making it more broadly available in the early part of next year.

Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from Nicholas Basil from CLSA. Please go ahead.

Hi, team, and welcome, Sikinder. Two questions if I can. First one for David. Can you give us some more detail on aspects of Sikinder's experience that you think fit the board and the management team's future vision for the growth of the company? I guess that question really comes from me thinking that I imagine part of it may be related to growing the Xero app ecosystem for SMEs or scaling in North America. But yeah, just interested any feedback or thoughts you had in terms of the StubHub or Google experience and how that's going to drive the business going forward.

Great. Well, I think it's a little bit of all of the above, really. But let me try to give you some color. This is actually... been the product of over 12 months' work about looking at where we think the future of Xero will be. And there is a really important strategic imperative about us really being a global company. As Steve mentioned, where the total market opportunity is, we realize that we need to keep scaling. And so when we were looking for the next CEO, that was the criteria we actually applied. I mean, very gratefully, Sikinda's background fits that profile incredibly well. It's not just her experiences at StarHub. It's not just the experiences at Yodlee. It was also the experiences as president of Google and growing the business around Asia Pacific and South America. She is truly a global executive. And as I stressed before, that was our criteria. So as we look to the market opportunity, you know we have a strong position here in Australia and New Zealand that will always be part of who we are. But it must be in the northern MSV markets where we really focus. Now, we continue to work in Canada and the US and the UK. And in time, that'll be Europe. And that's where we need to be. So they were the criteria, but also it was the type of leader that we wanted to recruit. You know, Sikinda actually came down to Australia, attended Xerocon here in Sydney. She got to see our partners to get a feel for, you know, the type of company we are. And I can vouch for you that, you know, it left an indelible sort of, you know, I think impact on her. She mentioned that before. So that was what we looked for because we need to get that balance right. But unquestionably, our future must be looking to the Northern Hemisphere while we retain very strong presence here in Australia and New Zealand. So I hope that gives you a bit of colour.

Yep, thank you. One more, if I can squeeze it in for the rest of the team, Steve or Kirsty perhaps. What are you seeing in terms of competition in the offshore markets? I think your own data suggests macro conditions are tougher in the UK and the US than they are here in ANZ. So just interested on any colour on market positioning and related to that, how do you think that impacts the way you're thinking about price increases on the core software going forward?

Yeah, well, look, I'd say that the competitive environment hasn't changed significantly since we last had a conversation. It is competitive. You know, the UK environment is competitive. North America is competitive. And I've always said that in the state of these markets, which are still early and underpenetrated relative to where we are in Australia and New Zealand, there is benefit. Having others also promoting the benefits of cloud software, cloud accounting and engagement by other stakeholders in the whole process and the whole benefit to an economy of having a digitized small business sector. So I just say, you know, my belief is always that if you do a great job of serving your customers, showing up and being able to articulate your proposition clearly in a growing environment, a growing market, an underpenetrated market, you generally will win. So competition is a really important reference point. Sometimes friends, sometimes not, but overall it comes down to how well do you execute, how clear are you about who you want to serve and making sure you're exercising all those elements effectively. Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Rohan Sundaram from MST Financial. Please go ahead.

Hi, team, and best wishes, Steve, and congratulations, Sukhinder. Just the one question for me, just around the rest of world's first half net ads, a little bit below recent history. Can you just maybe talk through the headwinds you are seeing there, and are you able to say whether you do expect a better second half from rest of world? Thanks.

Yeah, so we don't give any guidance about rest of world separately. I suppose if you look at the components and think about the key countries that we have within rest of world, we still have challenges within the Hong Kong market. And then across Singapore and South Africa too, They're also seeing the economic challenges across those areas. It is a portfolio, though, as I said before. The rest of the world is a small component, small and important for our future, but they're certainly on that very small end, and so we continue to invest appropriately in those areas. and manage our different regions as a portfolio.

Thanks Kirsty.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Paul Mason from E&P. Please go ahead.

Thanks for fitting me in. So I wanted to ask about North American tax in general. I was hoping you could give a bit of extra detail on the extent of the integration with Avalara and also the nature of the go-to-market partnership, and then maybe also a little bit of colour on the progress integrating tax cycle in Canada. Thanks.

Well, Paul, all obviously work in progress. In terms of the Avalara relationship, the idea there is that we integrate their functionality into the customer experience and flow within the Xero products. So that will surface in the Xero product ultimately. And then obviously the go-to-market related to that is the channels that we have and the work we do to connect with accounts and bookkeepers. Tax cycle, early days, but we're definitely seeing benefit there in the tax cycle acquisition helping us win new accounting and bookkeeping practices. And we have a nice integration between tax cycle and Xero that addresses the workflows that our county bookkeepers for annual tax are looking for at this point. So that sort of also shows up in tax cycles go-to-market work and our go-to-market work at Xero. And the two teams are collaborating really well.

Thank you.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Gary Sheriff from Royal Bank of Canada. Please go ahead.

Yes, one more on the US post Paul's question. The US performance and the obstacles around them. Could you maybe just give us a view on what critical elements you think might be missing from a product perspective that may be hindering that adoption curve in the US?

Look, we had actually David also attended a meeting that we had in October in Denver where we had a panel of accountants and bookkeeper customers who've been actually on the journey. One of the fellows in effect was recounted the days when Rod turned up in the US. And look, I think the thing I would say is our focus is on accountants and bookkeepers and really helping them with their workflow. So the work we're doing in tax and also the work we've done to improve the customer experience around our reporting products has been really well received. We've got Really positive feedback at Xerocon around that. The locate inventory is really important because in a sense it just broadens our appeal to small businesses that go beyond the services sector into the goods selling sector. What you see are the main areas, we believe, because many other elements are things we can accommodate through really good partnerships like payroll with Gusto and others. I think we've been pretty open about the areas that are important to us when it comes to US product going forward.

Okay. Thanks for your stewardship, Steve. Thanks.

Thanks, Gary. Thank you. That is all the time we have for questions. If you have any further questions, please contact the Xero Investor Relations team. If you are a media representative, please reach out to Xero's Corporate Communications team. I'll now hand back for closing remarks.

Well, thank you, everyone. This is Steve. Really, really appreciate your interest and your engagement. I wish you all the best, and thank you for your support of Xero. We appreciate it a lot. All the best.

Yeah, and just I should close in recognizing Steve. I mean, it has been a wonderful close to five years, and I'm very grateful to work with him. It's been a lot of fun. And, you know, it's just exciting now as we look to the future. And, you know, Sikinder's now will be in the chair. Well, not the chair role, the CEO. She can take that as well if she likes. In Feb. And I just think we're, you know, the company's really well placed to continue to grow and do well. So thanks for your time. And I'm sure that there'll be lots of briefings in the next week. Take care. Bye.