ANSYS, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to Anastasia's fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings conference call. Let us say our Jacob Hall, President, Chief Executive Officer, Nicole Anastasias, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President of Finance, and Kelsey DeBrine, Vice President, Investor Relations. All participants will be in listen-only mode. To need assistance, please signal conference specialist by pressing a star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there'll be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask questions, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your questions, please press star then two. Please note that this event is being recorded. This time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Ms. Ryan for opening remarks. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Our earnings release, the related prepared remarks document, and the link to our 2021 Form 10-K have all been posted on the homepage of our Investor Relations website. They contain the key financial information and supporting data relative to our fourth quarter and full year financial results and business update, as well as our Q1 and fiscal year 2022 outlook and the key underlying quantitative and qualitative assumptions. Today's presentation contains forward-looking information, important factors, that may affect our future results are discussed in our public filings with the SEC, all of which are available on our corporate website. Forward-looking statements are based upon our view of the business as of today, and ANSYS undertakes no obligations to update any such information. During this call, we will be referring to non-GAAP financial measures, unless otherwise stated. A discussion of the various items that are excluded and reconciliations of GAAP to the comparable non-GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings release materials. I would now like to turn the call over to our president and CEO, Ajay Gopal, for his opening remarks. Ajay.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Q4 was another strong quarter for ANSYS and the largest quarter in our history. We beat our financial guidance for the quarter across all key metrics, including ACV, revenue, earnings per share and cash flow. Q4 was a capstone to an excellent year in which we grew ACV by 16% in constant currency. Our industry leading product portfolio, strong execution and growing markets enabled us to beat and raise our guidance each quarter of 2021. We saw strength across all major industries, geographies and go to market routes over the course of the year. Our direct and indirect channels grew at double digits. Similarly, each of our go-to-market customer segments, enterprise, strategic, and volume accounts all grew by double digits. The high-tech and semiconductor, aerospace and defense, and automotive and ground transportation sectors were again our top industry, and each demonstrated robust year-over-year growth. From a geographical perspective, we saw strong performance with each region growing ACV at double digits. I'm also pleased that we saw broad-based growth consistent with our expectations across product lines, from our more established flagship products in structures, fluids, electromagnetics, and semiconductors, to our newer offerings such as optics, materials, and digital mission engineering. Our customer relationships continue to be strong and are helping to fuel that growth. In Q4, One of our key contracts came from Asia Pacific, a five year multimillion dollar agreement with LG Electronics. This longtime customer uses ANSYS simulation to enable resource efficient production by significantly reducing material use costs and the number of redesigns. That sustainability initiative has enabled the electronics giant to introduce high quality next generation products faster than expected while reducing its carbon footprint. I'm also excited that Fraunhofer, a German research organization with 76 institutes spread across the country, standardized on the ANSYS simulation platform with a three-year, seven-figure contract in Q4. Its researchers and engineers will use the entire ANSYS portfolio to support innovation efforts in the automotive, chemical, energy, aerospace, and healthcare segments. Our ongoing broad-based business momentum and our strong customer relationships give us even greater confidence for our prospects in 2022 and beyond. We expect our 2022 ACV to grow at about 10% at the midpoint in constant currency, which positions Ansys to surpass our long-term target of $2 billion in ACV. Nicole will walk you through our guidance for 2022 in a moment. During these calls, I often highlight different aspects of our technology. For example, I discussed our solutions for optical simulation on our last call and our unparalleled product scalability in August of 2021. Given the strength of our semiconductor and electronics business in Q4, I'd like to spend a little bit more time discussing that important segment. Faced with mounting customer expectations, today's semiconductor companies operate at the cutting edge of innovation and their products are continually pushing the boundaries of what is possible. Furthermore, some systems companies are turning to custom-built bespoke silicon to give their products an edge. At a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars for an advanced process node tape-out, the cost of failure is prohibitively expensive. The semiconductor and system companies are maximizing their likelihood of success by turning to technologies like scalable multi-physics simulation from ANSYS to develop advanced process nodes and topologies like 3D and 2.5D multi-die chip assemblies. A key deal in Q4 was a multiyear agreement with AMD, a global leader in high-performance computing and visualization products. AMD is a long-time Ansys strategic customer. This new contract reflects AMD's rapid growth in the expanded use of Ansys simulation and sign-off tools. As a result, AMD's global engineering teams have increased access to Ansys solutions, improving collaboration and organization across the company. Customers are also using ANSYS electromagnetic simulation to prevent electromagnetic interference and to ensure signal integrity. Our best-in-class structural and fluid simulations are critical to predicting cooling and thermal warping and to ensuring reliable IC package designs. Customers are relying on our optical simulation to ensure the success of high-speed photonics interconnectivity amongst data-hungry systems. And they are leveraging our safety solutions. For example, A large semiconductor supplier to the automotive industry is using ANSYS to support workflows that graphically link semiconductor design to key functions within the electronics architecture for electric vehicle battery management systems. Customers can rely on ANSYS because we continue to drive significant technological advances into the marketplace. In our recently released ANSYS 2022 R1, we introduced breakthrough new semiconductor functionality that targets DVD, or dynamic voltage drop, which has traditionally been difficult to model and understand. DVD is a drop in the voltage rails caused by high transient current drawn from the power grid. It is analogous to your house lights dimming for a moment when your air conditioning turns on. Our new technology, Sigma DVD, is a powerful approach that significantly increases coverage of dynamic voltage drop. With this functionality, we are empowering our customers to move from simulating chiplets to simulating an entire chip for all switching scenarios. We believe this breakthrough will spur innovation throughout the semiconductor industry. Ansys has always advocated for open ecosystems, which allow for best-of-breed interoperability and give our customers the ability to make the right decisions for their unique businesses. This is particularly important for semiconductor and systems companies. And that is why we partner with foundries and other leading software companies. As part of our partnership, Synopsys has integrated Ansys electronic solutions into its 3D IC compiler for highly accurate signal, thermal, and power data. The automated back annotation amongst these solutions enables faster convergence with fewer iterations to enable customers to bring next generation products to market faster. Earlier in 2021, we signed a multi-year, multi-million dollar contract with a major semiconductor company with standard on Ansys multi-physics solutions, including Ansys HFSS and Ansys RedHawk SC for the latest FinFET technologies and advanced 3D IC techniques. Not only was this customer able to realize the benefits from Ansys products, but it was able to drive faster time to value thanks to our integration with Synopsys' best-in-class technologies. Moving to our semiconductor foundry partners, Samsung Foundry has certified ANSYS Raptor H electromagnetic simulation solution for developing advanced systems on chip as well as for 3D ICs. That industry-first certification enabled ANSYS to help Samsung designers as well as Samsung Foundry customers more accurately analyze and mitigate risks from electromagnetic effects when adopting Samsung's new sign-off flow. In Q4, TSMC named ANSYS as an OIP Partner of the Year for a joint development of four nanometer design infrastructure, which led to the certification of ANSYS RedHawk SC and ANSYS Totem for TSMC's most advanced three and four nanometer processes. TSMC honored us with an award for our development of ANSYS RedHawk SC Electrothermal for full chip and package thermal analysis. Ansys has also partnered with Intel Foundry Services to become an inaugural member of the Design Ecosystem Alliance. Through this alliance, Intel will use Ansys' market-leading multi-physics solutions to enable Intel customers to create unique chips with tailor-made silicon. Turning to our environmental, social, and governance initiatives, Ansys and 3M have launched a material modeling training program that is helping engineers refine product development processes and reduce material waste. 3M is offering verified material models for its tape and adhesive products to all ANSYS users to help power environmental sustainability initiatives. Finally, I'm excited that ANSYS has recently been recognized for our product innovation as well as for our winning culture. The International Society for Optics and Photonics presented the PRISM Award in Software for our Optic Studio Star Module. This technology streamlines optical designs while reducing design errors, development time, and material costs. ANSYS has also been recognized by the Great Places to Work Institute as a preferred employer in China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. That is a testament to our colleagues in Asia as well as to our culture of innovation. In summary, Q4 was a great quarter. capping off an exceptional year for Ansys. We beat guidance across all our key financial metrics, and we delivered the best year in company history. Thanks to our market-leading portfolio and our deep customer relationships, our customers are continuing to grow their Ansys simulation for products as diverse as consumer electronics, electric vehicles, rocket ships, and lifesaving medical devices. Those factors, combined with the momentum we experienced in Q4, will propel us through this year and beyond. And with that, I'll now turn the call over to Nicole. Nicole?