Gen Digital Inc.

good afternoon everyone thank you for standing by my name is tamia and i will be your conference operator today this call is being recorded and all lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise after the speaker's remarks there will be a question and answer session at this time for opening remarks i would like to pass the call over to jason starr head of investor relations thank you tamiya good afternoon welcome to jen's first quarter fiscal year 2025 earnings call

Joining me today are Vincent Pellet, CEO, and Natalie Dursey, CFO. As a reminder, there will be a replay of this call posted on the Investor Relations website, along with our slides and press release. I'd like to remind everyone that during this call, all references to the financial metrics are non-GAAP and all growth rates are year-over-year, unless otherwise stated. A reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP measures is included in our press release and our earnings presentation, both of which are available on our IR website at investor.gemdigital.com. We encourage investors to monitor this website as we routinely post investor-oriented information such as news and events and financial filings. Today's call contains statements regarding our business, financial performance, and operations, including the impact of our business and industry that may be considered forward-looking statements, and such statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. Those statements are based on current beliefs, assumptions, and expectations as of today's date, August 1, 2024. We undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events. For more information, please refer to the cautionary statements in our press release and the risk factors in our filings with the SEC, and in particular, our most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q. And now, I'll turn the call over to Vincent. Thanks, Jason.

And welcome, everyone, to our Q1 earnings call. We've started fiscal 25 on a good note with our operating KPIs supporting our long-term aspirations. We grew cyber safety bookings 4% in constant currency and reached a record direct customer count of 39.3 million, up 1.1 million year-over-year. Additionally, ARPU is up sequentially and year-over-year in constant currency and retention reached 78%, a gen record supported by record level in LifeLock and Avast. A consistent focus on execution resulted in another double-digit growth quarter for earnings per share at 53 cents in Q1, up 15% in constant currency. I'm proud of our team for delivering these results and for our continued focus on evolving cyber safety for consumers in a very dynamic threat landscape. Before Natalie walks you through the details of our results, I would like first to remind everyone about our strategic opportunity and the steady progress we are making to achieve our cyber safety mission. Whether it is a biometric payment at the retail store or our personal performance data combined with recommendation algorithm to buy sportswear, it seems like not a day goes by where we don't do something digitally without sharing more personal information. And while these experiences can be convenient, our growing digital life leads to the proliferation of sensitive personal information, which is difficult to properly safeguard as it is increasingly out of our control. We depend on our banks, our government institutions, our mobile providers and our retailers to protect our data. And yet, as we can all see by the ever-increasing number of data breaches in all industries, it is tremendously hard for them to do. In just the first half of 2024, we have seen more than 2,000 reported breaches per month across the globe, And those are just the reported breaches, not to mention the many that occur across very small businesses, the local doctor offices, schools, and shops that also get access to our sensitive personal data. Recent global breaches highlighted the growing threat of cyber attacks, which are often targeted at exploiting human vulnerabilities. In the aftermath of such events, there is a surge in impersonation scams, suspicious emails, and text messages designed to trick people into sharing personal information. The rapid development of generative AI has made it easier for criminals to create more personalized and believable scams, including deepfake clones. The potential scope of these threats is broadening, resulting in significant economic and reputational damages. It is clear to anyone paying attention that these threats are creating a dynamic threat landscape making consumers worldwide more vulnerable than ever to real threats to their privacy, identity, and financial assets. And even the more careful and vigilant people who struggle to control where their personal data lives and will have little to no visibility into how governments, companies, and small businesses protect their data, identity, and reputation, which I believe are amongst the most valuable assets. I strongly believe that it is not a question of if your personal data will be compromised, if it hasn't occurred already yet, but when. And that is why the team at Gen has made protecting you, your data, and your digital identity our life's work. It is our never-ending mission that we deliver through constant innovation. Today, we already have the most comprehensive product portfolio that meets the consumer needs for security, identity, privacy, and reputation. Our flagship cyber safety membership offerings, Northern 360, Avast One, and Avira Prime, continue to gain traction and regularly receive industry recognition and awards for the way we protect against the myriads of cyber threats. We don't just stop at delivering to consumers industry-leading technology. We know that providing our customers with best-in-class services sets us apart from our competitors. Solution like LifeLock and Reputation Defender deliver personal live service to help protect and restore your identity and reputation in the event you become a victim. By focusing on the customer journeys with us, both products have achieved top ratings with LifeLock recognized as the best identity test service in the marketplace and Reputation Defender with a near perfect rating for reputation management. As the leader of the industry, we are constantly investing in innovation to stay ahead of potential threats and provide our customers with the best possible cyber safety protection. Yesterday, we launched Norton Ultra VPN, which offers more comprehensive online protection with three different plans catering to individuals, couples, and families. Norton Ultra VPN provides the best online privacy, dark web monitoring, VPN protocol support, and worldwide content access. In addition, it offers protection against scams, viruses, malware, and ransomware, as well as a password manager and parental control. We believe it is the best and the next generation of VPN solution offering a modern and personalized approach to cyber safety and adds another entry door into total comprehensive cyber safety. We're so excited to bring Northern Ultra VPN to consumers. Not only it is a great product that meets the customer needs, but it also represents the promise of all the hard integration work we put into bringing two companies' technology together under a new single common architecture. Norton Ultra VPN is built on the new GenStack, which help us not only with the innovation and the feature we delivered, but also with the speed with which we were able to bring it to market. And in the future, As we take those capabilities and combine them with our ever-expanding AI tools, we can't wait to see what we can deliver in terms of customer experience and ease of use. Over time, that will result in improved customer loyalty and greater engagement, leading to more value adds, cross-sells, and upsells. The last point I want to touch on today is that most everyone has heard about cybercrimes and cybersecurity. but most people are not fully aware of the very real risk that they are exposed to and often not adequately protected from. At GEN, we are hard at work every day communicating, educating, and earning the trust of consumers around the world. Although we have a host of industry-leading brands that enable us to serve the needs of hundreds of millions of diverse customers across over 150 countries, we feel it is also our responsibility to constantly educate and inform people about cyber risk to their impact through initiatives, such as our recent Scam Artists campaign. This campaign uses art and psychology to demonstrate the emotional impact of cybercrime and helps people take the right steps to proactively protect themselves online. This quarter, we also launched our personal data exposure scam by LifeLock. which is a comprehensive scam of millions of data points online, combining with our privacy monitoring and dark web algorithms. By simply entering an email address, individuals can obtain a free report card detailing all their supposedly private information that may be actually publicly available. These tools are free to everyone and give consumer visibility to their digital footprint so they can better protect themselves. All these type of cyber safety awareness initiatives are beginning to pay off as we grew cyber safety bookings and revenue by 4% in Q1. We had strong momentum in the identity and privacy business lines with bookings of 6% supported by double digit new customer acquisition in that segment and accelerating privacy cross-sell growth. This success reflects the increasing consumer awareness of identity risk from recently reported breaches. Although the identity market remains mostly U.S.-based today, we continue to make steady traction in our efforts to expand identity protection globally, introducing Nolan360 Advanced to eight markets in Europe, providing customers additional identity protection services, such as dark web monitoring, social media monitoring, stolen wallet assistance, and ID restoration. Now, despite the importance of comprehensive cyber safety, most consumers mistakenly believe it won't happen to them, or still believe that their digital lives are safe, basically choosing to self-insure. And two-thirds of cyber safety customers have only basic security or even just device security. But in today's user-centric, cloud-based digital world, information and identity risk transcends personal devices. We believe that comprehensive cyber safety is paramount and yet still massively under-penetrated. And with our technology, portfolio, focus on innovation, trusted brands, and channel expansion, we are well positioned to drive its adoption. This is our never-ending mission. So in summary, we are pleased with our Q1 results and promising start to fiscal 2025. We are confident that our customer centricity, innovation, and discipline execution will enable us to deliver on our goals for not only this year, but also on our plan to accelerate long-term profitable revenue growth to further increase shareholder value. And with that, let me pass it on to Natalie to review our performance in details.