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Operator
Welcome to the QALYX first quarter 2023 investor conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To remove yourself from the queue, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Blair King. Please go ahead, sir.
Blair King
Thank you, Norma, and good afternoon and welcome to QALYS' first quarter 2023 earnings call. Joining me today to discuss our results are Sumit Dakar, our President and CEO, and Jumi Kamar, CFO. Before we get started, I'd like to remind you that our remarks today will include forward-looking statements that generally relate to future events or future financial or operating performance. Actual results may differ materially from these statements. Factors that could cause results to differ materially are set forth in today's press release and our filings with the SEC, including our latest Form 10Q and 10K. Any forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on assumptions as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events. During this call, we will present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in today's earnings press release, And as a reminder, the press release, prepared remarks, and investor presentation are all available on the investor relations section of our website. So with that, I'd like now to turn the call over to Smed.
Norma
Thanks, Blair, and welcome to our first quarter earnings call. We're pleased to announce that we delivered another quarter of healthy revenue growth and industry-leading profitability. A number of CISOs I have met with over the past several months continue to emphasize four key priorities, identifying all assets in the environment, prioritizing and quantifying cyber risk, finding fast and cost-effective solutions to address risk and ensuring adequate protection against adversaries. The importance of these priorities were further reinforced by the findings in our 2023 TrueRisk report released by Qualys' threat research unit after having analyzed 2.3 billion anonymized vulnerability detections on our platform. According to our research findings in the report, the average number of days to weaponize vulnerabilities in 2022 was 19, which is far less than the amount of time taken by IT teams to patch these vulnerabilities. Organizations are looking for platforms that can help them patch prioritized vulnerabilities before they get weaponized and exploited. The message is clear. Legacy technologies available in the market today that purely focus on generating more and more detections and alerts are not enough to help secure organizations. Against a backdrop of accelerated digital transformation and a cybersecurity skills gap, organizations require further assistance in prioritizing the most severe security findings present in their critical assets and resolving them prior to exploitation. As CISOs look to navigate the current macro and manage increased budget scrutiny, they are recognizing the need for holistic risk-based approach to quantify and align cyber risk to their business objectives and thereby be in a position to communicate effectively with their board and C-level executives. In terms of platform innovation for years, our mission at Qualys has been to drive continuous innovation to advance these initiatives. In doing so, we believe We have built a new security industry paradigm, which today leverages our powerful real-time data processing capabilities across more than 13 trillion data points on a natively integrated platform. Unlike traditional detection-only technologies, the Qualys Cloud platform is proactively enhancing security programs worldwide by not only detecting vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, but also prioritizing, remediating, and preventing risk. with over 45 million patches deployed by our cloud agents in just 2022 alone. And by leveraging the MITRE ATT&CK framework, we now further flexing the power of our platform to combine a continuous real-time view of an organization's security posture through the lens of an adversary which natively integrated preemptive risk mitigation and prevention solutions. These capabilities, along with our cloud threat detection database featuring a unified threat intelligence platform of over 25 threat feeds uniquely provide organizations with a comprehensive risk management solution to deliver quantifiable cybersecurity outcomes essential to protecting the digital infrastructure of companies. Consequently, our strategic vision to consolidate the security stack has caused industry analysts to take notice. IDC recently pointed to a future of vulnerability management which evolves into an integrated cybersecurity risk management platform. Our cybersecurity asset management with external attack surface management, along with VMDR true risk and patch management on a single platform are key to addressing this market demand. Of additional importance, the seismic shift in software application development and digital transformation using open source software is resulting in a surge of software supply chain attacks in response We are taking our innovation to the next level by extending the power of VMDR to manage the risk of software composition analysis in on-prem and cloud environments. With this extension of the Qualys Cloud Platform, security teams can automatically identify open source software across the production environment of virtual images by leveraging the same Qualys agent for deep scan detection and remediation spanning the entire application lifecycle with high efficacy and speed. This development advances our existing software composition analysis and open source software assessment capabilities for DevOps teams to secure container environments in continuous integration and deployment and at runtime as well. In addition to this enhancement, we are also advancing our custom assessment and remediation capabilities in our agent-based VMDR and policy compliance solutions. As organizations develop more and more custom software, the need to expand vulnerability management from third-party software to first-party software is increasing. With this initiative, we are enabling customers to create their own detections for managing vulnerabilities in their own custom software across their entire environment. And finally, we've continued to expand our coverage for public cloud providers by bringing real-time cloud asset discovery and prioritization remediation solutions on a single agent to Alibaba's cloud. Turning now to our go-to-market motion, Q1 remained a tough period. Despite improved upsell performance, new business was challenging as organizations continued to apply additional layers of scrutiny to spending and delay project start dates, which impacted bookings. While we expect these conditions to linger for at least the remainder of the year, consolidation remains a key theme with our customers. Given our thought leadership and continuous innovations, we are fortunate to be engaged in many such conversations. Those conversations are laying a firm foundation for future growth, and our customers are on a long-term transformation journey with us. Existing customers continuing to invest in consolidation with Qualys' platform was evidenced in Q1 by the steady adoption of VMDR, which is now deployed by 50% of our customers worldwide. A few key seven-figure annualized bookings wins with VMDR in the quarter included two global 200 financial institutions, which shows Qualys for its ability to replace traditional siloed security tools and enhance security posture on a unified platform. And one of the world's largest healthcare providers that is leveraging VMDR with TrueRisk to manage a comprehensive risk management platform in both on-prem environments and cloud workloads. Beyond these wins, let's take a look at additional examples that demonstrate how the power of Qualys cloud platform translated into strategic customer wins and provided immediate value to the customer. First, with zero trust transformation underway, we are helping customers standardize their operations across a broad spectrum of security subscriptions. In a high six-figure annualized bookings, a large government agency aspired to move beyond its detection-only solution, further expanded its use of VMDR and policy compliance by adding custom assessment and remediation, cybersecurity asset management, action management, and custom XDR, context XDR. This customer, Selector Qualys, because we offer the only security and compliance stack available in the market today that utilizes both a FedRAMP authorized platform and a single lightweight agent to enable full asset visibility and context-aware mapping to prioritize vulnerabilities, proactively reduce technical debt, automate patching, and future-proof their security architecture with high-fidelity incidence response capabilities across all environments. This is also a good example of how we are benefiting from the investments we're making in the channel to drive new business opportunities. Another marquee six-figure annualized bookings enterprise customer win in Q1 was with a leading business services company in the Fortune 500. This customer expanded their VMDR deployment with TrueRisk while adopting cybersecurity asset management and patch management as part of an initiative to transform its IT security architecture while replacing point solutions from two vendors to the single platform. The ability of this customer to significantly enhance the security program with comprehensive internal and external asset criticality, holistic risk scoring, ticketing and automated patching across multiple environments on natively integrated platform are all key differentiators compared to alternative legacy technologies. With customers beginning to perceive Qualys as a leading risk management platform that consolidates multiple point solutions, we are growing increasingly confident in our ability to drive long-term growth and gain market share. This confidence was again bolstered in Q1 as customers spending $500,000 or more with us grew 27% from a year ago to 162. Growing our partner ecosystem continues to be a key pillar in our go-to-market agenda. In this quarter, we expanded our partnership with a leading MSSP in North America, With its platform already anchored in our VMDR solution, this partner is now launching a managed patching service, further validating our vision that organizations need help with timely remediation and not just more and more detections. This MSSP is standardizing on Qualys' automated patching solutions across Windows, Linux, and Mac operating environments, mobile devices, and third-party applications without the need for a VPN. In addition, illustrating the fast progress we are making in our external attack surface management EASM solution, we extended our relationship with a leading cyber insurance company, which is now ingesting our EASM intelligence field to continuously assess the risk for adaptive cyber insurance for their customers. Furthering our efforts to remove friction in the sales cycle by helping customers accelerate their cloud transformations and consolidate their security stack, We have introduced a new adaptive subscription model for organizations to extend the existing VMDR deployments into cloud and container environments for CSTM and CWPP through our total cloud solution. The early feedback we have received from customers for this model is quite encouraging, and we are looking forward to early adopter customers in the current quarter. In summary, it's our view that during times like this, the best companies continue to innovate, focus on customer satisfaction, and emerge stronger than before. Looking beyond the short term, we believe the powerful combination of our cloud-native platform and frictionless go-to-market motion positions us well for the fundamental holistic risk management platform of the future. Throughout the balance of this year, we will continue to focus on executing our strategic vision, driving customer success, and expanding our lead over the competition with a proven approach to balancing growth and profitability. With that, I will turn the call over to Jumi to further discuss our first quarter results and outlook for the second quarter and full year 2023.
Blair
Thanks, Ned, and good afternoon. Before I start, I'd like to note that except for revenues, all financial figures are non-GAAP, and growth rates are based on comparisons to the prior year period unless stated otherwise. Turning to first quarter results, revenues grew 15% to $130.7 million, with China continuing to increase its contribution making up 43% of total revenues compared to 41% a year ago. Revenues from channel partners grew 18%, outpacing direct, which grew 13%. IGEO growth in the U.S. of 16% was approximately in line with our international business, which grew 15%. Looking ahead to the balance of 2023, We expect our U.S. and international revenue mix to remain at roughly 60% and 40% respectively. In Q1, we saw continued strength in customer dollar retention and upsell, in line with expectations with our net dollar expansion rate on a constant currency basis at 109%. Platform last quarter cut down slightly from 110 last year. While there remains room for improvement from smaller customers spending less than $25,000 with us, we are pleased with a strong revenue growth of 18% from larger customers. In terms of new product contribution to booking, patch management and cybersecurity asset management combined made up 10% of LTN bookings and 16% of LTN new bookings in Q1. We attribute the success to an increasingly complex threat environment that highlights the relevance of the QALYS cloud platform to realistically assess, manage, and remediate risk. Reflecting our scalable and sustainable business model, adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of 2023 was 58.7 million, representing a 45% margin compared to a 48% margin a year ago. Operating expenses in Q1 increased by 20% to 54.1 million, primarily driven by the growth in sales and marketing investments, including higher headcount and related costs. During the remainder of 2023, we believe it's prudent to take an opportunistic approach in executing against our investment plan, while not losing sight of the importance of optimizing our prior investments to drive long-term profitable growth. BPS for the first quarter of 2023 was 1.09, and our free cash flow for the first quarter of 2023 was 62.8 million, representing a 48% margin. In Q1, we continued to invest the cash we generated from operations back into Qualys, including 4 million on capital expenditures and 66.6 million to repurchase 584,000 of our outstanding shares. As of the end of the quarter, we had 187.9 million remaining in our share with purchase program. Now let us turn to our guidance. Starting with revenues, for the full year 2023, we are reaffirming our revenue guidance range of 553 to 557 million, which represents a growth rate of 13 to 14%. For the second quarter of 2023, we expect revenues to be in the range of 135.2 million to 136.2 million. representing a growth rate of 13 to 14%. This guidance assumes no material change in our net dollar expansion rate in 2023, but continued challenges and new customer growth. We believe our value proposition remains strong, with strong demand from our existing customers, but anticipate the current macro environment will moderate returns in 2023, despite having increased our sales and marketing headcount by over 20% in 2022. With that said, given the long-term growth opportunities that ahead of us and our industry-leading margins implying further room for investment, we will continue to responsibly invest in operations, people, and systems while recognizing the importance of optimization. As a result, we continue to expect full-year 2023 EBITDA margin to be in the low 40s, with full-year EPS in the range of 4.13 to 4.28. UP FROM THE PRIOR RANGE OF 4.10 TO 4.18. FOR THE SECOND QUARTER OF 2023, WE EXPECT EPS IN THE RANGE OF .98 TO 1.03. OUR PLANNED CAPITAL EXPENDITURES IN 2023 ARE SUPPOSED TO BE IN THE RANGE OF 15 TO 20 MILLION, AND FOR THE SECOND QUARTER OF 2023, IN THE RANGE OF 3 TO 5 MILLION. CONSISTENT WITH PRIOR GUIDANCE, For the remainder of 2023, we intend to align our product and marketing investments to focus on specific initiatives to drive more pipeline and support sales and response to the current macro conditions. In doing so, we plan to prioritize investments in sales and marketing as well as related support functions and systems over our investments in engineering. As we endeavor to sharpen our execution by focusing on sales and marketing enablement and productivity, we believe we will be able to try wallet share and long-term returns while balancing growth and profitability. In conclusion, in Q1, we delivered healthy top-line growth and industry-leading profitability. With our comprehensive risk management solution garnering industry attention and delivering immediate time to value for our customers, we are confident in our ability to deliver on our growth opportunity long-term while investing responsibly to maximize shareholder value. With that, Smed and I would be happy to answer any other questions.
Operator
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you'll need to press star 11 on your telephone. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please wait for your name to be announced. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. One moment for our first question.
Law 4J
And our first question comes from . Your line is now open. Mr. , your line is now open. We'll go to the next caller. One moment. Question comes from Matt Saltzman with Morgan Stanley.
Operator
Your line is now open.
Sumedh
Hey, team. Thanks for taking the question. So I know that you guys typically guide to revenue growth and not billings, but, you know, I do see that billings slowed to single digits in Q1. So when you think about the longer-term growth algorithm, you know, how do you guys anticipate getting back to mid-to-high teams growth, you know, 20% top-line growth over the longer term? Are there any areas of the product portfolio that you're looking to press on? You know, would you potentially look at acquiring other capabilities? Just curious on kind of the growth algo from there.
Norma
Thanks for the question. Great question. So, I mean, as we mentioned earlier, we continue to be excited about what we're seeing with cybersecurity asset management, match management, now adding ESM, total cloud coming up. So, we feel like there's, you know, really interesting areas where our customers are looking to consolidate. And look, Q1 was a tough quarter, as we had talked about last quarter earnings call that We had made a decision with the CRO change and that decision was really what we focused on implementing through this quarter. And of course, there was a little bit of disruption, but the good thing is that now that transition has been completed as I'm directly involved now with our sales teams and focusing on working directly, looking at it. So today we are looking at a growing and maturing pipeline for 2023. We are getting better and improving in our sales execution. You know, compared to last year, we have about 20% more growth in our sales and marketing headcount. And, you know, early signs right now for Q2, we are optimistic with what we are seeing. I mean, of course, we're cautious about the macro, but, you know, looking at our net retention rate, et cetera, I think overall we feel healthy about the business, even though we are cautious about the macro. And we're looking at these things plus our new product initiatives coming together so that we can start to get back to that growth rate that we had last year.
Blair
Right. And just to add a little bit more color to that, if you take a look at the year-over-year compare, Q1 was a tough quarter. Q2 starts becoming easier. So we do anticipate the bookings growth to tick off for the rest of the year. And like Sumedh mentioned, we have made significant investments in sales and marketing headcount. Without the current macro conditions, we would have expected higher returns, but with that said, we do anticipate that to kind of generate the type of returns and growth in the longer term.
Sumedh
Got it. Thank you. Just as a quick follow-up, I know that this quarter you still lapped some of the benefits from Log4J last year. Are you able to quantify at all what those benefits were from a percent standpoint as it pertains to growth in the first quarter of last year, just so we can kind of look at it on a like-to-like basis?
Blair
Yeah, last quarter we didn't highlight that it wasn't an immediate benefit on Law 4J. We did have a strong Q1 last quarter, but not specific to Law 4J particularly.
Law 4J
Got it. Thank you. Thank you. One moment for our next question.
Operator
And our next question comes from the line of Brian Essex with JP Morgan. Your line is now open.
Brian Essex
Hi, good afternoon, and thank you for taking the question. I was wondering, you know, Sumedh, could you give us a little bit of sense of what you saw from a macro perspective in the quarter, maybe relative to 4Q, particularly as we see, you know, some of your peers have exposure to financial services. It might have been a little more challenging. Maybe mid-market was a little bit more challenging. We'd love to get your view on, you know, competitively and from a macro perspective what you're seeing. Thanks.
Norma
Sure. I think I don't feel like we saw a really significant change materially in Q1 from what we saw in Q4. I think overall, a lot of cautiousness, you know, project start dates were getting pushed out. I think we do see weakness in the new business like everybody else. And I think especially on the lower end of the Uh, market, but as we, um, you know, look at essentially people are, uh, you know, there's just more layers of scrutiny, et cetera. Um, however, as people are taking a step back, uh, from a new business perspective, thinking about when they, or if they want to switch. They're also focusing on existing trusted vendors that they really feel they can do more with. And so that's kind of what we are excited about in the conversation that we are having is while new business is kind of where it is right now that everybody's feeling, we do see a lot more conversations happening on, hey, instead of going out and buying one scanning solution and another inventory solution and another patch management solution with Qualys, can I do more? I already have you guys. Can I... consolidate and get the benefit out of that. And so those are the conversations for us that are quite encouraging. But other than that, we don't see material difference in the macro from Q4 to Q1. And we are, in our guidance as well, we really look at it as this macro stays the same and no improvement happening in the macro. And then we didn't really have any material difference in exposure from the financial banking issues that we've had. So Joni can maybe talk more about that.
Blair
Yeah, about 20% of our business comes from the financial institutions. And from our side, we haven't seen anything in our discussions or observed anything specifically in our bookings. We don't think it's going to be material to our business, but as things evolve and if conditions change in Q2, we will update.
Brian Essex
Got it. That's super helpful. Maybe if I can sneak in a follow-up, Sumit. You commented on the CRO changes and that you're kind of taking the reins. Maybe just, you know, any progress report in terms of, you know, where you're shaking out from a hiring perspective? Are you more, I guess, are you aggressively looking for a new CRO? And then how does that line up with what your plans are for incremental hiring in sales and marketing throughout the year?
Norma
Yeah, look, I think being here for 20 years, I have a pretty good sense of the business, the company and everything. I think we do continue to look for a sales leader. However, I'm back like I did in 21. I'm back hands on working with our second level team, which has been they've been great and they've been with us for a long time. So, you know, we feel pretty good about that. I think overall. from a sales hiring perspective, pretty happy with what we have seen from last year to this year with the 20% increase. I think we continue to focus on being prudent as we move forward with our investment in sales and marketing and may not be the same rate of growth in sales marketing as last year. However, we still continue to anticipate to grow throughout the year and get to double-digit growth again. That's the thought process. We're pretty excited about the opportunities we see, and so we're going to continue to invest in that area.
Brian Essex
Got it. Very helpful. Thank you, and thank you, Jimmy, as well.
Operator
Thank you. One moment for our next question. And our next question comes from the line of Alex Henderson with Needham & Company. Your line is now open.
Alex Henderson
Okay, thanks. So I wanted to ask a couple of questions on the North America revenue decline for the first time quarter to quarter, and the direct revenue clearly decelerated pretty sharply from 12% growth to 19% growth last quarter. So I guess I'm I'm wondering, is there a mixed shift in the emphasis of the company that is causing those to occur, and is it a function of the strong 20% growth in the channel that's cannibalizing some of the direct revenues? How are you balancing between those and measuring it? Thanks.
Blair
Yes, right now we're investing across globally, and what we're looking at is, given the investments that we're making, we do anticipate the revenue mix between U.S. and international to stay approximately the same, current at 60% U.S. and 40% international. In terms of the direct versus indirect, we have been focusing on developing our relationship with and building our relationship with our channel partner, so we do anticipate the mixed to be shifting more towards the channel partners. And we have been seeing the ramp up there, even though compared to the growth rate in Q4, it has declined, going from 22%. Right now, 18% is still strong from the channel partners, but it is lower.
Alex Henderson
So just to be clear, as you look at the very large expansion in your sales capacity in 22 and continuing in 23, Is that heavily skewed towards supporting the channel, or is it equally split between channel investment and direct sales investments?
Blair
It was more on the direct. On the channel, it's more of the incentives and working closely with our channel partners versus hiring more channel managers, per se. So the dollar investment that we made in the business is more skewed towards the direct sales force.
Alex Henderson
Thank you so much.
Law 4J
Thank you. One moment for our next question.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Rudy Kissinger with DA Davidson. Your line is now open.
Rudy Kissinger
Hey, great. Thank you for taking my questions, guys. Jimmy, I want to clarify what you said earlier. I think you said for the remainder of the year, you said it compares a little easier and you do expect your billings Excuse me, I think you had said bookings growth to accelerate, but to be clear on your current calculated billing, you know, again, came down to 9% this quarter. Do you expect your billings or your current calculated billings growth on a year-over-year basis to accelerate throughout the rest of the year, or do you expect it to stay in the high single digits?
Blair
We do expect it to accelerate. So, when I said the easier compare, if you take a look at the current billings growth rate last year, in the first half, it grew by 20% and 18% versus 13% and 12%. So, it is an easier compare in the second half of this year. So, we do anticipate the growth rate in this year to accelerate throughout the rest of the year.
Rudy Kissinger
Okay. Got it. That is helpful. And then on the – I don't know. On the EBITDA margin front, you guys continue to be pretty impressively there, irrespective of the revenue outperformance in the quarter, whether it's small or big. You continue to point us to low 40s EBITDA margins. It seems conservative. I don't know. Any color to add as to how you guys keep showing such good upside on the EBITDA margins, and potentially long-term, is mid-40s more of the right go-forward rate, or are you guys very convinced that, you know, low 40s is the right rate going forward?
Blair
Yeah, we still believe that it's low 40s because if you take a look at the year-over-year change, it's been a couple hundred basis points on contraction. So, as an example, in Q1, it's 45% EBITDA margin. A year ago, it was 48%. And I know that we ended the year in 2022 with 45% EBITDA margin. We expect that to kind of trend down because of that.
Rudy Kissinger
Okay. Got it. That's it for me. I'll get back in the queue. Thank you.
Law 4J
Thank you.
Operator
One moment for our next question.
Law 4J
Question comes from the line of Josh Tilton with Wolf Research.
Operator
Your line is now open.
Jeanette
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. I just want to follow up on the last one. I'm just going to ask it very straightforward. To us, with imperfect information, current billings is kind of the best indication of what your future revenue growth is going to be, and you just grew billings 9% or current billings 9%. I understand the investments to kind of, you know, improve the future growth algorithm, but is there anything you can give us to Help us understand the confidence you have in reiterating the revenue growth for this year in light of the current billings coming in at 9% growth in one queue.
Blair
The assumption is that current billings will accelerate. So we are seeing a current billing that will be higher than 9% in Q2 and Q3 and Q4. And one of the reasons is because it is an easier compared to last year, especially because we had a tougher period in the second half of last year. Um, with the current billing of the 2nd, half of last year coming in at 13 and 12%, and then plus the biggest assumption that we have made is. Despite the macro, we did increase the sales and marketing investments significantly last year in 2022. we grew our head count by over 20% compared to only by 3% in 2021. Now, most of those hiring was back half-weighted in 2022. So even if their sales productivity is lower in 2023, they do add, they do increase the foot on, in terms of the distribution and out there and be able to sell more. And then plus, as Jeanette had mentioned, that we have growing pipelines that's maturing. So even with the lengthening sales cycle, we do expect that to help grow the bookings as well as, I mean, and consequently the billing.
Jeanette
Okay, and then just to follow up on that, maybe my math is a little incorrect here, but it looks like your partner sales, they did grow nicely year over year in 1Q. But on a dollar basis, they actually ticked down slightly from 4Q. What kind of visibility do you have into that part of the business? How does that compare to the visibility you have into the direct sales? And how should we think about that partner sales growth trending for the rest of the year?
Norma
Yeah, we made last year in around the same timeframe, we decided to kind of roll out this partner program, which is fairly new to us in the way that we have been working with our partners, working from incentive perspective, aligning channel managers that we didn't have before with these partners. And so, of course, most, you know, a lot of these deals, our channel managers or technical account managers do work hand-in-hand with the partner. And so, as we are going through this motion and getting better at working with the partners, you know, we do get a certain amount of visibility because we are actively working with those partners on a bunch of these deals, especially at the enterprise and the to some extent, the mid-market as well. And so I think we anticipate that we are going to continue that investment on the partner side. And we do think that the mix will pivot more towards partners, just that we're not targeting any specific number at this point.
Jeanette
Thank you, guys.
Law 4J
Thank you. One moment for our next question.
Operator
And our next question comes from Mike Walkley with Canon Core Genuity. Your line is open.
Mike Walkley
Hey, guys. Good afternoon. It's Daniel on for Mike. Thanks for taking the question. So I guess with the release of the VMDR packages for the SMB, I'm just curious if you could provide us with some color on how this is being received by some of your smaller customers. Obviously, there's some pressure in this segment of your business, but any details would be helpful.
Norma
Yeah, I think we launched them a couple months ago, so still early from tracking specific numbers, but the conversations with our sales team have been very positive. They feel like they have been able to really streamline the conversations, move these packages quicker than what they would have to do. The fact that the sales execution is improving in terms of not having to quote multiple line items, especially around patch management, selling it as a single package, and being able to position it, we've got pretty positive feedback, and so we're optimistic of how that's actually going to impact us over the next few quarters. We're tracking that, and we are looking to see if we need to do any additional packages as well, given the response that we have had at different numbers as well. So I think overall, I would say I'm pretty positive about what we're seeing, and then we'll continue to track how much of an impact and how that's actually having an impact in that segment as we move forward. But early indications definitely quicker, you know, deals are closing quicker because the value prop is much clearer and it's a single line item.
Mike Walkley
Great. Thank you very much for the call.
Law 4J
Thank you. One moment for our next question. And our next question comes from .
Operator
Your line is now open.
Law 4J
Mr. , are you there?
Operator
At this point, I'm showing no further questions. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. You may now disconnect. Everyone have a wonderful day.
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