Radware - Q1 2024
May 8, 2024
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Welcome to the Radware conference call discussing Q1 2024 results, and thank you all for holding. At this time, 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. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press * followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press * 1 again. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, May 8, 2024. I would now like to turn the call over to Yisca Erez, Director, Investor Relations at Radware. Please go ahead.
Yisca Erez (Director of Investor Relations)
Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Radware's Q1 2024 earnings conference call. Joining me today are Roy Zisapel, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Guy Avidan, Chief Financial Officer. A copy of today's press release and the financial statements, as well as the investor kit for the Q1, are available in the Investor Relations section of our website. During today's call, we may make projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of the company. These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties. An actual result could differ materially from Radware's current forecast and estimate.
Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, impact from the changing or severe global economic conditions, the COVID-19 pandemic, general business conditions, and our ability to address changes in our industry, changes in demand for products, the timing in the amount of orders, and other risks disclosed from time to time in Radware's filing. We refer you to the documents the company files and furnishes from time to time with the SEC, specifically the company's last annual report on Form 20-F as filed on March 25, 2024. We undertake no commitment to revise or update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances after the date of such statement is made. I will now turn the call to Roy Zisapel.
Roy Zisapel (President and CEO)
Thank you, Yisca, and thank you all for joining us today. We ended the Q1 of 2024 with revenues of $65 million and non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.16, both above the high end of our guidance. We diligently managed expenses and improved our profitability. Similar to previous quarter, we witnessed a favorable business environment marked by an uptick in large CapEx deals, more customer engagement, and a healthier pipeline. In the Q1, total adjusted ARR increased 8% year-over-year, driven by growth in our cloud and subscription business. Subscription revenues now account for 46% of total revenue compared to 41% in the Q1 of last year, demonstrating our ongoing shift to SaaS model. Our cloud security business sustained robust growth, with cloud ARR growing again, 22% year-over-year. This performance is also underscored by a record number of new bookings and new logos.
The momentum behind our cloud security business is driven by four key growth drivers that we believe are sustainable. First, our product offering's full strength consistently draws security-conscious customers. Our cloud security offering leads with a large battery of AI-powered security algorithms designed to detect and block attacks without disrupting legitimate traffic flows. Customers highly value these unique capabilities, driving numerous new logos and expansion deals. Second, the ongoing expansion of our cloud security offering creates additional growth and upsell opportunities. During the Q1, we announced the expansion of our cloud application and network security services to include a new Radware Load Balancer as a Service and enhanced Cloud Network Analytics Service. These services assist organizations in optimizing application performance, ensuring availability, and maximizing network monitoring and visibility during peace time. They complement the value we provide, further strengthening our proposition to clients.
Third, the steady expansion of our geographical footprint creates new customer acquisition opportunities. During the Q1, we expanded our global cloud service network and launched a new DDoS scrubbing center in Paris. We plan to introduce additional locations later in the year. Fourth, a pivotal factor is the surge in application and network attacks, in particular Layer 7 web DDoS attacks, fueling customer demand for enhanced protection. This new wave of web DDoS attacks has been motivated by major geopolitical conflicts and hacktivists' activities. A trend set during Russia's invasion of Ukraine had led to an increased frequency and sophistication of web DDoS attacks. These attacks emerged last year and intensified in the previous quarter, with expectations for further escalation in frequency, complexity, and sophistication throughout 2024.
The growing demand for advanced real-time protection is evident in the success of our DefensePro X solution, which provides protection against Web DDoS and advanced DNS attacks. DefensePro X has performed very well and been highly competitive. The AI-powered offering is unmatched in its ability to automatically detect and surgically block Web DDoS attacks. This result is improved security and faster time to resolution, crucial for maintaining customer business continuity. The strength of this value proposition is evident in some of our Q1 wins. For example, we signed two major seven-digit DefensePro X deals, one with a Tier 1 carrier in North America that upgraded their DDoS protection. The other win was with a major European financial institution that experienced a large Layer 7 attack. The latter also replaced their incumbent cloud DDoS provider with our hybrid cloud DDoS solution for complete protection.
Our partnership with Cisco and Check Point was another contributor to our performance in the Q1. We kicked off 2024 with record Cisco bookings following a record year in 2023, while Check Point also demonstrated a strong start for the year. To protect our customers, we're constantly innovating our offering. With AI at the fingertips of attackers, threats are becoming not only increasingly complex and adaptive but also with reduced time to attack. In response, we're taking a Fight AI with AI approach to security. A good example for our Fight AI with AI strategy is the enhancements we introduced to our Bot Manager. The newest edition of our Bot Manager is designed to automatically mitigate a new generation of aggressive, AI-driven, and human-like bots without blocking legitimate users.
For our customers, this means better end-user experience and a reduction in costly business impacts like customer churn and lost revenues. Another example is the AI-powered Rule-Free DNS DDoS Protection solution. Using our patented algorithms, it automatically distinguishes between legitimate and attack traffic and instantly adapts DDoS defenses based on the specific attacker. According to our recent threat intelligence report, DNS flood attacks increased nearly 400% between 2022 and 2023. And these new algorithms will significantly shorten time to resolution when countering even the most sophisticated DNS attacks. Our offering continues to receive recognition by industry analysts. In Quadrant 2024's SPARK Matrix report for DDoS mitigation, Radware was named a leader for the fourth consecutive year. Radware was also named as an Other Leader, as well as Product, Innovation, and Market Leader in KuppingerCole's Leadership Compass report for web application firewalls.
In GigaOm's 2024 report for application and API security, Radware earned recognition as a fast mover and leader. In addition, we were the only vendor to earn GigaOm's top scores for AI-enhanced vulnerability detection and key bot management features. In one quarter, we were recognized as a leader in DDoS, in web application firewall, and in API security. This is another evidence for our best-of-suite approach. We provide customers with an integrated suite to protect application and data center attacks, while our capabilities in each of the core pillars of DDoS, WAF, API, and bot security lead the market when evaluated as a standalone capability. Our customers receive best-of-breed security alongside a fully integrated suite, hence best-of-suite. In summary, we began 2024 with a solid performance. We delivered sustained growth in cloud ARR, improved profitability, expanded market presence, and leveraged momentum with our OEMs.
These results were supported by improvements in the business environment, rebounding customer spending, and heightened cyberattacks. We believe Radware has the right offering to meet the market demand for best-in-class security and faster response and recovery times, and we intend to capitalize on that for ongoing growth and increased profitability. With that, I will turn the call over to Guy.
Guy Avidan (CFO)
Thank you, Roy, and good day, everyone. I'm pleased to provide the analysis of our financial results and business performance for the Q1 of 2024, as well as our outlook for the Q2 of 2024. Before beginning the financial overview, I would like to remind you that unless otherwise indicated, all financial results are non-GAAP. A full reconciliation of our results on a GAAP and non-GAAP basis is available in the earnings press release issued earlier today and on the investor section of our website. Revenue for the Q1 2024 was $65.1 million compared to $69 million in the same period of last year. Revenue was driven by cloud and subscription growth offset by product decline. As Roy highlighted, we are encouraged by the recovery sign we see in customer demand and engagement, even though customer spending is not completely back on track.
The cloud security business continued to demonstrate strength with 22% year-over-year growth in Cloud ARR, similar to last year, and reached $67 million in the Q1 of 2024. Cloud ARR now accounts for 32% of total ARR compared to 27% in Q1 2023. On a regional breakdown, revenue in the Americas in the Q1 of 2024 was $27.1 million, similar to the same period last year, and accounted for 42% of total revenue. On a 12-month basis, Americas revenue decreased 15% year-over-year. EMEA revenue in the Q1 2024 decreased 24% year-over-year to $22.7 million and accounted for 35% of total revenue. The decrease is mainly attributed to a large deal recognized in Q1 2023. On a 12-month basis, EMEA revenue decreased 15% year-over-year.
APAC revenue in the Q1 of 2024 was $15.3 million, which represents an increase of 25% year-over-year and accounted for 23% of total revenue. On a 12-month basis, APAC revenue increased 5% year-over-year. I'll now discuss profits and expenses. Gross margin in Q1 2024 was 82% compared to 82.3% in the same period in 2023. Operating expenses decreased 6% year-over-year and totaled $49 million, which is at the lower end of our guidance. Operating income reached $4.3 million compared to $4.4 million in the same period of last year, and with this level of OpEx, we believe that the company is positioned to better profitability in the coming quarters. As we highlighted a couple of quarters ago, we are committed to drive efficiency and keep our cost structure aligned with the level of the company's operations.
We are confident in our ability to continue to improve our profitability and adjust expenses as necessary. Radware's adjusted EBITDA for the Q1 was $6.2 million or $8.9 million excluding the Hawk business, compared to $6.5 million or $9.2 million excluding the Hawk business in the same period of last year. Financial income was $3.8 million in the Q1. This level of financial income is expected to continue throughout 2024. The tax rate for the Q1 of 2024 was 15.3% compared to 14.8% in the same period of last year. We expect the tax rate to remain approximately the same next quarter. Net income in the Q1 was $6.8 million as compared to $6.1 million in the same period last year. Diluted earnings per share for Q1 2024 was $0.16 compared to $0.14 in Q1 2023. Turning to the cash flow statement and the balance sheet.
Cash flow from operations in Q1 2024 was $21.1 million compared to a negative cash flow from operations of $1.2 million in the same period of last year. The improvement in cash flow from operations is derived from strong billing performance in the Q1 of 2024 and in Q4 2023 and higher net income. During the Q1, we repurchased shares in the amount of approximately $840,000. As of March 31, 2024, approximately $66 million remain in our share repurchase plan. We ended the Q1 with approximately $383 million in cash, cash equivalents, bank deposits, and marketable securities. I'll conclude my remarks with guidance. We expect total revenue for the Q2 of 2024 to be in the range of $65-$67 million. We expect Q2 2024 non-GAAP operating expenses to be between $49-$50 million.
We expect Q2 2024 non-GAAP diluted net earnings per share to be between $0.15 and $0.17, representing an increase of approximately 60% year-over-year at the midpoint guidance. I'll now return the call over to the operator for questions. Operator, please.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and cue for a question. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star 1 again. If you are called upon to ask a question and are listening via loudspeaker on your device, please pick up your handset and ensure that your phone is not on mute when asking the question. Again, press star 1 to join the cue. And your first question comes from the line of Alex Henderson of Needham. Your line is open.
Alex Henderson (Managing Director Security, Data Networking, and Optical Research)
Hey, guys. So I was hoping you could talk a little bit about the pipeline and kind of what the book-to-bill looked like in the quarter. Were you seeing? You made comments of encouraging trajectory. Is that evident in the pipeline and the book-to-bill numbers in the quarter?
Roy Zisapel (President and CEO)
Hi, Alex. So definitely, as Guy mentioned and I mentioned in our remarks, we do see better customer activity, better market conditions. We want to be conservative. We say it's not yet back to previous levels, but there's definitely an improvement, improvement in the tempo of the customers. We see deals that were parking in the pipe for a long time starting to move. So overall, we are encouraged by the booking, by the pipeline, and hence we are more optimistic for 2024.
Alex Henderson (Managing Director Security, Data Networking, and Optical Research)
If you could go into some of the deal mechanics. Did the close rates improve? Did the duration of contracts improve? Deal size improve? Deal process time? It sounds like that has improved. Just click off those key mechanics.
Roy Zisapel (President and CEO)
Yeah. So I think in 2023, we saw the large customer stalling, meaning the pipeline was there, but the deals were not advancing, not in the tempo we used to see. Starting in Q4, we already discussed that in our last conference call. We started the first signs of those opening up. It continued in Q1, and we have also expectations for the coming quarter. With that, we're seeing the attacks forcing many customers to take a faster and broader decision on their application security strategy. Here, we are very well positioned with our cloud application security, with the unique capabilities in Web DDoS, in the broad application protection. And in this market, we are seeing very fast cycles. So it's a combination of the large deals, I would say more architecture, CapEx deployments starting to move with continued strong growth in the cloud application security business.
Alex Henderson (Managing Director Security, Data Networking, and Optical Research)
Okay. And has closure rates on deals improved as well? So it sounds like deal size has improved and deal process times improved. What about closure rates and duration of the deal durations?
Roy Zisapel (President and CEO)
I think duration has shortened. I don't think closure rates have changed. As I said, last year, it was mainly stalled, so you did not lose nor win the deals. So it did not impact the rates. But now we are seeing faster deal cycles.
Alex Henderson (Managing Director Security, Data Networking, and Optical Research)
Could you talk a little bit about your traditional business and to what extent you can bring down the inventory? What's going on in the traditional ADC market, and what's going on in terms of your ability to bring the inventory down as a result of supply chain improvements?
Roy Zisapel (President and CEO)
Yeah. So we.
Guy Avidan (CFO)
Yeah. So I'll answer the inventory question. So we came to a peak level at the end of 2023. Reduced it a little bit in the Q1 2024, and we expect to continue to reduce inventory level. We talked about it last quarter, pushing defense products and new version for ADC put us in the place of transition in terms of end of support, end of sale in the future. So we got extra inventory just to be on the safe side, but levels will go down throughout 2024.
Alex Henderson (Managing Director Security, Data Networking, and Optical Research)
Will it go down towards the $10 million level by the end of the year, do you think? So net improvement of $5.5 million?
Guy Avidan (CFO)
Closer to 12.
Alex Henderson (Managing Director Security, Data Networking, and Optical Research)
Okay. That's great. Thanks. And so did you say you end-of-lifed a portion of your product line?
Roy Zisapel (President and CEO)
Yeah. It's a.
Guy Avidan (CFO)
So we.
Roy Zisapel (President and CEO)
Announced it's a common thing that when we refresh the platforms and we bring new generation of platforms, then the older line is usually.
Alex Henderson (Managing Director Security, Data Networking, and Optical Research)
Right. The older line. It's a new platform replacing the older line.
Roy Zisapel (President and CEO)
Correct.
Alex Henderson (Managing Director Security, Data Networking, and Optical Research)
Okay. Yep. I just wanted to make sure I understood what you were saying. Any comment on the Cisco or other partners?
Roy Zisapel (President and CEO)
Yeah. So as I said in my remarks, we had a record booking and revenues with Cisco in Q1. It's following a record deal in 2023. Also, Check Point is in a very strong level of performance currently. So all in all, we continue to enhance those relationships. We're putting more and more offerings on the Cisco enterprise agreements. We broadened also the Check Point agreement to the new line of defense products. So we were seeing good uptake by our OEM partners of the new offerings and overall better cooperation in the market. So both those relationships at this level are at a high level of execution.
Alex Henderson (Managing Director Security, Data Networking, and Optical Research)
Great. I'll cede the floor and get back in queue. Thanks.
Roy Zisapel (President and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of Chris Reimer of Barclays. Your line is open.
Chris Reimer (Analyst)
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for taking my questions and congratulations on the strong results. I was wondering if you could talk a little more about how you mentioned a lot about the fighting AI with AI. I was wondering if you could just give a little more color about how AI is changing the landscape and how products have to, in turn, repel that.
Roy Zisapel (President and CEO)
Okay. Thanks, Chris. So I think there are several aspects to that. The first aspect is that AI allows hackers to automate and scale their attack way more quickly. The second aspect is that it allows them to morph the attack, to change the attack during the attack time more quickly, meaning we are going to see we're seeing attacks that start in one way, and then if we're doing better mitigation, in five, 10 minutes, the attack is changing. That requires also the defense to adjust and change. This means that it's very hard with people and static rules and signatures, which is how the industry is working for the most part, to combat these attacks simply because they are changing quickly. So you need also on the defense side to be much more algorithmic-based, much more adaptive, automated in order to block the attacks.
The third aspect is what we call the time to attack. In the past, when there was a vulnerability, you need experts to take that vulnerability that was discovered and write code, write programs that would take advantage of that vulnerability and create the attack. With GenAI, that time and that expertise is becoming a non-issue. The time is shortened considerably, and you don't need to be an expert to do that. This is what we call time to attack. The time to attack is now going from months or days to minutes, which means, again, on the defense side, you need to be way more adaptive, way ahead of the game. In order to do that, we continue to enhance our algorithms. And I've given several examples of what we've done in Q1. There's another set of algorithms going in Q2.
This has been the core of our solutions, indeed, our WAF API over the years. This is why we are getting all those leadership statements by analysts. But it's becoming now a live or die junction for security solutions. And we believe we are very well positioned here. I mentioned the Web DDoS attacks. Those are an excellent example to how the attacks are morphing very quickly to the extent of every five, 10 minutes. It's an excellent example to the extent of the scale that hackers are able to attack today, mission-critical applications. And we are very strong in our ability with a completely automated algorithm set to mitigate those attacks within seconds, with no human intervention, and with no impact to our customer mission-critical applications.
If you look on many of our cloud app security wins in Q4, in Q1, especially as we move from competitors, whether it was an on-prem deployment of an ADC and OAuth or a different cloud security offering, those moves from them to us, this was a very, very strong contributor to that. So going forward, we believe those trends will actually accelerate. And as a result, on the defense side, we are ramping up our investments in AI, in bringing those algorithms to be part of our cloud application security and DDoS solution. And we believe that will translate to meaningful benefits for our customers.
Chris Reimer (Analyst)
Got it. Great. Thanks. That's really great color. Just also, if you could touch a little bit on the different characteristics you're seeing in some of the geographies, the Americas and EMEA. I know you also gave a number about a 12-month growth number. If you could just talk about what you're seeing for customers in the different geographies.
Roy Zisapel (President and CEO)
Yeah. So 2023 was a difficult year for us in the Americas and to some extent in EMEA. But we've seen that now coming back. So at this point, our view for both Americas and EMEA for 2024 is for growth. So we're feeling much better on the business. There's a lot more potential. We're clearly in the very beginning, I would say, of the cycle, but we are definitely seeing improvement in the business in those two markets.
Chris Reimer (Analyst)
Great. Thanks. That's it for me.
Roy Zisapel (President and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of George Notter of Jefferies. Your line is open.
George Notter (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Hi there. Thanks very much. I was just interested in your additional investments in scrubbing centers. I think you mentioned a Paris facility going in. I think it's been a while since you guys have added scrubbing centers. I'm just curious about what you're seeing in the marketplace that's pushing you to make the additional investment, and what do you see going forward in terms of new scrubbing centers that should turn up? Thanks.
Roy Zisapel (President and CEO)
Thanks, George. We do see geographical expansion as customers, especially in banking, government, wants local facilities for processing traffic. It's not so much from a global capacity ability to mitigate attacks. It's more from the localization, compliance, and these areas. We do have a very broad network today, 40 different areas that we operate in from. But at the same time, we do see these opportunities come up. We announced in recent quarters opening in New Zealand and in Taiwan and so on. We do see, especially with our MSSP, with our growing MSSP operation, the need to open additional data centers. We do plan throughout 2024 to open additional locations around the world. It's definitely one of the drivers for the growth we're seeing in our cloud security, and we want to leverage that.
George Notter (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Got it. I'm sorry. And the MSSP is your traditional security point of presence, correct?
Roy Zisapel (President and CEO)
The MSSP is the managed security service providers around the world that want to enhance their offering into DDoS and application security. Now, in the past, they were buying equipment from us or from our competitors and trying to stand up such a service. We're seeing more and more around the world. I refer to our announcement about Spark in New Zealand, for example, or around Viettel in Vietnam, Airtel in the past, and so on. They want to utilize today our cloud solutions because it brings them a global network, a state-of-the-art solution with portal, analytics, AI algorithms in the backend, and it really allows them to capture more market share. As we do that with them, there are certain markets for example, I gave the example of Vietnam or of New Zealand that we are opening additional centers to serve those local partners.
For us, it's a great business opportunity as we are enjoying their power to the market, and we've seen good outcomes with that. We're planning to continue.
George Notter (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Got it. Okay. That's very helpful. And then just broader question, what are you seeing competitively in the marketplace? Folks like Akamai or Cloudflare or F5, what's the picture? Thanks.
Roy Zisapel (President and CEO)
Yeah. So in our cloud security, it's really competing with Akamai and Cloudflare. And we feel very good about our competitive positioning as it relates to the products. You see all the feedback from the analysts, very strong, large customer activity. But we also see the opportunity. The opportunity is very large. I think we are a very strong alternative, especially for the security-conscious buyers, those that put security on top. That's where we are excelling. And the market opportunity is huge, and we actually like our competitive position there. In the more traditional business of ADC, on-prem appliances, definitely, we continue to see F5 and Arbor there. I would not say there are much changes to the competitive landscape there. Again, in DDoS, with DefensePro X, we believe we have the best mitigator in the market.
As we said in Q4 and now in Q1, we started to see the large customers doing those refreshes towards the DefensePro X, and we are quite satisfied with the level of activity. That's one of the reasons for beyond the cloud security for our optimism of 2024.
George Notter (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Great. Thank you very much.
Roy Zisapel (President and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
We have a follow-up question from the line of Alex Henderson of Needham. Your line is open.
Alex Henderson (Managing Director Security, Data Networking, and Optical Research)
Great. Thanks so much. Clearly, AI is getting a lot of attention. There seems to be an increase in the amount of spend going into it at most enterprises. Has there been an impact on their decision process as a result of the challenges that they have around the mechanics of the security and the mechanics of the AI deployment? I mean, if you think about last year, most of the concern was, "Gee, I don't know about this economy." But now it seems like there's a pretty big budget, but there's hesitation resulting from, "I know I want to spend, but I'm not exactly sure how to get my AI deployed or how to secure it." And so I guess the question is, are you seeing that, and when do you think that that might loosen up? Is it going to be a bigger back half because of it?
How does the AI applications drive your offerings?
Roy Zisapel (President and CEO)
Yeah. So thanks, Alex. So I think there's some discussions about it, but it's very early on. The large enterprises are just starting their journey. And obviously, AI applications will need security, especially giving all the models and teaching the models and ensuring the data is correct and right and the criticality of that data and information. But it's very early on. I don't see that yet as a driver behind our cloud application security growth. Having said that, once they are deploying that, we have a very strong platform end-to-end that encompasses DDoS, web application firewall, API security, which is going to be very important with AI applications, bot security, which again is going to be very important with AI applications. And that platform is getting stronger and stronger.
Whether it's a mission-critical application or it's going to be an AI-backed application, I think we are very well positioned. I don't think that wave has started. Also in our analysis and forecast for 2024, we are not building or counting on that to start. We think what we have with the current attack landscape, the customer need for better application security, our offering, that can drive sustained growth in that area.
Alex Henderson (Managing Director Security, Data Networking, and Optical Research)
Over the last two to three years, you guys have signed a slew. I kind of lost count at over 20 partners on regional basis across the globe. It does sound like some of that stalled because of the macro conditions and the supply chain issues. Are all of those partnerships and distribution expansion that you announced over those years coming back now? Is that finally showing some traction and signs of life?
Roy Zisapel (President and CEO)
Yes. So like you said, some have stalled, and I would not say they are contributing, but some are definitely increasing the contribution and increasing their participation. We do see some of those partners scaling their ARR with us and their new logo wins. So that's definitely helping our cloud application security. We see a mix of partners, carriers, MSSPs, regular VARs playing in that area. And we definitely are enjoying some of the growth in our cloud ARR. This consistent 20%+ in the last couple of years is driven by those partnerships. We do plan to enhance that. If you look in our announcements around our MSSP programs and so on, it's definitely targeting those partnerships.
Alex Henderson (Managing Director Security, Data Networking, and Optical Research)
Makes sense. Congratulations. One more question. The Noname acquisition that Akamai just announced brings up the question about the API players that are in the private market. Are you seeing Nonames in the Salt? And does that acquisition change the dynamics at all in competing with Akamai, do you think?
Roy Zisapel (President and CEO)
Yeah. So I think it's another proof point to the fact that you really need DDoS, WAF, API, and bot security in your cloud application security program and the importance and the value that the players are putting into that. Definitely, we're seeing still a whole set of private companies in API security, but I believe that the winning solution will be an integrated platform for application security. And that's what we are working on and continue to develop. As I've mentioned, we just won leadership by GigaOm in API security. We feel very good there. I think based on our integrated platform and the algorithms we've put in place, we are positioned well. But I think those are good signs for investors, for the value and the potential that different market players are seeing in API security.
Definitely another proof point to our strategy, and we are focused as well on building and scaling our API security.
Alex Henderson (Managing Director Security, Data Networking, and Optical Research)
Great. Look, congratulations on the quarter and the signs of life reacceleration. It's nice to see. It's been a cold winter.
Roy Zisapel (President and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of Tim Horan of Oppenheimer. Your line is open.
Tim Horan (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Thanks, guys. Some of your competitors are also bundling in networking in different forms and different forms of compute. Do you think that's the right kind of strategy, or what's the benefits of that or not? And is that making things more or kind of less competitive for what you're doing? And secondly, congratulations on the turnaround here. What's the key kind of one or two things that you think has really caused the turnaround? I know there's a lot going on, but how sustainable do you think it is? Thank you.
Roy Zisapel (President and CEO)
Yeah. So several points on the competitive landscape. There are offerings in the market that are bundling edge compute, networking, security, and so on. We are focused on the security side. So best-of-breed security, and as we've mentioned, this best-of-suite, so taking everything in application and data center security and really providing the best integrated suite for that. We think that's the right definition for our security-conscious buyers in the large enterprises. That's the right definition. We are not planning to go into edge compute. We have our partnerships with AWS, GCP, and others, and if needed, we can leverage that. But we are not going to step into that. We're going to put the complete focus on the security arena. We think it's critical. We think that's what drives the buying decisions in our large enterprise segment.
Regarding the improvement in the business, I think it comes from three areas. One, the continuous growth of cloud. The Cloud App Sec, the ARR, it's becoming a bigger and bigger portion as we continue to grow it. And that's impacting the business. It drives a lot of new customer logo wins and so on. So that's the first item. The second item that we've mentioned, we're starting to see the large CapEx deals and the movement in the large enterprises back to investment mode, especially with the DefensePro X. It's a combination of the attacks that they're seeing, all those Web DDoS attacks, DNS attacks. They do need better protection on one end. And second, the overall improvement. They stalled for quite some time. They need to move forward in capacity, in tools. So that is also assisting. And we believe we'll continue to contribute in 2024.
We like the pipeline and the progress we're seeing there. The third thing is that we've aligned our expenses better. That also, like Guy mentioned, drives improvement in profitability and efficiency. Those are the three major building blocks. We believe we will continue to grow in cloud. We believe the movement we're seeing in our overall security business in the large enterprises driven by the attack landscape should continue. As Guy mentioned, we are very prudent in managing the expenses to ensure there is the profitability leverage.
Tim Horan (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Very helpful. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference back over to Roy for the closing remarks.
Roy Zisapel (President and CEO)
Okay. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today, and have a great day.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. That concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.