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Akamai Technologies Inc

Exchange: NASDAQSector: TechnologyIndustry: Software - Infrastructure

Akamai is the cybersecurity and cloud computing company that powers and protects business online. Our market-leading security solutions, superior threat intelligence and global operations team provide defense in depth to safeguard enterprise data and applications everywhere. Akamai's full-stack cloud computing solutions deliver performance and affordability on the world's most distributed platform. Global enterprises trust Akamai to provide the industry-leading reliability, scale and expertise they need to grow their business with confidence.

Current Price

$143.55

+1.56%

GoodMoat Value

$102.03

28.9% overvalued
Profile
Valuation (TTM)
Market Cap$20.80B
P/E47.79
EV$20.95B
P/B4.18
Shares Out144.89M
P/Sales4.87
Revenue$4.27B
EV/EBITDA19.77

Akamai Technologies Inc (AKAM) — Q2 2015 Earnings Call Transcript

Apr 4, 202613 speakers7,324 words38 segments

AI Call Summary AI-generated

The 30-second take

Akamai had a solid quarter with revenue growing, but profits were slightly down. Management is spending a lot of money now to build more network capacity because they expect a huge surge in internet video traffic next year. They are also very excited about their fast-growing business that protects websites from cyberattacks.

Key numbers mentioned

  • Revenue $541 million
  • Cloud security solutions revenue $61 million
  • Free cash flow $168 million
  • Cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities roughly $1.5 billion
  • Negative impact of foreign exchange on Q3 revenue $20 million compared to Q3 of last year
  • Adjusted EBITDA margin 40%

What management is worried about

  • Foreign exchange fluctuations are expected to continue to weigh on growth rates.
  • There is a possibility that over-the-top video offerings could be delayed or see less user uptake than hoped for.
  • The company anticipates a moderation in media growth rates for Q3 due to lower expected traffic volumes.
  • Increased investment in network capacity is pressuring profit margins in the near term.
  • The competitive environment, especially in media, remains intense with pricing that steadily declines.

What management is excited about

  • Cloud security offerings grew 44% year-over-year on a constant currency basis.
  • The potential for over-the-top (OTT) video services to create an order of magnitude more internet traffic is a major future opportunity.
  • New security products for enterprises, like tools to fight phishing and data theft, represent a large potential market.
  • Strategic partnerships with carriers, like the new one with Telecom Italia, expand their market reach.
  • Technology from the Octoshape acquisition is being integrated to create next-generation, lower-cost, higher-quality video delivery solutions.

Analyst questions that hit hardest

  1. Gray Powell (Wells Fargo) - EBITDA margin components: Management gave a long answer about network investments pressuring margins and stated they would continue to invest across the business while trying to manage within a target range.
  2. Sterling Auty - Q3 media growth and Q4 seasonality: The CFO was evasive about Q4, refusing to give guidance and emphasizing the unpredictability of traffic volumes and holiday season factors.
  3. Michael Turits - EBITDA margin caution and acquisition impact: The response was defensive, reiterating that significant network investments were the right business decision even if they affect margins, and that they wouldn't hold back on necessary spending.

The quote that matters

We are taking risks... because there's always a chance that the offerings will be delayed or there won't be as much uptake... but we're willing to take that risk.

Frank Thomson Leighton — Chief Executive Officer & Director

Sentiment vs. last quarter

Omitted as no previous quarter context was provided.

Original transcript

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Q2 2015 Akamai Technologies Inc. earnings conference call. My name is Steven, and I will be your operator for today. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will conduct a question-and-answer session towards the end of this conference. As a reminder, this call is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Tom Barth, Head of Investor Relations. Please proceed.

O
TB
Tom BarthHead-Investor Relations

Thank you, Steven, and good afternoon, and thank you for joining Akamai's second quarter 2015 earnings conference call. Speaking today will be Tom Leighton, Akamai's Chief Executive Officer, and Jim Benson, Akamai's Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started, please note that today's comments include forward-looking statements, including statements regarding revenue and earnings guidance. These forward-looking statements are subject to risk and uncertainties and involve a number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Additional information concerning these factors is contained in Akamai's filings with the SEC, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. The forward-looking statements included in this call represent the company's view on July 28, 2015. Akamai disclaims any obligation to update these statements to reflect future events or circumstances. As a reminder, we'll be referring to some non-GAAP financial metrics during today's call. A detailed reconciliation of GAAP and non-GAAP metrics can be found under the financial portion of the Investor Relations section of our website. With that, let me turn the call over to Tom.

FL
Frank Thomson LeightonChief Executive Officer & Director

Thanks, Tom, and thank you for joining us today. Akamai delivered a solid second quarter, with strong revenue growth across all of our geographies and in all of our solution categories, with particularly strong growth coming from our cloud security offerings. Revenue in the second quarter was $541 million, up 14% year over year and up 18% when adjusted for foreign exchange headwinds. Non-GAAP EPS for the second quarter was $0.57 per diluted share, down 2% year over year but up 3% when adjusted for foreign exchange headwinds. I'll be back in a few minutes to talk more about the progress that we made during the second quarter and the opportunities that lie ahead. But first, let me turn the call over to Jim for our detailed financial results and the outlook for Q3. Jim?

JB
James BensonChief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President

Thank you, Tom, and good afternoon, everyone. As Tom just highlighted, Akamai performed well in the second quarter. Q2 revenue came in slightly above the midpoint of our guidance range at $541 million, up 14% year over year or up 18% if you adjust for foreign exchange headwinds, with strong and balanced growth across the entire business. Media revenue was $244 million in the quarter, up 12% year over year or up 17% on a constant currency basis. These growth rates are particularly strong when you consider our very strong Q2 of 2014, which benefited from several large gaming releases and the World Cup matches. As I've mentioned on past earnings calls, where we land in our revenue guidance range is heavily influenced by media traffic, and Q2 traffic came in at the midpoint of our expectations. Turning now to our Performance and Security Solutions, revenue was $256 million in the quarter, up 15% year over year or up 19% on a constant currency basis. Within the solution category, we saw solid growth across most of the product lines. And as Tom mentioned, we continued to see strong growth in demand for our cloud security offerings. Second quarter revenue for our cloud security solutions was $61 million, up 39% year over year or up 44% on a constant currency basis. We are pleased with our continued growth and market recognition of our unique and differentiated cloud security capabilities. We have grown our security business from just a few million dollars in 2011 to over $210 million over the past 12 months. Finally, revenue from our Services and Support Solutions was $41 million in the quarter, up 14% year over year or up 18% on a constant currency basis. We continued to see improvements in new customer attachment rates for our higher-end enterprise-class professional services as well as service offering upgrades into the installed base. Turning now to our geographies, revenue growth continued to be solid across all of our major geographies. Sales in our international markets represented 26% of total revenue in Q2, consistent with the prior quarter. International revenue was $142 million in the quarter, up 7% year over year or up 22% on a constant currency basis. The stronger dollar continued to weigh on growth rates and had a negative impact on revenue of $21 million on a year-over-year basis and $1 million on a sequential basis. On a constant currency basis, we saw solid growth in both our Asia-Pacific and EMEA markets. Revenue from our U.S. market was $399 million, up 16% year over year, with solid growth across all solution categories. And finally, revenue through channel partners represented 27% of total revenue in Q2, up one point sequentially. Moving on to costs, cash gross margin was 77%, down one point from the prior quarter and the same period last year and coming in at the lower end of our guidance range, given both the revenue results and the increased investment in network expansion in the quarter. GAAP gross margin, which includes both depreciation and stock-based compensation, was 67%, down one point from the prior quarter and down two points from the same period last year and in line with our guidance. GAAP operating expenses were $255 million in the second quarter. These GAAP results include depreciation, amortization of intangible assets, stock-based compensation, acquisition-related charges, and other non-recurring items. Excluding these charges, non-GAAP cash operating expenses were $204 million, at the upper end of our guidance and up $15 million from the prior quarter as we absorbed a full quarter of the Octoshape and Xerocole acquisitions and continue to make head count and infrastructure investments across the business, with the goal of driving both growth and scale. Adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter was $214 million, down $9 million from Q1 levels and down $10 million from the same period last year. Our adjusted EBITDA margin came in at 40%, down two points from Q1 levels and down three points from the same period last year and coming in at the low end of our guidance range given our revenue and gross margin configuration. GAAP depreciation and amortization expenses were $74 million in the second quarter. These GAAP results include depreciation associated with stock-based compensation, amortization of intangible assets, and amortization of capitalized interest expense. Excluding these charges, non-GAAP depreciation was $64 million, up $3 million from Q1 levels and in line with guidance. Non-GAAP operating income for the second quarter was $150 million, down $12 million from Q1 and down $5 million from the same period last year. Non-GAAP operating margin came in at 28%, down three points from Q1 levels and down five points from the same period last year and in line with our guidance. Moving on to the other income and expense items, interest income for the second quarter was roughly $3 million, down slightly from Q1 levels. Non-cash interest expense related to our convertible debt was roughly $5 million, also consistent with Q1 levels. As a reminder, this non-cash expense is excluded from our non-GAAP results. Moving on to earnings, GAAP net income for the second quarter was $67 million or $0.37 of earnings per diluted share. Non-GAAP net income was $102 million or $0.57 of earnings per diluted share and coming in at the midpoint of our guidance range. For the quarter, total taxes included in our GAAP earnings were $35 million based on an effective tax rate of 34.5%. Taxes included in our non-GAAP earnings were $49 million, based on an effective tax rate of 32.5%, slightly lower than our guidance due to a revised full-year 2015 tax rate projection that reflects a higher mix of foreign earnings. Finally, our weighted average diluted share count for the second quarter was 181 million shares, consistent with Q1 levels and in line with our guidance. Now I'll review some balance sheet items. Days sales outstanding for the second quarter was 59 days, consistent with Q1 levels and down one day from the same period last year. Capital expenditures in Q2, excluding equity compensation and capitalized interest expense, were $107 million, slightly below the low end of our guidance for the quarter, primarily due to some planned network capacity investments shifting into Q3. As a reminder, this CapEx number includes capitalized software development activities. Cash flow generation was strong in the second quarter, with free cash flow of $168 million or 31% of revenue. During the quarter, we spent $63 million on share repurchases, buying just over 850,000 shares at an average price of $74. At the end of Q2, we had $308 million remaining on our current share repurchase authorization. Our balance sheet also remains very strong, with roughly $1.5 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities on hand at the end of the quarter. If you factor in our convertible debt, our net cash is approximately $835 million. As we've discussed in the past, we believe the strength of our balance sheet and cash position is an important competitive differentiator that provides us the financial flexibility to make key investments at opportune times. As always, our overall goal is to deploy our capital in a manner we believe is in the best long-term interest of the company and our shareholders. In summary, we executed well and in line with our expectations in Q2. We delivered solid revenue growth and made the investments in the business that we believe are necessary to build a foundation for sustained long-term growth and scale. Looking ahead to the third quarter, we expect continued foreign exchange headwinds to weigh on growth rates. At current spot rates, foreign exchange fluctuations are expected to have a negative impact on Q3 revenue of about $2 million compared to Q2, and $20 million compared to Q3 of last year. In addition to currency headwinds, we anticipate a moderation in media growth rates for Q3. As we have discussed in the past, traffic volumes can vary from one quarter to the next given the size and timing of software releases as well as the adoption of social media and video platform capabilities. And as you will recall, our very strong Q3 results last year were driven by unseasonably strong traffic and revenue growth, with our largest and most strategic social media, gaming, and software download customers in particular. We are not expecting that same level of traffic volume uptick in this Q3, and anticipate traffic patterns consistent with what we've seen seasonally during the mid-summer months, specifically lower traffic volumes as people spend less time on the Internet. And while we expect a moderation in media growth rates this quarter, we remain bullish on the longer-term secular trends for this business going forward. Factoring in both of these items, we are expecting Q3 revenue in the range of $543 million to $555 million. This range represents 13% to 15% growth adjusted for foreign exchange movements over an exceptionally strong Q3 of last year. At these revenue levels, we expect cash gross margins of 77% to 78% and GAAP gross margins of approximately 67%. Q3 non-GAAP operating expenses are projected to be $205 million to $210 million, up slightly from Q2 levels. Factoring in the various items I just mentioned, we anticipate Q3 EBITDA margins of 40%. And as I have been messaging, looking beyond Q3, we expect to operate the company in the 40% to 41% EBITDA range for the foreseeable future. However, to be transparent, EBITDA margins will be heavily dependent on several factors, including revenue volumes, possible M&A, spending on platform capacity in anticipation of greater demand for our over-the-top video delivery services, and foreign exchange movements. Moving on to depreciation, we expect non-GAAP depreciation expense to be $66 million to $67 million, up from Q2 levels, driven by our first half and planned Q3 network build-outs and the completion of several large software projects. Factoring in this depreciation guidance, we expect non-GAAP operating margin of 27% to 28% in Q3. And with the overall revenue expense configuration I just outlined, we expect Q3 non-GAAP EPS in the range of $0.56 to $0.58. This EPS guidance assumes taxes of $49 million to $51 million based on an estimated quarterly non-GAAP tax rate of roughly 33%. This guidance also reflects a fully diluted share count of approximately 180 million shares. On CapEx, we expect to spend approximately $95 million to $105 million in the quarter, excluding equity compensation. The elevated levels of CapEx this year are driven by our desire to increase our capacity to stay ahead of anticipated traffic growth on the network. For the full year, we are expecting to be slightly above the high end of our long-term model for CapEx as a percent of revenue. Because the revenue benefit from our network build-outs tends to trail the investment, our margins are expected to be slightly pressured in the near term, but we believe it is the right business decision to build out now to ensure that capacity is available to support the potential for significant growth in online video traffic in 2016 and beyond. In closing, we delivered another solid quarter and first half of 2015, and we remain confident in our ability to execute on our plans for the long term. Now let me turn the call back over to Tom.

FL
Frank Thomson LeightonChief Executive Officer & Director

Thanks, Jim. It's great to see Akamai building on our strong start to the year, and I'm very optimistic about the opportunities that lie ahead. We believe that our solid financial performance is evidence of the sound fundamentals in our business strategy and the pivotal role that we play in the growth of the Internet. We continue to provide unique value by focusing on solving four grand challenges for our customers: delivering video over the Internet with unsurpassed quality, scale, and affordability; providing near-instant performance for websites and apps on any device anywhere; protecting websites and data centers from cyberattacks that aim to disrupt their online operations, corrupt their data, or steal sensitive information; and scaling enterprise networks to handle new cloud workloads with high performance and low cost. End users today expect to be able to consume any content anywhere, anytime, on any device, and they expect their online experience to be fast, reliable, and secure. If they're watching a video, then the picture needs to have high resolution and never rebuffer. In response, the world's major broadcasters and Internet companies are working to create over-the-top, or OTT, services and packages for popular video content. This has the potential to create an enormous amount of traffic on the Internet. Typical subscribers watching OTT video delivered across the Akamai platform could consume 10 megabits per second or more of traffic while they're watching. This means that an audience size of only 5 million users, which is the equivalent of about four Nielsen points, could generate 50 terabits per second of demand, far more than we deliver today for all of our customers combined. And if OTT becomes commonplace, the demand could increase by an order of magnitude or more. This is why we are investing in growing the capacity of our platform and why we are working on new technologies to decrease the cost of delivering large volumes of video. But making OTT successful involves a lot more than just capacity and scale. The quality of the viewing experience is also critically important. Delivering broadcast quality video over the Internet at scale is a lot harder than most people realize, especially considering the diversity of video formats, devices, operating systems, browsers, video players, DRM and ad insertion technologies, encoders, and carrier equipment in the ecosystem. And that's just for the landline Internet. The problem is even harder when you try to deliver high-quality video over cellular networks. That's because cellular networks were originally built for voice, and voice uses about 1,000 times less capacity than video. Akamai's video delivery solutions are designed to manage all the challenges of delivering OTT content for the world's leading broadcasters, content providers, and major Internet companies. Our unique approach of streaming content through servers in thousands of locations close to end users allows us to bypass congested peering points, resulting in a more reliable viewing experience for end users. Our superior communication and video transport protocols are designed to enable a higher-quality picture, which is increasingly demanded by users and broadcasters alike. And our highly talented media R&D team is constantly working to ensure that our platform has the scale, quality, and affordability needed for OTT to become widely adopted. We also believe that we are making good progress with integrating Octoshape's streaming optimization technology into our next generation of video delivery solutions, and we are confident that our combined capabilities and scale will differentiate Akamai from our many competitors and do-it-yourself efforts. Akamai's unique global scale is achieved by partnering with the world's leading carriers. Just last week, we were very pleased to announce our new strategic partnership with Telecom Italia. As a result of this partnership, Telecom Italia will now be offering Akamai's full suite of services within the Italian market, including video delivery, web acceleration, and security. Overall, Akamai has more than 1,400 network partners, and we have about 190,000 servers in thousands of locations across 111 countries. Of course, the scale of our globally distributed platform offers significant advantages over the competition and do-it-yourself efforts when it comes to delivering large volumes of content quickly and reliably. It also provides significant advantages in defending websites against cyberattacks. In the past year alone, the number of DDoS attacks mitigated by Akamai has increased by more than 130%. Today, we are defending many of the world's leading brands against attacks that typically flood their sites with many tens of gigabits per second of malicious traffic, and the largest attacks now contain several hundred gigabits per second of traffic. These volumes are more than enough to overwhelm traditional security defenses in most any enterprise, and that is why so many enterprises are turning to Akamai for their web security needs. Our flagship security solutions, Kona Site Defender and Prolexic, are differentiated by their scale, their sophistication, and their ability to sustain performance in the face of such large-scale attacks. Over the past three years, we have grown our quarterly security revenue from $4 million when we first launched Kona Site Defender to $61 million in Q2. We were particularly pleased to see our security business grow 44% over Q2 of last year, the first quarter that included the full benefit of the Prolexic acquisition. As a result, Akamai is now one of the few cloud-based security companies with an annual revenue run rate of more than $200 million. Our growth has not gone unnoticed in the marketplace, and our security services are now being recognized by the leading independent research firms. In the last month, both Forrester and Gartner published research reports on the cybersecurity landscape that included Akamai. Forrester identified Akamai as a leader among DDoS service providers and scored Akamai as the top company in the strategy and market presence categories. Gartner recognized Akamai's unique WAF-as-a-cloud service solution, positioning us as one of the few companies to improve our standing in their Magic Quadrant. Furthermore, Gartner projected that by 2020, over 60% of web applications will utilize a cloud-delivered WAF, an increase from less than 15% today, indicating a significant opportunity for Akamai's security business. Given the critical nature of cybersecurity for our clients, we are committed to investing in the creation of new and advanced security solutions. In May, we introduced our inaugural Client Reputation service. Utilizing behavioral analytics and the extensive amount of web traffic processed by Akamai daily, this new service identifies IP addresses that have attacked or misused customer websites. Customers can take action to alert or block these malicious users based on a risk score compiled from their previous actions. Client Reputation enhances the protection offered by Kona Site Defender by preventing access from users who have targeted any Akamai customer in the last 45 days. Initial customer reaction to this new service has been very positive, with numerous customers purchasing the service in Q2. We are also developing a suite of enterprise security solutions to detect and prevent phishing, malware, and data exfiltration attacks against enterprises. We expect the advanced recursive DNS technology that we acquired with Xerocole in February to play a significant role in these offerings, which we anticipate introducing into the market in 2016. In summary, Akamai is off to a very solid start in the first half of 2015, and I'm very excited about the opportunities for growth that lie ahead. Thank you for your time today. Now Jim and I will take your questions.

Operator

Stand by for your first question, which comes from the line of Gray Powell from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

O
GP
Gray W. PowellAnalyst

Hi, thanks for putting me up early in the lineup. I appreciate it. So maybe to start, what is your view on the rate and pace of over-the-top offerings? Do you see a point in time over the next six to 12 months when it has more of a direct or potentially accelerated impact on your business?

FL
Frank Thomson LeightonChief Executive Officer & Director

It's really hard to predict the rate of adoption and when new OTT services will become available. But we are in conversations with the country's leading broadcasters, in fact, several global broadcasters and major Internet companies, and there's a lot of buzz out there and a lot of interest in bringing major video content online over-the-top. And that's already starting to have an impact on our financials in the sense that we're buying more CapEx, and you see us be a little bit above our long-term plan in CapEx this year. And as we put that CapEx into co-location and get it connected with bandwidth, there's some cost there. And we want to be in the position of being prepared. There is the possibility that it could have a significant impact on our financials next year. We are taking risks in doing this because there's always a chance that the offerings will be delayed or there won't be as much uptake among the users and subscribers as people are hoping for, but we're willing to take that risk. The downside there is that if we just deploy the CapEx a little early, we'll be using it within a year anyway, but we really want to be ready if OTT takes off as a lot of people think it might.

GP
Gray W. PowellAnalyst

Got it, and then just one more on the cost side, if I may. So I understand that the EBITDA margin target remains in the 40% to 41% range. Can you help us think through the components there? I think that your new sales reps, that continues to grow at the same pace that you've seen over the last couple of years. Productivity should scale. I would assume the Prolexic margin should be improving. Can you just help us think through some of these incremental investments in the line items to keep margins at current levels? Thanks.

JB
James BensonChief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President

I'll take that. So as you can imagine, with the network CapEx build-outs that Tom referenced, that's going to pressure margins in the near term, in particular gross margins, but obviously that affects EBITDA as well. We think it's the right business decision, so you can expect that – last year, I think we ended at 79% gross margin in Q4. Obviously, we were at 77% in Q2. We will probably be in the 77% to 78% range for the foreseeable future. But we still plan to manage the company at the 40% to 41% level, which tells you we are going to continue to make investments in the business, across the business. We're going to continue to make investments in all the areas that we have been talking about. We'll continue to make investments in R&D. We'll continue to make investments in platform capacity. We'll continue to make investments in go-to-market. But we'll obviously be mindful of those investments and managing these investments within the context of the fact that we're doing pretty substantial build-outs now on the network side. So we are certainly mindful of that, but you can expect that we'll continue to make investments. And as I mentioned, for the foreseeable future, we expect to be in the 40% to 41% EBITDA range, but that does depend upon the things that I mentioned. It depends upon what happens with revenue volumes. It depends upon if there's an M&A that we think is opportunistic and the right decision for the company that may be altered. But we're telling you what we see right now. And if we execute the plan that we currently have, I think that we can operate in those levels.

GP
Gray W. PowellAnalyst

Understood, okay. Thank you very much.

SA
Sterling AutyAnalyst

Thanks, guys, one question and one follow-up. First on the OTT opportunity, I wasn't quite clear. Is this an expectation of closing incremental new customers to drive that growth or is it that you expect your existing customers to drive additional volume, or is it a combination?

FL
Frank Thomson LeightonChief Executive Officer & Director

I think the majority of it would be a substantial increase from existing customers. Today we already service pretty much all the major broadcasters. And as they bring content over-the-top, that would be traffic that would make sense to put on the Akamai platform. And in some cases, you have the big Internet companies out there maybe offering bundles and packages, and pretty much they are already Akamai customers. It would be a new service for them potentially, but most of the major media brands already use Akamai. So I think less of new customers, more of new service and substantially increased traffic from our existing customer base.

SA
Sterling AutyAnalyst

Okay, and then the one follow-up. If I heard you correctly in your prepared remarks, it sounds like the guidance here on revenue for the September quarter incorporates not only the tough compare but maybe some moving around of timing of major software releases, etc. Can you help clarify in terms of – while you're not guiding for December, how should we think about the seasonal sequential growth in the back half of this year versus what you've seen in previous years?

JB
James BensonChief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President

I'll take that. I'm certainly not going to guide for Q4. But to give you little more color on Q3, as you mentioned, and you've followed the company for a while, we had a very, very strong media quarter last Q3. The media business last Q3 grew 7% from Q2 to Q3. It's never grown at those rates. Admittedly, we've told you that traffic volumes vary from quarter to quarter. Sometimes you get big gaming releases. Sometimes you get big software updates. Sometimes there's an introduction of new capabilities on social media platforms. And so that really affects traffic volumes. And so certainly for Q3, we're not expecting those same level of volumes that we saw last year. It's probably less the timing of a big software release because I don't think that it's necessarily just the timing of the releases; it's also the size of those releases. And so there's a bunch of factors that we've outlined in our Q3 guidance. I really would hesitate to give you Q4 guidance because a lot of things can happen in Q4 because of the holiday season.

SA
Sterling AutyAnalyst

Okay, thank you.

SM
Steven M. MilunovichAnalyst

Thank you. Could you go a bit deeper into the year-over-year decline in gross margin? How much of that comes from incremental depreciation associated with CapEx? Are there other factors? What are you seeing in pricing and so forth?

JB
James BensonChief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President

Yes, so year-over-year GAAP gross margins were down two points. Cash gross margins were down I think about a point. Certainly a point of that is depreciation. And as we mentioned, we've been doing some pretty substantive build-out of the network, so you can account for half of that. And as you can imagine, we've been doing very large build-outs in the first half. And so as you deploy CapEx onto the network, you end up having a fair amount of incremental cost to actually get that CapEx deployed on the network. There are network build-out costs. There are resources that need to go provide installation of our CapEx into the various networks, and so we did see an uptick in that. And that's what lowered gross margins down a point on a cash basis, down two points on a GAAP basis. As you saw for the guide for Q3, we think we're probably going to hover around those levels. They're not going to worsen. If anything, they're going to be flat to up a point is what I guided. So that's where I see things in the near term, that we're probably going to operate in the 77% to 78% cash margin range and probably in the 67% range for GAAP gross margins for the next few quarters.

SM
Steven M. MilunovichAnalyst

Regarding timing of software releases and so forth, I know you probably don't want to comment too specifically. But there's talk that the Windows 10 launch could "break the Internet," and one assumes that you're among those CDNs being involved in that. Is that taken into account in your third quarter guidance?

JB
James BensonChief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President

I'm not going to specifically comment on the Windows 10 release or any particular customer, but you can expect that we have a very close relationship with all of our large software download customers, and we have factored into our guidance an expectation from all of them. As you can imagine, with any release, the rate and pace of adoption of those releases varies. So it's not just the timing as far as when the release is provided, but it's the adoption of that release from the customers. And just to comment on Windows in particular, I think that's anyone's guess relative to – I would say enterprises are probably going to be much slower to introduce a Windows 10 release. I would say consumers, it's really a wildcard. But you can expect that we've included in our guidance an expectation of all software updates accordingly.

WP
William V. PowerAnalyst

Good afternoon, thanks. I guess two questions, if I may. I guess first, just maybe coming back to the media business, I wonder if you could just address what you're seeing from a competitive standpoint, both pricing and any potential lost share as you think about the traffic trends. I'll start with that.

FL
Frank Thomson LeightonChief Executive Officer & Director

I think it's like it's always been. We've got a lot of competitors. The very biggest media companies will have a do-it-yourself effort in-house. Pricing is always important, very competitive there. The only major change has been over the last few years we've developed much closer and better relationships with many of the world's leading carriers, some of whom had large competitive or do-it-yourself efforts in the past and now have abandoned those efforts and decided to partner with Akamai. So that's been one, I think, change over the last few years, and that's been a favorable change. Akamai tends to have very strong share, and I think that's because of our quality, our scale, reliability, and affordability.

WP
William V. PowerAnalyst

Okay. And then, Tom, you had alluded to in your prepared remarks some new Internet security offerings you're working on that I think you thought you might introduce sometime in 2016. I wonder if you could help frame for us either, A), how big those might be for you in 2016 and beyond, and just how you think about the size of those markets that you're going to start addressing beyond what you're perhaps addressing today?

FL
Frank Thomson LeightonChief Executive Officer & Director

Today our security business is on the Internet, and it doesn't extend inside the enterprise. And as we look to the future, as enterprises move more into the cloud, they're moving out into the Internet. And I think it's important for us to move into the enterprise networks with our security capabilities, and that's what we're developing today. I think it's pretty speculative, but it could be a very large market for us. As you know, phishing attacks are rampant. You have data exfiltration happening, almost daily headlines of massive exfiltration attacks being publicized, and these are areas where I think we can help. And I think it potentially is a very large market for the industry as a whole, having cloud-based offerings that help defend enterprises against those attacks. And I think it could be a large area for Akamai several years into the future. Obviously, we're in development now. If we bring a product to market next year, you wouldn't expect revenue instantly. But as we look towards the end of the decade, we think that could be a large source of revenue for us, which of course is why we're making substantial investments there today.

MO
Michael J. OlsonAnalyst

Good afternoon. As far as international, are there any particular areas that you're focused on building out your sales head count, or would it be just the most obvious markets that would follow the U.S., like Western Europe? And I guess is there any risk that you're at all late to the game in any of those markets? In other words, are there incumbent competitors that have begun to dominate some of those international markets that will create a hurdle for growth? Thanks.

JB
James BensonChief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President

We've been making, our sales force investments have been pretty much in all of our markets. I would say that we're already in a lot of call it the mature markets in Europe and the mature markets in Asia, so we're just fortifying our investments in those markets. But I wouldn't characterize it as I think that there's someone incumbent that's already been there and the opportunity is lessened. We certainly have competitors in every region. In some regions there are local regional competitors, but we wouldn't be making the investments outside of the U.S. like we have if we didn't think the market was there. We think that we're significantly underpenetrated in those markets, and we think there's significant room for growth there.

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Timothy K. HoranAnalyst

Thanks, Tom. Sorry to harp on this, but I think you said pricing is very competitive, and our research indicates that a lot of your competitors seem to be – you've had a few new competitors lately, and they seem to be putting a lot more investment into CDN. Has pricing gotten a little bit worse, do you think, or is it stable? I know in the past you said it's relatively stable. And then also, Tom, can you just talk a little bit about your multicast video capabilities with Octoshape and maybe how that works, how unique is it, and what the demand looks like for it? Thanks.

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Frank Thomson LeightonChief Executive Officer & Director

I would say that the competitive environment is pretty steady, which means with media in particular and CDN, pricing steadily drops per bit delivered or per byte delivered. And it's always been that way and I expect it always will. And in fact, we're working hard in development, and this leads into the Octoshape acquisition and their multicast and their client-assisted delivery capabilities in bringing technologies to market that have an even lower cost basis in addition to having much higher quality at the same time. So I would say that pricing is – the decline in pricing is pretty stable. The level of competition is pretty stable. Traffic rises at a pretty fast clip, and pricing drops at a pretty steady clip. And then you take the product of those, and that's been leading to our revenue growth in media, which can have small fluctuations up or down in any given quarter, but generally has been a strong grower for Akamai. Octoshape has some really strong technology, first when it comes to ingress of live video where it comes from a single point, and that means you have a single point of failure. And so you really want to be sure that you get that live video stream at high quality, at high throughput, and there are no interruptions. And they have some very good communication protocols for that and some very good technology there. They also have some excellent client-side technology, which is used in the video players for both watching events on the Internet and also watching events inside an enterprise, and that technology allows you to do it at a lower cost point and also higher quality. They've been at this for a long time, and in our judgment have done some very special things that we are now integrating into the Akamai platform. Some are already benefiting us, and some will be part of our next-generation video solutions.

MT
Michael TuritsAnalyst

Hey, guys. Jim, the EBITDA margin if I did the math right still comes out even slightly below if you go out a decimal place to 40% to 41%. It sounds like that you have some caution on the EBITDA range going forward. So, A), in general, are you more cautious than you were on the EBITDA margin the next couple of quarters? And is there any impact from the two acquisitions that we should be backing out here?

JB
James BensonChief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President

Certainly, I mentioned that we did absorb the acquisitions in Q2, and so we have a full quarter impact in Q2. But in general for EBITDA, I would say my caution or my statements were more driven by making sure people have a consideration for what obviously is going to affect EBITDA; that we're making in particular some pretty significant investments in the network build-out which we believe are the right business decisions of the company. And while I believe we can operate the company in the 40% to 41% range, I also want to be mindful of the fact that we're not going to not make the appropriate investments in the business that we believe are the right business decisions for the company in the medium term and the long term.

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Michael TuritsAnalyst

Okay. And then, Tom, if you back out the security piece from Performance and Security, just to generalize here the DSA portion of the Performance, a piece of it seems to still be growing constant currency in the low to mid-teens. I think that you had your eye on trying to reaccelerate that. Any thoughts on that?

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Frank Thomson LeightonChief Executive Officer & Director

Yes, it's growing in the low to mid-teens. We'd like to see it grow faster, and we're putting a lot of development effort in terms of innovative capabilities around mobile acceleration. That's an area that's particularly challenged in terms of performance. And as you start to see the majority of use cases and transactions now moving to mobile, it becomes increasingly important to our customer base. You see the rapid adoption of mobile apps, and that's an area we're making investments in, and we would like to see that area grow faster.

JB
James BreenAnalyst

Thanks for taking the question, just a couple. One, from a regulatory standpoint, given some of the interconnect deals that have happened in the space, does that impact your traffic at all over the next couple quarters? And then with respect to over-the-top video, you guys have talked about having a long-term business model growing the high teens, 17% – 18% top line over the next five years.

JB
James BensonChief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President

I'll take that. I don't think the regulatory environment has anything to do with an expectation of our traffic growth rates whatsoever, so I'm not quite sure what you're referring to there. But I would say that we have certainly talked about a long-term model for the company is that we believe that we have an ambition to hit $5 billion by 2020. And if you do the math on that, it means you need to grow the company around 17% on a compound annual growth rate. And we have a pretty broad portfolio between media, web performance, security, and some of the new emerging areas with the carrier and also in cloud networking. We might not necessarily get the pieces right, but each of those areas are growing significantly that we believe the combination of them is more than enough from a market opportunity perspective to grow the company at 17%. If you look through the first several years of the decade, we've been able to do that. And our expectation is if we execute well that we're certainly not market opportunity constrained. This is about execution, and I think with the combination of offerings that we have that with good execution that I think that those aspirations still make sense.

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Vijay K. BhagavathAnalyst

Thanks, guys. Hi, Tom, Jim, two questions. The first is around your opportunity in the enterprise. And where I'm coming from is we do have reasonable color from you on the TV over-the-top and the security opportunities. But we lack insights on how would Akamai view the enterprise as a longer-term growth opportunity, first part of the question.

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Frank Thomson LeightonChief Executive Officer & Director

I think as a longer-term growth opportunity, it is very large for us. That's why we've been placing significant investments to develop products there. They're focused in two particular areas. The first is for enterprise networking to enable an enterprise to have greatly increased and improved connectivity into the branch offices, both using its WAN and also using the Internet, and also to be able to do that at a lower price point. Many enterprises today need 10X the capacity they've got into their branch office, maybe even more as enterprise employees need to access video, to access the web directly without having to go back through the WAN into the central data center. And as they increasingly rely on the Internet, they need it to perform really well to do their jobs effectively. The other area which we talked about a little bit before on the call is with enterprise security, and here there are two factors. One is the enterprise is a huge target today, people trying to steal confidential information, spread viruses, do very bad things, and we've all read the headlines of the consequences of some of those bad things. And the other aspect is that the enterprise is becoming more and more vulnerable because the employees are accessing the Internet more and more to do their jobs. And so as you access the Internet, you need to be able to secure the enterprise from attacks coming in through the Internet. This is an area where we've got great expertise and have enjoyed a lot of success with the Internet side of this with our Kona Site Defender, our web app firewall, stopping DDoS attacks. We want to bring that capability into the enterprise, to defend the enterprise employee and the enterprise infrastructure against attacks. So whereas our existing products like Kona Site Defender defend an application from bad things happening, now we'd like to defend the enterprise and the enterprise employees from bad things happening. And so those are the two areas we're focusing on for our enterprise products in the future. And I think the markets can be incredibly large there, and they can be very important for Akamai as we move later in the decade.

TB
Tom BarthHead-Investor Relations

Thank you, Steven. In closing, we will be participating in a number of investor conferences and events in August and September. Details of these can be found on the Investor Relations section of akamai.com. We want to thank all of you for joining us, and we wish you all a very nice evening. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the presentation. You may now disconnect. Thank you very much and have a very good day.

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