The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.
(Questions from industry analysts are provided in full, but answers are omitted - download the transcript to see the full question-and-answer session)
Question: Samik Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC - Analyst
: <_ALACRA_META_ABSTRACT>Great. Let's get started then. Anthony, thank you. Thanks for the time and great to have you here. You're probably better off to start
with maybe talking about what were the key highlights from Mobile World Congress. We saw a lot of press releases, a lot of different
discussions emerged from MWC, but maybe share what are the key highlights for you from both the industry perspective, what you
found new and interesting? And when you think about what Amdocs showcased at MWC, what was that primary sort of you would
highlight to investors here? Thank you.
Question: Samik Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC - Analyst
: And maybe before we dive into AI overall as a theme for MWC, what are the nature of conversations around 6G already? When you
talk about enterprise customers and so the enterprise opportunity that your customers want to leverage, is that discussion about
the next standards around 5G, or is that discussion more of a 6G discussion already? Because we often get this question from investors.
When should we expect 6G? What changes with it? But is the conversation more around 5G the next set of standards and enterprise
opportunity or is this more getting sort of pushed out to 6G?
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MARCH 17, 2025 / 5:30PM, DOX.OQ - Amdocs Ltd At MWC25 The Barcelona Express Hosted by J.P. Morgan
Question: Samik Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC - Analyst
: So maybe let's pivot to AI, which is understandably the biggest theme here. I think last year as well, following MWC, you highlighted
that customers were already starting to ask about using generative AI and how businesses [are lower cost]. How has that conversation
changed since last year? What is sort of the discernible difference you're noticing in relation to the tone of the conversations with
some of your customers here?
Question: Samik Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC - Analyst
: So maybe I'll take it a bit in a different direction in terms of just looking at the key parts of your AI strategy that you've outlined earlier.
In terms of delivering that experience to your customers, I think the pillars you've talked about in the past are like Gen AI products,
expanded data and AI services, and then POCs around the copilots that you're doing. Maybe if you can dive into the three sort of
opportunities individually in those three pillars that you see?
Question: Samik Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC - Analyst
: But when you think about timing, is there a different timing in terms of adoption by customers of these? Is there primarily -- like the
copilots are the ones that you would expect to get adopted first and then followed by the other two? How are you thinking about
Question: Samik Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC - Analyst
: Yes. Maybe on a different approach, I mean, you talked about the improvement on all the scores that a customer cares about, right,
like MPS score improvement? There's also sort of better cost management or sort of lower cost. But when you're talking to the
customers, which innings are we in in relation to AI or convincing them of the value of AI?
Is it still in the phase where you have to go out to a customer, convince them of the cost-saving or the improved performance? Or
is there a different level of discussion now that the cost benefits or the performance benefits are well understood? Now it's more an
architecture decision of what needs to be done to implement it. Or even, what are you hearing if a customer says, okay, I have certain
hurdles that I need to get over before I can implement this? What are the typical hurdles that you're running into?
Question: Samik Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC - Analyst
: Maybe on that front, when you think about customers leveraging Amdocs and particularly sort of relative to this AI approach that
they have, are they opting for a full-stack solution going from the very sort of copilots to eventually the AI product that leverages
some of the expanded data and the AI services that you provide? Or are customers more saying, let me try one thing. I'll add to that
stack from Amdocs later if I need to. What is the approach customers are taking? Are they eager to dive in and adopting the full stack
or more disaggregated on that front?
Question: Samik Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC - Analyst
: Maybe before we go down any further in terms of the platforms, et cetera, one as a reminder to your audience you do have the
option of submitting a question through the platform you're logged in through. So in case you want to avail of that feature, please
do, and we can take your questions over chat.
Maybe, Anthony, before we get into the more specific aspects, one thing is your customers traditionally -- these telco customers are
not really known to be the best in terms of being on the cusp of the technology curve or leading edge. What are the typical hurdles
that you are seeing when you talk about being prepared for deploying AI?
Obviously, the customer needs to have their legacy systems or their data in a certain, very concrete format where it can be easily
digestible by a model. How much of a hurdle is that or how much of an overall staggered deployment of AI do you expect because
of that primarily? Is the ground perception that most investors have that these telco customers are not necessarily the leading edge
in terms of how their data is organized, is that true, and is that a hurdle that we need to overcome over time as well?
Question: Samik Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC - Analyst
: Okay. Maybe moving to your platform, amAIz, what's been the feedback since you rolled it out to customers? And when you sort of
look at it from Amdoc's perspective, what's the roadmap for that technology or enhancements on that platform over the next few
years? How are you thinking about it?
Question: Samik Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC - Analyst
: Since we're on that topic, are customers showing any concern about taking their data to the AI or concerns around that proprietary
data that they have but making it accessible to the AI models? Have you seen any concerns from your customers?
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MARCH 17, 2025 / 5:30PM, DOX.OQ - Amdocs Ltd At MWC25 The Barcelona Express Hosted by J.P. Morgan
Question: Samik Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC - Analyst
: Maybe let's talk a bit about use cases. You've talked about this a bit already, but if we had to sort of give specific examples of what
use cases the customers started looking at in terms of leveraging AI for, and now like two, three years down the line, what are these
sort of additional incremental use cases that they've been able to think of where they can leverage AI?
Question: Samik Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC - Analyst
: Maybe let's move to talk about your customers and their appetite to invest in this capability themselves. If the customer was to think
that this is something I can build in-house, one, how feasible is it? Secondly, how many customers are even showing the willingness
to do that?
Question: Samik Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC - Analyst
: So on that part, let's say you do have this scenario where more and more customers are coming as soon as you hit that threshold.
But how much of the existing stack can you leverage from one customer to another? What is the level of customization? How has
that time to deployment with a new customer changed for you? I mean, you've obviously gone through a learning curve yourself,
I'm assuming. Have you been able to materially impact the time to deployment for a specific customer?
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MARCH 17, 2025 / 5:30PM, DOX.OQ - Amdocs Ltd At MWC25 The Barcelona Express Hosted by J.P. Morgan
Question: Samik Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC - Analyst
: Maybe let's talk a bit about cable customers. I mean, telco customers are your core, I would assume. But when you think about cable
customers, how should we think about attraction? And more importantly, are there a different set of use cases to think of?
Question: Samik Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC - Analyst
: I know we are getting close to the end of the hour, so maybe let's pivot a bit towards talking about network automation in relation
to RAN platforms and size, the timing of the opportunity, and I know you also had an announcement with your partnership with
Google to enable distributed 5G on cloud-native technologies. So maybe let's go through those two things. Firstly, how do you think
about the automation and its application on a RAN platform and the size of the opportunity there, and then we can touch on your
partnership with Google.
Question: Samik Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC - Analyst
: Maybe I'll wrap up with one question, which is essentially what investors always look for, which is trying to quantify what it means
for growth and margins for companies. When you put all these sorts of opportunities together, I know for 2025, fiscal 2025, you're
guiding to about 2.5% revenue growth, 21% EBIT margins, 21%-plus EBIT margins. What does this opportunity mean, and is it more
impactful on the way you think about Amdocs' revenue growth in the future? Or is it more impactful on what margins Amdocs is
able to earn in the future?
Question: Samik Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC - Analyst
: Thank you. Matt, Anthony, thank you for the time. We're up on time here, so I'll take the opportunity to wrap up the call here. But
thank you again. This was very insightful. Thank you both. And thank you to the audience for joining as well.
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