NetApp Inc at Nasdaq London Investor Conference Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Erik Woodring - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : <_ALACRA_META_ABSTRACT>So I'm, again, delighted to be joined this afternoon by George Kurian, CEO of NetApp. I think, George, maybe the best place to start. I know last week at a separate conference, you kind of discussed the October quarter pretty thoroughly. Instead of doing a review, maybe just like what are two or three highlights that you want to leave the crowd with your key takeaways from the quarter or the January quarter guide -- full-year guide, everyone should kind of be aware of as kind of a starting point for our conversation?

Question: Erik Woodring - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : Okay. Perfect. And we'll kind of touch on a number of those points. I want to start just high level and really focus maybe first, like it's almost a little technical, but you and your peers all kind of had analyst days, product days over the last kind of 1.5 months. What we tend to hear is single pane of glass, we have the best software. ONTAP is world renowned. LSEG STREETEVENTS | www.lseg.com | Contact Us consent of LSEG. 'LSEG' and the LSEG logo are registered trademarks of LSEG and its affiliated companies. DECEMBER 09, 2025 / 1:30PM, NTAP.OQ - NetApp Inc at Nasdaq London Investor Conference And so I would love if you could maybe just help us understand where do you think NetApp is truly differentiated? And how do you leverage that differentiation to try and drive sustainable share gains?

Question: Erik Woodring - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : Okay. Perfect. So that's a good start. Let's kind of go higher level and turn to kind of the market opportunity. Can you just help us maybe understand two things? One is kind of how you think about the market growth of your end markets, and maybe you can separate cloud and on-prem stuff. And then you've been clear that there is kind of a macro overhang on spending. Storage spend has lagged kind of server and compute spend. What needs to change to kind of get storage spend to kind of catch up to server a little bit?

Question: Erik Woodring - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : Right. Okay. Before we turn to AI, I just want to quickly touch on US public. And the question really is, at least what our view is, is that the government will always find a way to spend its own money. We just need to get kind of that engine moving again, get appropriations moving through the right agencies. How do you think about government spending kind of coming back post the shutdown? And what are some of the signposts that we should be looking for as maybe like a precursor to that unlock? LSEG STREETEVENTS | www.lseg.com | Contact Us consent of LSEG. 'LSEG' and the LSEG logo are registered trademarks of LSEG and its affiliated companies. DECEMBER 09, 2025 / 1:30PM, NTAP.OQ - NetApp Inc at Nasdaq London Investor Conference

Question: Erik Woodring - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : Okay. Okay. Perfect. So that's kind of a good segue, get that out of the way. Turn to AI. Your point, George, kind of resonates when you talk about, we didn't necessarily expect that to come right now. Can you maybe help us understand, what is the opportunity in AI? I think it's simplistic to say, well, there's just more data that will be generated, more data that will be stored. But is this something that you believe happens on-premise? But also you kind of have this hybrid model. So how do we think NetApp benefits from that? So kind of how does AI permeate the opportunity? And then what is kind of the hybrid opportunity for NetApp with AI?

Question: Erik Woodring - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : Right. So maybe said differently, we're just early. And we might be seeing training happening in the cloud. We're at the early days of inferencing and kind of token growth. What do you think catalyzes that kind of within the enterprise on-premise? Is it moving away from productivity gains to like creating new insights and business opportunities? Or can that kind of inflection on-prem still happen with just kind of the productivity approach to AI?

Question: Erik Woodring - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : Can you maybe -- let's say it this way, I'd love to dig into those 200 wins, the 200 projects, AI projects that you talked about. Obviously, you just helped bucket them for us to understand kind of what you're doing within those. Can you maybe give a few granular examples of like what I would call Keystone wins -- not the Keystone product, but flagship wins and exactly what the value add is that NetApp is doing underlying that project?

Question: Erik Woodring - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : And I'd be remiss if I didn't kind of dig in with you or at least ask you about the all-flash transition because I believe today, two-thirds of your hybrid cloud business is already all-flashash. You've obviously been able to benefit from this with growth and share gains. Does that two-thirds go to 100? Or like how do we think about all-flash mix going forward over, call it, one to three years? And what does that do to your growth rate, do you suspect?

Question: Erik Woodring - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : And I should have asked you this earlier, but your point on the installed base refresh last time being over half a decade ago, what do you think catalyzes that? Is it kind of a greater prevalence of AI? Or is there something else? Is it just the macro getting a little bit more certain to where CIOs can say, I'm ready to partake in this type of refresh activity? What is it do you think that catalyzes that refresh?

Question: Erik Woodring - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : Okay. Okay. Perfect. If we kind of summarize all of this and take into account refresh opportunity, all-flash mix, early days of AI, you just -- I would love for you to take your fake magic ball and look out and just say like what do we think this should and or could mean for NetApp when it comes to growth and margins and free cash? Obviously, we'll touch on public cloud in a little -- shortly. But just high level, what does all of this do for business fundamentals at NetApp? LSEG STREETEVENTS | www.lseg.com | Contact Us consent of LSEG. 'LSEG' and the LSEG logo are registered trademarks of LSEG and its affiliated companies. DECEMBER 09, 2025 / 1:30PM, NTAP.OQ - NetApp Inc at Nasdaq London Investor Conference

Question: Erik Woodring - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : And you kind of touched on it, but I want to make sure we hit on the Public Cloud business. Two questions is what do you believe -- so I think the business in totality grew 18% in the last quarter adjusted for the Spot divestiture. Like what is -- how sustainable is that growth? What is driving that? And then obviously, margins are very strong at 83%. Where do those go?

Question: Erik Woodring - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : Okay. Cool, cool. We have a handful of minutes. I just want to quickly -- it took me whatever, 10, 11 questions before we hit on memory, but I'd be remiss if we didn't bring it up. Obviously, you know the backdrop better than we do. Maybe the first question is, historically, actually in storage, you've been able to pass through these higher input costs. Is there anything that would not allow that to happen this time again? Again -- and again, the question is, how does that impact kind of demand elasticity as you're thinking about it in the environment today?

Question: Erik Woodring - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : Right. Okay. So maybe before we end, I just kind of want to give you the dance floor because we've talked about a lot. We talked about the market, AI, share gains, technology, memory, cloud. Just maybe what's the final message you'd leave for everyone if we think about where NetApp is in your journey, but also where you are from a stock perspective? Kind of what's the message that you want to send either what's underappreciated or where are you leaning into? And what's the opportunity for these guys that are sitting in the room with us?

Question: Erik Woodring - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : Awesome. We are just out of time. George, thank you very much.