NetApp, Inc.: Form 10-K for the period ended Apr 26, 2024

Overview

NetApp, Inc. (NetApp, we, us, or the Company) helps customers make their data infrastructure more seamless, more dynamic, and higher performing. We were incorporated in 1992 and are headquartered in San Jose, California. Building on over three decades of innovation, we combine unified data storage, integrated data services, and CloudOps solutions to make data infrastructure intelligent. Our broad portfolio addresses customer priorities: modernizing legacy infrastructure, improving resiliency against ransomware attacks, and building scalable, high-performance data pipelines for artificial intelligence (AI) workloads.

With NetApp, customers can better leverage their data to accelerate innovation, improve operations, and drive competitive advantage. Our unified data storage delivers flexibility to our customers, enabling them to simply and consistently store any data type and power any workload. As the only enterprise-grade storage service natively embedded in the world’s largest clouds, we power data across AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. Our integrated data services enable active data management, security, protection, governance, and sustainability. Finally, our CloudOps solutions enable adaptive operations across infrastructure, applications, and teams.

Together, these capabilities comprise an intelligent data infrastructure that delivers:

• Operational simplicity, so customers can manage complex workloads and eliminate infrastructure silos across apps, data, and clouds.
• Cyber resilience and security, so businesses stay up and running with built-in ransomware protection, rapid recovery, and infrastructure observability.
• AI innovation, embedding intelligence into data infrastructure to enable AI workloads that deliver new levels of productivity and innovation.
• Infrastructure savings, so on-premises and cloud infrastructure spend go further with high-efficiency data storage and automated capacity and cloud cost management.
• Sustainability, achieved via energy-efficient technologies, tiering, and analytics.
• Scalability and agility to maximize infrastructure and application scalability and team responsiveness.

Product, Solutions and Services Portfolio

Our operations are organized into two segments: Hybrid Cloud and Public Cloud.

Hybrid Cloud

Hybrid Cloud offers a unified data storage portfolio of storage management and infrastructure solutions that help customers modernize their data centers. With the power of on-premises, private cloud and public cloud capabilities to assist customers in modernizing applications with a single solution that supports file, block, and object storage, we deliver a data infrastructure solution for all environments and workloads. Our Hybrid Cloud portfolio supports structured and unstructured data with unified storage optimized for flash, disk, and cloud storage to handle data-intensive workloads and applications. Hybrid Cloud is composed of software, hardware, and related support, as well as professional and other services.

Data management software

NetApp ONTAP software is our foundational technology that underpins NetApp's critical storage solutions in the on-premises data center and in private and public clouds. ONTAP includes various data management and protection features and capabilities, including automatic ransomware protection against cyber-attacks, built-in data transport features, and storage efficiency capabilities. ONTAP provides the flexibility to design and deploy a storage environment across the broadest range of architectures – from on-premises to hybrid, private, and public clouds. It can be used in NAS, SAN, object environments, and software-defined storage (SDS) situations.

Data integrity, safety, and business continuity are at the heart of any company’s data center. With the extensive software tools and utilities delivered in ONTAP One, our all-in-one software license, customers can realize their business continuity goals with time, costs, and personnel savings. With NetApp Snapshot, customers can create and manage point-in-time file system copies with no performance impact and minimal storage consumption. This is important for continuous data protection of information in read-only, static, and immutable form. NetApp SnapCenter Backup Management software is designed to deliver high-performance backup and recovery for database and application workloads hosted on ONTAP storage. NetApp SnapMirror Data Replication software can replicate data at high speeds across environments. SnapMirror delivers robust data management capabilities for virtualization, protecting critical data while providing the flexibility to move data between locations and storage tiers, including cloud service providers. NetApp SnapLock Data Compliance software delivers high-performance disk-based data permanence for HDD and SSD deployments.

NetApp Astra is a fully managed application-aware data management service built for emerging Kubernetes workloads container infrastructures. Astra allows organizations to protect, recover, and move applications deployed on Kubernetes with no software to download, install, manage, or upgrade.

Storage infrastructure

NetApp All-Flash FAS (AFF A-Series) is a scale-out platform built for virtualized environments, combining low-latency performance via flash memory (also known as a solid-state storage disk) with best-in-class data management, built-in efficiencies, integrated data protection, multiprotocol support, and nondisruptive operations; cloud and on-premises. AFF A-Series, powered by ONTAP, allows customers to connect to clouds for more data services, data tiering, caching, and disaster recovery. The AFF A-Series has a portfolio of products designed for multiple markets and price/performance considerations, from smaller channel commercial market offerings to large-scale, global enterprises.

NetApp All-Flash FAS with capacity flash (AFF C-Series) provides customers capacity flash performance and affordability, so that customers do not need to make compromises on price or performance. AFF C-Series arrays, powered by ONTAP, are sustainable, scalable, and secure solutions for Tier 1 and Tier 2 applications. The AFF C-Series is ideal for transitioning from hybrid/HDD to all-flash storage; running non-latency sensitive VMware database applications and file environments; and providing a solution for secondary storage targets for disaster recovery, backup, and tiering.

NetApp All-Flash SAN Array (ASA A-Series & C-Series) is NetApp’s modern block storage with best-in-class speed, efficiency, security, sustainability, and cloud integration to accelerate virtual machines and databases. ASA arrays are also powered by NetApp ONTAP but optimized simply for SAN workloads. The ASA includes a 99.9999% guaranteed uptime and guaranteed 4:1 storage efficiency.

NetApp Fabric Attached Storage (FAS) series are high-volume, high-capacity data storage devices powered by NetApp ONTAP. NetApp FAS Storage Arrays provide customers with a balance of performance and capacity running disk drives or hybrid-flash configurations. FAS systems are suitable for secondary storage targets for disaster recovery, backup, and tiering.

NetApp E/EF series is built for dedicated, high-bandwidth applications that need simple, fast SAN storage with enterprise-grade reliability. The E-Series is available as a hybrid-flash platform, while the EF-Series is all-flash. Built on the SANtricity storage operating system, the E/EF-Series storage appliances are designed for performance-sensitive workloads like real-time analytics, high-performance computing, and databases.

NetApp StorageGRID is a software-defined object storage solution for large archives, media repositories, and web data stores. Using the industry-standard object APIs like the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), StorageGRID is provided as a NetApp-branded storage solution and as a software-defined solution on third-party hardware.

Public Cloud

Public Cloud offers a portfolio of products delivered primarily as-a-service, including related support. This portfolio includes cloud storage and CloudOps services. As the only provider of enterprise-grade storage services natively embedded in the world’s largest public cloud providers, NetApp helps organizations harness the power of their data and applications. NetApp’s CloudOps solutions leverage AI to maximize productivity across infrastructure and applications, boost team productivity, and reduce operations costs. These solutions and services are generally available on the leading public clouds, including Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.

Cloud storage

Fully managed cloud storage offerings are available natively on Microsoft Azure as Azure NetApp Files, on AWS as Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP, and on Google Cloud as Google Cloud NetApp Volumes.

In addition, NetApp offers NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP on AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, a cloud-based software for customers who wish to manage their own cloud storage infrastructure.

Our cloud storage services are based on the same ONTAP data management software that underpins our storage infrastructure offerings.

Manageability

At the heart of our public cloud storage and data service offerings is NetApp BlueXP. BlueXP is a unified control plane that enables customers to manage their entire data landscape through one single, web-based SaaS-delivered control point. NetApp BlueXP combines storage and data services via its unified control plane to change how hybrid, multicloud environments are managed, optimized, and controlled. An intuitive interface and powerful automation help decrease resource waste, complexity, and the risk of managing diverse environments. It brings customers operational simplicity in a complex world. Within BlueXP are standard and optional capabilities (services) which allow customers to control their data and operations.

With BlueXP Sync service, customers can migrate data to the cloud securely and efficiently. Customers can choose where to deploy primary workloads without re-architecting applications or databases. Customers also get a comprehensive, industry-leading portfolio of storage efficiency capabilities. Inline data compression, deduplication, compaction, and cloud tiering (BlueXP Tiering service) work together to reduce storage costs and maximize data storage. NetApp Backup service delivers seamless and cost-effective backup and restore capabilities for protecting and archiving cloud and on-premises data managed by ONTAP. BlueXP Compliance service provides data discovery, mapping, and classification driven by AI algorithms with automated controls and reporting for data privacy regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and more. Lastly, the BlueXP Cache service delivers fast and secure access to data for users by caching active data sets to distributed offices globally.

Cloud Operations services

NetApp Cloud Insights is an infrastructure monitoring tool that gives organizations visibility into their entire infrastructure. It can monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize costs across all resources, including public clouds and private data centers. Working in conjunction with the BlueXP manageability and control plane services, customers can have deep insights into their data operations.

Our Spot by NetApp suite of products enables customers to deploy and operate cloud applications reliably and securely in their choice of public clouds while reducing costs and complexity. Combining machine learning, predictive analytics, and cloud automation, the Spot by NetApp platform continuously optimizes cloud infrastructure and operations to deliver scalable, reliable, and secure application infrastructure.

Instaclustr provides fully managed open-source databases, pipelines, and workflow applications delivered as a service. Instaclustr helps organizations deliver cloud-native applications at scale by operating and supporting the data infrastructure through its SaaS platform for those designing and building around open-source technologies while not wanting to maintain that infrastructure themselves.

Professional and Support Services

NetApp and our certified services partners offer a comprehensive portfolio of assessment, design, implementation, migration, and proactive support services to help customers optimize the performance and efficiency of their on-premises and hybrid multicloud storage environments. Our portfolio of offerings includes storage-as-a-service (STaaS), strategic consulting, professional, managed, and support services.

• NetApp Keystone is our pay-as-you-grow, STaaS offering that delivers a seamless hybrid cloud experience for those preferring operating expense consumption models to upfront capital expense or leasing. With a unified management console and monthly bill for both on-premises and cloud data storage services, Keystone lets organizations provision, monitor, and even move storage spend across their hybrid cloud environment for financial and operational flexibility.
• NetApp strategic consulting services provide executive-level, high-touch consulting engagements to help organizations facilitate the alignment of their business and technology goals. Our proven expertise can help organizations define long-term data fabric strategies and operations models to drive IT initiatives for digital transformation.
• NetApp's Professional Services offer specialized expertise to minimize risks and simplify the process of designing, implementing, migrating, and integrating NetApp hybrid cloud solutions. This enables businesses to reap the benefits of new technology investments more quickly. Our highly skilled service experts help ensure secure and optimized environments, delivering consistent, high-quality outcomes that meet customers' expectations from the start.
• NetApp Managed Services can optimize the performance and efficiency of your IT infrastructure, whether you have a hybrid cloud or on-premises environment. Our experienced NetApp experts follow a proven methodology and industry best practices to monitor, administer, operate, and optimize your IT environment. This allows your organization's IT staff to focus on driving business initiatives forward, without worrying about the day-to-day management of your IT infrastructure.
• NetApp Global Support offers a wide range of solutions, including systems, processes, and personnel, to support uninterrupted operation in complex and critical environments. Our focus is on providing proactive and preemptive technology support to help ensure operational continuity across the NetApp hybrid cloud. We offer personalized support options that provide actionable intelligence to resolve problems faster, minimize downtime, and optimize the performance of the entire NetApp ecosystem.

Sales, Principal Markets, and Distribution Channels

We market and sell our products and services in numerous countries throughout the world. Our sales efforts are organized around the evolving needs of our current and targeted customers, and our marketing initiatives reflect this focus. NetApp uses a multichannel distribution strategy. We sell our products, solutions and services to end-user business customers and service providers through a direct sales force and an ecosystem of partners, including the leading cloud providers. Our marketing is focused on building our brand reputation, creating market awareness, communicating customer advantages and generating demand for our sales force and channel partners.

Our diversified customer base spans industry segments and vertical markets such as energy, financial services, government, technology, internet, life sciences, healthcare services, manufacturing, media, entertainment, animation, video postproduction and telecommunications. NetApp focuses primarily on the enterprise storage and data management, cloud storage and cloud operations markets. We design our products to meet the evolving requirements of a hybrid, multicloud world, driven by digital transformation and cloud initiatives.

Our partnerships with the industry’s leading cloud, infrastructure, consulting, application, and reseller partners are created with one goal in mind: the success of our customers. Global enterprises, local businesses, and government agencies look to NetApp and our ecosystem of partners to help maximize the business value of their IT and cloud investments.

We work with a wide range of partners for our customers, including technology partners, value-added resellers, system integrators, OEMs, service providers and distributors. During fiscal 2024, sales through our indirect channels represented 76% of our net revenues. Our global partner ecosystem is critical to NetApp’s growth and success. We are continually strengthening existing partnerships and investing in new ones to ensure we are meeting the evolving needs of our customers.

As of April 26, 2024, our worldwide sales and marketing functions consisted of approximately 5,300 managers, sales representatives and technical support personnel. We have offices in approximately 24 countries. Sales to customers Arrow Electronics, Inc. and TD Synnex Corporation each accounted for 22% of our net revenues, respectively, in fiscal 2024. Information about sales to and accounts receivables from our major customers, segment disclosures, foreign operations and net sales attributable to our geographic regions is included in Note 15 – Segment, Geographic, and Significant Customer Information of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements.

Seasonality

We have historically experienced a sequential decline in revenues in the first quarter of our fiscal year, as the sales organization spends time developing new business after higher close rates in the fourth quarter, and because sales to European customers are typically weaker during the summer months. We derive a substantial amount of our revenue in any given quarter from customer orders booked in the same quarter. Customer orders and revenues typically follow intra-quarter seasonality patterns weighted toward the end of the quarter. If recurring services and cloud revenue continue to increase as a percentage of our total revenues, historical seasonal patterns may become less pronounced.

Backlog

We manufacture products based on a combination of specific order requirements and forecasts of our customers’ demand. Orders are generally placed by customers on an as-needed basis. A substantial portion of our products is sold on the basis of standard purchase orders that are cancelable prior to shipment without penalty. In certain circumstances, purchase orders are subject to change with respect to quantity of product or timing of delivery resulting from changes in customer requirements. Our business is characterized by seasonal and intra-quarter variability in demand, as well as short lead times and product delivery schedules. Accordingly, backlog at any given time may not be a meaningful indicator of future revenue.

Manufacturing and Supply Chain

We have outsourced manufacturing operations to third parties located in Fremont, California; San Jose, California; San Antonio, Texas; Guadalajara, Mexico; Schiphol Airport, The Netherlands; Tiszaujvaros, Hungary; Wuxi, China; Taoyuan City, Taiwan; and Singapore. These operations include materials procurement, commodity management, component engineering, test engineering, manufacturing engineering, product assembly, product assurance, quality control, final test, and global logistics. We rely on a limited number of suppliers for materials, as well as several key subcontractors for the production of certain subassemblies and finished systems. We strive to have multiple suppliers qualified to provide critical components where possible and have our products manufactured in a number of locations to mitigate our supply chain risk. Our strategy has been to develop close relationships with our suppliers, maximizing the exchange of critical information and facilitating the implementation of joint quality programs. We use contract manufacturers for the production of major subassemblies and final system configuration. This manufacturing strategy minimizes capital investments and overhead expenditures while creating flexibility for rapid expansion.

We are certified to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001:2015 and ISO 14001:2015 certification standards. We have been Tier 2 certified under the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (CTPAT) program since January 2015.

Research and Development

Our research and development team delivers innovation to help customers create an evolved cloud experience. Our R&D structure allows us to align and accelerate the execution of our strategies and roadmaps across product groups. We leverage our talent and shared IP for cloud- and hybrid-cloud solutions to remain agile to changing market conditions. Our R&D priorities are defined by how we can help customers realize operational simplicity, cyber resilience and security, AI innovation, infrastructure savings and agility, and sustainability. We design our products and services from the ground up with cloud connectivity in mind, including our capabilities for cyber resiliency, tiering, disaster recovery, replication, bursting, and migration.

We conduct research and development activities in various locations throughout the world. Total research and development expenses were $1,029 million in fiscal 2024, $956 million in fiscal 2023 and $881 million in fiscal 2022. These costs consist primarily of personnel and related costs incurred to conduct product development activities. Although we develop many of our products internally, we also acquire technology through business combinations or through licensing from third parties when appropriate. We believe that technical leadership is essential to our success, and we expect to continue to commit substantial resources to research and development.

Competition

We operate in an industry in which there are rapid technological advances in hardware, software, and related services offerings. Cloud, digital transformation, and AI initiatives are driving changes in customer and solution requirements.

We compete with many companies in the storage and data management markets. Our hybrid cloud solutions primarily compete with legacy IT and storage vendors. Some offer a broad spectrum of products, solutions and services and others offer a more limited set of storage and data-management products, solutions or services. Additionally, public cloud providers offer customers storage as an operating expense which competes with more traditional storage offerings that customers acquire through capital expenditures. We both partner with and compete against cloud providers with our public cloud software and services. Legacy vendors are not often encountered in the cloud storage services market as competitors.

We compete with many companies in the cloud operations marketplace, including new companies (startups) and larger software companies who target developers, operations engineering (DevOps) and financial engineering (FinOps). Some companies have single point solutions that compete with one of our services and others are building platforms. Additionally, public cloud providers offer similar services on their own cloud.

We face ongoing product and price competition in all areas of our business, including from both branded- and generic-product competitors.

Our current and potential competitors may establish cooperative relationships among themselves or with third-parties, including some of our partners. It is possible that new competitors or alliances among competitors might emerge and further increase competitive pressures.

We consider our software innovation, cloud integration, and technology partnerships key to our competitive differentiation. We believe our competitive advantage also includes the nature of the relationships we form with our customers and partners worldwide. We strive to deliver an outstanding experience in every interaction we have with our customers and partners through our product, service, and support offerings, which enables us to provide our customers a full range of expertise before, during and after their purchases.

Proprietary Rights

We generally rely on patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret and contract laws to establish and maintain our proprietary rights in our technology, products and services. While our intellectual property rights are important to our success, we believe that our business is not materially dependent on any particular patent, trademark, copyright, license or other individual intellectual property right. We have been granted, or own by assignment, well over two thousand U.S. patents, hundreds of pending U.S. patent applications, and many corresponding patents and patent applications in other countries. From time to time, we may make certain intellectual property available under an open source license. Our primary trademarks are NetApp and the NetApp design logo, which are registered trademarks in the U.S. and in many other countries. In addition, we have trademarks and trademark registrations in the U.S. and other countries covering our various product or service names.

We generally enter into confidentiality agreements with our employees, resellers, distributors, customers, and suppliers. In addition, through various licensing arrangements, we receive certain rights to the intellectual property of others. We expect to maintain current licensing arrangements and to secure additional licensing arrangements in the future, as needed and to the extent available on reasonable terms and conditions, to support continued development and sales of our products and services. Some of these licensing arrangements require or may require royalty payments and other licensing fees. The amount of these payments and fees may depend on various factors, including but not limited to the structure of royalty payments; offsetting considerations, if any; and the degree of use of the licensed technology.

The industry in which we compete is characterized by rapidly changing technology, a large number of patents, and frequent claims and related litigation regarding intellectual property rights, and we may be exposed to various risks related to such claims or legal proceedings. If we are unable to protect our intellectual property, we may be subject to increased competition that could materially and adversely affect our business operations, financial condition, results of operations and/or cash flows.

Environmental Disclosure

We are committed to the success of our customers and partners, to delivering value to our stockholders, and to positively affecting the communities where our employees work and live. We firmly believe that we can accomplish these objectives concurrently with our commitment to sound environmental management. We are committed to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions; efficient use of natural resources; and minimizing, relative to the growth of the Company, the environmental impacts from our operations, products, and services, as well as complying with laws and regulations related to these areas.

We voluntarily measure, monitor, and publicly report our scope 1, scope 2, and scope 3 (partial) greenhouse gas emissions and water impacts to CDP, a global standardized mechanism by which companies report their greenhouse gas emissions and water impacts to customers and institutional investors. We continuously seek to optimize the energy efficiency of our buildings, labs, and data centers; and we have increased our use of renewable energy, especially at our facilities in Bangalore, India and Wichita, Kansas, both of which are powered almost exclusively by renewable energy.

At the global, regional and state levels, various laws and regulations have been implemented or are under consideration to mitigate or report on the effects of climate change. Environmental laws are complex and have tended to become more stringent over time. However, it is difficult to anticipate future regulations pertaining to environmental matters and to estimate their impacts on our operations. Based on current information, we believe that our primary risk related to climate change is the risk of increased energy costs. Additionally, we have implemented disaster recovery and business resiliency measures to mitigate the physical risks our facilities, business, and supply chain might face as a consequence of natural disasters or severe weather/climate-related phenomena such as earthquakes, floods, droughts, and other such natural occurrences.

We are subject to international, federal, state, and local regulations regarding workplace safety and protection of the environment. Various international, federal, state, and local provisions regulate the use and discharge of certain hazardous materials used in the manufacture of our products. Failure to comply with environmental regulations in the future could cause us to incur substantial costs, subject us to business interruptions or cause customers to cease purchasing from us. We strive to comply with all applicable environmental laws. All of our products meet the applicable requirements of the following European Union (EU) directives: Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH); Energy Related Products (ErP); and Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS). We also comply with the China RoHS directive. We have a global product take-back program and an e-waste scheme to comply with the EU directive on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulations in India.

We have maintained an environmental management system since December 2004 that provides the framework for setting, monitoring, and continuously improving our environmental goals and objectives. As part of ISO 14001 requirements, we set local environmental performance goals, such as reducing energy use per square foot and minimizing waste generated on site, that are aligned with our overall corporate strategy. We also conduct periodic reviews and are subject to third-party audits of our operations, and we monitor environmental legislation and requirements to help make sure we are taking necessary measures to remain in compliance with applicable laws, not only in our operations but also for our products.

Human Capital

We take pride in, and believe our success depends on, attracting and retaining leading talent in the industry based on a culture-fit approach. From our inception, NetApp has worked to build a model company and has embraced a culture of openness and trust. Our employees are supported and encouraged to be innovative, and we communicate openly and transparently so that employees can focus on critical and impactful work that ties directly to our business strategy. We continue to invest in our global workforce to support diversity and inclusion and to support our employees’ well-being and development.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging

We believe diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging leads to more innovation, better access to talent and improved business outcomes. Our strategies are intended to increase the demographic and cognitive diversity of our employee population and promote a culture of equity and inclusion to achieve sustained business results. For more information about our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, go to the “Diversity Inclusion Equity and Belonging” section of our website.

Benefits, Wellbeing and Engagement

Our healthcare options offer competitive, comprehensive coverage for our employees and their families, including:

• National medical plans;
• Regional medical plans;
• Expert advice from world-renowned doctors through our medical second opinion program;
• National dental plans;
• National vision plans and
• A robust wellness program.

Insurance and income protection. We provide life, accidental death and dismemberment and disability insurance programs. For additional peace of mind, we also offer supplemental insurance for our employees and their dependents.

Financial and savings programs. We offer flexible spending accounts, an employee stock purchase plan and competitive retirement plans, including options to maximize retirement savings.

Flexible Work. We offer a flexible hybrid work program that allows employees, in consultation with their managers and teams, flexibility around where, when and how work is performed to deliver business outcomes, understanding that certain roles may be tied to specific locations or require an in-office presence due to business needs and job responsibilities, and to collaborate and connect most effectively. We are leaning into digital-first workflows, tools, and resources and programs to continuously promote flexibility, while enabling us to be productive, wherever we are. We also believe in the value of people being together, building relationships, fostering trust, collaboration and innovation. We have evolved into a hybrid model, in which employees who are assigned to an office can divide their work between the office and other locations about half the time. We continue to pilot, test and iterate our approach to support new ways of working and evolving the employee experience.

Employee Wellbeing. We provide a wide range of wellbeing programs and tools to ensure employees and their families have the resources they need when they need them. We offer emotional wellbeing resources and programs such as back-up child and elder care, student debt repayment, educational assistance, and legal services for employees and their dependents. NetApp also offers a variety of time-off programs to help support our employees who need time-off. Employees also have access to discounts and fitness centers.

Engagement. We help employees grow, develop and succeed at NetApp by encouraging an open and interactive culture, where individual needs are recognized and met, and Company goals are supported. For employees, growth goals are tied to corporate objectives and key results to ensure that employees are progressing and are supported by management teams. Managers are encouraged to set aside time at least each quarter to conduct a two-way conversation with each team member to offer feedback, guidance and support on goals, priorities and career development. The Company also conducts surveys that gauge employee sentiment in areas like cross-functional collaboration, manager performance and inclusivity and create action plans to address concerns and amplify opportunities.

Giving Back. The NetApp Cares programs support our employees' efforts to make a positive difference in our communities. In fiscal 2024, more than 2,386 NetApp employees donated over 19,940 hours to serve their communities and make an impact around the world. The NetApp Cares programs encourage employees to volunteer through individual, team or company efforts.

Board Oversight of Human Capital Management

Our Board of Directors plays an active role in overseeing the Company's human capital management strategy and programs. Our Talent and Compensation Committee provides oversight of our talent strategy and key programs related to corporate culture, workforce diversity and inclusion, talent acquisition, engagement, development and retention.

Employees

As of April 26, 2024, we had approximately 11,800 employees worldwide. None of our employees are represented by a labor union and we consider relations with our employees to be good.

Please visit our website for more detailed information regarding our human capital programs and initiatives. Nothing on our website shall be deemed incorporated by reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Information About Our Executive Officers

Our executive officers and their ages as of June 10, 2024, were as follows:

George Kurian is the chief executive officer of NetApp, a position he has held since June 1, 2015. He joined our Board of Directors in June 2015. From September 2013 to May 2015, he was executive vice president of product operations, overseeing all aspects of technology strategy, product and solutions development across our portfolio. Mr. Kurian joined NetApp in April 2011 as the senior vice president of the storage solutions group and was appointed to senior vice president of the Data ONTAP group in December 2011. Prior to joining NetApp, Mr. Kurian held several positions with Cisco Systems from 2002 to 2011, including vice president and general manager of the application networking and switching technology group. Additional roles include vice president of product management and strategy at Akamai Technologies from 1999 to 2002, as well as a management consultant at McKinsey and Company and a leader on the software engineering and product management teams at Oracle Corporation. Mr. Kurian is a board member at Cigna Corporation, a global health services company, where he serves on the compliance committee and people resources committee, and holds a BS degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University and an MBA degree from Stanford University.

César Cernuda came to NetApp in July 2020 as president and is responsible for leading the Company’s global go-to-market organization spanning sales, marketing, services, support, and customer success. Mr. Cernuda joined NetApp after a long career at Microsoft that included various leadership roles. Mr. Cernuda is non-executive director and chairman of the ESG committee at Gestamp, an international group dedicated to automotive components. He is also on the advisory boards of Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and the IESE Business School – University of Navarra. Mr. Cernuda is a graduate of the Harvard Business School Executive Leadership Program and the Program for Management Development at IESE Business School – University of Navarra, and he also completed the Leading Sustainable Corporations Programme at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from ESIC Business & Marketing School.

Michael J. Berry joined NetApp in March 2020 as executive vice president and chief financial officer, overseeing the worldwide finance, investor relations, security and IT organizations. Mr. Berry has served as a chief financial officer for over 16 years in both public and private companies including McAfee, FireEye, Informatica, and SolarWinds. Most recently he was executive vice president and chief financial officer at McAfee where he was responsible for all aspects of finance, including financial planning, accounting, tax and treasury, as well as operations and shared services. Mr. Berry is a board member of Rapid7, Inc., where he serves as chair of the audit committee. Mr. Berry holds a BS degree in finance from Augsburg University and an MBA degree in finance from the University of St. Thomas.

Harvinder S. Bhela joined NetApp in January 2022 as executive vice president and chief product officer. He is responsible for leading NetApp’s product and engineering teams and building our multi-cloud, storage and data services products and solutions. Before joining NetApp, Mr. Bhela spent 25 years at Microsoft where he held multiple executive leadership positions. Most recently he served as corporate vice president of the Microsoft 365 Security, Compliance and Management business. Mr. Bhela holds a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Mumbai and a Master of Science in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota.

Elizabeth M. O’Callahan joined NetApp in 2013 and has served as NetApp’s executive vice president, chief legal officer, and corporate secretary since January 2022. Prior to her appointment as chief legal officer, Ms. O’Callahan served as senior vice president and general counsel from May 2021 to December 2021, as vice president and deputy general counsel from May 2020 to April 2021, and as vice president, corporate legal from October 2013 to April 2020. Ms. O’Callahan has over 20 years of experience advising technology companies on a variety of matters, including corporate governance, securities law, mergers and acquisitions, capital markets transactions, corporate compliance and ethics, data privacy, intellectual property, litigation and government relations. Before joining NetApp, Ms. O’Callahan served in a senior legal role at Xilinx (since acquired by AMD). She began her legal career in private practice in Silicon Valley specializing in corporate law and business litigation. Ms. O’Callahan holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Los Angeles and a J.D. from Santa Clara University.

Additional Information

Our internet address is www.netapp.com (http://www.netapp.com). We make available through our internet website our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, including exhibits, amendments to those reports and other documents filed or furnished pursuant to the Exchange Act of 1934, as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such materials with, or furnish them to, the SEC.

The SEC maintains an internet site (www.sec.gov (http://www.sec.gov)) that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC.

The information included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K should be considered and understood in the context of the following risk factors, which describe circumstances that may materially harm our future business, operating results or financial condition. The following discussion reflects our current judgment regarding the most significant risks we face. These risks can and will change in the future.

Risks Related to Our Business and Industry

Global economic and geopolitical conditions may harm our industry, business, and operating results, including our revenue growth and profitability, financial condition and cash flows.

We operate globally and as a result, our business, revenues and profitability are impacted by global economic and market conditions, including, among others, inflation, slower growth or recession, changes to fiscal and monetary policy, higher interest rates, tax rates, economic uncertainty, political instability, warfare, changes in laws, reduced consumer confidence and spending, and economic and trade barriers. Such factors may contribute to increased periodic volatility in the IT industry at large and limit our ability to forecast future demand for our products and services, impact availability of supplies and could constrain future access to capital for our suppliers, customers and partners. Additionally, adverse macroeconomic conditions, including those identified above, could materially adversely impact the demand for our products and our operating results amid customer concerns over slowing demand for their products, reduced asset values, volatile energy costs, geopolitical issues, the availability and cost of credit and the stability and solvency of financial institutions, financial markets, businesses, local and state governments, and sovereign nations. The impacts of these circumstances are global and pervasive, and the timing and nature of any ultimate resolution of these matters remain highly uncertain. All of these risks and conditions could materially adversely affect our future sales and operating results.

Our business may be harmed by technological trends in our market or if we are unable to keep pace with rapid industry, technological and market changes.

The growth in our industry and the markets in which we compete is driven by the increasing demand for data, which increases demand for, and purchases of, storage and data management solutions. Despite these growth drivers, our markets could be adversely impacted by technology transitions, increased storage efficiency, competitive pricing dynamics, changing consumption models, and/or uncertain macroeconomic conditions. Additionally, the impact of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in the markets for storage and data management solutions has yet to be fully realized and could evolve in unexpected ways. While customers are navigating through their information technology (IT) transformations, which leverage modern architectures and hybrid cloud environments, they are also looking for simpler solutions and changing how they consume IT. This evolution is diverting spending towards transformational projects and architectures like flash, hybrid cloud, cloud storage, and IT as a service. The future impact of these trends on both short- and long-term growth patterns is uncertain, and we may be unable to meet customer demand, with an expected level of quality and support for new products or services.

Our business may be adversely impacted if we are unable to keep pace with rapid industry, technological or market changes or if our products and services are not accepted in the marketplace. As a result of these and other factors discussed in this report, customer demand for our products and services may fall and our revenue may decline on a year-over-year basis, as it did in fiscal 2017, 2020, and 2024. If the general historical rate of industry growth declines, if the growth rates of some or all of the specific markets in which we compete decline, if the consumption model of storage changes, if our new and existing products, services and solutions do not receive customer acceptance and/or if we do not adapt our sales programs to address market changes, our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows could suffer.

If we are unable to develop, introduce and gain market acceptance for new products and services while managing the transition from older ones, or if we cannot provide the expected level of quality and support for our new products and services, our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows could be harmed.

Our future growth depends upon the successful development and introduction of new hardware and software products and services. Due to the complexity of storage software, cloud operations software, subsystems and appliances and the difficulty in gauging the engineering effort required to produce new products and services, such products and services are subject to significant technical and quality control risks.

If we are unable, for technological, customer reluctance or other reasons, to develop, introduce and gain market acceptance for new products and services, or if we are unable to provide the expected level of product and support quality for our new products and services, each as and when required by the market and our customers, our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows could be materially and adversely affected.

New or additional product and feature introductions, such as new all-flash arrays, including the block-optimized ASA families, and capacity flash C-series, subject us to additional financial and operational risks, including our ability to forecast customer preferences and/or demand, our ability to successfully manage the transition from older products and solutions, our ability to forecast and manage the impact of customers’ demand for new products, services and solutions or the products being replaced, and our ability to manage production capacity to meet the demand for new products and services. In addition, as existing customers transition from older products and solutions to newer ones, the transition could take longer than expected, or the customer could decide to delay the transition, either of which could result in non-renewal of the new offerings or affect our ability to manage and forecast customer churn and expansion rates for new offerings. As new or enhanced products and services are introduced, we must avoid excessive levels of older product inventories and related components and ensure that new products and services can be delivered to meet customers’ demands. Further risks inherent in the introduction of new products, services and solutions include the uncertainty of price-performance relative to products of competitors, competitors’ responses to the introductions, delays in sales caused by the desire of customers to evaluate new products for extended periods of time and our partners’ investment in selling our new products and solutions. If these risks are not managed effectively, we could experience material risks to our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows.

As we enter new or emerging markets, we will likely increase demands on our service and support operations and may be exposed to additional competition. We may not be able to provide products, services and support to effectively compete for these market opportunities.

The dynamic markets in which we participate and our sales and distribution structure makes forecasting revenues difficult and, if disrupted, could harm our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows.

The dynamic markets in which we participate, and our business and sales models make revenues difficult to forecast. We sell to a variety of customers, across multiple industries and geographies, both directly and through various channels, with a corresponding variety of sales cycles. The majority of our sales are made and/or fulfilled indirectly through channel partners, including value-added resellers, systems integrators, distributors, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and strategic business partners, which include public cloud providers. This structure significantly complicates our ability to forecast future revenue, especially within any particular fiscal quarter or year. Moreover, our relationships with our indirect channel partners and strategic business partners are critical to our success. The loss of one or more of our key indirect channel partners in a given geographic area or the failure of our channel or strategic partners, including public cloud providers, to promote our products could harm our operating results. Qualifying and developing new indirect channel partners typically requires a significant investment of time and resources before acceptable levels of productivity are met. If we fail to maintain our relationships with our indirect channel partners and strategic partners, including public cloud providers, if their financial condition, business or customer relationships were to weaken, if they fail to comply with legal or regulatory requirements, or if we were to cease to do business with them for these or other reasons, our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows could be harmed.

Our gross margins may vary.

Our gross margins reflect a variety of factors, including competitive pricing, component and product design, inflation, foreign exchange currency fluctuations, and the volume and relative mix of revenues from product, software support, hardware support and other services offerings. Increased component and labor costs, increased pricing and discounting pressures, the relative and varying rates of increases or decreases in component costs and product prices, or changes in the mix of revenue or decreased volume from product, software support, hardware support and other services offerings could harm our revenues, gross margins or earnings. Our gross margins are also impacted by the cost of any materials that are of poor quality and our sales and distribution activities, including, without limitation, pricing actions, rebates, sales initiatives and discount levels, and the timing of service contract renewals. The costs of third-party components comprise a significant portion of our product costs. While we generally have been able to manage our component and product design costs, we may have difficulty managing these costs if supplies of certain components, including NAND, become limited or component prices increase. Any such limitation could result in an increase in our product costs. We have seen, and may continue to see, our gross margins negatively impacted by increases in component costs, logistics costs, and inflationary pressures. An increase in component or design costs relative to our product prices could harm our gross margins and earnings. Failure to sustain or improve our gross margins may have a material adverse effect on our business and stock price.

Issues related to the development and use of artificial intelligence (AI), including GenAI, could give rise to legal and/or regulatory action, damage our reputation or otherwise materially harm our business.

We are increasingly building and/or leveraging AI technology, including GenAI, in certain of our products and services and in our business operations. Our research and development of such technology remains ongoing. As with many innovations, AI presents risks, challenges, and potential unintended consequences that could affect our and our customers’ adoption and use of this technology. AI algorithms and training methodologies may be flawed, and AI technologies are complex and rapidly evolving. We face significant competition in the market and from other companies regarding such technologies.

While we aim to develop and use AI responsibly and attempt to identify and mitigate ethical and legal issues presented by its use, we may be unsuccessful in identifying or resolving issues before they arise. AI-related issues, deficiencies and/or failures could (i)

give rise to legal and/or regulatory action, including with respect to proposed legislation regulating AI in various jurisdictions in which we operate, and as a result of new applications of existing data protection, privacy, intellectual property, and other laws; (ii) damage our reputation; or (iii) otherwise materially harm our business. To the extent regulation materially delays or impedes the adoption of AI, demand for our products may not meet our forecasts.

Increasing competition and industry consolidation could harm our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows.

Our markets are intensely competitive and are characterized by fragmentation and rapidly changing technology. We compete with many companies in the markets we serve, including established public companies, newer public companies with a strong flash focus, and new market entrants addressing the opportunity for GenAI and application data management for Kubernetes. Some offer a broad spectrum of IT products and services (full-stack vendors) and others offer a more limited set of products or services. Technology trends, such as hosted or public cloud storage, software as a service (SaaS) and flash storage are driving significant changes in storage architectures and solution requirements. Cloud service provider competitors provide customers storage on demand, without requiring a capital expenditure, which meets rapidly evolving business needs and has changed the competitive landscape. We also compete in the emerging cloud operations market, where growth is being driven by increased customer cloud usage and commensurate spend, but customer requirements are still evolving. There is no clear leader in this market.

Competitors may develop new technologies, products or services in advance of us or establish new business models, more flexible purchase models or new technologies disruptive to us. By extending our flash, cloud storage, converged infrastructure and cloud operations offerings, we are competing in new segments with both traditional competitors and new competitors, particularly smaller emerging storage and cloud operations vendors. The longer-term potential and competitiveness of these emerging vendors remains to be determined. In cloud and converged infrastructure, we also compete with large well-established competitors.

It is possible that new competitors or alliances among competitors might emerge and rapidly acquire significant market share or buying power. Changes in customer requirements or an increase in industry consolidation might result in stronger competitors that are better able to compete. In addition, current and potential competitors have established or might establish cooperative relationships among themselves or with third parties, including some of our partners or suppliers. For additional information regarding our competitors, see the section entitled “Competition” contained in Part I, Item 1 – Business of this Form 10-K.

Transition to consumption-based business models may adversely affect our revenues and profitability in other areas of our business and as a result may harm our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows.

We offer customers a full range of consumption models, including cloud-based storage services and storage as a service (STaaS) delivered on premises. These business models continue to evolve, and we may not be able to compete effectively, generate significant revenues or maintain the profitability of our consumption-based offerings. Additionally, the increasing prevalence of cloud and SaaS delivery models offered by us and our competitors may have a dampening impact on overall demand for our on-premises offerings sold in a traditional capex model, which could reduce our revenues and cash flow, at least in the near term. If we do not successfully execute our consumption model strategy or anticipate the needs of our customers, our revenues and profitability could decline.

As customer demand for our consumption model offerings increases, we will experience differences in the timing of revenue recognition between our traditional purchase arrangements (for which revenue is generally recognized in full at the time of delivery), relative to our consumption model offerings (for which revenue is generally recognized ratably over the term of the arrangement). We incur certain expenses associated with the infrastructure and marketing of our consumption model offerings in advance of our ability to recognize the revenues associated with these offerings.

Due to the global nature of our business, risks inherent in our international operations could materially harm our business.

A significant portion of our operations are located, and a significant portion of our revenues are derived, outside of the U.S. In addition, most of our products are manufactured outside of the U.S., and we have research and development, sales and service centers overseas. Accordingly, our international operations, business and future operating results could be adversely impacted by economic, business, regulatory, social and political factors in foreign countries including, among other things, the imposition of government controls, local political or economic conditions including recessionary cycles, inflationary conditions and political uncertainty, economic sanctions, trade protections and regulations and export and import requirements, tariffs, tax policies, treaties or laws, local labor conditions, transportation costs, government spending patterns, geopolitical tensions and uncertainties, acts of terrorism, international conflicts and natural disasters in areas with limited infrastructure and adverse public health developments. In particular, ongoing trade tensions between the U.S. and China could impact our business and operating results. Any increase in tensions between China and Taiwan, including threats of military actions or escalation of military activities, could adversely affect our or our contract manufacturers’ ability to source key supply chain components included in our products. As a result of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, numerous countries and organizations have imposed sanctions and export controls, while businesses, including the Company, have limited or suspended Russian operations. Russia has likewise imposed currency restrictions and regulations and may further take retaliatory trade or other actions, including the nationalization of foreign businesses. These actions could impact our supply chain, pricing, business and operating results and expose us to cyberattacks. In addition, due to the global nature of our business, we are subject to complex legal and regulatory requirements in the U.S. and the foreign jurisdictions in which we operate and sell our products, including antitrust and anti-competition laws, and regulations related to data privacy, data protection, and cybersecurity. We are also subject to the potential loss of proprietary information due to piracy, misappropriation, or laws that may be less protective of our intellectual property rights than U.S. laws. Such factors have or could have an adverse impact on our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows.

We face exposure to adverse movements in foreign currency exchange rates as a result of our international operations. These exposures may change over time as business practices evolve, and they could have a material adverse impact on our operating results, financial condition and cash flows. We utilize forward and option contracts in an attempt to reduce the adverse earnings impact from the effect of exchange rate fluctuations on certain assets and liabilities. Our hedging strategies may not be successful, and currency exchange rate fluctuations could have a material adverse effect on our operating results and cash flows. In addition, our foreign currency exposure on assets, liabilities, and cash flows that we do not hedge could have a material impact on our financial results in periods when the U.S. dollar significantly fluctuates in relation to foreign currencies.

Moreover, in many foreign countries, particularly in those with developing economies, it is a common business practice to engage in activities that are prohibited by NetApp's internal policies and procedures, or U.S. laws and regulations applicable to us, such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. There can be no assurance that all our employees, contractors and agents, as well as those companies to which we outsource certain of our business operations, will comply with these policies, procedures, laws and/or regulations. Any such violation could subject us to fines and other penalties, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows.

If we are unable to attract and retain qualified personnel, our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows could be harmed.

Our continued success depends, in part, on our ability to hire and retain qualified personnel and to advance our corporate strategy and preserve the key aspects of our corporate culture. Because our future success is dependent on our ability to continue to enhance and introduce new products and features, we are particularly dependent on our ability to hire and retain qualified engineers and technical talent, including in emerging areas of technology such as AI and machine learning. In addition, to increase revenues, we will be required to increase the productivity of our sales force and support infrastructure to achieve adequate customer coverage. Competition for qualified employees, particularly in the technology industry, remains tight. We have periodically reduced our workforce, including reductions of approximately 9% and 2% announced in fiscal 2023 and fiscal 2024, respectively, and these actions may make it more difficult to attract and retain qualified employees. Our inability to hire and retain qualified management and skilled personnel, particularly engineers, salespeople and key executive management, could disrupt our development efforts, sales results, business relationships and/or our ability to execute our business plan and strategy on a timely basis and could materially and adversely affect our operating results, financial conditions and cash flows.

Many of our employees participate in our hybrid work program, and work remotely on a full- or part-time basis. While this has been generally well received by employees, it may also create other challenges that impact our ability to attract and retain qualified personnel, including, but not limited to, some employees may prefer an in person work environment, difficulty collaborating and communicating among employees, and ability to maintain consistent experience of our corporate culture and workforce morale. If we are unable to effectively manage the risks and challenges associated with hybrid work, our business operations and financial performance may be adversely affected.

A number of our employees are foreign nationals who rely on visas and entry permits in order to legally work in the U.S. and other countries. In recent years, the U.S. has increased the level of scrutiny in granting H-1B, L-1 and other business visas. Compliance with new and unexpected U.S. immigration and labor laws could also require us to incur additional unexpected labor costs and expenses or could restrain our ability to retain and attract skilled professionals. Any of these restrictions could have a negative material adverse effect on our business, results of operations or financial conditions.

Equity grants are a critical component of our current compensation programs as they support attraction and engagement of key talent and align employee interests with shareholders. A competitive broad-based equity compensation program is essential to compete for talent in both the hardware and software industries, in which competitors for talent provide a more significant portion of compensation via equity. If we reduce, modify or eliminate our equity programs or fail to grant equity competitively, we may have difficulty attracting and retaining critical employees.

In addition, because of the structure of our sales, cash and equity incentive compensation plans, we may be at increased risk of losing employees at certain times. For example, the retention value of our compensation plans decreases after the payment of periodic bonuses or the vesting of equity awards.

Our acquisitions or divestitures may not achieve expected benefits, and may increase our liabilities, disrupt our existing business and harm our operating results, financial condition and cash flows.

As part of our strategy, we seek to acquire other businesses and technologies to complement our current products and services, expand the breadth of our markets, or enhance our technical capabilities, and may seek to divest a business, product line, or division which no longer complements our current products or services. For example, we acquired a number of privately held companies in the past several years. The benefits we have received, and expect to receive, from these and other acquisitions depend on our ability to successfully conduct due diligence, negotiate the terms of the acquisition and integrate the acquired business into our systems, procedures and organizational structure. Similarly, the benefits we would expect to receive from a divestiture would depend on our ability to manage separation of operations, services, product, and personnel, in addition to other risks. Any inaccuracy in our assumptions or any failure to uncover or mitigate liabilities or risks associated with an acquisition or divestiture, such as differing or inadequate cybersecurity and data privacy protection controls or contractual limitations of liability, and any failure to make an acquisition or divestiture on favorable terms, integrate or divest the subject business or assets as and when expected, or retain or separate key employees of the subject company or business may reduce or eliminate the expected benefits to us, increase our costs, disrupt our operations, result in additional liabilities, investigations and litigation, and may also harm our strategy, our business and our operating results. The failure to achieve expected acquisition or divestiture benefits may also result in impairment charges for goodwill and intangible assets.

We often incur expenses before we receive related benefits, and expenses may be difficult to reduce quickly if demand declines.

We base our expense levels in part on future revenue expectations and a significant percentage of our expenses are fixed. It is difficult to reduce our fixed costs quickly, and if revenue levels are below our expectations, operating results could be adversely impacted. During periods of uneven growth or decline, we may incur costs before we realize the anticipated related benefits, which could also harm our operating results. We have made, and will continue to make, significant investments in engineering, sales, service and support, marketing and other functions to support and grow our business. We are likely to recognize the costs associated with these investments earlier than some of the related anticipated benefits, such as revenue growth, and the return on these investments may be lower, or may develop more slowly, than we expect, which could harm our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows.

Initiatives intended to make our cost structure, business processes and systems more efficient may not achieve the expected benefits and could inadvertently have an adverse effect on our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows.

We continuously seek to make our cost structure and business processes more efficient, including by moving our business activities from higher-cost to lower-cost locations, outsourcing certain business processes and functions, and implementing changes to our business information systems. These efforts may involve a significant investment of financial and human resources and significant changes to our current operating processes. For example, in fiscal 2024, we implemented, and in fiscal 2025 we will continue to implement, certain new business information systems, including implementing our new enterprise resource planning system. We may encounter difficulties in implementing these new business information systems or maintaining and upgrading existing systems and software. Such difficulties may lead to significant expenses or losses due to unexpected additional costs required to implement or maintain systems, disruption in business operations, loss of sales or profits, or disruption to our ability to timely and accurately process and report key aspects of our financial statements and, as a result, may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects.

In addition, as we move operations into lower-cost jurisdictions and outsource certain business processes, we become subject to new regulatory regimes and lose control of certain aspects of our operations and, as a consequence, become more dependent upon the systems and business processes of third-parties. If we are unable to move our operations, outsource business processes or implement new business information systems in a manner that complies with local law and maintains adequate standards, controls and procedures, the quality of our products and services may suffer and we may be subject to increased litigation risk, either of which could have an adverse effect on our business, operating results and financial condition. Additionally, we may not achieve the expected benefits of these and other transformational initiatives, which could harm our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows.

We are exposed to credit risks, our investment portfolio may experience fluctuations in market value or returns, and our cash and cash equivalents could be adversely affected if the financial institutions in which we hold our cash and cash equivalents fail.

We maintain an investment portfolio of various holdings, types, and maturities. Credit ratings and pricing of our investments can be negatively affected by liquidity, credit deterioration, financial results, economic risk, political risk, sovereign risk or other factors. As a result, the value and liquidity of our investments and the returns thereon may fluctuate substantially. Unfavorable macroeconomic conditions, rising interest rates, or other circumstances could result in an economic slowdown and possibly cause a global recession. An economic slowdown or increased regional or global economic uncertainty may lead to failures of counterparties, including financial institutions, governments and insurers, which could result in a material decline in the value of our investment portfolio and substantially reduce our investment returns. We regularly maintain cash balances at large third-party financial institutions in excess of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insurance limit of $250,000 and similar regulatory insurance limits outside the United States. If a depository institution where we maintain deposits fails or is subject to adverse conditions in the financial or credit markets, we may not be able to recover all of our deposits, which could adversely impact our operating liquidity and financial performance. Similarly, if our customers or partners experience liquidity issues as a result of financial institution defaults or non-performance where they hold cash assets, their ability to pay us may become impaired and could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, including the collection of accounts receivable and cash flows.

Our goals and disclosures related to environmental, social and governance (ESG) matters expose us to risks that could adversely affect our reputation and performance.

We have established and publicly announced, and may continue to establish and publicly announce, initiatives and goals regarding environmental matters, diversity, and other related matters, including our commitment to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and increasing our representation of women in our global workforce and underrepresented minorities in our US workforce, in our ESG Report, on our website, in our SEC filings and elsewhere. These statements reflect our current plans and aspirations and are not quotas or guarantees that we will be able to achieve them. These initiatives and goals could be difficult and expensive to implement, the technologies we need to implement them may not be cost effective and may not advance at a sufficient pace, and ensuring the accuracy, adequacy or completeness of the disclosure of our ESG initiatives can be costly, difficult and time-consuming. Our failure to accomplish or accurately track and report on these goals on a timely basis, or at all, could adversely affect our reputation, financial performance and growth, and expose us to increased scrutiny from our stakeholders, the investment community as well as enforcement authorities.

There is an increasing focus from U.S. and foreign government agencies, investors, customers, consumers, employees and other stakeholders concerning ESG matters, including sustainable products. These changing rules, regulations and stakeholder expectations have resulted in, and are likely to continue to result in, increased general and administrative expenses and increased management time and attention spent complying with or meeting such regulations and expectations. For example, developing and acting on ESG initiatives, and collecting, measuring and reporting ESG information and metrics can be costly, difficult and time consuming and is subject to evolving reporting standards, including the SEC’s climate-related reporting requirements, the California climate reporting rules and, to the extent applicable, the European Union's (EU) Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. Statements about our ESG initiatives and goals, and progress against those goals, may be based on standards for tracking, measuring and reporting ESG matters that are continuing to evolve and assumptions that are subject to change. This may result in a lack of consistent or meaningful comparative data from period to period or between the Company and other companies in the same industry. In addition, our processes and controls may not always comply with evolving standards for identifying, measuring and reporting ESG metrics, including ESG-related disclosures that may be required of public companies by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and such standards may change over time, which could result in significant revisions to our current goals, reported progress in achieving such goals, or ability to achieve such goals in the future.

We could also face scrutiny from certain stakeholders for the scope or nature of our ESG initiatives or goals, or for any revisions to these goals. If our ESG related data, processes and reporting are incomplete or inaccurate, if we fail to achieve progress with respect to our ESG goals on a timely basis, or at all, or if we were to be subject to government enforcement actions or private litigation from stakeholders because of our ESG initiatives, our ability to attract or retain employees, and our attractiveness as an investment, business partner, acquiror or supplier could be negatively impacted and our business, financial performance and growth could be adversely affected.

Risks Related to Our Customers and Sales

A portion of our revenues is generated by large, recurring purchases from various customers, resellers and distributors. A loss, cancellation or delay in purchases has negatively affected our revenues in the past, and could negatively affect our revenues in the future.

A significant portion of our net revenues depends on sales to a limited number of customers and distributors. We generally do not enter into binding purchase commitments with our customers, resellers and distributors for extended periods of time, and thus there is no guarantee we will continue to receive large, recurring orders from these customers, resellers or distributors. For example, our reseller agreements generally do not require minimum purchases, and our customers, resellers and distributors can stop purchasing and marketing our products at any time. Any deterioration in the solvency of our customers, resellers and distributors or the ability of such customers, resellers and distributors to obtain credit to finance purchases of our products could have a significant adverse effect on our results of operations and cash flow. If any of our key customers, resellers or distributors changes its pricing practices, reduces the size or frequency of its orders for our products, or stops purchasing our products altogether, our operating results, financial condition and cash flows could be materially adversely impacted. In addition, major customers may also seek pricing, payment, intellectual property-related, or other commercial terms that are less favorable to us, which may have a negative impact on our business, cash flow and operating results.

If we are unable to maintain and develop relationships with strategic partners, our revenues may be harmed.

Our growth strategy includes developing and maintaining strategic partnerships with major third-party software and hardware vendors to integrate our products into their products and also co-market our products with them. A number of our strategic partners are industry leaders that offer us expanded access to segments in which we do not directly participate. In particular, strategic partnerships with public cloud providers and other cloud service vendors are critical to the success of our cloud-based business. However, there is intense competition for attractive strategic partners, and these relationships may not be exclusive, may not generate significant revenues and may be terminated on short notice. For instance, some of our partners are also partnering with our competitors, which may increase the availability of competing solutions and harm our ability to grow our relationships with those partners. Moreover, some of our partners, particularly large, more diversified technology companies, including major cloud providers, are also competitors, thereby complicating our relationships. If we are unable to establish new partnerships or maintain existing partnerships, if our strategic partners favor their relationships with other vendors in the storage industry or if our strategic partners increasingly compete with us, we could experience lower than expected revenues, suffer delays in product development, or experience other harm to our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows.

Our success depends upon our ability to effectively plan and manage our resources and to periodically restructure our business, and such actions may have an adverse effect on our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows.

Our ability to successfully offer our products and services in a rapidly evolving market requires an effective planning, forecasting, and management process to enable us to effectively scale and adjust our business in response to fluctuating market opportunities and conditions.

In fiscal 2024, we reorganized our sales resources, which included changes and additions to our sales leadership team, to gain operational efficiencies and improve the alignment of our resources with customer and market opportunities. Reorganization of our sales resources, and ongoing evolution of our go-to-market model, could result in short or long-term disruption of our sales cycles, may not produce the efficiencies and benefits desired, and could harm our operating results, financial condition and cash flows.

We have and may in the future undertake initiatives that could include reorganizing our workforce, restructuring, disposing of, and/or otherwise discontinuing certain products, facility reductions or a combination of these actions which have resulted in, or may result in, restructuring charges. Rapid changes in the size, alignment or organization of our workforce, including our business unit structure, structure of our sales team, and sales account coverage, could adversely affect our ability to develop, sell and deliver products and services as planned or impair our ability to realize our current or future business and financial objectives. Charges associated with these activities could harm our operating results. Our ability to achieve the anticipated cost savings and other benefits from these initiatives is subject to many estimates and assumptions, which are subject to uncertainties. If our estimates and assumptions are incorrect, if we are unsuccessful at implementing changes, or if other unforeseen events occur, our business, financial condition, and results of operations could be adversely affected.

Reduced U.S. government demand could materially harm our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows. In addition, we could be harmed by claims that we have or a channel partner has failed to comply with regulatory and contractual requirements applicable to sales to the U.S. government.

The U.S. government is an important customer for us. However, government demand is uncertain, as it is subject to political and budgetary fluctuations and constraints. Events such as the U.S. federal government shutdown from December 2018 to January 2019 and continued uncertainty regarding the U.S. budget and debt levels have increased demand uncertainty for our products. In addition, like other customers, the U.S. government may evaluate competing products and delay purchasing in the face of the technology transitions taking place in the storage industry. If the U.S. government or an individual agency or multiple agencies within the U.S. government continue to reduce or shift their IT spending patterns, our operating results, including revenues may be harmed.

Selling our products to the U.S. government, whether directly or through channel partners, also subjects us to certain regulatory and contractual requirements. Failure to comply with these requirements by either us or our channel partners could subject us to investigations, fines, and other penalties, which could materially harm our operating results and financial condition. As an example, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and the General Services Administration (GSA) have in the past pursued claims against and financial settlements with IT vendors, including us and several of our competitors and channel partners, under the False Claims Act and other statutes related to pricing and discount practices and compliance with certain provisions of GSA contracts for sales to the federal government. Although the DOJ and GSA currently have no claims pending against us, we could face claims in the future. Violations of certain regulatory and contractual requirements, including with respect to cybersecurity, procurement process or affirmative action program requirements could also result in us being suspended or debarred from future government contracting. Any of these outcomes could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows.

In response to increasing cybersecurity threats, the U.S. government has subjected IT vendors, including us, to certain additional requirements. As an example, the Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity (EO 14028), released in May 2021, outlines the U.S. government’s plan to address software supply chain security for “critical software” and other software. NetApp’s products are categorized as critical software, requiring us to achieve compliance with the Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF) under NIST special publication 800-218. The current deadline for compliance is subject to the U.S. government’s finalization of their common attestation form, and any products that cannot attest to compliance with the SSDF may result in delays or inability to execute contracts with customers, particularly with government entities.

If we do not achieve forecasted sales orders in any quarter, our operating results, financial condition and cash flows could be harmed.

We derive a majority of our revenues in any given quarter from orders booked in the same quarter. Orders typically follow intra-quarter seasonality patterns weighted toward the back end of the quarter. If we do not achieve the level, timing and mix of orders consistent with our quarterly targets and historical patterns, or if we experience cancellations of significant orders, our operating results, financial condition and cash flows could be harmed.

We are exposed to the credit and non-payment risk of our customers, resellers and distributors, especially during times of economic uncertainty and tight credit markets, which could result in material losses.

Most of our sales to customers are on an open credit basis, with typical payment terms of 30 days. We may experience increased losses as potentially more customers are unable to pay all or a portion of their obligations to us, particularly in the current macroeconomic environment when access to sources of liquidity may be limited. Beyond our open credit arrangements, some of our customers have entered into recourse and non-recourse financing leasing arrangements using third-party leasing companies. Under the terms of recourse leases, which are generally three years or less, we remain liable for the aggregate unpaid remaining lease payments to the third-party leasing companies in the event of end-user customer default. During periods of economic uncertainty, our exposure to credit risks from our customers increases. In addition, our exposure to credit risks of our customers may increase further if our customers and their customers or their lease financing sources are adversely affected by global economic conditions.

Risks Related to Our Products and Services

Any disruption to our supply chain could materially harm our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows.

We do not manufacture certain components used in our products. We rely on third parties to manufacture critical components, as well as for associated logistics. Our lack of direct responsibility for, and control over, these elements of our business, as well as the diverse international geographic locations of our manufacturing partners and suppliers, creates significant risks for us, including, among other things:

• Limited number of suppliers for certain components;
• No guarantees of supply and limited ability to control the quality, quantity and cost of our products or of their components;
• The potential for binding price or purchase commitments with our suppliers at higher than market rates;
• Limited ability to adjust production volumes in response to our customers’ demand fluctuations;
• Labor and political unrest at facilities we do not operate or own;
• Geopolitical disputes disrupting our supply chain;
• Impacts on our supply chain from adverse public health developments;
• Business, legal compliance, litigation and financial concerns affecting our suppliers or their ability to manufacture and ship components in the quantities, quality and manner we require; and
• Disruptions due to floods, earthquakes, storms and other natural disasters, especially those caused by climate change, and particularly in countries with limited infrastructure and disaster recovery resources.

Such risks have subjected us, and could in the future subject us, to supply constraints, price increases and minimum purchase requirements and our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows could be harmed. The risks associated with our outsourced manufacturing model are particularly acute when we transition products to new facilities or manufacturers, introduce and increase volumes of new products or qualify new contract manufacturers or suppliers, at which times our ability to manage the relationships among us, our manufacturing partners and our component suppliers, becomes critical. New manufacturers, products, components or facilities create increased costs and risk that we will fail to deliver high quality products in the required volumes to our customers. Any failure of a manufacturer or component supplier to meet our quality, quantity or delivery requirements in a cost-effective manner will harm our business, including customer relationships and as a result could harm our operating results, financial condition and cash flows. Additionally, disruption to our manufacturing operations, or those of our contract manufacturers, could significantly impact our ability to supply our customers and could produce a near-term severe impact on the Company.

We rely on a limited number of suppliers for critical product components.

We rely on a limited number of suppliers for drives and other components utilized in the assembly of our products, including certain single source suppliers, which has subjected us, and could in the future subject us, to price rigidity, periodic supply constraints, and the inability to produce our products with the quality and in the quantities demanded. Consolidation among suppliers, particularly within the semiconductor and storage media industries, has contributed to price volatility and supply constraints. When industry supply is constrained, or the supply chain is disrupted, our suppliers may allocate volumes away from us and to our competitors, all of which rely on many of the same suppliers as we do. Accordingly, our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows may be harmed.

If a material cybersecurity or other security breach impacts our services or occurs on our systems, within our supply chain, or on our end-user customer systems, or if stored data is improperly accessed, customers may reduce or cease using our solutions, our reputation may be harmed and we may incur significant liabilities.

We store and transmit, and sell products and services that store and transmit, personal, sensitive and proprietary data related to our products, our employees, customers, clients and partners (including third-party vendors such as data centers and providers of SaaS, cloud computing, and internet infrastructure and bandwidth), and their respective customers, including intellectual property, books of record and personal information. It is critical to our business strategy that our infrastructure, products and services remain secure and are perceived by customers, clients and partners to be secure. There are numerous and evolving risks to cybersecurity and privacy, including criminal hackers, state-sponsored intrusions, industrial espionage, human error and technological vulnerabilities. Material cybersecurity incidents or other security breaches could result in (1) unauthorized access to, or loss or unauthorized use, alteration, or disclosure of, such information; (2) litigation, indemnity obligations, government investigations and proceedings, regulatory fines and penalties, and other possible liabilities; (3) negative publicity; and (4) disruptions to our internal and external operations. Any of these could damage our reputation and public perception of the security and reliability of our products, as well as harm our business and cause us to incur significant liabilities. In addition, a material cybersecurity incident or loss of personal information, or other material security breach could result in other negative consequences, including remediation costs, disruption of internal operations, increased cybersecurity protection costs and lost revenues.

Our clients and customers use our platforms for the transmission and storage of sensitive data. We do not generally review the information or content that our clients and their customers upload and store, and we have no direct control over the substance of the information or content stored within our platforms. If our employees, or our clients, partners or their respective customers use our platforms for the transmission or storage of personal or other sensitive information, or our supply chain cybersecurity is compromised and our security measures are breached as a result of third-party action, employee error, malfeasance, stolen or fraudulently obtained log-in credentials or otherwise, our reputation could be damaged, our business may be harmed and we could incur significant liabilities.

Security industry experts and US Government officials continue to emphasize risks to our industry. Cyber attacks and security breaches continue to increase, and of particular concern are supply-chain attacks against software development and breaches of technology service providers. We anticipate that cyberattacks will continue to increase in the future given cyber warfare has become a consistent lever within geopolitical conflicts and increasingly leverages hacktivism. We cannot give assurance that we will always be successful in preventing or repelling unauthorized access to our systems. We also may face delays in our ability to identify or otherwise respond to any cybersecurity incident or any other breach. Additionally, we use third-party service providers to provide some services to us that involve the storage or transmission of data, such as SaaS, cloud computing, and internet infrastructure and bandwidth, and they face various cybersecurity threats and also may suffer cybersecurity incidents or other security breaches.

Many jurisdictions have enacted or are enacting laws requiring companies to notify regulators or individuals of data security incidents involving certain types of personal data. These mandatory disclosures regarding security incidents often lead to widespread negative publicity. Moreover, the risk of reputational harm may be magnified and/or distorted through the rapid dissemination of information over the internet, including through news articles, blogs, social media, and other online communication forums and services. Any security incident, loss of data, or other security breach, whether actual or perceived, or whether impacting us or our third-party service providers, could harm our reputation, erode customer confidence in the effectiveness of our data security measures, negatively impact our ability to attract new customers, cause existing customers to elect not to renew their support contracts or their SaaS subscriptions, or subject us to third-party lawsuits, regulatory fines or other action or liability, which could materially and adversely affect our business and operating results.

There can be no assurance that the limitations of liability in our contracts would be enforceable or adequate or would otherwise protect us from any such liabilities or damages with respect to any particular claim. Our existing general liability insurance coverage, cybersecurity insurance coverage and coverage for errors and omissions may not continue to be available on acceptable terms or may not be available in sufficient amounts to cover one or more large claims, or our insurers may deny coverage as to any future claim. The successful assertion of one or more large claims against us that exceeds available insurance coverage, or the occurrence of changes in our insurance policies, including premium increases or the imposition of large deductible or co-insurance requirements, could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows.

If a data center or other third-party who relies on our products experiences a disruption in service or a loss of data, such disruption could be attributed to the quality of our products, thereby causing financial or reputational harm to our business.

Our clients, including data centers, SaaS, cloud computing and internet infrastructure and bandwidth providers, rely on our products for their data storage needs. Our clients may authorize third-party technology providers to access their data on our systems. Because we do not control the transmissions between our clients, their customers, and third-party technology providers, or the processing of such data by third-party technology providers, we cannot ensure the complete integrity or security of such transmissions or processing. Errors or wrongdoing by clients, their customers, or third-party technology providers resulting in actual or perceived security breaches may result in such actual or perceived breaches being attributed to us.

A failure or inability to meet our clients’ expectations with respect to security and confidentiality through a disruption in the services provided by these third-party vendors, or the loss or alteration of data stored by such vendors, could result in financial or reputational harm to our business to the extent that such disruption or loss is caused by, or perceived by our customers to have been caused by, defects in our products. Moreover, the risk of reputational harm may be magnified and/or distorted through the rapid dissemination of information over the internet, including through news articles, blogs, social media, and other online communication forums and services. This may affect our ability to retain clients and attract new business.

Failure to comply with new and existing laws and regulations relating to privacy, data protection, AI and information security could cause harm to our reputation, result in liability and adversely impact our business.

Our business is subject to increasing regulation by various federal, state and international governmental agencies responsible for enacting and enforcing laws and regulations relating to privacy, data protection, and information security. For example, since the effective date of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation in 2018, the Court of Justice of the EU has issued rulings that have impacted how multinational companies must implement that law and the European Commission (EC) has published new regulatory requirements relating to cross-border data transfers applicable to multinational companies like NetApp. NetApp relies on a variety of compliance methods to transfer personal data of European Economic Area (EEA) individuals to other countries, including Binding Corporate Rules and Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs). In June 2021, the EC imposed new SCC requirements which impose certain contract and operational requirements on NetApp and its contracting parties, including requirements related to government access transparency, enhanced data subject rights, and broader third-party assessments to ensure safeguards necessary to protect personal data transferred from NetApp or its partners to countries outside the EEA, requiring NetApp to revise customer and vendor agreements. In addition to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, other global governments have adopted new privacy and data protection laws implementing similarly comprehensive regulatory frameworks.

The rapidly evolving regulatory landscape in this area is likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future given heightened cyber-security threats, and amid the innovation and adoption of GenAI technology. For example, the Artificial Intelligence Act, recently adopted by the EU, sets forth new AI risk categorization, obligations, and prohibitions. In addition, changes in the interpretation and enforcement of existing laws and regulations could impact our business operations and those of our partners, vendors and customers. Customers, privacy advocates and industry groups also may propose new and different self-regulatory standards or standards of care that may legally or contractually apply to us, and these standards may be subject to change. These factors create uncertainty and we cannot yet determine the impact such future laws, regulations and standards, or changes to such laws, regulations, or standards, or to their interpretation or enforcement, may have on our business or the businesses of our partners, vendors and customers. In addition, changes in the interpretation of existing laws and regulations could impact our business operations and those of our partners, vendors and customers.

Because the interpretation and application of many laws and regulations relating to privacy, data protection and information security, along with industry standards, are uncertain, it is possible that relevant laws, regulations, or standards may be interpreted and applied in manners that are, or are alleged to be, inconsistent with our data management practices or the features of our products. Any failure, or perceived failure, by us or our business partners to comply with federal, state or international laws and regulations relating to privacy, data protection, and information security, commitments relating to privacy, data protection, and information security contained in our contracts, self-regulatory standards that apply to us or that third parties assert are applicable to us, or our policies or notices we post or make available could subject us to claims, investigations, sanctions, enforcement actions and other proceedings, disgorgement of profits, fines, damages, civil and criminal liability, penalties or injunctions.

Additionally, as a technology provider, our customers expect that we can demonstrate compliance with laws and regulations relating to privacy, data protection, and information security, and our inability or perceived inability to do so may adversely impact sales of our products and services, particularly to customers in highly-regulated industries. We have invested company resources in complying with new laws, regulations, and other obligations relating to privacy, data protection, and information security, and we may be required to make additional, significant changes in our business operations, all of which may adversely affect our revenue and our business overall. As a result of any inability to comply with such laws and regulations, our reputation and brand may be harmed, we could incur significant costs, and financial and operating results could be materially adversely affected, and we could be required to modify or change our products or our business practices, any of which could have an adverse effect on our business. Our business could be subject to stricter obligations, greater fines and private causes of action, including class actions, under the enactment of new laws and regulations relating to privacy, data protection, and information security, including but not limited to, the European Union General Data Protection Regulation, which provides for penalties of up to 20 million Euros or four percent of our annual global revenues, the California Consumer Privacy Act and the California Privacy Rights Act, and other U.S. state-based regulation.

If our products or services are defective, or are perceived to be defective as a result of improper use or maintenance, our operating results, including gross margins, and customer relationships may be harmed.

Our products and services are complex. We have experienced in the past, and expect to experience in the future, quality issues impacting certain products, and in the future, we could experience reliability issues with services we provide. Such quality and reliability issues may be due to, for example, our own designs or processes, the designs or processes of our suppliers, and/or flaws in third-party software used in our products. These types of risks are most acute when we are introducing new products. Quality or reliability issues have and could again in the future cause customers to experience outages or disruptions in service, data loss or data corruption. If we fail to remedy a product defect or flaw, we may experience a failure of a product line, temporary or permanent withdrawal from a product or market, damage to our reputation, loss of revenue, inventory costs or product reengineering expenses and higher ongoing warranty and service costs, and these occurrences could have a material impact on our gross margins, business and operating results. In addition, we exercise little control over how our customers use or maintain our products and services, and in some cases improper usage or maintenance could impair the performance of our products and services, which could lead to a perception of a quality or reliability issue. Customers may experience losses that may result from or are alleged to result from defects or flaws in our products and services, which could subject us to claims for damages, including consequential damages.

Changes in regulations relating to our products or their components, or the manufacture, sourcing, distribution or use thereof, may harm our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows.

The laws and regulations governing the manufacturing, sourcing, distribution and use of our products have become more complex and stringent over time. For example, in addition to various environmental laws relating to carbon emissions, the use and discharge of hazardous materials and the use of certain minerals originating from identified conflict zones, many governments, including the U.S., the United Kingdom and Australia, have adopted regulations concerning the risk of human trafficking in supply chains which govern how workers are recruited and managed. We incur costs to comply with the requirements of such laws. Further, since our supply chain is complex, we may face reputational harm if our customers or other stakeholders conclude that we are unable to verify sufficiently the origins of the minerals used in the products we sell or the actions of our suppliers with respect to workers. As the laws and regulations governing our products continue to expand and change, our costs are likely to rise, and the failure to comply with any such laws and regulations could subject us to business interruptions, litigation risks and reputational harm.

Some of our products are subject to U.S. export control laws and other laws affecting the countries in which our products and services may be sold, distributed, or delivered, and any violation of these laws could have a material and adverse effect on our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows.

Due to the global nature of our business, we are subject to import and export restrictions and regulations, including the Export Administration Regulations administered by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) and the trade and economic sanctions regulations administered by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The U.S., through the BIS and OFAC, places restrictions on the sale or export of certain products and services to certain countries and persons, including most recently to Russia, Belarus and portions of Ukraine. These regulations have caused the Company to stop selling or servicing our products temporarily in restricted areas, such as Russia, Belarus and portions of Ukraine. The BIS and OFAC have also placed restrictions on dealing with certain "blocked” entities, such as Russia’s federal security service (FSB), including the Company’s filing of notifications to the FSB for exporting certain products to Russia. Violators of these export control and sanctions laws may be subject to significant penalties, which may include significant monetary fines, criminal proceedings against them and their officers and employees, a denial of export privileges, and suspension or debarment from selling products to the federal government. Our products could be shipped to those targets by third parties, including potentially our channel partners, despite our precautions.

If we were ever found to have violated U.S. export control laws, we may be subject to various penalties available under the laws, any of which could have a material and adverse impact on our business, operating results and financial condition. Even if we were not found to have violated such laws, the political and media scrutiny surrounding any governmental investigation of us could cause us significant expense and reputational harm. Such collateral consequences could have a material adverse impact on our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows.

Our failure to protect our intellectual property could harm our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows.

Our success depends significantly upon developing, maintaining and protecting our proprietary technology. We rely on a combination of patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, confidentiality procedures and contractual provisions with employees, resellers, strategic partners and customers, to protect our proprietary rights. We currently have multiple U.S. and international patent applications pending and multiple U.S. and international patents issued. The pending applications may not be approved, and our existing and future patents may be challenged. If such challenges are brought, the patents may be invalidated. We may not be able to develop proprietary products or technologies that are patentable, and patents issued to us may not provide us with any competitive advantages and may be challenged by third parties. Further, the patents of others may materially and adversely affect our ability to do business. In addition, a failure to obtain and defend our trademark registrations may impede our marketing and branding efforts and competitive condition. Litigation may be necessary to protect our proprietary technology. Any such litigation may be time-consuming and costly. Despite our efforts to protect our proprietary rights, unauthorized parties may attempt to copy aspects of our products or obtain and use information that we regard as proprietary. In addition, the laws of some foreign countries do not protect proprietary rights to as great an extent as do the laws of the U.S. Our means of protecting our proprietary rights may not be adequate or our competitors may independently develop similar technology, duplicate our products, or design around patents issued to us or other intellectual property rights of ours. In addition, while we train employees in confidentiality practices and include terms in our employee and consultant agreements to protect our intellectual property, there is persistent risk that some individuals will improperly take our intellectual property after terminating their employment or other engagements with us, which could lead to intellectual property leakage to competitors and a loss of our competitive advantages.

We may be found to infringe on intellectual property rights of others.

We compete in markets in which intellectual property infringement claims arise in the normal course of business. Third parties have, from time to time, asserted intellectual property-related claims against us, including claims for alleged patent infringement brought by non-practicing entities. Such claims may be made against our products and services, our customers’ use of our products and services, or a combination of our products and third-party products. We also may be subject to claims and indemnification obligations from customers and resellers with respect to third-party intellectual property rights pursuant to our agreements with them. If we refuse to indemnify or defend such claims, even in situations in which the third-party’s allegations are meritless, then customers and resellers may refuse to do business with us.

Patent litigation is particularly common in our industry. We have been, and continue to be, in active patent litigations with non-practicing entities. While we vigorously defend our ability to compete in the marketplace, there is no guarantee that, in patent or other types of intellectual property litigation, we will prevail at trial or be able to settle at a reasonable cost. If a judge or jury were to find that our products infringe, we could be required to pay significant monetary damages and be subject to an injunction that could cause product shipment delays, require us to redesign our products, affect our ability to supply or service our customers, and/or require us to enter into compulsory royalty or licensing agreements.

We expect that companies in the enterprise storage and data management, cloud storage and cloud operations markets will increasingly be subject to infringement claims as the number of products and competitors in our industry segment grows and the functionality of products in different industry segments overlaps. Any such claims, and any such infringement claims discussed above, could be time consuming, result in costly litigation, cause suspension of product shipments or product shipment delays, require us to redesign our products, or require us to enter into royalty or licensing agreements, any of which could materially and adversely affect our operating results, financial condition and cash flows. Such royalty or licensing agreements, if required, may not be available on terms acceptable to us or at all.

We rely on software from third parties, and a failure to properly manage our use of third-party software could result in increased costs or loss of revenue.

Many of our products are designed to include software licensed from third parties. Such third-party software includes software licensed from commercial suppliers and software licensed under public or open source licenses. We have internal processes to manage our use of such third-party software. However, if we fail to adequately manage our use of third-party software, then we may be subject to copyright infringement or other third-party claims. If we are non-compliant with a license for commercial software, then we may be required to pay penalties or undergo costly audits pursuant to the license agreement. In the case of open-source software licensed under certain “copyleft” licenses, the license itself may require, or a court-imposed remedy for non-compliant use of the open source software may require, that proprietary portions of our own software be publicly disclosed or licensed. Additionally, contract proposals, negotiations and software proposals are complex and frequently involve lengthy bidding and selection processes. We may not be able to negotiate extensions to our current third-party licenses when due for renewal or continue to secure such licenses under commercially reasonable terms. Each of the foregoing could result in a loss of intellectual property rights, increased costs, damage to our reputation and/or a loss of revenue.

In addition, many of our products use open-source software. Such open-source software generally does not provide any warranty or contractual protection, and may be susceptible to attack from bad actors. Further, open-source software may contain vulnerabilities, which may or may not be known at the time of our inclusion of the software in a product. If a vulnerability in such software is successfully exploited, we could be subject to damages including remediation costs, reputational damage and lost revenues.

Our failure to adjust to emerging standards may harm our business.

Emerging standards may adversely affect the UNIX®, Windows® and World Wide Web server markets upon which we depend. For example, we provide our open access data retention solutions to customers within the financial services, healthcare, pharmaceutical and government market segments, industries that are subject to various evolving governmental regulations with respect to data access, reliability and permanence in the U.S. and in the other countries in which we operate. If our products do not meet and continue to comply with these evolving governmental regulations in this regard, customers in these market and geographical segments will not purchase our products, and we may not be able to expand our product offerings in these market and geographical segments at the rates which we have forecasted.

Risks Related to Our Securities

Our stock price is subject to volatility.

Our stock price is subject to changes in recommendations or earnings estimates by financial analysts, changes in investors' or analysts' valuation measures for our stock, changes in our capital structure, including issuance of additional debt, changes in our credit ratings, our ability to pay dividends and to continue to execute our stock repurchase program as planned and market trends unrelated to our performance.

Our ability to pay quarterly dividends and to continue to execute our stock repurchase program as planned will be subject to, among other things, our financial condition and operating results, available cash and cash flows in the U.S., capital requirements, and other factors. Future dividends are subject to declaration by our Board of Directors, and our stock repurchase program does not obligate us to acquire any specific number of shares. However, if we fail to meet any investor expectations related to dividends and/or stock repurchases, the market price of our stock could decline significantly, and could have a material adverse impact on investor confidence. Additionally, price volatility of our stock over a given period may cause the average price at which we repurchase our own stock to exceed the stock’s market price at a given point in time.

Furthermore, speculation in the press or investment community about our strategic position, financial condition, results of operations or business can cause changes in our stock price. These factors, as well as general economic and political conditions and the timing of announcements in the public market regarding new products or services, product enhancements or technological advances by our competitors or us, and any announcements by us of acquisitions, major transactions, or management changes may adversely affect our stock price.

Our quarterly operating results may fluctuate materially, which could harm our common stock price.

Our operating results have fluctuated in the past and will continue to do so, sometimes materially. All of the matters discussed in this Risk Factors section could impact our operating results in any fiscal quarter or year. In addition to those matters, we face the following issues, which could impact our quarterly results:

• Seasonality, such as our historical seasonal decline in revenues in the first quarter of our fiscal year and seasonal increase in revenues in the fourth quarter of our fiscal year;
• Linearity, such as our historical intra-quarter customer orders and revenue pattern in which a disproportionate percentage of each quarter’s total orders and related revenue occur in the last month of the quarter; and
• Unpredictability associated with larger scale enterprise software license agreements which generally take longer to negotiate and occur less consistently than other types of contracts, and for which revenue attributable to the software license component is typically recognized in full upon delivery.

If our operating results fall below our forecasts and the expectations of public market analysts and investors, the trading price of our common stock may decline.

There are risks associated with our outstanding and future indebtedness.

As of April 26, 2024, we had $2.4 billion aggregate principal amount of outstanding indebtedness for our senior notes that mature at specific dates in calendar years 2024, 2025, 2027 and 2030. We may incur additional indebtedness in the future under existing credit facilities and/or enter into new financing arrangements. We may fail to pay these or additional future obligations, as and when required. Specifically, if we are unable to generate sufficient cash flows from operations or to borrow sufficient funds in the future to service or refinance our debt, our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows will be harmed. Any downgrades from credit rating agencies such as Moody’s Investors Service or Standard & Poor’s Rating Services may adversely impact our ability to obtain additional financing or the terms of such financing and reduce the market capacity for our commercial paper. Furthermore, if prevailing interest rates or other factors result in higher interest rates upon any potential future financing, then interest expense related to the refinance indebtedness would increase.

In addition, all our debt and credit facility arrangements subject us to continued compliance with restrictive and financial covenants. If we do not comply with these covenants or otherwise default under the arrangements, we may be required to repay any outstanding amounts borrowed under these agreements. Moreover, compliance with these covenants may restrict our strategic or operational flexibility in the future, which could harm our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows.

General Risks

Our business could be materially and adversely affected as a result of natural disasters, terrorist acts or other catastrophic events.

We depend on the ability of our personnel, inventories, equipment and products to move reasonably unimpeded around the world. Any political, military, terrorism, global trade, world health or other issue that hinders this movement or restricts the import or export of materials could lead to significant business disruptions. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic impeded the mobility of our personnel, inventories, equipment and products and disrupted our business operations. Furthermore, any economic failure or other material disruption caused by natural disasters, including fires, floods, droughts, hurricanes, earthquakes, and volcanoes; power loss or shortages; environmental disasters; telecommunications or business information systems failures or break-ins and similar events could also adversely affect our ability to conduct business. As a result of climate change, we expect the frequency and impact of such natural disasters or other material disruptions to increase. If such disruptions result in cancellations of customer orders or contribute to a general decrease in economic activity or corporate spending on IT, or directly impact our marketing, manufacturing, financial and logistics functions, or impair our ability to meet our customer demands, our operating results and financial condition could be materially adversely affected. Our headquarters is located in Northern California, an area susceptible to earthquakes and wildfires. If any significant disaster were to occur there, our ability to operate our business and our operating results, financial condition and cash flows could be adversely impacted.

We could be subject to additional income tax liabilities.

Our effective tax rate is influenced by a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control. These factors include among other things, fluctuations in our earnings and financial results in the various countries and states in which we do business, changes to the tax laws in such jurisdictions and the outcome of income tax audits. Changes to any of these factors could materially impact our operating results, financial condition and cash flows.

We receive significant tax benefits from sales to our non-U.S. customers. These benefits are contingent upon existing tax laws and regulations in the U.S. and in the countries in which our international operations are located. Future changes in domestic or international tax laws and regulations or a change in how we manage our international operations could adversely affect our ability to continue realizing these tax benefits.

Many countries around the world are beginning to implement legislation and other guidance to align their international tax rules with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project (“BEPS”) recommendation and related action plans that aim to standardize and modernize global corporate tax policy, including changes to cross-border tax, transfer pricing documentation rules and nexus-based tax incentive practices. As a result, many of these changes, if enacted in whole or in part, could increase our worldwide effective tax rate and harm our operating result, financial condition, and cash flows. Implementation of the BEPS inclusive framework (“Inclusive Framework”), including potential incremental taxes under a new global minimum tax framework known as Pillar Two, is effective in most jurisdictions for fiscal years beginning on or after January 1, 2024. The first fiscal year for which NetApp will be potentially subject to additional taxes under the Inclusive Framework is fiscal year 2025.

Our effective tax rate could also be adversely affected by changes in tax laws and regulations and interpretations of such laws and regulations, which in turn would negatively impact our earnings and cash and cash equivalent balances we currently maintain. Additionally, our effective tax rate could also be adversely affected if there is a change in international operations, our tax structure and how our operations are managed and structured, and as a result, we could experience harm to our operating results and financial condition. For example, on August 16, 2022, the U.S. enacted the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes a corporate minimum tax and a 1% excise tax on net stock repurchases. We continue to evaluate the impacts of changes in tax laws and regulations on our business.

We are routinely subject to income tax audits in the U.S. and several foreign tax jurisdictions. If the ultimate determination of income taxes or at-source withholding taxes assessed under these audits results in amounts in excess of the tax provision we have recorded or reserved for, our operating results, financial condition and cash flows could be adversely affected.

Risk Management and Strategy

The Company regularly assesses risks from cybersecurity threats, monitors its information systems for potential vulnerabilities, and tests those systems pursuant to the Company’s cybersecurity policies, standards, processes and practices, which are integrated into the Company’s overall risk management system. To protect the Company’s information systems from cybersecurity threats, the Company uses various security technologies and tools that help the Company identify, escalate, investigate, manage, resolve and recover from security incidents in a timely manner. These efforts include:

• ongoing collection of threat intelligence and environment awareness through monitoring,
• data protection management and vulnerability monitoring through data loss prevention and exfiltration tools,
• cybersecurity risk management processes and practices,
• control assurance,
• secure development of new products,
• identity and access management,
• incident response, auditing and monitoring, and
• maintaining a 24x7 security operations center to allow for always available incident response.

The Company takes a risk-based approach to cybersecurity and has implemented cybersecurity policies throughout its operations that are designed to address cybersecurity threats and incidents. In particular, the Company follows an incident escalation process that is incorporated into our incident and risk management processes. In the event we identify a cybersecurity incident, our senior management, consisting of the Chief Financial Officer, Chief Security Officer (CSO), and Chief Legal Officer, review the facts and circumstances involved in such cybersecurity incident, or series of related cybersecurity incidents.

The Company partners with third parties to assess the effectiveness of our cybersecurity prevention and response systems and processes, including third-party review of the Company’s Information Security Management System for ISO 27001 controls, assessment of the Company’s cloud products and managed services according to the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) Service Organization Control (SOC) Audit Type II, and new product validation as part of the Company’s secure development lifecycle. The Company additionally engages third-party providers in support of endpoint detection and responses, data loss prevention efforts, and incident management efforts.

To date, the Company is not aware of cybersecurity threats, including as a result of any previous cybersecurity incidents, that have materially affected or are reasonably likely to materially affect the Company, including its business strategy, results of operations or financial condition. For additional discussion of cybersecurity risks and potential related impacts on the Company, refer to the risk factors in Part I, Item 1A. “Risk Factors,” including “If a material cybersecurity or other security breach impacts our services or occurs on our systems, within our supply chain, or on our end-user customer systems, or if stored data is improperly accessed, customers may reduce or cease using our solutions, our reputation may be harmed and we may incur significant liabilities.”

Governance

Our Board of Directors oversees the Company’s risk management process, including cybersecurity risks, directly and through its committees. The Audit Committee of the Board of Directors oversees the Company’s risk management program, which focuses on the most significant risks the Company faces in the short-, intermediate-, and long-term timeframes. The Company’s CSO regularly updates each of the Board of Directors and the Audit Committee at least twice a year. Such updates include a review of cybersecurity risks affecting the company, related metrics, and any incidents or issues that require attention from the Board of Directors.

The CSO provides leadership, strategic direction, and oversight for NetApp's Global Security Risk and Compliance functions and security program. Global Security executives oversee management of risks and track projects progress, remediations, and any issues related to cybersecurity risks.

NetApp’s CSO, in coordination with the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) is responsible for leading the assessment and management of cybersecurity risks. The current CSO and CISO each have over 30 years of experience in IT and information security.

The CSO and CISO stay informed on information security risks through regular meetings on key cybersecurity projects and KPIs. Updates are communicated to the Global Security Steering Committee, which provides quarterly reports to the Board of Directors and to the Audit Committee.

We owned or leased, domestically and internationally, the following properties as of April 26, 2024.

We own approximately 0.8 million square feet of facilities in Research Triangle Park (RTP), North Carolina. In addition, we own 65 acres of undeveloped land. The RTP site supports research and development, global services and sales and marketing.

We own approximately 0.7 million square feet of facilities in Bangalore, India on 14 acres of land. The Bangalore site supports research and development, marketing and global services.

We lease approximately 0.3 million square feet of office space for our corporate headquarters located in San Jose, California. The San Jose site supports research and development, corporate general administration, sales and marketing, global services and operations.

We lease approximately 1.2 million square feet in other sales offices and research and development facilities throughout the U.S. and internationally. We expect that our existing facilities and those being developed worldwide are suitable and adequate for our requirements over at least the next two years.

For a discussion of legal proceedings, see Note 17 – Commitments and Contingencies of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, which is incorporated herein by reference.

The following discussion of our financial condition and results of operations should be read together with the financial statements and the accompanying notes set forth under Part II, Item 8. – Financial Statements and Supplementary Data. The following discussion also contains trend information and other forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. The Risk Factors set forth in Part I, Item 1A. – Risk Factors are hereby incorporated into the discussion by reference.

Executive Overview

Our Company

NetApp makes data infrastructure intelligent by combining unified data storage, integrated data services, and CloudOps solutions. We create silo-free infrastructure, and harness observability and artificial intelligence to enable seamless data management across environments to help our customers achieve their business priorities. No matter the data type, workload, or environment, with NetApp customers can modernize their data infrastructure and better leverage their data to accelerate innovation, improve operations, and drive competitive advantage.

Our unified data storage delivers flexibility by enabling customers to store any data type and power any workload, simply and consistently on a single storage operating system, optimized for cloud and flash. As the only enterprise-grade storage service natively embedded in the world’s largest clouds, our data storage powers any data across AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. Our integrated data services enable active data management through superior data security, protection, governance, and sustainability. Our CloudOps solutions enable adaptive operations across infrastructure, applications, and teams.

Our operations are organized into two segments: Hybrid Cloud and Public Cloud.

Hybrid Cloud offers a unified data storage portfolio of storage management and infrastructure solutions that help customers modernize their data centers. With the power of on-premises, private cloud and public cloud capabilities to assist customers in modernizing applications with a single solution that supports file, block, and object storage, we deliver a data infrastructure solution for all environments and workloads. Our Hybrid Cloud portfolio supports structured and unstructured data with unified storage optimized for flash, disk, and cloud storage to handle data-intensive workloads and applications. Hybrid Cloud is composed of software, hardware, and related support, as well as professional and other services.

Public Cloud offers a portfolio of products delivered primarily as-a-service, including related support. This portfolio includes cloud storage and CloudOps services. As the only provider of enterprise-grade storage services natively embedded in the world’s largest public cloud providers, NetApp helps organizations harness the power of their data and applications. NetApp’s CloudOps solutions leverage AI to maximize productivity across infrastructure and applications, boost team productivity, and reduce operations costs. These solutions and services are generally available on the leading public clouds, including Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.

Global Business Environment

Macroeconomic Conditions

Continuing economic uncertainty, political conditions and fiscal challenges in the U.S. and abroad have resulted and may continue to result in adverse macroeconomic conditions, including inflation, rising interest rates, foreign exchange volatility, slower growth and possibly a recession. In particular, in fiscal 2024, we continued to experience a weakened demand environment, characterized by cloud optimizations and increased budget scrutiny, which resulted in smaller deal sizes, longer selling cycles, and the delay of some deals.

If these macroeconomic uncertainties persist or worsen in fiscal 2025, we may observe a further reduction in customer demand for our offerings, which could impact our operating results.

Supply Chain

Supply chain constraints, which substantially began to impact us in the first half of fiscal 2023, led to elevated product component and freight costs during fiscal 2023. Comparatively, the supply chain substantially improved during fiscal 2024, resulting in lower costs.

Financial Results and Key Performance Metrics Overview

The following table provides an overview of key financial metrics for each of the last three fiscal years (in millions, except per share amounts and percentages):

• Net revenues: Our net revenues decreased approximately 1% in fiscal 2024 compared to fiscal 2023, due to a decrease in product revenues, partially offset by an increase in services revenues.
• Gross margin: Our gross margin increased five percentage points in fiscal 2024 compared to fiscal 2023, due to the increase in gross margins on product revenues.
• Income from operations as a percentage of net revenues: Our income from operations as a percentage of net revenues increased by three percentage points in fiscal 2024 compared to fiscal 2023, primarily due to a higher gross margin.
• Provision (benefit) for income taxes: We had a provision from income taxes in fiscal 2024, compared to a benefit from income taxes in fiscal 2023, due to a discrete tax benefit of $524 million in fiscal 2023 that resulted from an intra-entity asset transfer of certain intellectual property.
• Net income and Diluted net income per share: The decrease in both net income and diluted net income per share in fiscal 2024 compared to fiscal 2023 reflect the factors discussed above. Lower net income in fiscal 2024 compared to fiscal 2023 unfavorably impacted diluted net income per share.

Stock Repurchase Program and Dividend Activity

During fiscal 2024, we repurchased approximately 12 million shares of our common stock at an average price of $77.87 per share, for an aggregate purchase price of $900 million. We also declared aggregate cash dividends of $2.00 per share in fiscal 2024, for which we paid a total of $416 million.

Restructuring Events

During fiscal 2024, we executed two restructuring plans and recognized expenses totaling $44 million consisting primarily of employee severance-related costs and lease termination costs.

Results of Operations

Our fiscal year is reported on a 52- or 53-week year that ends on the last Friday in April. An additional week is included in the first fiscal quarter approximately every six years to realign fiscal months with calendar months. Fiscal years 2024, 2023 and 2022, which ended on April 26, 2024, April 28, 2023 and April 29, 2022, respectively, are all 52-week years, with 13 weeks in each of their quarters. Unless otherwise stated, references to particular years, quarters, months and periods refer to our fiscal years ended in April and the associated quarters, months and periods of those fiscal years.

The following table sets forth certain Consolidated Statements of Income data as a percentage of net revenues for the periods indicated:

Percentages may not add due to rounding

Discussion and Analysis of Results of Operations

Net Revenues (in millions, except percentages):

The decrease in net revenues for fiscal 2024 compared to fiscal 2023 was due to a decrease in product revenues partially offset by an increase in services revenues. Product revenues as a percentage of net revenues decreased by approximately three percentage points in fiscal 2024 compared to fiscal 2023, while services revenues as a percentage of net revenues increased by approximately three percentage points.

The increase in net revenues for fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022 was due to an increase in services revenue partially offset by a decrease in product revenues. Product revenues as a percentage of net revenues decreased by approximately four percentage points in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022, while services revenues as a percentage of net revenues increased by approximately four percentage points. Fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates adversely impacted net revenues percent growth by approximately four percentage points in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022.

Sales through our indirect channels represented 76%, 78% and 77% of net revenues in fiscal 2024, 2023 and 2022, respectively.

The following customers, each of which is a distributor, accounted for 10% or more of net revenues:

Product Revenues (in millions, except percentages):

Hybrid Cloud

Product revenues are derived through the sale of our Hybrid Cloud solutions and consist of sales of configured all-flash array systems (including All-Flash FAS A-Series and All-Flash FAS C-Series with capacity flash) and hybrid systems, which are bundled hardware and software products, as well as add-on flash, disk and/or hybrid storage and related OS, StorageGrid, OEM products, NetApp HCI and add-on optional software.

In order to provide visibility into the value created by our software innovation and R&D investment, we disclose the software and hardware components of our product revenues. Software product revenues includes the OS software and optional add-on software solutions attached to our systems across our entire product set, while hardware product revenues include the non-software component of our systems across the entire set. Because our revenue recognition policy under GAAP defines a configured storage system, inclusive of the operating system software essential to its functionality, as a single performance obligation, the hardware and software components of our product revenues are considered non-GAAP measures. The hardware and software components of our product revenues are derived from an estimated fair value allocation of the transaction price of our contracts with customers, down to the level of the product hardware and software components. This allocation is primarily based on the contractual prices at which NetApp has historically billed customers for such respective components.

Total product revenues decreased in fiscal 2024 compared to fiscal 2023, primarily due to lower sales of hybrid systems due to softening customer demand, partially offset by an increase in sales of C-Series all-flash array systems.

Total product revenues decreased in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022, primarily due to lower sales of A-Series all-flash array systems, as a result of softening customer demand. Product revenues were also unfavorably impacted by foreign exchange rate fluctuations. These decreases were partially offset by an increase in sales of hybrid systems.

Revenues from the hardware component of product revenues represented 44%, 41% and 41% of product revenues in fiscal 2024, 2023 and 2022, respectively. The software component of product revenues represented 56%, 59% and 59% of product revenues in fiscal 2024, 2023 and 2022, respectively. The decrease in the software component percentage of product revenues in fiscal 2024 as compared to fiscal 2023 was primarily due to the mix of systems sold. The software component percentage of product revenues remained relatively flat in fiscal 2023 as compared to fiscal 2022 despite the decrease in sales of A-Series all-flash array systems, which contain a higher proportion of software components than other Hybrid Cloud products, primarily due to the mix of other Hybrid Cloud products sold.

Services Revenues (in millions, except percentages):

Hybrid Cloud

Hybrid Cloud services revenues are derived from the sale of: (1) support, which includes both hardware and software support contracts (the latter of which entitle customers to receive unspecified product upgrades and enhancements, bug fixes and patch releases), and (2) professional and other services, which include customer education and training.

Support revenues increased in fiscal 2024 compared to fiscal 2023 as a result of a higher aggregate support contract value for our installed base.

Support revenues increased in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022, despite the unfavorable impact from foreign exchange rate fluctuations, primarily due to a higher aggregate support contract value for our installed base during fiscal 2023.

Professional and other services revenues remained relatively flat in fiscal 2024 compared to fiscal 2023. The increase in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022 was primarily due to an increase in other services revenues.

Public Cloud

Public Cloud revenues are derived from the sale of public cloud offerings delivered primarily as-a-service, which include cloud storage and data services, and cloud operations services.

Public Cloud revenues increased in fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2023 compared to the respective prior years primarily due to growing customer demand for NetApp's diversified cloud offerings, coupled with overall growth in the cloud market. The acquisitions of Instaclustr early in the first quarter of fiscal 2023 and CloudCheckr, Inc. (CloudCheckr) in the third quarter of fiscal 2022 also contributed to the increase in Public Cloud revenues in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022.

Revenues by Geographic Area:

Percentages may not add due to rounding

Effective in fiscal 2024, management began evaluating revenues by geographic region based on the location to which products and services are delivered, rather than based on the location from which the customer relationship is managed. Prior year numbers have been recast to conform to the current year presentation.

Americas revenues consist of sales to Americas commercial and United States (U.S.) public sector markets. Demand across geographies was relatively consistent in fiscal 2024 compared to fiscal 2023. Americas revenues were negatively impacted by adverse macroeconomic conditions which resulted in a weakened demand environment in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022, which continued into fiscal 2024.

Cost of Revenues

Our cost of revenues consists of:

(1) cost of product revenues, composed of (a) cost of Hybrid Cloud product revenues, which includes the costs of manufacturing and shipping our products, inventory write-downs, and warranty costs, and (b) unallocated cost of product revenues, which includes stock-based compensation and amortization of intangibles, and;

(2) cost of services revenues, composed of (a) cost of support revenues, which includes the costs of providing support activities for hardware and software support, global support partnership programs, and third party royalty costs, (b) cost of professional and other services revenues, (c) cost of public cloud revenues, constituting the cost of providing our Public Cloud offerings which includes depreciation and amortization expense and third party datacenter fees, and (d) unallocated cost of services revenues, which includes stock-based compensation and amortization of intangibles.

Cost of Product Revenues (in millions, except percentages):

40

Hybrid Cloud

Cost of Hybrid Cloud product revenues represented 40%, 50% and 47% of Hybrid Cloud product revenues in fiscal 2024, 2023 and 2022, respectively. Materials costs represented 88%, 94% and 93% of cost of Hybrid Cloud product revenues in fiscal 2024, 2023 and 2022, respectively.

Materials costs decreased by approximately $418 million in fiscal 2024 compared to fiscal 2023 reflecting lower component and freight costs as a result of supply chain improvements. Materials costs were also impacted by the decrease in product revenues in fiscal 2024.

Hybrid Cloud gross margins increased by approximately ten percentage points in fiscal 2024 compared to fiscal 2023 primarily due to lower component and freight costs.

Materials costs were approximately flat in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022 reflecting the decrease in product revenues, offset by higher component and freight costs as a result of supply chain challenges.

Hybrid Cloud gross margins decreased by approximately three percentage points in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022 primarily due to higher component and freight costs and the adverse impacts of fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates.

Unallocated

Unallocated cost of product revenues remained relatively flat in fiscal 2024 compared to fiscal 2023 while they decreased in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022 due to certain intangible assets becoming fully amortized.

Cost of Services Revenues (in millions, except percentages):

Hybrid Cloud

Cost of Hybrid Cloud services revenues, which are composed of the costs of support and professional and other services, increased in fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2023 compared to the respective prior years reflecting the increase in Hybrid Cloud services revenues. Cost of Hybrid Cloud services revenues represented 16%, 14% and 15% of Hybrid Cloud services revenues in fiscal 2024, 2023 and 2022, respectively.

Hybrid Cloud support gross margins were similar in fiscal 2024, fiscal 2023 and fiscal 2022. Hybrid Cloud professional and other services gross margins decreased by approximately ten percentage points in fiscal 2024 compared to fiscal 2023 while they increased by approximately four percentage points in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022 primarily due to the mix of services provided.

Public Cloud

Cost of Public Cloud revenues increased in fiscal 2024 and in fiscal 2023 compared to the respective prior years, reflecting the increase in Public Cloud revenues in each period. Public Cloud gross margins decreased by one percentage point in fiscal 2024 and two percentage points in fiscal 2023 compared to the respective prior years primarily due to the mix of offerings provided.

Unallocated

Unallocated cost of services revenues decreased in fiscal 2024 compared to fiscal 2023 due to certain intangible assets becoming fully amortized during the first quarter of fiscal 2024. Unallocated cost of services revenues increased in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2023 due to our acquisitions of Instaclustr early in the first quarter of fiscal 2023 and CloudCheckr in the third quarter of fiscal 2022, which resulted in higher amortization expense from acquired intangible assets.

Operating Expenses

Sales and Marketing, Research and Development and General and Administrative Expenses

Sales and marketing, research and development, and general and administrative expenses for fiscal 2024 totaled $3,165 million, or 50% of net revenues, representing an increase of two percentage points compared to fiscal 2023.

Sales and marketing, research and development, and general and administrative expenses for fiscal 2023 totaled $3,050 million, or 48% of net revenues, relatively consistent with fiscal 2022. While fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates adversely impacted net revenues in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022, they favorably impacted sales and marketing, research and development and general and administrative expenses by approximately 3% in fiscal 2023.

Compensation costs represent the largest component of operating expenses. Included in compensation costs are salaries, benefits, other compensation-related costs, stock-based compensation expense and employee incentive compensation plan costs.

Total compensation costs included in sales and marketing, research and development and general and administrative expenses increased by $115 million, or 6%, during fiscal 2024 compared to fiscal 2023, primarily due to higher incentive compensation expense reflecting higher operating performance against goals. The increase was partially offset by lower salaries expense, reflecting a decrease in average headcount of 7%.

Total compensation costs included in sales and marketing, research and development and general and administrative expenses increased by $101 million, or 6%, during fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022, primarily due to higher salaries, benefits and stock-based compensation expense, reflecting an increase in average headcount of 8%. The increase was partially offset by lower incentive compensation expense.

Sales and Marketing (in millions, except percentages):

Sales and marketing expenses consist primarily of compensation costs, commissions, outside services, facilities and IT support costs, advertising and marketing promotional expense and travel and entertainment expense. The changes in sales and marketing expenses consisted of the following (in percentage points of the total change):

All primary components of sales and marketing expenses were relatively consistent in fiscal 2024 compared to fiscal 2023.

The increase in compensation costs for fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022 reflected an increase in average headcount of approximately 6%. The impact of the increase in headcount was partially offset by lower incentive compensation expense and the impact of foreign exchange rate fluctuations.

The decrease in commissions expense for fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022 was primarily due to lower performance against sales goals.

Advertising and marketing promotional expense decreased in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022, primarily due to lower spending on certain marketing programs.

Travel and entertainment expense increased in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022, as COVID-19 related travel restrictions eased.

Research and Development (in millions, except percentages):

Research and development expenses consist primarily of compensation costs, facilities and IT support costs, depreciation, equipment and software related costs, prototypes, non-recurring engineering charges and other outside services costs. Changes in research and development expenses consisted of the following (in percentage points of the total change):

The increase in compensation costs for fiscal 2024 compared to fiscal 2023 was due to higher incentive compensation expense and stock-based compensation expense, partially offset by lower salaries expense, reflecting a decrease in average headcount of 5%.

The increase in compensation costs for fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022 was primarily attributable to an increase in average headcount of 11%. The impact of the increase in headcount was partially offset by lower incentive compensation expense and the impact of foreign exchange rate fluctuations. The increase in development projects and outside services for fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022 was primarily due to the higher spending on certain engineering projects.

General and Administrative (in millions, except percentages):

General and administrative expenses consist primarily of compensation costs, professional and corporate legal fees, outside services and facilities and IT support costs. Changes in general and administrative expense consisted of the following (in percentage points of the total change):

The increase in compensation costs in fiscal 2024 compared to fiscal 2023 was attributable to increases in all components of compensation costs, but primarily incentive compensation expense. The increase in professional and legal fees and outside services expense in fiscal 2024 was primarily due to higher spending on certain business transformation projects.

The decrease in compensation costs in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022 was primarily attributable to lower incentive compensation expense, partially offset by the increase in salaries and stock-based compensation expenses. The increases in professional and legal fees and outside services expense in fiscal 2023 were primarily due to higher spending on certain business transformation projects. The decrease in facilities and IT support costs in fiscal 2023 was primarily related to lower spending for certain IT projects.

Restructuring Charges (in millions, except percentages):

43

In an effort to reduce our cost structure and redirect resources to our highest return activities, in fiscal 2024, 2023 and 2022, we initiated a number of business realignment plans designed to streamline our business and focus on key strategic opportunities. These plans resulted in aggregate reductions of our global workforce of approximately 2% in fiscal 2024, 9% in fiscal 2023, and 1% in fiscal 2022, and aggregate charges of $44 million, $120 million, and $33 million, respectively, consisting primarily of employee severance-related costs. Additionally, the aggregate charges for fiscal 2024 included optimization of our global office space for our hybrid work model, while the aggregate charges in fiscal 2023 and fiscal 2022 included legal and tax-related consulting fees associated with the establishment of an international headquarters in Cork, Ireland. See Note 12 – Restructuring Charges of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part II, Item 8 for more details regarding our restructuring plans.

Acquisition-related Expense (in millions, except percentages):

We incurred $10 million, $21 million and $13 million of acquisition-related expenses, primarily consisting of legal and consulting fees, in fiscal 2024, fiscal 2023 and fiscal 2022, respectively, associated with our acquisitions and subsequent integrations.

Other Income (Expense), Net (in millions, except percentages)

The components of other income (expense), net were as follows:

NM - Not Meaningful

Interest income increased in fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2023 compared to previous years was primarily due to higher yields earned on our cash and investments.

Interest expense decreased in fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2023 compared to previous years due to the extinguishment of certain senior notes in the second quarter of fiscal 2023.

Other, net for fiscal 2023 includes $22 million of other income for non-refundable, up-front payments from customers in Russia for support contracts, which we were not able to fulfill due to imposed sanctions and for which we have no remaining legal obligation to perform. Other, net for fiscal 2023 also includes a $32 million gain recognized on our sale of a minority equity interest in a privately held company for proceeds of approximately $59 million. The remaining differences in Other, net for fiscal 2024 compared to fiscal 2023, and for fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022, are primarily due to differences in foreign exchange gains and losses in each fiscal year.

Provision (Benefit) for Income Taxes (in millions, except percentages):

Our effective tax rate for fiscal 2024 was 21.9% compared to (19.5)% in fiscal 2023 and 14.4% in fiscal 2022. The differences in the effective tax rates between fiscal years were primarily due to fiscal 2023 benefits resulting from an intra-entity asset transfer of certain IP, partially offset by discrete tax expense recorded as a result of the Danish Supreme Court ruling received January 9, 2023.

During fiscal 2023, we completed an intra-entity asset transfer of certain IP to our international headquarters (the “IP Transfer”). The transaction resulted in a step-up of tax-deductible basis in the transferred assets, and accordingly, created a temporary difference where the tax basis exceeded the financial statement basis of such intangible assets, which resulted in the recognition of a discrete tax benefit and related deferred tax asset of $524 million during the second quarter of fiscal 2023. Management applied significant judgment when determining the fair value of the IP, which serves as the tax basis of the deferred tax asset. With the assistance of third-party valuation specialists, the fair value of the IP was determined principally based on the present value of projected cash flows related to the IP which reflects management’s assumptions regarding projected revenues, earnings before interest and taxes, and a discount rate. The tax-deductible amortization related to the transferred IP rights will be recognized in future periods and any amortization that is unused in a particular year can be carried forward indefinitely. The deferred tax asset and the tax benefit were measured based on the enacted tax rates expected to apply in the years the asset is expected to be realized. We expect to realize the deferred tax asset resulting from the IP Transfer and will assess the realizability of the deferred tax asset quarterly. Any Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (“OECD”) actions adopted internationally could impact our financial results in future periods. The impact of the transaction to net cash provided by or used in operating, investing and financing activities on the consolidated statements of cash flows during fiscal 2023 was not material.

During fiscal 2023, the Danish Supreme Court issued a non-appealable ruling on the distributions declared in 2005 and 2006. The Danish Supreme Court ruled the 2005 dividend was subject to at-source dividend withholding tax while the smaller 2006 distribution would not be subject to withholding tax. During fiscal 2023, we recorded $69 million of tax expense, which includes $23 million of withholding tax and $46 million of interest.

Liquidity, Capital Resources and Cash Requirements

(In millions, except percentages)

The following is a summary of our cash flow activities:

(In millions)

As of April 26, 2024, our cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments totaled $3.3 billion, reflecting an increase of $0.2 billion from April 28, 2023. The increase was primarily due to $1.7 billion of cash generated from operating activities, partially offset by $900 million used to repurchase shares of our common stock, $416 million used for the payment of dividends, and $155 million in purchases of property and equipment. Net working capital was $791 million as of April 26, 2024, a reduction of $422 million when compared to April 28, 2023, primarily due to the reclassification of $400 million principal amount of our senior notes from long-term to current liabilities.

Cash Flows from Operating Activities

During fiscal 2024, we generated cash from operating activities of $1.7 billion, reflecting net income of $1.0 billion which was increased for non-cash depreciation and amortization expense of $255 million and non-cash stock-based compensation expense of $357 million.

Significant changes in assets and liabilities during fiscal 2024 included the following:

• Accounts payable increased by $123 million, primarily reflecting the timing of inventory purchases from, and payments to, our contract manufacturers.
• Accrued expenses increased by $113 million, primarily due to higher employee compensation accruals as of the end of fiscal 2024 compared to fiscal 2023 related to incentive compensation and commissions plans.

During fiscal 2023, we generated cash from operating activities of $1.1 billion, reflecting net income of $1.3 billion which was reduced by $606 million for non-cash deferred tax benefits and increased for non-cash depreciation and amortization expense of $248 million and non-cash stock-based compensation expense of $312 million.

Significant changes in assets and liabilities during fiscal 2023 included the following:

• Accounts receivable decreased $260 million, reflecting lower billing in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023 compared to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022.
• Accounts payable decreased by $207 million, primarily reflecting lower inventory purchases, and the timing of those purchases from, and payments to, our contract manufacturers.
• Accrued expenses decreased by $103 million, primarily due to employee compensation payments related to fiscal 2022 incentive compensation and commissions plans.

We expect that cash provided by operating activities may materially fluctuate in future periods due to a number of factors, including fluctuations in our operating results, shipping linearity, accounts receivable collections performance, inventory and supply chain management, vendor payment initiatives, and the timing and amount of compensation, income taxes and other payments.

Cash Flows from Investing Activities

During fiscal 2024, we used $580 million for the purchases of investments, net of maturities and sales, and $155 million for capital expenditures.

During fiscal 2023, we used $719 million for the purchases of investments, net of maturities and sales, paid $491 million, net of cash acquired, for a privately-held company and $239 million for capital expenditures. Additionally, we received proceeds of $59 million from the sale of one of our minority investments in fiscal 2023.

Cash Flows from Financing Activities

During fiscal 2024, cash flows used in financing activities totaled $1.3 billion and include $900 million for the repurchase of approximately 12 million shares of common stock, and $416 million for the payment of dividends.

During fiscal 2023, cash flows used in financing activities totaled $1.5 billion and include $850 million for the repurchase of approximately 13 million shares of common stock, $432 million for the payment of dividends and $250 million to redeem our Senior Notes due in December 2022.

Key factors that could affect our cash flows include changes in our revenue mix and profitability, our ability to effectively manage our working capital, in particular, accounts receivable, accounts payable and inventories, the timing and amount of stock repurchases and payment of cash dividends, the impact of foreign exchange rate changes, our ability to effectively integrate acquired products, businesses and technologies and the timing of repayments of our debt. Based on past performance and our current business outlook, we believe that our sources of liquidity, including cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments, cash generated from operations, and our ability to access capital markets and committed credit lines will satisfy our working capital needs, capital expenditures, investment requirements, stock repurchases, cash dividends, contractual obligations, commitments, principal and interest payments on our debt and other liquidity requirements associated with operations and meet our cash requirements for at least the next 12 months and thereafter for the foreseeable future. However, in the event our liquidity is insufficient, we may be required to curtail spending and implement additional cost saving measures and restructuring actions or enter into new financing arrangements. We cannot be certain that we will continue to generate cash flows at or above current levels or that we will be able to obtain additional financing, if necessary, on satisfactory terms, if at all. For further discussion of factors that could affect our cash flows and liquidity requirements, see Part I, Item 1A. Risk Factors.

Liquidity

Our principal sources of liquidity as of April 26, 2024 consisted of cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments, cash we expect to generate from operations, and our commercial paper program and related credit facility.

Cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments consisted of the following (in millions):

As of April 26, 2024 and April 28, 2023, $2.1 billion and $2.2 billion, respectively, of cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments were held by various foreign subsidiaries and were generally based in U.S. dollar-denominated holdings, while $1.2 billion and $0.9 billion, respectively, were available in the U.S.

Our principal liquidity requirements are primarily to meet our working capital needs, support ongoing business activities, fund research and development, meet capital expenditure needs, invest in critical or complementary technologies through asset purchases and/or business acquisitions, service interest and principal payments on our debt, fund our stock repurchase program, and pay dividends, as and if declared. In the ordinary course of business, we engage in periodic reviews of opportunities to invest in or acquire companies or units in companies to expand our total addressable market, leverage technological synergies and establish new streams of revenue, particularly in our Public Cloud segment.

The principal objectives of our investment policy are the preservation of principal and maintenance of liquidity. We attempt to mitigate default risk by investing in high-quality investment grade securities, limiting the time to maturity and monitoring the counter-parties and underlying obligors closely. We believe our cash equivalents and short-term investments are liquid and accessible. We are not aware of any significant deterioration in the fair value of our cash equivalents or investments from the values reported as of April 26, 2024.

Our investment portfolio has been and will continue to be exposed to market risk due to trends in the credit and capital markets. We continue to closely monitor current economic and market events to minimize the market risk of our investment portfolio. We routinely monitor our financial exposure to both sovereign and non-sovereign borrowers and counterparties. We utilize a variety of planning and financing strategies in an effort to ensure our worldwide cash is available when and where it is needed. We also have an automatic shelf registration statement on file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). We may in the future offer an additional unspecified amount of debt, equity and other securities.

Senior Notes

The following table summarizes the principal amount of our Senior Notes as of April 26, 2024 (in millions):

Interest on the Senior Notes is payable semi-annually. For further information on the underlying terms, see Note 8 – Financing Arrangements of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part II, Item 8.

Commercial Paper Program and Credit Facility

We have a commercial paper program (the “Program”), under which we may issue unsecured commercial paper notes. Amounts available under the Program may be borrowed, repaid and re-borrowed, with the aggregate face or principal amount of the notes outstanding under the Program at any time not to exceed $1.0 billion. The maturities of the notes can vary, but may not exceed 397 days from the date of issue. The notes are sold under customary terms in the commercial paper market and may be issued at a discount from par or, alternatively, may be sold at par and bear interest at rates dictated by market conditions at the time of their issuance. The proceeds from the issuance of the notes are used for general corporate purposes. No commercial paper notes were outstanding as of April 26, 2024.

In connection with the Program, we have a senior unsecured credit agreement with a syndicated group of lenders. The credit agreement, which was amended in May 2023 primarily to replace the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) with the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) as the basis for establishing the interest rate applicable to certain borrowings under the agreement, provides for a $1.0 billion revolving unsecured credit facility, with a sublimit of $50 million available for the issuance of letters of credit on our behalf. The credit facility matures on January 22, 2026, with an option for us to extend the maturity date for two additional 1-year periods, subject to certain conditions. The proceeds of the loans may be used by us for general corporate purposes and as liquidity support for our existing commercial paper program. As of April 26, 2024, we were compliant with all associated covenants in the agreement. No amounts were drawn against this credit facility during any of the periods presented.

Capital Expenditure Requirements

We expect to fund our capital expenditures, including our commitments related to facilities, equipment, operating leases and internal-use software development projects over the next few years through existing cash, cash equivalents, investments and cash generated from operations. The timing and amount of our capital requirements cannot be precisely determined and will depend on a number of factors, including future demand for products, changes in the network storage industry, hiring plans and our decisions related to the financing of our facilities and equipment requirements. We anticipate capital expenditures for fiscal 2025 to be between $150 million and $200 million.

Transition Tax Payments

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 imposed a mandatory, one-time transition tax on accumulated foreign earnings and profits that had not previously been subject to U.S. income tax. As of April 26, 2024, outstanding payments related to the transition tax are estimated to be approximately $215 million of which $115 million and $100 million are expected to be paid during fiscal 2025 and fiscal 2026, respectively. During fiscal 2024, transition tax payments totaled $88 million. Our estimates for future transition tax payments, however, could change with further guidance or review from U.S. federal and state tax authorities or other regulatory bodies.

Dividends and Stock Repurchase Program

On May 23, 2024, we declared a cash dividend of $0.52 per share of common stock, payable on July 24, 2024 to holders of record as of the close of business on July 5, 2024.

As of April 26, 2024, our Board of Directors had authorized the repurchase of up to $16.1 billion of our common stock under our stock repurchase program. Under this program, we may purchase shares of our outstanding common stock through solicited or unsolicited transactions in the open market, in privately negotiated transactions, through accelerated share repurchase programs, pursuant to a Rule 10b5-1 plan or in such other manner as deemed appropriate by our management. The stock repurchase program may be suspended or discontinued at any time. Since the May 13, 2003 inception of this program through April 26, 2024, we repurchased a total of 372 million shares of our common stock at an average price of $42.04 per share, for an aggregate purchase price of $15.6 billion. As of April 26, 2024, the remaining authorized amount for stock repurchases under this program was $0.5 billion. On May 23, 2024 our Board of Directors authorized the repurchase of an additional $1.0 billion of our common stock.

Purchase Commitments

In the ordinary course of business, we make commitments to third-party contract manufacturers and component suppliers to manage manufacturer lead times and meet product forecasts, and to other parties, to purchase various key components used in the manufacture of our products. In addition, we have open purchase orders and contractual obligations associated with our ordinary course of business for which we have not yet received goods or services. These off-balance sheet purchase commitments totaled $0.8 billion at April 26, 2024, of which $0.6 billion is due in fiscal 2025, with the remainder due thereafter.

Financing Guarantees

While most of our arrangements for sales include short-term payment terms, from time to time we provide long-term financing to creditworthy customers. We have generally sold receivables financed through these arrangements on a non-recourse basis to third party financing institutions within 10 days of the contracts’ dates of execution, and we classify the proceeds from these sales as cash flows from operating activities in our consolidated statements of cash flows. We account for the sales of these receivables as “true sales” as defined in the accounting standards on transfers of financial assets, as we are considered to have surrendered control of these financing receivables. We sold $67 million and $38 million of receivables during fiscal 2024 and 2023, respectively.

In addition, we enter into arrangements with leasing companies for the sale of our hardware systems products. These leasing companies, in turn, lease our products to end-users. The leasing companies generally have no recourse to us in the event of default by the end-user.

Some of the leasing arrangements described above have been financed on a recourse basis through third-party financing institutions. Under the terms of recourse leases, which are generally three years or less, we remain liable for the aggregate unpaid remaining lease payments to the third-party leasing companies in the event of end-user customer default. These arrangements are generally collateralized by a security interest in the underlying assets. As of April 26, 2024 and April 28, 2023, the aggregate amount by which such contingencies exceeded the associated liabilities was not significant. To date, we have not experienced significant losses under our lease financing programs or other financing arrangements.

We have entered into service contracts with certain of our end-user customers that are supported by third-party financing arrangements. If a service contract is terminated as a result of our non-performance under the contract or our failure to comply with the terms of the financing arrangement, we could, under certain circumstances, be required to acquire certain assets related to the service contract or to pay the aggregate unpaid payments under such arrangements. As of April 26, 2024, we have not been required to make any payments under these arrangements, and we believe the likelihood of having to acquire a material amount of assets or make payments under these arrangements is remote. The portion of the financial arrangement that represents unearned services revenue is included in deferred revenue and financed unearned services revenue in our consolidated balance sheets.

Legal Contingencies

We are subject to various legal proceedings and claims which arise in the normal course of business. See further details on such matters in Note 17 – Commitments and Contingencies of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part II, Item 8.

Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates

Our consolidated financial statements have been prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States of America (GAAP), which require management to make judgments, estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, net revenues and expenses, and the disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities. Our estimates are based on historical experience and various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances, the results of which form the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets and liabilities. We believe that the accounting estimates employed and the resulting balances are reasonable; however, actual results may differ from these estimates and such differences may be material.

The summary of significant accounting policies is included in Note 1 – Description of Business and Significant Accounting Policies of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part II, Item 8. An accounting policy is deemed to be critical if it requires an accounting estimate to be made based on assumptions about matters that are highly uncertain at the time the estimate is made, if different estimates reasonably could have been used, or if changes in the estimate that are reasonably possible could materially impact the financial statements. The accounting policies described below reflect the significant judgments, estimates and assumptions used in the preparation of the consolidated financial statements.

Revenue Recognition

Our contracts with customers often include the transfer of multiple products and services to the customer. In determining the amount and timing of revenue recognition, we assess which products and services are distinct performance obligations and allocate the transaction price, which may include fixed and/or variable amounts, among each performance obligation on a relative standalone selling price (SSP) basis. The following are the key estimates and assumptions and corresponding uncertainties included in this approach:

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Inventory Valuation and Purchase Order Accruals

Inventories consist primarily of purchased components and finished goods and are stated at the lower of cost or net realizable value, which approximates actual cost on a first-in, first-out basis. A provision is recorded when inventory is determined to be in excess of anticipated demand or obsolete in order to adjust inventory to its estimated realizable value. The following are the key estimates and assumptions and corresponding uncertainties for estimating the value of our inventories:

Goodwill and Purchased Intangible Assets

We allocate the purchase price of acquisitions to identifiable assets acquired and liabilities assumed at their acquisition date fair values based on established valuation techniques. Goodwill represents the residual value as of the acquisition date, which in most cases is measured as the excess of the purchase consideration transferred over the net of the acquisition date fair values of the assets acquired and liabilities assumed.

The carrying values of purchased intangible assets are reviewed whenever events and circumstances indicate that the net book value of an asset may not be recovered through expected future cash flows from its use and eventual disposition. We periodically review the estimated remaining useful lives of our intangible assets. This review may result in impairment charges or shortened useful lives, resulting in charges to our consolidated statements of income.

We review goodwill for impairment annually and whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate the carrying amount of one of our reporting units may exceed its fair value. The provisions of the accounting standard for goodwill allow us to first assess qualitative factors to determine whether it is necessary to perform the quantitative goodwill impairment test. For our annual goodwill impairment test in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024, we performed a qualitative assessment of goodwill impairment by evaluating relevant factors to determine whether it is more likely than not that the fair value of each of our reporting units is less than their carrying values. As a result of the qualitative assessment, we determined the quantitative test was not necessary and there was no impairment of goodwill.

The following are the key estimates and assumptions and corresponding uncertainties for estimating the value of our goodwill and purchased intangible assets:

Income Taxes

We are subject to income taxes in the United States and numerous foreign jurisdictions. We compute our provision for income taxes using the asset and liability method, under which deferred tax assets and liabilities are recognized for the expected future tax consequences of temporary differences between the financial reporting and tax bases of assets and liabilities, and for operating losses and tax credit carryforwards. Deferred tax assets and liabilities are measured using the currently enacted tax rates that apply to taxable income in effect for the years in which those tax assets or liabilities are expected to be realized or settled. The Company records a valuation allowance to reduce deferred tax assets to the amount that is believed more likely than not to be realized.

The following are the key estimates and assumptions and corresponding uncertainties for our income taxes:

We are exposed to market risk related to fluctuations in interest rates and foreign currency exchange rates. We use certain derivative financial instruments to manage foreign currency exchange risks. We do not use derivative financial instruments for speculative or trading purposes. All financial instruments are used in accordance with management-approved policies.

Interest Rate Risk

Fixed Income Investments — As of April 26, 2024, we had fixed income debt investments of $1.3 billion and certificates of deposit of $12 million. Our fixed income debt investment portfolio primarily consists of investments with original maturities greater than three months at the date of purchase, which are classified as available-for-sale investments. These fixed income debt investments, which consist primarily of corporate bonds and U.S. Treasury and government debt securities, and our certificates of deposit are subject to interest rate and interest income risk and will decrease in value if market interest rates increase. Conversely, declines in interest rates, including the impact from lower credit spreads, could have a material adverse impact on interest income for our investment portfolio. A hypothetical 100 basis point increase in market interest rates from levels as of April 26, 2024 would have resulted in a decrease in the fair value of our fixed-income securities of approximately $4 million. Volatility in market interest rates over time will cause variability in our interest income. We do not use derivative financial instruments in our investment portfolio.

Our investment policy is to limit credit exposure through diversification and investment in highly rated securities. We further mitigate concentrations of credit risk in our investments by limiting our investments in the debt securities of a single issuer and by diversifying risk across geographies and type of issuer. We actively review, along with our investment advisors, current investment ratings, company-specific events and general economic conditions in managing our investments and in determining whether there is a significant decline in fair value. We monitor and evaluate our investment portfolio on a quarterly basis for any impairments.

Debt — As of April 26, 2024 we have outstanding $2.4 billion aggregate principal amount of Senior Notes. We carry these instruments at face value less unamortized discount and issuance costs on our consolidated balance sheets. Since these instruments bear interest at fixed rates, we have no financial statement risk associated with changes in interest rates. However, the fair value of these instruments fluctuates when interest rates change. See Note 8 – Financing Arrangements of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part II, Item 8 for more information.

Credit Facility — We are exposed to the impact of changes in interest rates in connection with our $1.0 billion five-year revolving credit facility. Borrowings under the facility accrue interest at rates that vary based on certain market rates and our credit rating on our Senior Notes. Consequently, our interest expense would fluctuate with any changes in these market interest rates or in our credit rating if we were to borrow any amounts under the credit facility. As of April 26, 2024, no amounts were outstanding under the credit facility.

Foreign Currency Exchange Rate Risk

We hedge risks associated with certain foreign currency transactions to minimize the impact of changes in foreign currency exchange rates on earnings. We utilize foreign currency exchange forward contracts to hedge against the short-term impact of foreign currency fluctuations on certain foreign currency denominated monetary assets and liabilities. We also use foreign currency exchange forward contracts to hedge foreign currency exposures related to forecasted sales transactions denominated in certain foreign currencies. These derivatives are designated and qualify as cash flow hedges under accounting guidance for derivatives and hedging.

We do not enter into foreign currency exchange contracts for speculative or trading purposes. In entering into foreign currency exchange forward contracts, we have assumed the risk that might arise from the possible inability of counterparties to meet the terms of the contracts. We attempt to limit our exposure to credit risk by executing foreign currency exchange contracts with creditworthy multinational commercial banks. All contracts have a maturity of 12 months or less. See Note 11 – Derivatives and Hedging Activities of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part II, Item 8 for more information regarding our derivatives and hedging activities.

(a) Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures

The phrase “disclosure controls and procedures” refers to controls and procedures designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed in our reports filed or submitted under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the Exchange Act), such as this Annual Report on Form 10-K, is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in the rules and forms of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Disclosure controls and procedures are also designed to ensure that such information is accumulated and communicated to our management, including our Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and our Chief Financial Officer (CFO), as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure.

Under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our CEO and CFO, we carried out an evaluation of the effectiveness of the design and operation of our disclosure controls and procedures, as defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) under the Exchange Act, as of April 26, 2024, the end of the fiscal period covered by this Annual Report on Form 10-K (the Evaluation Date). Based on this evaluation, our CEO and CFO concluded as of the Evaluation Date that our disclosure controls and procedures were effective such that the information required to be disclosed in our SEC reports (i) is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in SEC rules and forms and (ii) is accumulated and communicated to our management, including our CEO and CFO, as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure.

(b) Management’s Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting, as such term is defined in Exchange Act Rule 13a-15(f). Our internal control over financial reporting is a process designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Because of its inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting may not prevent or detect misstatements. Also, projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to the risk that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate.

Under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our principal executive officer and principal financial officer, we conducted an evaluation of the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting based on the criteria established in Internal Control — Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission. Based on this assessment, our management concluded that, as of April 26, 2024, our internal control over financial reporting was effective at the reasonable assurance level based on those criteria.

The effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of April 26, 2024 has been audited by Deloitte & Touche LLP, an independent registered public accounting firm, as stated in their report, which is included in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

(c) Changes in Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

There has been no change in our internal control over financial reporting identified in connection with our evaluation required by paragraph (d) of rules 13a-15 and 15d-15 under the Exchange Act that occurred during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024 that has materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.