Hello, and welcome to the DZS Business Update to discuss the Asia divestiture and $30 million of net funding. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session, and if you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star one on your telephone keypad. I will now turn the conference over to Ted Moreau, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Sarah, and welcome to the DZS conference call to discuss the proposed divestiture of DZS's Asia business and the infusion of $30 million of incremental working capital into the company. Joining me today to discuss the transaction are DZS President and CEO, Charlie Vogt, and CFO, Misty Kawecki. During our discussion today, we will briefly comment on the financial restatement before transitioning to the divestiture. As a reminder, statements made today may be forward-looking in nature based on our current expectations regarding future events and the future financial performance of the company. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual events or results may differ materially. During the March quarter, we will be attending the Needham Investor Conference on January 17th, and we'll be meeting with analysts and investors at the OFC Trade Show, March 26th and 27th in San Diego.
I will now turn the call over to Charlie.
Thank you, Ted, and welcome to our conference call discussing the details of our planned divestiture of our Asia business and the incremental $30 million of working capital we announced on Friday. Before I speak about our planned divestiture of our Asia business and the incremental $30 million of working capital, I would like to first provide a brief update regarding our restatement. Over the past seven months, since we first self-reported our restatement associated with two revenue recognition matters identified in Q1 of 2023, our audit committee initiated a review of our accounting for revenue recognition and the extent to which these matters affect our internal controls over financial reporting. After a thorough assessment, it was determined that there were periods in 2022 to which we need to make financial adjustments and will be part of our restatement.
This information was filed in an 8-K on November 9th, 2023. Since that time, the board of directors has received a complete and thorough readout of the investigation findings. At this stage, the investigation is now deemed to be substantially complete, and we will now move to the next step, which is to correct the various revenue recognition matters associated with the required restatement periods, including becoming current with all financial reporting periods. I'll now transition to the planned divestiture of the DZS Asia business announced last Friday. For reference purposes, the Asia business that will be divested is essentially the former DASAN Network Solutions, or what we refer to internally as DNS Asia, that merged with Zhone in 2016 to create today's DZS.
From an end user perspective, channel partners and supplier perspective, and supported by a non-compete, the DNS Asia business encompasses operations and customers in Asian countries, except for Australia and New Zealand, which will be retained by DZS. For the purposes of our regional reference in today's commentary, Australia and New Zealand will be implied to be part of the going-forward DZS regions. From a product portfolio perspective, DZS will retain our next-generation Velocity Access Edge OLT portfolio, the Helix ONT and Wi-Fi subscriber edge portfolio, the Saber optical edge transport portfolio, which has evolved from the acquisition of Optelian, and our CloudControl, Xtreme, Expresse, and CloudCheck orchestration, slicing, network assurance, and Wi-Fi management software portfolios resulting from our technology and personnel acquisitions of RIFT and ASSIA.
The divested DNS Asia business will retain the products developed from the Asia market and be represented as part of the DNS product portfolio post-divestiture. The only shared intellectual property will be DZS's next-generation software-defined operating system, which we refer to as sdNOS, and our ACS device configuration software. From a patent and intellectual property perspective, DZS will retain all patents and intellectual property aligned with the former Zhone and our next-generation Velocity, Helix, and Saber networking portfolios, as well as our Xtreme, Expresse, and CloudCheck software portfolios. Both companies will be supported by a cross-license of the combined patent portfolio. From a people perspective, DZS will retain all personnel associated with its product portfolios, regardless of where those resources are located around the world.
To complement our research and development and customer experience teams in the United States, Canada, Germany, Spain, Turkey, Brazil, and India, DZS has implemented a seven-year engineering partnership agreement with DNS Asia, leveraging specific development and support resources in Pangyo, Korea and Hanoi, Vietnam. From a financial perspective, DZS will be selling its DNS Asia business unit to DASAN Networks Inc., or DNI, for $48 million. As part of the transaction, approximately $43 million of debt that was held in Korea will be retained by DNS Asia. In addition to eliminating all of DZS debt, which is held in Korea, DNI will pay DZS an additional $5 million of cash, increasing our total working capital secured to $30 million. The Asia business has historically represented approximately 50% of DZS's total revenue.
Consequently, our gross margins have been challenged due to the competitive landscape across Asia, and over the past few years, unfavorable foreign exchange fluctuations. Additionally, service providers in the Asia region often require custom products design, which also contributes to compressed margins. Because our research and development and our go-to-market strategies differ, we've been unable to abstract the expected engineering efficiencies and overall productivity, gross margin, and earnings. Post divestiture, we expect the new DZS, with a higher content of software and next-generation access and optical solutions, to yield much higher gross margins. The operating environment of DZS post divestiture will provide us with several valuable benefits.
Most importantly, by concentrating our business on the Americas and EMEA geographic regions, DZS emerges as a disruptive, pure-play technology supplier of next-generation broadband access, optical, and AI-driven cloud software solutions, aligned with the markets that are embracing open standards and software-defined networking solutions. The divestiture will immediately reduce our foreign exchange exposure, which has unfavorably impacted our gross margins and financial results over the past few years. Strategically, the divestiture aligns with our core growth pillars that we first introduced in late 2020, and provides upside to DZS as Open RAN evolves. The first is the fiber broadband upgrade cycle, which is fueled by over $100 billion in government stimulus funds.
Second, is our focus on North America and EMEA markets, which we expect to grow at a high rate based on the committed government subsidies and planned investments in fiber, broadband, and 5G. Third, is the pursuit of security risk-related cap and grow opportunities. Fourth, is the increase of software-defined networking that are being adopted across the Americas and EMEA regions. And finally, we see upside to our long-term revenue plans as Open RAN emerges with 5G and eventually 6G mobile transport opportunities. Our first growth pillar amplifies the anticipated 7-10-year fiber growth upgrade cycle. During the second half of 2023, DZS was awarded several new multiyear fixed and mobile broadband projects spanning the Americas and EMEA, validating the unique and differentiated technologies spanning our next-generation Velocity V6 access edge, Saber 4400 optical edge, and AI-driven 5G slicing, automation, and network orchestration software platforms.
We expect our Velocity, Saber, and cloud platforms to be catalysts throughout the balance of this fiber upgrade cycle. We also anticipate that the overall fiber broadband upgrade investment cycle will accelerate further and fueled by governments across North America and Europe, who have committed over $100 billion in subsidies targeting fiber initiatives in these regions. For example, the largest of these programs is the $42 billion committed from the United States BEAD program, which we anticipate will begin during the second half of 2024. We are actively engaged in government initiatives across North America and Europe, and are compliant with the proposed Build America, Buy America qualifications of the US BEAD program.
Bear in mind, our addressable market relative to the service provider's total capital spend, including fiber and fixed wireless construction cost, is approximately 10%, which amplifies our portion of the stated $100 billion TAM of the government stimulus funds, is approximately $10 billion. Our second growth pillar is the opportunity to expand our footprint across North America and Europe. As we enter 2024, DZS has created customer and partner momentum and significant interest with our next-generation Velocity V6 access edge, Saber 4400 optical edge, and AI-driven 5G slicing, automation, and network orchestration software platforms. A refined geographic focus will enable us to scale these platforms across the entirety of these regions and better align with the numerous government-stimulated initiatives designed to bring high-speed digital communications to the unserved and underserved communities.
While we have announced several new marquee service provider wins in 2023, we are active in numerous access, optical, and cloud software trials with service providers spanning North America and EMEA. Our third growth pillar is focused on specific service providers who are proactively reducing their security risk and are required to cap and grow and replace certain vendors by government regulations. Due to geopolitical factors and the historical footprint of these security risk profile vendors, the most active regions for DZS is Canada and Europe. Our fourth growth pillar is our focus on the evolution of software-defined networking. With artificial intelligence, virtualization, and cloud software taking hold across the Americas and EMEA regions, we expect a higher percentage of our future revenue and margin contribution to come from cloud edge software solutions.
As such, post-divestiture, we expect revenue from our software portfolio to represent a much higher percentage of our revenue. Our fifth growth pillar is focused on 5G mobile transport and the evolution towards open radio access networks. Since 2019, we have been a technology enabler of 5G and Open RAN mobile technologies. Open RAN continues to mature and evolve and is being validated by many, many marquee mobile operators around the world. Our M4000 and C2100 Anyh aul transport solutions, complemented by our Xtreme Cloud software, orchestration, and network slicing solutions, continues to gain traction with mobile operators across North America and Europe. From an innovation perspective, our next-generation Velocity and Helix portfolios are enabling service providers to deliver multi-gigabit services at scale, from GPON to XGS-PON and Gigabit Ethernet to 10 Gb Ethernet.
Our Velocity OLT portfolio is Build America, Buy America or BABA compliant, and is following today's proposed rules. At the optical edge, our new Saber 4400 metro Ethernet transport platform, which began shipping in December of 2023, offers service providers coherent optical transport wavelengths of up to 400 gigabits per second in an environmentally hardened, compact, modular form factor. With CDC FlexGrid ROADM capabilities now available in Q1, the Saber 4400 is the industry's most compact and flexible ROADM platform, which has numerous optical transport use cases, including middle mile for rural America. Like our Velocity OLT platform, Saber is manufactured in the United States and is positioned to comply with the emerging BABA requirements. At the cloud and subscriber edge, CloudCheck and Expresse are deployed with many of the largest service providers around North America and Europe.
Remote, remote experience and service management software has become essential to increase service providers' network awareness and to provide the enterprise and residential customers with a better experience, while at the same time, lowering overall operating costs. Our Xtreme orchestration, automation, and network slicing software has been selected for 5G networks and is now ready to be deployed for fiber forward customers, aligned with our Velocity OLT and Saber Saber optical edge solutions, as well as supporting a multi-vendor network environment. With our planned divestiture of our DNS Asia business unit, $25 million of working capital secured, our cost-saving initiatives complete, and with a robust sales pipeline, we entered 2024 right-sized and with a differentiated access, optical, and cloud software portfolio, aligned with the specific service providers that we have been pursuing over the past several years.
The aggregate of $30 million of working capital and the elimination of $43 million of debt has strengthened our balance sheet and increases our financial flexibility. In closing, the decision to divest our DNS Asia business, pursue a more focused market spanning the Americas and EMEA, with a differentiated portfolio of access, optical networking, and cloud-controlled software, will result in higher gross margins, a stronger balance sheet, and ultimately, more shareholder value over the long term. The new DZS becomes a pure-play technology supplier of next-generation broadband access, optical, and AI-driven cloud edge solutions, aligned with the markets that are embracing open, standards-based, software-defined networking. With that, we can begin the Q&A session.
Thank you. If you have a question, once again, it is star one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Tore Svanberg with Stifel. Your line is open.
Yes, thank you, and Happy New Year. Charlie, could you talk a little bit more about the R&D efficiency part? My understanding is, you know, from a SKU perspective, you know, you have to have so many more SKUs in Asia than perhaps in the US and EMEA. So could you just elaborate a little bit on, and, you know, how should we think about the R&D efficiency going forward with the new, the new structure?
Sure. It's good to, good to hear your voice, and Happy New Year to you as well. So I, I think most of the analysts that have been covering the company over the past few years knows that we have been very focused on reducing our SKU count. And, you know, I think we noted last year that we had reduced our gross SKUs from 5,000 to about 2,500 SKUs, and with this transaction, we'll be below 1,000 SKUs. So to your point, in Asia, there has historically been a lot of purpose-built or custom-built platforms that we have engineered for certain customers. And as we go forward, one of the benefits, obviously, is for us to focus on a more condensed SKU count of open standards-based solutions that we can replicate across the entire base.
You know, one of the things that we have spent a lot of time thinking through over the last couple of years is, you know, when you look at specifically North America and EMEA, most all of those customers have and are adopting, you know, our, you know, our standards-based solutions. So it certainly gives us a lot more efficiency as we go forward. And you know, we think about the anchors of our networking products really associated with three platforms.
Very, very good. Thanks for that. And as my follow-up, obviously, I know you can't talk about financials given the restatement, but, could you perhaps, just generally talk about the business environment currently? You know, I think we know last year was a challenging year for the industry. I think that goes without saying. But, and any sort of thing that you can share with us as far as the current business environment, especially as we enter 2024?
I mean, it's been obviously frustrating for us to not be able to externally communicate. And obviously, we're hoping that in the very near future, we'll be able to get back on track. I would say that, you know, our business in 2023 has been consistent with, you know, what some of our peers have echoed, in that there's certainly been a reset as it relates to how service providers have been consuming and managing inventory.
That said, you know, we've had a lot of success over the course of 2023, with a lot of committed customers and a lot of new customers, that even during this period of time where there was a cloud over the company's head with the restatement, most of the projects that we had been working on pre-restatement have continued and, and even have been awarded to us. So from that standpoint, we feel very blessed.
I'll go back in line. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Tore.
Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Koontz with Needham & Company. Your line is open.
Thanks for the question, and great to hear from you, Charlie. On the R&D side, can you specify again where you have your remaining R&D centers? And I think you had a list there during the prepared remarks, but can you clarify that again for me, just as a clarification? Thanks.
Yeah. So if you think about where our R&D is today, I mean, obviously, we have R&D in the United States through the acquisition of Optelian a couple of years ago. We have a sizable team in Ottawa, and then we have R&D in Germany, Spain, Turkey, and India. Those are the core R&D facilities. And then, as I mentioned on the call, we've entered into a long-term engineering partnership with DNS Asia, specifically to retain key engineering resources in just outside of Seoul, which is in our Pangyo, Korea facility, as well as our Hanoi, Vietnam facility.
You know, the substantial nature of the work streams with certain individuals who have been working on certain platforms will be retained for quite a long time.
Got it. So it sounds like you have access to some of the staff that will move out to DNI then, as part of the divestiture?
Yeah, they'll be. Actually, it's formal and contractual, so it's not that we just have access to them, it's actually contractual. So, it'll actually be very cumbersome, you know, our customers and partners should not see any disruption at all.
Great. And you talked about a cross-licensing IP in your prepared remarks as well. Can you expand on that a little bit? I assume that the DNI folks have access to the same product line, and they can develop on top of that, or what's entitled—what's entailed in this cross-licensing?
Well, first of all, there's a very specific non-compete. So the products that, you know, DZS, you know, the current DZS going forward will retain, which is, you know, fundamentally all of the product families within our Velocity, Helix, Saber, and then on the software side, Xtreme, CloudCheck, and Expresse, will be retained by DZS. Obviously, the legacy Zhone products, the MXK and zNID products will obviously continue to be supported and retained by DZS. So all of the intellectual property associated with those products, we will retain. All of the intellectual property and patents associated with the products that, you know, DNS has been historically selling into Asia, they'll retain.
And then there'll be a cross-license for both sides to protect both companies from any future patent litigation or any infringements that are in question. So both sides will be fully complemented and protected from that standpoint.
Got it. Great. And just to follow up the last question around kind of business environment. In terms of the security risk displacements over there with Huawei, especially in Europe and Canada, as you mentioned, where do you feel like we are now in terms of the revenue transition away from those vendors for the countries impacted? Do you feel like we're maybe 25% of the way through yet, or even earlier than that, or do you think we're approaching 50% revenue displacement?
No, I think we're—I mean, look—I would tell you that, you know, the large-scale tier ones in Canada and Europe, we have been very, very involved in all of those projects, some of which we've been awarded business that, you know, I expect will begin later this year. So I would tell you that we're at a very, very early stage in transitioning, at least from a DZS perspective. And, you know, I would say that it is truly in most of the countries in this early phase, what I would call a cap and grow. I don't know what the long-term plans are to actually rip and replace. I know in certain cases, service providers are planning on eventually ripping and replacing.
I think the initial goal is to, you know, cap what they have and begin to grow with, you know, companies like DZS. And so I, I'd say we're in a very, very early phase. And for us, most of the projects that we've already publicly announced, or we referred to, we see those deployments starting in the second half of this year. And, you know, as a long tail to it. I mean, one of the contracts that we are entering into is a 7-10 year agreement. So it's, you know, in Europe, especially, you know, they're in a lot of these countries, they, they've only deployed, you know, 10% fiber-based solutions. So they've got a long way to go.
Yeah, that sounds great. Last question on the displacements here, are you all- has it moved beyond broadband? Are you starting to see some opportunities in the optical domain as well, where you've always been pretty strong?
Yeah, I mean, you know, we've obviously had a lot of anxiety and anxiousness about the introduction of our Saber platform. So, you know, we're very excited that that product began to ship in December. And, you know, we've got a pretty robust pipeline for Saber in 2024. And, you know, it's a completely new product portfolio for us and a new category of revenue for us. So, you know, I think that that's not only great synergies within the overall FTTX domain, but there's a lot of mobile transport opportunities and mid-mile transport opportunities for that platform as well. So we're very excited about the potential there.
Great. Thank you for... I'll get back in the queue. Thanks so much.
Thanks, Ryan.
Your next question comes from the line of Dave Kang of B. Riley. Your line is open.
Thank you. Good morning. My first question is regarding your non-compete agreement. So basically, you guys have an agreement that you guys kind of avoid the Asian market and DNS avoid markets outside of Asia. Is that correct?
That's right.
Okay. Secondly, I was wondering if you can just talk about your financial model, you know, post this divestiture. I mean, you know, maybe talk about the break-even point organically, revenue level, you know, kind of what kind of gross margin and maybe OpEx.
Yeah. So the first question, I would just add to the fact that while there is a very specific non-compete in the specific countries that both companies will be focused on going forward, there is a bidirectional partnership that's been established such that if, you know, the DNS Asia business, for example, wants to represent our software portfolio into those markets, we have made those products available to them. So there certainly is an opportunity for us to continue to sell some of our software solutions, for example, into the Asia markets through DNS Asia. So we can certainly talk more about that when time, you know, permits.
As it relates to any future guidance or financial models, at this time, you know, we're not able to comment on that, as you would expect. As we certainly get to the final stage of restating 2022 and Q1 and get current on Q2 through Q4, we'll be in a much better position to more openly share and discuss, you know, 2024.
Got it. My last question is on that topic. What do you think, you know, you'll become current sometime this summer, or?
Yeah, it's another area that I can't really comment on. I mean, the good news is we have, as I said, in the scripted commentary, we have gotten past the actual formal assessment and due diligence phase. You know, the board and I have gotten a fulsome readout on the work that's been done, and now Misty and the team will be able to begin working on the restatement, which that'll begin this week. So there's a lot of work that we've been prepping and, you know, she and the team have been very prepared for. So hopefully, it'll won't take as long as some might fear.
Got it. Actually, there was one more question. Gotten some questions of, you know, expressing concerns about, you know, perhaps getting delisted. Can you address that topic, please? That'll be it for me.
Yeah, we certainly are very aware of certain dates. I mean, we're very conscious about all of that. And, you know, I think the company has done a really good job navigating around any possible delisting. I mean, we've been in constant communication with the Nasdaq, and we will continue to align with and comply with all of the requirements that they have.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Tim Savageaux with Northland Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning. And let me try and come back at that previous question another way, to some degree, which is to say, Charlie, you mentioned the Asia business at about 50% of the company's revenue. You know, would we be too far off, kind of extrapolating that to both the backlog that you reported in Q1 as well as your OpEx run rate? And I'll follow up from there.
Yeah, unfortunately, Tim, I can't really speak to anything outside of what we reported in Q1 of 2023. And I think, while I know it's frustrating for analysts and even shareholders, it's frustrating for us that we can't more openly speak to, you know, where we currently are in our backlog associated with the DZS Americas and EMEA versus Asia. I think if you go back in history and you look at 2022 and even Q1, you know, there was a strong proportion of the backlog that was tied to Americas and EMEA, and, you know, that's probably all I can comment on it.
Okay. Well, I'll soldier on along these lines anyway. You had—you did mention, and I expected, and I expected to hear, the potential for a more profitable or higher margin, at least, entity, although, you know, more profitable does seem like a potentially relevant statement, even at lower revenue levels, I'm assuming the reset this year. But you had, for a long time, been targeting the 40% gross margin level as a place you were looking to get to, even as previously configured. I mean, is it, is it possible that that level can be achieved almost immediately post-divestiture, given your commentary about, you know, higher margin potential?
Yeah. So you're honing in on, you know, an area that's probably very relevant. I mean, we've been very, very focused on, you know, getting to the 40% or, obviously beyond the 40% gross margin level. And I think we have historically commented that the margins that the company has had in the Americas and EMEA was significantly higher than Asia. And if you layer on top of that, that the majority of our software revenue is in North America and Europe, and those margins are in the 80% range, you should assume that we have every anticipation that our margin profile will be above 40%, post-divestiture.
Excellent. Well, I had a couple more, but last one for now would be on the balance sheet. You know, you announced the financing with DASAN in September. I assume, you know, that is the—and as well as you had some other kind of more run-rate debt with those guys, that looks like you may have increased throughout the year. It seems like outside of the new financing, that should about do it for the debt. Is that fair to say?
Yeah, it's a good question. It's a good question, Tim. So just for clarity for everyone, so you're right. We had 35, approximately, in long-term Morgan. A few million dollars more with some local Korean banks at a very low-interest rate. So that's where we get to the approximate $43 million. With this transaction, DNS will assume all of that debt, so the new DZS will only have $15 million of debt going forward associated with the new agreement or the new term loan, the new three-year term loan with EdgeCo, which is representative of, you know, long-standing in the company.
There's no one, you know, DNS that, I mean, people, which I think is a good validation of the diligence that those firms have done during this period about the business under NDA and have invested in the business as a result of that.
Okay, great. And, and actually, I have one more question. At least it was my understanding at some point, and correct me if I'm wrong, that at least, a part or maybe most of the restatement issues did emanate from the Asia business. And, and maybe that's no longer the case, but, you know, I guess what, if anything, should we conclude from, you know, DASAN's willingness to enter into this transaction vis-a-vis their restatement process, if indeed that was the case? And that's it for me.
... Yeah, so I can't really comment as I know you expect on the specifics of the restatement. But I would tell you that, you know, the investigation or the diligence was extremely thorough. It has little merit as it relates to the new divestiture with DNI and, you know, there's probably nothing else at this point that I can really comment on.
I mean, the fundamental aspects of divesting, you know, the Asia business is what I tried to outline in my commentary, and that is, it's really our inability, we think, long term, to be able to abstract the margin profile to be able to be effective in competing in the Asia markets, which still has a lot of the Chinese players that compete across many of those countries and regions.
And we just don't see, you know, looking out over the next 3-5 years, that, you know, the margins that we're expecting, you know, which you highlighted, and I think Dave highlighted, that, you know, we expect to get to a plan where we can achieve 50% margins, and we don't see how we do that with the current landscape in Asia. And I think, you know, while, yes, the overall top-line revenue may be smaller, I think the value of the new DZS with higher margins, next generation product portfolio that we've invested a significant amount of money over the last three years, which also encompasses the three acquisitions we made, I think deems to be a much more valuable company for shareholders.
I think it gives the company, frankly, a lot of options, both organic and inorganic, over the long term.
Okay, thanks very much.
Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question, it is star one. Your next question comes from the line of Christian Schwab with Craig-Hallum. Your line is open.
Hey, happy new year. So, most of my questions have all been asked or asked with the attempt of an answer. But, just Charlie, on the competitive landscape, you know, do you think that you guys are seeing, you know, any significant potential customer risk in the remaining geographies? You know, given the long time frame it took to kind of shore up the balance sheet to give potential customers some semblance of relief that, you know, you will certainly be here. And then, you know, your ability to support products in multi-year nature. You know, customers buy your type of product with the idea that they'll be bought and supported for many years to come.
Can you just give us an update on what you're seeing from the customer perspective, without having to talk about what potential revenue could be, please?
Sure. I don't know what your comment meant about whether or not we'd be here. I mean, I think that, you know, the fact that, you know, the company has navigated itself, I think extremely well over the last seven months, despite, you know, the cloud over our head with the restatement. But, I would tell you, Christian, that, you know, we've got a very loyal supplier base, who has been extremely supportive through this process, and has accelerated, our manufacturing requirements to comply with, with the BEAD program. We have, we've not lost any customers through this process. In fact, we've added customers through this process.
While there's been, you know, a lot of questions, which are fair, especially from a lot of new larger-scale customers and some of our long-standing, you know, existing customers through this process, you know, we've been very transparent. We've been very inclusive. And, you know, I think that the responses that we've given to our customers and partners have led to a level of confidence in the company and management. And, you know, with this new news, I have to think that our partners, our suppliers, our customers are ecstatic, because we're going to be focusing all of our energy, all of our research and development and resources on the Americas and EMEA markets.
So I got to think that this double down concept on the markets that frankly have been at the core of our growth pillars since I first introduced them in October of 2020 to be something that they're more pleased to see than anything else. So I see today and Friday's announcement as a very positive response to what I think we've been trying to articulate for two and a half years. So yes, there's some top-line revenue that goes away. It's low margin, top line revenue that goes away, but as it relates to the resources that are required to support Americas and EMEA, it's all the same.
Great. No other questions. Thank you.
Thanks, Christian.
There are no further questions at this time. This will conclude today's call. We thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.