“For the third quarter, we expect revenue of $834 million to $836 million, reflecting approximately 23% year-over-year growth”

In context

“Kevin Rubin (CFO): Thanks, Jay. We delivered strong Q2 '26 results, exceeding our targets while investing with discipline. With 26% revenue growth and a 36% free cash flow margin, we achieved Rule of 62 performance in the first half of the year, placing us among the elite companies that consistently outperform the Rule of 40. Our Q2 '26 net new ARR was $156 million, up 19%, bringing total ARR to $3.4 billion, up 25% year-over-year. Net new ARR benefited from strength in large deals and volume of deals. In particular, the Americas closed twice the number of $1 million-plus deals this year as compared to last year. Excluding the contribution from our acquisition of Red Canary, net new ARR was $139 million, up 7% year-over-year and total ARR up 21%. These results compared to an exceptionally strong 24% net new ARR growth last year. Red Canary exited Q2 with $114 million of ARR. For the first half of the year, net new ARR, excluding Red Canary, grew 10% year-over-year, accelerating from 1% last year. This quarter, our Zero Trust Internet Access, or ZIA, and Zero Trust Private Access, or ZPA, ARR remained healthy and grew in the mid-teens. We have steadily expanded our Zero Trust platform beyond users to protect branches, workloads, AI applications, and now AI agents. We believe AI agents will drive a meaningful increase in machine-to-machine and agent-to-agent interactions over time. In Q2, our non-seat-based metered usage solutions delivered just over a quarter of new ACV and the ARR tied to those offerings grew more than 100% year-over-year. Revenue of $816 million grew 26% year-over-year and 4% sequentially, exceeding the high end of our guidance. We closed Q2 with 728 customers generating over $1 million of ARR and 3,886 customers exceeding $100,000 in ARR, both growing 18% year-over-year. We also set a record $1 million-plus new ACV deals for a Q2. On a geographic basis, we saw strong growth from the Americas, which accounted for 57% of revenue, up approximately 31% year-over-year. EMEA accounted for 28% of revenue, up approximately 18%, and APJ for 15%, up approximately 23%. Remaining performance obligation, or RPO, of $6.1 billion grew approximately 31%, including approximately 47% classified as current RPO. We are pleased with the strong execution in our account-centric sales motion, which is strengthening our position as a long-term strategic partner and driving deeper customer adoption over time. In Q2, we again delivered double-digit sales productivity growth, reflecting continued improvement in our go-to-market execution with meaningful headroom ahead. We also achieved record pipeline conversion for Q2, signaling stronger pipeline quality and improved visibility. We continued to build strong momentum this quarter with our recently launched Z-Flex program. Z-Flex gives customers with multiyear commitments the flexibility to activate or swap modules without starting a new procurement cycle, along with premium deployment assistance and support. This program is driving meaningful upsell, shorter sales cycles, and greater forward visibility. In Q2, Z-Flex generated more than $290 million in TCV, up over 65% quarter-over-quarter. Since launching a year ago, we have delivered approximately $650 million in TCV at an average 4-year term, underscoring customers' long-term commitment to Zscaler. To share a couple of customer examples, in a 5-year eight-figure Z-Flex deal, a large U.S.-based finance and insurance customer nearly tripled its annual spend by expanding its module adoption across 11 existing modules and adopting 5 new modules, including our AI Security solution. In a new logo Z-Flex win, a Fortune 500 retail customer purchased 11 modules in a 5-year eight-figure deal. This customer adopted all of our Zero Trust solutions, including Zero Trust Users, Cloud, and Branch, landing as a Zero Trust Everywhere customer. Turning to M&A. I'd like to start with some color on our recent acquisitions. On February 5, we closed the acquisition of SquareX, which extends Zero Trust capabilities into any browser, enabling organizations to leverage standard browsers like Chrome and Edge to secure access on unmanaged devices without requiring a separate third-party enterprise browser or using outdated and costly virtual desktop infrastructure. Next, Red Canary. On February 1, we executed the next phase of integrating the Red Canary teams with the respective Zscaler teams. Red Canary was primarily a technology and talent acquisition. As we shared when we closed this acquisition, churn for MDR businesses is higher than we experienced in our Zscaler business. Post-acquisition, Red Canary's churn has been elevated. We'll be providing Red Canary ARR in Q3 and Q4. Turning to operating performance. Non-GAAP gross margin was 80.2% compared to 80.4% a year ago. Non-GAAP operating income of $181 million grew $41 million or 29% as compared to $140 million last year. Non-GAAP operating margin of 22.2% increased 50 basis points year-over-year, reflecting the sales productivity improvements I mentioned earlier, demonstrating leverage on sales and marketing. Turning to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $3.5 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments and $1.7 billion of debt. In Q2, we generated $204 million in operating cash flow, up 14% year-over-year, and CapEx was $18 million or 2% of revenue. Finally, free cash flow margin was 20.7% this quarter, down from 22.1% last year, driven by the timing of cash collections. Looking ahead, I'd like to spend a minute addressing the recent increases in memory, storage, and processor prices and availability. So far, we haven't seen a meaningful impact on our operations. However, it could become a factor in the future as we purchase equipment for our data centers and Zero Trust Branch appliances. We'll continue to monitor our costs and adjust customer pricing if needed. Turning to guidance. Let me provide our outlook for Q3 and full year fiscal '26. As a reminder, these numbers are all on a non-GAAP basis. For the third quarter, we expect revenue of $834 million to $836 million, reflecting approximately 23% year-over-year growth; gross margin of approximately 80%; operating profit of $187 million to $189 million, equating to an operating margin of 22.4% to 22.6%; net other income of approximately $25 million; and earnings per share of $1 to $1.01, assuming a 21% tax rate and 167 million fully diluted shares. For the full year fiscal 2026, ARR of $3.730 billion to $3.745 billion or year-over-year growth of approximately 24%. This guidance implies net new ARR growth, excluding Red Canary, of approximately 9.5%. For Red Canary, we expect ARR of approximately $130 million in fiscal '26, up from our prior guidance of $95 million, with net new ARR of approximately $6 million in Q3 and $10 million in Q4. This includes all the business expected in each period, including fiscal '26 renewals, upsells, and new logos. For the second half of fiscal '26, we expect approximately 40% of total net new ARR to be recognized in Q3. Revenue of $3.309 billion to $3.322 billion, reflecting year-over-year growth of 23.8% to 24.3%. We expect Red Canary revenue of approximately $125 million in fiscal '26, up from our prior guidance of $90 million. Operating profit of $742 million to $748 million, up approximately 28% to 29% year-over-year, up from our prior guidance of $732 million to $740 million. Earnings per share of $3.99 to $4.02, assuming a 21% tax rate and approximately 169 million fully diluted shares. And free cash flow margin of approximately 26.5% to 27%, reflecting CapEx in the mid-single digits as a percentage of revenue. We are very pleased with the results we delivered in the first half of fiscal '26. We achieved 25% year-over-year ARR growth and record operating income. Excluding Red Canary, our net new ARR growth accelerated to 10% in the first half of the year, up from 1% in the same period last year. We also saw continued momentum with Z-Flex and closed a record number of $1 million-plus ARR deals for Q2. Looking ahead to the second half of the year, we believe we are well positioned to build on this momentum. We will do this by scaling our rapidly expanding AI Security portfolio, expanding Zero Trust Everywhere adoption, and growing our Data Security Everywhere revenue. Ultimately, we remain focused on driving durable, profitable growth with strong cash generation. I want to thank our employees, customers, and partners for their continued support. With that, operator, you may now open the call for questions.”