ANSYS (ANSS) Q1 2019 Earnings Call Transcript

ANSYS (ANSS 0.18%)
Q1 2019 Earnings Call
May. 02, 2019, 8:30 a.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to ANSYS' first-quarter 2019 earnings conference call. With us today are Ajei Gopal, chief executive officer; Maria Shields, SVP and chief financial officer; and Annette Arribas, senior director, global investor relations. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Ms. Arribas for some opening remarks.

Annette Arribas -- Senior Director, Global Investor Relations

Good morning, everyone. Our earnings release and the related prepared remarks document have been posted on the homepage of our Investor Relations website this morning. They contain all of the key financial information and supporting data relative to our first-quarter financial results and business update, as well as our Q2 2019 outlook and the key underlying assumptions. I would like to remind everyone that in addition to any risks and uncertainties that we highlight during the course of this call, important factors that may affect our future results are discussed at length in our public filings with the SEC, all of which are available via our website.

Additionally, the company's reported results should not be considered an indication of future performance, as there are risks and uncertainties that could impact our business in the future. These statements are based upon our view of the business as of today, and ANSYS undertakes no obligation to update any such information, unless we do so in a public forum. During this call and in the prepared remarks, we'll be referring to non-GAAP financial measures unless otherwise stated. A discussion of the various items that are excluded and a full reconciliation of GAAP to comparable non-GAAP financial measures under ASC 606 is included in this morning's earnings release materials and related Form 8-K.

As we previously communicated, now that we are beyond the first year of adoption of revenue recognition under ASC 606, we will only be providing financial results and outlook under ASC 606. I want to highlight that any comments made relative to revenue growth rates, we'll be comparing 2019 to 2018 results under 606. In closing, I would like to announce that our 2019 Investor Day will be held on Thursday, September 12 in Pittsburgh, with a reception and technology showcase event the evening before. Further details around the location, logistics and the agenda can be found on our IR website.

I would now like to turn the call over to our CEO, Ajei Gopal, for his opening remark. Ajei?

Ajei Gopal -- Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Annette, and good morning, everyone. Q1 has given ANSYS an excellent start to the year, with strong results across our key performance metrics. We exceeded the high end of our revenue guidance by delivering constant-currency revenue growth of 16%. Our operating cash flow was robust, increasing 14% year over year, and we reported record first-quarter EPS of $1.29.

To reflect the momentum across our business, I'm pleased to announce that we are raising our full-year guidance, Maria will provide further details. Our financial success is propelled by a unique multiphysics portfolio and a drive to make simulations pervasive throughout the product life cycle. A distinct combination that helps our customers solve their most complex product problems. In Q1, we enjoyed success across most of our industry verticals, with particular strength in the high-tech sector.

Given the unique challenges that high-tech companies face and with our growing momentum in that sector, I would like to highlight ANSYS' value proposition to those companies and some of our successes in the vertical. The high-tech industry stands at crossroads, thanks to megatrends like 5G, AI, autonomy, electrification and data centers. Those trends, coupled with intense competition across the vertical, are spurring customer innovation, thus driving even higher demand for multiphysics simulation. And that's why hundreds of high-tech leaders, including the vast majority of the top companies in semiconductor, smart devices, telecommunications and data centers are using ANSYS to address many of their product challenges.

For example, customers are increasingly relying on ANSYS' unique solution set to make 5G a reality. 5G networks require an unprecedented number of base stations, creating more complex connectivity, energy efficiency and thermal management challenges. Our solutions help users examining the performance of a base station in large-scale environments to ensure connectivity is maintained while base station placement is optimized. Combined with our chip-package-system workflow, we can help customers tackle the critical power and thermal management issues on a single platform.

In Q1, we closed the deal with an Asian telecommunications company to design and analyze the 5G networks they're building. The company is using ANSYS solutions to increase the performance of antennas in their base stations to accommodate the higher frequencies inherent in 5G communication. After a head-to-head comparison, this telecom customer chose ANSYS because of our complete multiphysics simulations platform. Solutions that help our customers grapple with the complexities of megatrends like 5G, are based on our market-leading portfolio, including gold standards, such as ANSYS HFSS and ANSYS RedHawk-SC.

ANSYS HFSS enabled users to design and simulate high-frequency electronic products such as antennas, microwave components, high-speed interconnects, IC packages and PCBs. With its unmatched accuracy, the modern architecture of HFSS empowers users to solve complex electromagnetic and electromechanical problems across hundreds of cores, and enables customers like Samsung, NVIDIA and Ericsson to develop amazing products. We continue to extend our leadership with HFSS through our recent releases, as well as through strategic acquisitions. In Q1, we released our EMI Scanner, which is new functionality in HFSS to quickly identify areas of potential electromagnetic interference on PCB designs prior to simulation.

This helps customers to eliminate errors while speeding time to market. And as we discussed on our last call, we further expanded our leadership in the electronics industry in Q1 with the acquisition of Helic, the industry-leading provider of electromagnetic crosstalk solutions for systems on a chip. The acquisition of Helic, combined with ANSYS' flagship electromagnetic and semiconductor solver, provides a comprehensive solution for on-chip 3D integrated circuit and chip-package-system electromagnetics and noise analysis. Reaction has been overwhelmingly positive with industry leaders praising us for combining the best technology for off-chip electromagnetics in HFSS with the most innovative on-chip electromagnetics technology in Helic.

DfR Solutions, our latest acquisition which closed this week is helping customers address their product challenges by ensuring the reliability of their electronics. DfR Solutions is the leading provider of automated design analysis software and comprehensive services for electronic component and material supply chains. DfR bolsters our electronics reliability capabilities with an automated designer level solution to quickly and easily analyze the potential for electronics failures. And I'm excited to welcome the DfR team into the ANSYS family.

Moving to our semiconductor solutions, ANSYS RedHawk-SC is the world's first purpose-built big data system for the semiconductor industry. And I'm proud to say that 100% of our seven-nanometer base is using RedHawk-SC, which is undefeated in all head-to-head technical benchmarks. Our customers and foundry partners recognize that ANSYS is accelerating its leadership in chip-package-system multiphysics with innovative new product like RedHawk-SC, with integrated workflows using our flagship solver such as HFSS and with our targeted technology acquisitions. TSMC, the world's largest semiconductor foundry, has recognized ANSYS with Partner of the Year awards in each of the last three years, and in Q1, they certified our semiconductor solutions for SoIC advanced 3D chip stacking technology.

Our work on developing solutions for the high-tech industry is paying off. In Q1, Seagate Technology, a world leader in precision engineered data storage and management solutions entered into a multiyear enterprise agreement expanding the use of ANSYS simulation software worldwide. Demands on Seagate's development teams are increasing. Reaching capacity, performance and environmental goals on schedule increasingly requires more simulation across all engineering disciplines.

ANSYS' solutions deliver technical and business value helping Seagate maximize datas potential. Similarly, LG Electronics also inked a new enterprise agreement with ANSYS to help support the company's continued commitment to delivering highly innovative mobile devices, home entertainment and appliance applications to customers worldwide. LG expects this expanded access to our multiphysics suite to drive innovation, shortened product development cycles and accelerated product design. Moving away from high technology, we have seen considerable traction with another recent acquisition, Granta Design, the premier provider of materials information technology.

In early Q2, ANSYS closed the largest deal in Granta's history at a leading aerospace company to enable materials intelligence and materials data management across their organization. This deal was made possible by the combination of Granta's mission-critical technology, the long-standing relationship the customer has had with ANSYS and their confidence in ANSYS' ability to successfully integrate Granta. We're also enjoying success with our key partnerships. For example, our award-winning Discovery Live solution, which brings real-time simulation capabilities to design engineers is reaching new audiences, thanks to our partnership with the PTC.

During Q1, PTC released Creo Simulation Live, embedded with ANSYS Discovery Live technology. During its earnings call last week, PTC reported that it had already booked deals with 70 customers. As previously discussed, we expect the near-term financial impact to be immaterial but we see upside in the longer term. Similarly, SAP showcased its Predictive Engineering Insights, enabled by ANSYS, solution at the Hannover Messe industrial fair in Germany.

Their designed-to-operate demo featured an automated fluid handling system designed by packaging and bottling machine manufacturer, Krones, which showcased digital twin capabilities enabled by ANSYS. And just recently, SAP and ANSYS highlighted joint success with a leading air compressor company. Using the SAP ANSYS solution, the company was able to streamline its customer delivery time from months to hours by eliminating the need for engineering teams to perform detailed technical customization and analysis work. Predictive Engineering Insights empowers field-based sales teams to save critical time and engineering resources.

With our strong Q1 financial results, our continued momentum in high-growth industry verticals such as high tech, our investment in leading technology and our focus on expanding the value from our partnerships and our acquisitions, we remain confident that we'll achieve our goals and objectives. Like our customers, we're focused on innovation, on solving the toughest problem and on delivering results. We believe this is a winning combination and our performance speaks for itself. And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to Maria.

Maria?

Maria Shields -- Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Ajei. Good morning, everyone. Let me take a few minutes to add some additional perspective on our first-quarter financial performance and provide color around our outlook and assumptions for Q2 and 2019. Consistent with our standard practice, my comments will be in terms of non-GAAP unless I state otherwise.

The strong Q1 results reflect solid execution across our business, combined with a steady customer demanded environment, which yielded revenue, operating margin and EPS, all well above the high end of our Q1 guidance. Our excellent start to the year is quite encouraging when considering the Q1 2018 comparable, in which we reported double-digit ACV growth and strong earnings. Key financial metrics begin with Q1 ACV of $303.5 million and total revenue of $319.9 million, or constant-currency revenue growth of 16%. I will add that the key currency exchange rates were within the ranges that we provided with our first-quarter guidance.

The increase in software lease license sales combined with strong maintenance renewals contributed to building our deferred revenue and backlog to a Q1 total of $673 million, representing a 13% increase over last year's first-quarter balance. During the quarter, we continued to manage our business with fiscal discipline, which yielded a very strong first-quarter gross margin of 91% and an operating margin of 43%. Margins were positively impacted by revenue results finishing well above the high end of our revenue guidance, as well as a slower case of hiring then we had planned coming into the quarter. The pace of hiring was most notably impacted by the integration activities of both the Granta design and Helic acquisitions during the quarter, as we added approximately 200 talented employees to our team.

We also saw the continuation of a tighter labor market, particularly for highly skilled positions. We reported record first-quarter EPS of $1.29. With respect to taxes, our effective tax rate in Q1 was 21%, in line with the range that we had guided coming into the quarter. Going forward, we expect our effective tax rate to be in the range of 21% to 22% for Q2 and the full year.

Our cash flow from operations totaled $152 million, a 14% increase over last year's Q1, and we ended the quarter with a total of $608 million in cash and short-term investments. The operating cash flows in the first quarter positively benefited from the very strong Q4 ACV finish in 2018. In line with our capital-allocation priorities, we repurchased 250,000 shares during the quarter at a total cost of $45 million. We have 3.6 million shares available for repurchase under the current authorized program.

Now let me turn to the topic of guidance. Coming off our strong finish in Q1, we are initiating guidance for Q2 and increasing both our revenue and EPS outlook for the full year. This increase reflects the solid financial performance in the first quarter combined with our confidence and continued positive business momentum for the remainder of the year. Our updated outlook reflects the minor contribution of the DfR acquisition that we closed yesterday.

Let me also add, that currency exchange rate changes did not contribute to our increased guidance. For the second quarter, we expect non-GAAP revenue in the range of $325 million to $345 million and non-GAAP EPS in the range of $1.18 to $1.30. For the full year, we are increasing both the revenue and the EPS outlook to non-GAAP revenue in the range of $1.430 billion to $1.480 billion, or constant-currency growth of 11% to 15% and EPS in the range of $5.75 to $6.10. We are also increasing our full-year ACV outlook to $1.425 billion to $1.470 billion.

This represents constant-currency ACV growth of 9% to 12%. With respect to annual operating cash flows we are maintaining our outlook for 2019 in the range of $470 million to $510 million. I would like to remind everyone that our outlook for operating cash flow in 2019 includes higher tax payments that relate to the acceleration of lease license revenue and the related profitability under ASC 606, including additional tax payments in 2019 relating to our strong 2018 finish, as well as the first-year impact of the acquisitions. For modeling purposes, we're expecting second-quarter operating margins of 39% to 41%.

And for the full year, we continue to expect operating margins of 43% to 44%. Further details around specific currency rates and other assumptions that have been factored into our outlook for Q2 and 2019 are contained in the prepared remarks document. In closing, we are very pleased to start the year with excellent first-quarter financial and operational results. Another quarter of delivering on our financial commitments, combined with the exciting opportunities to continue to leverage our incredible technology, talent and customer relationships gives us confidence that our focus on execution and investing in the business combined with the strength of our recurring business and growing sales pipeline provide a strong foundation to deliver on our 2019 goals, as well as our longer-term 2020 financial targets.

Operator, we will now open the phone lines to take questions.

Questions & Answers:

Operator

[Operator instructions] Our first question is from Ken Wong with Guggenheim. Please go ahead.

Ken Wong -- Guggenheim Securities -- Analyst

Hey, thanks a lot. Maybe the first question on my end. Last quarter you guys touched on heavier seasonality in the back half of the year, specifically Q4. Just wondering, based on what you've seen in Q1 and the expected pipeline, how is that looking? Is the magnitude even greater? And then perhaps -- and then a follow-up on Discovery Live, just wanted to understand how the PTC partnership differs from what you guys are seeing in terms of customer engagements?

Maria Shields -- Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

So Ken, I'll take the first part of the question. Relative to seasonality for 2019, as I had said on the last call, we see 2019 very similar to 2018, back-end loaded and a lot of the large multiyear transactions are in the Q -- 4Q right now. So everything is going as we had mapped it out. And it's just, a lot of those larger deals align with customer, year end, budgeting and spend, and so they're just aligned with a larger second half.

Ajei Gopal -- Chief Executive Officer

And then with respect to the PTC partnership, we're very excited about the PTC partnership, I think it's going well. We announced the partnership, as you know, in June of '18. And they released Creo Simulate Live, which is Creo embedded with ANSYS technology in Q1. And they've created essentially a solution that adds simulations into the CAD environment.

And so engineers can see the real-time results of simulation at -- in the CAD environment that allows them to make the kind of trade-off and design changes they need to early in the design process. Based on what they said, during their investor call, they closed 70 CSL deals in Q1, essentially across all geographies, industry verticals, both direct and indirect. And they've built a promising pipeline for future quarters, and we're excited about the auction pattern that's consistent with what we've seen which is, customers will use the technology and then start to broaden. They've also announced that they're going to be back porting CSL to Creo 4, which is essentially where a larger portion of their install base, primarily their enterprise customers are.

And that will allow them to benefit from upfront simulation. So this -- I think it's going well. We're excited about that and the relationship is strong.

Operator

The next question is from Jay Vleeschhouwer of Griffin Securities. Please go ahead.

Jay Vleeschhouwer -- Griffin Securities -- Analyst

Thank you. Good morning. Maria, let me start with you. On the call, a quarter ago, you anticipated that you would add about 300 employees for the year, and I think that did not include Helic and Granta.

You've grown 300 thus far for the year, 200 of which was from the acquisition. So you're about a third of the way it seems toward your hiring goal for the year. Does your guidance anticipate that you will hit your hiring objective? And you -- instead of a record number which seems of technical consulting and support openings right now. Could that be some factor as well because you've been able to sustain the numbers for 2019? Then a technology question for Ajei.

Maybe to prognosticate a little bit about the evolution of the industry. There's considerable attention as you know being paid to generative design, which is neither CAD nor simulation, it's sum of each, and it's more than just a tool for the process. As that becomes more and more adopted, as I expect it will, how do you think that affects your business but all of simulation or multiphysics simulation, and maybe tie that also into your larger SPDM strategy, if you could? Sorry, for the long question.

Maria Shields -- Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

OK. So Jay, I'll start on the hiring. Yeah, as you heard in the prepared remarks, we had planned and we are still planning for roughly 300 net new, not including the impact of Granta and Helic. That being said, as you heard in my earlier comments, the two acquisitions in the first quarter, as you can imagine, slowed some of the original plan down.

But we did add net about 130 additional employees on to the ANSYS roster in addition to the 200 plus from Granta and Helic. And it is our anticipation that over the remainder of the year that we will see organic hiring increase over the pace of the year. And that's what's built into our guidance for the remaining quarters.

Ajei Gopal -- Chief Executive Officer

And Jay, just briefly touch on generative design. We're excited about the direction that the industry is taking with generative design. We think that's an opportunity for us to increase the penetration of simulation into the marketplace. Because as you think about generative design, the improvement of a design continues to require rapid iterations and simulation.

And so where historically, simulation might have been someone, an individual, creating a design and then subsequently validating it in the world of generative design. And frankly, in the world that we're talking about, where more people are creating technology and creating products, the opportunity for simulations provide that rapid feedback and -- to both human beings, as well as provides guidance as you start to think about a generative kind of solution. It makes sense, it drives the use of simulation. So we're very excited about our position in the marketplace.

We think that generative will be another driver of the use of simulation. And we think that's completely consistent with the product strategy that we're driving. What we're doing in things like SPDM, allow us to continue and manage the huge amounts of simulations data that's being generated. Obviously, with generative design there will be more simulation data.

So this is completely consistent with the direction that we're going. And frankly, we're very excited about it.

Operator

The next question is from Ken Talanian of Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Ken Talanian -- Evercore ISI -- Analsyt

Hi. Thanks for taking the question. It's for Maria. What was your constant-currency organic ACV growth in the quarter? And then, could you give us a sense for how you're think about the inorganic contribution to revenue for the remainder of both '19 and as you think about hitting your 10% plus target in 2020?

Maria Shields -- Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

So Ken, relative to ACV, basically it is organic. There is only about $3 million to $4 million from the acquisition to ACV. So the majority of the ACV growth is from the organic business. And with respect to 2020, we have not changed our outlook on 2020 from what we said at Investor Day relative to, we are still targeting double-digit growth and industry-leading margins in the 43% to 45% range.

Operator

The next question is from Matt Pfau of William Blair. Please go ahead.

Matt Pfau -- William Blair -- Analyst

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Just wanted to follow-up on the PTC partnership. And I realize it's still pretty early there.

But if you can just talk about with -- what you've seen so far? Do you think similar partnerships like the PTC one would make sense to pursue? And are there other ones out there that you could pursue? Thanks.

Ajei Gopal -- Chief Executive Officer

So we certainly are excited about the PTC partnership. They've been good partners and we continue to support them. The opportunity that we see obviously is for designers to be able to take advantage of simulation, not just experienced analyst, the designers should be able to take advantages of simulation. And frankly, we believe in an open ecosystem, so no matter which CAD solution someone's using with perfectly content.

And delighted for those customers to take advantage of the CAD capability from any vendor and to take advantage of ANSYS simulation. But obviously with PTC we have a tighter relationship, where PTC is OEM-ing our technology and integrated -- integrating it directly into Creo.

Operator

The next question is from Rob Oliver of Robert W. Baird. Please go ahead.

Rob Oliver -- Baird -- Analyst

Hi, guys. Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Ajei this is one for you, just as a follow-up to the last question.

So when you got here you embarked upon a pretty bold strategy on the partnership side. You mentioned 5G comps. Obviously, you guys have always been strong in semiconductors. Maybe you can talk a little bit about some of the potential other areas within partnership potential? And then I had a quick follow-up on Discovery Live unrelated to PTC.

Ajei Gopal -- Chief Executive Officer

Just on the partnerships question. Just to clarify, what specifically you're asking me to comment on, please?

Rob Oliver -- Baird -- Analyst

Yeah. Just getting a sense for, you guys have expanded your go-to-market your partnerships pretty markedly. And wanted to get a sense if there were other specific areas where you saw opportunity. I realize it's a bit of a follow-up to the last question, please.

Ajei Gopal -- Chief Executive Officer

Sure. So the strategy that we've articulated is one where simulation becomes pervasive throughout the product life cycle. And what we mean by that is that any place where product is being touched, whether it's in the inception phase where the people are thinking about a product, in the ideation phase, whether it's deep design, whether it's manufacturing and things like additive manufacturing, whether it's operations, whether it's in the product itself. We believe that simulations can play a role because frankly, and understanding of the physics of the product, and understanding of how the product is -- could operate or will operate or is operating is very important in -- for customer value and customer benefit.

So we see simulation is playing this much deeper role across the product life cycle. Now historically, we've been in a particular part of that product life cycle, which has been in the tail end of the design process for validation or for sign-off. And increasingly, as you see from the strategy that we've been pursuing, it's to make simulation available in multiple places. Now in -- the way we're doing that is obviously we have our own go-to-market, but we're also looking at those areas where others have a very strong presence and we're integrating our technology into others who have a strong presence or own a particular workflow.

And that's one of the reasons why when you think about the EDA space, for example, we're partnering with Synopsis, where Synopsis is taking our technology and integrating it into their products as part of the workflow. We're partnering with PTC because they have a presence in the CAD space. We're partnering with SAP, as you start to think about operations. And so the way you should think about our partnering strategy, it's driven by the ability to work with industry leaders who are in their space, who are key providers of workflow, or have capability at some point in the product life cycle.

And since we have an open strategy, our intention is to be able to integrate with their workflows and let our simulation capabilities be present in their product offering, in their solution offering. And obviously, they're taking it to market through their channels, through their resellers and so forth. So we see this as a win for ANSYS. And that's a strategy that we've been pursuing and that's a strategy we'll continue to pursue.

Operator

The next question is from Steve Koenig of Wedbush. Please go ahead.

Steve Koenig -- Wedbush Securities -- Analyst

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I want to ask about large deals in the quarter, and the context here being the year-ago quarter. May be remind us that the $50 million deal a year ago, how much of that was impactful to ACV? And what did you have this quarter in terms of very large deals that might have moved the needle? If you can provide any qualitative color there.

And if I may, I do have one housekeeping-type question for Maria. And that is, if we were to calculate bookings under 606, is that comparable to the 605 calculation we performed a year ago? I know you don't know my CAD. But I'm just talking about the change in the total backlog plus revenue. Are those things comparable?

Maria Shields -- Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. So let's start with respect to the year-ago quarter, if you recall that was a quarter in which we did announce, at that point in time, the largest deal in the company's history. And ACV would've been a third last year, a third in Q1 this year and then a third next year at the three-year anniversary of that deal. So a third of the deal went into this quarter's ACV results.

As you know, we moved away, Steve, from bookings, just because it's a much more volatile metrics than ACV. But there should be no difference between bookings under 606 or 605.

Operator

The next question is from Rich Valera of Needham & Company. Please go ahead.

Rich Valera -- Needham and Company -- Analyst

Thank you. Question for you, Ajei, sales force. When yourself and Rick Mahoney took over, about the same time. Since then you've made a lot of structural and capacity additions to the sales force.

So just wondering if you can give kind of an update on where you are in that sales force or transformation. And what's on the to-do list for 2019 as far as continuing to add capacity and make any, perhaps, structural changes there? Thanks.

Ajei Gopal -- Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. So when I came on board and certainly, Rich, Rick came on board shortly after I did. Our focus was on looking at the go-to-market, try to figure out how we could optimize the go-to-market. And the model that we were dealing with earlier was, I would say a more -- it was a model that was relevant for an earlier time in the ANSYS life cycle.

And it was more of a one-size-fits-all in terms of how we address the market opportunity. Today what we have is a more differentiated go-to-market where we take advantage of a direct sales force to go after the large deals and the larger territory deals. And we've done some channel to be able to have a channel focus on the more of the volume business. And then of course, we also have some inside sales activities.

And so there's been a pretty significant, as you point out, change in our go-to-market, which has allowed us to continue to grow our business across a number of different dimensions. We've also continued to make investments in our ACE organization or our technical organizational, technical sales organization. And that's, of course, helped overall. And our channel partners have also continued to blossom.

We've brought more channel partners on board, and they've continued to bring on more ACE capacity or technical capacity as well to be able to support customers. So that's the journey that we've been on, that's the journey that obviously is an ongoing journey. We continue to make refinements to that model. And you -- and we will continue to do that this year, through next year and beyond.

But the basic bones that we've talked about have been put in place. And now we're starting to think about how we would optimize within that structure. In some cases it doesn't make sense to have more some -- a particular vertical focus in certain areas. And those are the kinds of questions that we're exploring.

But again, we have a very enviable business model within ANSYS. And that's in the backs of the kinds of products and capabilities that we have in the customer relationships that we've been able to maintain. And that's something that we hold very dear to us. And so our go-to-market model and the changes that we make will support that.

And we're not planning on doing anything to disrupt our go-to-markets capabilities.

Operator

The next question is from Jason Celino of KeyBanc Capital. Please go ahead.

Jason Celino -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question this morning. One question back on the ACV guidance. You are raising your current constant-currency outlook by 1 percentage point.

Can you maybe go into more details, and the -- what gives you confidence to increase modestly here?

Maria Shields -- Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. I would say, as I said, in earlier commentary, Jason, one, the performance in Q1 and the strength of the pipeline, and the deals that we're seeing that the teams are working on. So we see a lot of interest from our customers, particularly in some of the key areas that Ajei mentioned in his commentary. And we don't see that slowing down.

So we're excited about the opportunity we see ahead for 2019. And we're going to spend all of our time focusing on executing and delivering.

Ajei Gopal -- Chief Executive Officer

And if I can just add to what Maria said, she's absolutely correct. I mean if you start to spend time with our field organization. I spent a fair amount of time out in the field with customers as well and with the organization, you get a sense of the strength of the pipeline. And obviously, we're very excited about the capabilities that we can provide.

We -- I've talked about some of them in my script. I mean we have conversation with companies where we talk about things like autonomy, electrification, for example, in the auto industry. Those are conversation with are much deeper and broader than conversations that we may have had with similar companies in the past. Similarly, in the electronic space, that I talked about in my remarks earlier and other industries.

And that's because of the capabilities that we're able to provide. It's because where the industries are right now, and because of the nature of solutions that we can point to. So the pipeline is looking strong, we're excited about where we are. This was always a back-end loaded year, as we had indicated earlier.

There's a lot of activity in Q3 and Q4. But we're confident that we have visibility into that and we understand how to land our business. So we're excited about the year.

Operator

The next question is from Ross MacMillan of RBC. Please go ahead.

Ross MacMillan -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst

Thanks so much. Ajei, just on the large deals, you mentioned Seagate and in the release you talked about LG, were they both in the quarter and were they both multiyear. And I'm just curious, your indirect revenue spike, so was there some impact from a partner on one of those deals? That'd be great. Thanks.

Ajei Gopal -- Chief Executive Officer

I think the answer was -- I think the answer to all -- I think it was a yes to -- I will answer all of your questions. So yes, it was. Those were -- in the quarter, those were multiyear deals. And yes, there was some impact of partner activity in the indirect number.

Operator

The next question is from Saket Kalia of Barclays. Please go ahead.

Saket Kalia -- Barclays -- Analyst

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions here. Maybe first for you, Maria. Just picking up on the last topic a little bit more broadly.

Can you talk about the mix of long-term deals in the quarter? And I guess, the reason why I ask is, of course, in 606 we're going to see some differences in sort of revenue versus the arguably cleaner metric for ACV. Can you just talk about that delta and growth between revenue growth and ACV growth this quarter?

Maria Shields -- Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. So Saket, I think in your comments you've picked up the unique disparity that comes from 606. And the reality is under 606 our results are going to be very impacted by the size, the duration, the timing of those multiyear lease deals. This is the first quarter where you can actually see a comp under ASC 606 for both Q1 of '18 and '19.

And going forward, depending on where those deals land, you'll see some disparity between the growth rate in revenue and the growth rate in ACV. They won't always be going -- moving in the same direction. There will be periods where ACV will outpace revenue growth. So I wish I could explain with certainty how it's all going to rollout.

But I think the most important thing that we've been communicating is the focus on annual results will be much more meaningful than the volatility that you'll see in the quarters, Q1 being a perfect example.

Operator

The next question is from Adam Borg of Stifel. Please go ahead.

Adam Borg -- Stifel Financial Corp. -- Analyst

Great. Thanks so much for taking the question. Maybe, Ajei, just talking big picture on ANSYS cloud. Obviously, still early.

And as you think about bifurcating both the downmarket and upmarket. Are you expecting more percentages of use case as that come at the lower end of the market or bursting at the upper end and potentially, even a replacement over time as on-prem hardware gets depreciated.

Ajei Gopal -- Chief Executive Officer

It's a hard question to answer in terms of exact predictions of what's going to happen. There clearly is value proposition for smaller customers who don't have an investment in the data center to take advantage of the sort of the native HPC capability that we're making available through ANSYS cloud -- native through to the cloud. So with the ANSYS cloud solution that we've just released most recently in Q1, we have an offering that essentially is -- has the following capabilities that I think are important to your question. The first is that it's -- it allows the performance, high performance.

It's essentially building on the investments that we've made in HPC. And we're providing a compute optimized clouds infrastructure that's configured and optimized for ANSYS solvers. And so essentially, any customer can take advantage of ANSYS Solutions as scaled than in the public cloud because of the work that we've done. And then the second piece that makes it important is that the accessible from within ANSYS products, and so, someone can be sitting there at a screen working with an ANSYS product and then immediately take advantage of the cloud so it's completely seamless.

And of course, since we're running on the back end on the Microsoft Azure in this case, it gives global access and best-in-class security. So we've made essentially, the experience of using cloud drop dead simple and it's as easy as it needs to be. And of course, with the on-demand licensing that we can provide, the paper use licensing that gives them -- that's a third way to complement traditional leases and paid up, and that gives them flexibility of usage. So given that -- given the performance, given the access, given the flexibility that we have with our ANSYS cloud offerings, we would expect the opportunity for customers to cease the opportunity both large, as well as small.

Small customers who don't necessarily have any infrastructure obviously they'll be excited and interested in that. But equally, large customers who're project oriented, who are -- went back at HPC, resources aren't available. We've seen interest from large customers as well. So we expect both of those to continue.

I couldn't tell you where demand is going to be higher or lower, but we certainly see demand across both of those segments for the reasons that I've mentioned.

Operator

The next question is from Sterling Auty of J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Sterling Auty -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst

Yeah. Thanks, guys. You mentioned the strength in multiyear leases. I wasn't clear, I didn't hear.

Is there have been any change or noticeable change in duration? And maybe just a reminder, what are you seeing as the average length of these multiyear deals?

Maria Shields -- Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Sterling, there's been no change in duration, and typically two to three years. Some of the larger deals tend to be three years and some of the strategic tend to be two years. But there's been no significant change in the go-to-market or duration.

Sterling Auty -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst

OK. And then one follow-on question, Ajei. Cadence announced an electromagnetic solver, what appears to be coming into one of your core pillars of strength. What are you seeing in terms of the competitive landscape? And do you think this is going to be the beginning of others that tried to go after those or adjacent marketplaces?

Ajei Gopal -- Chief Executive Officer

So thanks, Sterling. I mentioned -- I talked a little bit about HFSS in my script. But perhaps it's worth -- since you asked the question, it's worth emphasizing a couple of points. The first thing to understand is ANSYS HFSS serves an important and growing market and is the gold standard, it is the industry-leading product.

It's solves -- HFSS solves some of the most complex electromagnetic problems, spans a vast number of industries and it covers both the RF in the SI space. So this includes problems in high-growth areas that range from radar in autonomous vehicles to phase their antenna for 5G telecom to IC circuits, frankly, that are in all manner of electronic products. So it's no surprise to us and it's no wonder that other vendors want to compete in this growing space. But the point is, competing isn't that easy.

We are today the leader in this space and we've been for -- we've been the leader for almost three decades. And customers have trusted HFSS for decades to solve their most complex problems and they continue to place their confidence in us. We are technology with references in tens of thousands of peer-published IEEE publications. We are absolutely justified in saying that we're the industry's gold standard.

And we've been able to maintain our leadership because we've continue to make significant investments in HFSS over the years. And the product today incorporates breakthroughs in both methods, which is starting the physics, as well as in processing sort of the computer science. So to give you some details, customers trust the accuracy of HFSS because of our technology and leadership, and one example is in the area of automatic adaptive mesh refinement, which provides accurate, consistent and repeatable answers within an air tolerance specified by users. And this is the cornerstone required for predicting accurate answers and frankly, why so many global customers trust HFSS to solve their electromagnetic challenges.

HFSS today is available, of course, on-prem for customers to use within their own data centers, but it's also available in the public cloud and this month, natively on Azure with the ANSYS cloud offering that I just talked about. To give you some perspective of performance, in a recent benchmark, HFSS solved an IoT PCB using 128 cores, which is a pretty typical customer configuration. 128 cores resulting in a 40x speed up versus one core. And so to put that in perspective, that's approximately an hour versus approximately 40 hours.

And that's impressive. And it's also important to note that as per the previous comment I made about cloud that the cloud will democratize that scalability and it'll make it available for every single customer. And then we've introduced some technology that reduces RAM consumption by a factor of three. So in the customer benchmark that I just mentioned, RAM usage went down from 176 gigabytes to 64 gigabytes, again, significantly improving solid efficiency.

HFSS is a great product that serves customers around the world in an attractive market. The competitive mode around the product, the competitive mode around HFSS it's brought, it's deep and it's filled with hungry alligators. PowerPoint presentations are easy, products are hard.

Operator

The next question comes from Jason Rodgers of Great Lakes Review. Please go ahead.

Jason Rodgers -- Great Lakes Review -- Analyst

Yeah. So I wonder if you could talk about the decline in EMEA for the quarter? Was it due strictly to tough comps or are there any other factors involved? And if you are satisfied with the performance there?

Maria Shields -- Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. Jason, it is exactly what you mentioned. It was -- if you recall last year EMEA grew in double-digits, it's just the timing of some large deals that were in Q1 of last year that did not repeat this year. So we are very excited about our EMEA business and our EMEA team.

Operator

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Ajei Gopal for closing remarks.

Ajei Gopal -- Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, operator. Given the strength of our Q1, our robust pipeline of direction channel and partner-driven deals and our partner leadership across physics, we remain confident in our ability to deliver on our goals and objective. ANSYS is well-positioned to broaden our market opportunity and to extend our leadership in both the near term, as well as in the long term. That conference is made possible due to the tireless work of customers, partners and of course, my ANSYS colleagues.

Thank you, all, for your efforts, and thank you for another exceptional quarter. Thank you, everyone, for joining the call today. I look forward to the next call. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Operator

[Operator signoff] 

Duration: 52 minutes

Call participants:

Annette Arribas -- Senior Director, Global Investor Relations

Ajei Gopal -- Chief Executive Officer

Maria Shields -- Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Ken Wong -- Guggenheim Securities -- Analyst

Jay Vleeschhouwer -- Griffin Securities -- Analyst

Ken Talanian -- Evercore ISI -- Analsyt

Matt Pfau -- William Blair -- Analyst

Rob Oliver -- Baird -- Analyst

Steve Koenig -- Wedbush Securities -- Analyst

Rich Valera -- Needham and Company -- Analyst

Jason Celino -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst

Ross MacMillan -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst

Saket Kalia -- Barclays -- Analyst

Adam Borg -- Stifel Financial Corp. -- Analyst

Sterling Auty -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst

Jason Rodgers -- Great Lakes Review -- Analyst

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