EPAM Systems (EPAM) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

EPAM Systems (EPAM 0.34%)
Q4 2022 Earnings Call
Feb 16, 2023, 8:00 a.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to EPAM Systems' fourth-quarter and full-year 2022 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session.

[Operator instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, David Straube, head of investor relations. Please go ahead, sir.

David Straube -- Head of Investor Relations

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. By now, you should have received your copy of the earnings release for the company's fourth-quarter and full-year 2022 results. If you have not, a copy is available on epam.com in the Investors section. With me on today's call are Ark Dobkin, CEO and president; and Jason Peterson, chief financial officer.

I'd like to remind those listening that some of our comments made on today's call may contain forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties as described in the company's earnings release and SEC filings. Additionally, all references to reported results that are non-GAAP measures have been reconciled to the comparable GAAP measure and are available in our quarterly earnings material located in the Investors section of our website. With that said, I'll now turn the call over to Ark.

Ark Dobkin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, David. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us this morning. Twelve months ago, on February 17th, we were looking toward -- to 2022 as optimists.

The hedge has been added to S&P 500, and we expect it to grow almost 40% and generate over $5 billion in revenues in this year. Even with some poly volumes, the Russian invasion shocked world one week later and put us on a very different pace of priorities. The new reality redefines the meaning of success for us, and we are very grateful today to the tens of thousands of EPAMers and our customers around the world who mobilize support for people in our business during the past year. Our success in 2022 was defined by new criteria and priorities, many of which we have shared it with you in our regular calls and updates during 2022.

Priority one was to do everything possible for the safety of our people in Ukraine. Next, our global mobility mission was immediately repurposed and scaled to support over the 10,000 EPAMers who chose to stay with EPAM relocating for new countries, and many, with their families. In addition, our business continuity strategy was adopted to include an exit of our business from Russia. And throughout the year, our customer focus was further elevated to ensure that even with environment that was anything but normal, our clients continue to get the consistently high quality of delivery and level of service that they would expect under normal business conditions.

2022 was in every way the most disruptive year for EPAM, I remember. And I have the privilege to remember all of them. You might ask why you're considering 2022 a relative success. As a result of our 2022 efforts, in 2023, we have a global delivery footprint, an organization that makes EPAM one of the most geo-diversified IT services companies in the world and one that now operates in more than 50 countries.

When we began 2022, roughly 60% of our delivery was in just three largest locations [Inaudible] together. And today, only 30% of our talent is there, while we expect that we'll fall closer to 20%, 25% concentration by the end of this year with accelerated growth outside. We also didn't lose any significant client during the last 12 months despite actively running the global delivery allocation rebalancing program. And in real time, we were continuously developing new capabilities across our major markets.

We were also proving that our delivery out of Ukraine can consistently demonstrate productivity and quality, very much in line with prework expectations. And finally, that our new locations are very much in line with the pump productivity and quality engineering standards.Why then we use a relative qualifier to the stated success up to date? Simply, the war in Ukraine is not over, and we believe that it will be our daily reality for some time to come. Having accomplished what was extremely difficult transformation and while finding ourselves a much stronger, more capable, and effective company than we have been before and with a strong foundation to build upon to the next leg of our journey, we do realize that it's very much an ongoing process, which demands our even higher level preparedness for new and unexpected challenges. Additionally, as I mentioned during our last earnings call, some of our partners and customers have been messaging the expectation for global slowdown in demand and started taking results and actions to better align the businesses to new environment.

While we also expect a corresponding slowdown, our reality happened to be more complex than the typical slowdown indicated by others. When we shared our Q3 results in November, we were not yet seeing a detailed picture of what EPAM's specific demand environment would become in 2023. Today, what we're experiencing is slightly more than caution related to macroeconomic conditions. The emerging view is specific toward the overall global market conditions and also reflect the client expectation of a part of our mitigation and diversification plans and the corresponding decision-making process during the last year.

First, we now understand that some of our clients didn't expect that we would navigate the past 12 months, as well as we did. So, at some point, they choose to mitigate the risk associated with our situation in advance and to consider alternative for them new work streams. We believe that while they are now comfortable with our diversified delivery footprint and committed to continue working with us, a number of decisions made two, three quarters before became visible for us just now. Second, due to immediate redistribution of our talent to new locations, our overall cost structure and cost to our customers of our [Inaudible] were disrupted at some level.

During the high-demand environment, site changes were accommodated with relative ease. But in current slow environment, the new location and price and mix present a greater challenge, at least while we were fixing the imbalance. Third, there are several key verticals, such as software and hi-tech, for example, which were disproportionately impacted by the current slowdown. And there are also several large clients which were impacted by their own specific circumstances during the last several months, who had to delay previously committed initiatives.

And finally, our attention on bringing in net new logos during the last 12 months was deprioritized as we focused on retaining our existing customers and repositioning our global delivery as our key priorities. So, because of those EPAM-specific factors, we believe we are now seeing a lower revenue growth outlook at the beginning of 2023 than we historically would expect at this time. Our current view for the year now shows relatively low growth during the first half of the year with acceleration in growth in the second half of 2023, potentially approaching the high teens in Q4 and with opportunity to come back to our prepandemic 20% plus organic growth profile right after that. At this point, we're investing in our customer and partner relationships and working across our global portfolio to build on our strong engineering differentiators with the value-added services and consulting, client data, and customer experience.

These are long-term programs, which we've had underway for several years, and our current positioning as a top-tier partner to our clients and additional credibility we built during the last 12 months should help us to create uplift and demand going into second half of 2023. Today, we continue to stabilize our delivery global platform and develop talent across new geographies. A significant part of those continuous efforts will allow us to restore the balanced cost structure across our major delivery centers. At the same time, while we are fully committed to continuing our investments in our strategic differentiators, we are watching very carefully the balance of those investments to our current and immediately visible demand.

Given the necessity of looking at our business both from a long and shorter-term point of view, we are heavily utilizing our digital platforms, which have been instrumental in guiding our decisions so far in allowing us to monitor our business on a daily basis and making real-time collaborations when necessary to ensure that we protect our best talent as a key priority while still driving toward our historic growth and profitability levels. On the general slowdown issue, we do believe that in today's technology-dependent world, the real impact of slow demand on the IT services global market most likely should be limited just to several quarters. The pullback will encourage new players to enter the market with new technology-led business solutions and push enterprises to respond with new investment in order to protect their competitive positions, which in turn should accelerate growth for EPAM as our proposition is focused exactly in helping them to bring new strategy and implementation simultaneously in most coordinated and efficient ways. So, our goal today is to prepare EPAM exactly for that time and to be able to respond in fast to the next growth and capability challenges.

That is why we plan to focus our attention in the next quarters to further stabilize our global operations and to continuously invest into new talent, new capabilities, new offerings, and new markets and to maintain our strong engineering G&A but, this time, as a much more globally diversified company than ever in the past. Looking at our results for 2022. We generated over $4.8 billion in revenues, reflecting a greater than 28% year-over-year growth. Non-GAAP earnings per share were $10.90, a 20% increase over fiscal 2021.

And we also generated $382 million of free cash flow. And, one more time, we did all that during the year when we had almost 60% of our talent in regions directly or indirectly impacted by war and when we were supporting many thousands of EPAMers and their families during the continuous relocation process. In 2023, we are committed to accelerating our mission of becoming a true value orchestrator for our customers, and we are working every day to stay focused on our customer needs and demands. Even while we continue rolling our geographic expansions, our capabilities, and our commercial offerings of a larger, more diversified and more capable EPAM.

It is a bit strange to talk today again 12 months later about crossing 5 billion revenue mark in 2023 as we did back in February 2022. The war took a year of our life, a year of our growth, but we all know too well that it's nothing in comparison to what people in Ukraine must go through today and what is happening on the ground in Turkey as we speak right now. So, that is why with all that, what didn't change at all is our confidence that is what we build and continuously building, we would be able to navigate the challenges and come back to our 20% plus organic growth rate in the next several quarters and to our 10 billion aspiration within the next several years. With that said, let me turn the call over to Jason, who will talk about our Q4 and full-year '22 results and our business outlook for 2023.

Jason Peterson -- Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Ark, and good morning, everyone. Before covering our Q4 results, I wanted to remind everyone that in addition to our customary non-GAAP adjustments, expenditures related to EPAM's humanitarian commitment to Ukraine, the exit of our Russian operations, and costs associated with accelerated employee relocations have been excluded from non-GAAP financial results. We have included additional disclosures specific to these and other related items in our Q4 earnings release. In the fourth quarter, EPAM delivered solid results.

The company generated revenues of 1.23 billion, a year-over-year increase of 11.2% on a reported basis and 14.4% in constant-currency terms, reflecting a negative foreign exchange impact of 320 basis points. Additionally, the reduction in Russian customer revenues resulting from our decision to exit the Russia market had a 440-basis-point negative impact on revenue growth. Excluding Russia revenues, reported year-over-year revenue growth would have been 15.6%, and constant currency growth would have been almost 19%. Beginning with our industry verticals.

Travel and consumer grew 16%, driven by strong growth in travel and hospitality, with some moderation in retail and consumer goods as customers exhibited incremental caution in the last few months of 2022. The ongoing exit of the Russian market also impacted the growth in this vertical. Absent the impact, growth would have been 19% or 25.4% in constant currency. Financial services grew 2.4%, with very strong growth coming from asset management and insurance.

Excluding our Russia customer revenues, growth would have been 17.8% and 20.8% in constant currency. Software and hi-tech grew 10.3% in the quarter. Growth in the quarter reflected a reduction in revenue from a customer that was previously in our top 20, in addition to slower generalized growth in customer revenues across the vertical. Life sciences and healthcare grew 11.5%.

Growth in the quarter was partially impacted by the unexpected ramp down of a large transformation program at a customer that was previously in EPAM's top 10. We currently anticipate further ramp downs in this customer spending in Q1 of 2023. Business information and media delivered 10.9% growth in the quarter. And finally, our emerging verticals delivered strong growth of 20.8%, driven by clients in manufacturing and automotive, as well as energy.

From a geographic perspective, the Americas, our largest region, representing 59% of our Q4 revenues, grew 14.7% year over year, or 15.6% in constant currency. EMEA, representing 37% of our Q4 revenues, grew 18% year over year, or 25.7% in constant currency. The accelerated growth in the quarter is partially the result of recent acquisitions. CEE, representing 1% of our Q4 revenues, contracted 71.8% year over year, or 72.6% in constant currency.

Revenue in the quarter was impacted by our decision to exit the Russian market and the resulting ramp down of services to Russian customers. And finally, APAC was flat year over year but actually grew 3.8% in constant currency terms and now represents 2% of our revenues. In Q4, revenues from our top 20 clients grew 8% year over year, while revenues from clients outside our top 20 grew 13%. Moving down the income statement.

Our GAAP gross margin for the quarter was 32.4%, compared to 34.3% in Q4 of last year. Non-GAAP gross margin for the quarter was 34.1%, compared to 35.9% for the same quarter last year. Gross margin in Q4 2022 reflects the negative impact of lower utilization and the positive impact of a more normalized variable compensation expense compared to Q4 2021. Gross margin in the quarter was also negatively impacted by the timing difference associated with EPAM's ongoing efforts to align bill rates based on employee relocations, most of which have been accomplished in 2022.

GAAP SG&A was 16.6% of revenues, compared to 17.2% in Q4 of last year. And non-GAAP SG&A came in at 14.8% of revenue, compared to 15.6% in the same period last year. The SG&A results for Q4 reflected efficiencies made primarily in our facilities footprint and lower variable compensation compared to Q4 2021. GAAP income from operations was 170 million or 13.8% of revenue in the quarter, compared to 166 million or 15% of revenue in Q4 of last year.

Non-GAAP income from operations was 220 million, or 17.8% of revenue in the quarter, compared to 206 million, or 18.6% of revenue in Q4 of last year. Our GAAP effective tax rate for the quarter came in at 22.9% versus our Q4 guide of 21%, due primarily to lower excess tax benefits related to stock-based compensation, as well as the impact of a change in certain tax regulations. Our non-GAAP effective tax rate, which excludes excess tax benefits and includes the impact of a change in certain tax regulations, was 23.5%. Diluted earnings per share on a GAAP basis was $2.61.

Our non-GAAP diluted EPS was $2.93, reflecting a $0.17 increase and a 6.2% growth over the same quarter in 2021. In Q4, there were approximately 59.3 million diluted shares outstanding. Turning to our cash flow and balance sheet. Cash flow from operations for Q4 was 186 million, compared to 285 million in the same quarter of 2021.

Free cash flow was 165 million, compared to free cash flow of 228 million in the same quarter last year. We ended the quarter with approximately 1.7 billion in cash and cash equivalents. At the end of Q4, DSO was 70 days and compares to 69 days in Q3 2022 and 62 days in the same quarter last year. Looking ahead, we expect DSO will remain steady in 2023.

Moving on to a few operational metrics for the quarter. We ended Q4 with more than 52,850 consultants, designers, engineers, trainers, and architects. Reduction in headcount growth was relatively flat compared to Q4 2021. Our total headcount for the quarter was more than 59,250 employees.

Utilization was 73.6%, compared to 76.8% in Q4 of last year and 73.5% in Q3 of 2022. Turning to our full-year results for 2022. Revenues for the year were $4.825 billion, producing 28.4% reported growth and 32.4% on a constant-currency basis when compared to 2021. During 2022, our acquisitions contributed approximately 5% to our growth.

Excluding Russia revenues, reported year-over-year revenue growth would have been approximately 32.1% and constant-currency growth would have been approximately 36.3%. GAAP income from operations was 573 million, an increase of 5.7% year over year and represented 11.9% of revenue. Our non-GAAP income from operations was 818 million, an increase of 20.6% over the prior year and represented 17% of revenue. Our GAAP effective tax rate for the year was 17.3%.

Our non-GAAP effective tax rate was 23.4%. Diluted earnings per share on a GAAP basis was $7.09. Non-GAAP diluted EPS, which excludes adjustments for stock-based compensation, acquisition-related costs and other certain one-time items, was $10.90, reflecting a 20.4% increase over fiscal 2021. In 2022, there were approximately 59.2 million weighted average diluted shares outstanding.

And finally, cash flow from operations was 464 million, compared to 572 million for 2021. And free cash flow was 382 million, reflecting a 59.3% adjusted net income conversion. Cash flow in 2022 reflected expenses associated with our ongoing humanitarian efforts in supporting our Ukrainian employees and certain cash impacts related to the exit of our Russian operations. We're very pleased with our 2022 results given the significant amount of disruption and transformation, which we navigated throughout the year.

Now, let's turn to guidance. For 2023, we will resume providing a full-year outlook in addition to guidance for the next quarter. To date, our operations in Ukraine have not been materially impacted, and our teams remain highly focused on maintaining uninterrupted production. Our guidance assumes that we will continue to be able to deliver from our Ukraine delivery centers, the productivity levels at or somewhat lower than those achieved in 2022.

As we mentioned during our Q3 earnings call, we began to see signs of moderation in demand, including delays in decision-making and additional scrutiny on program budgets early in Q4. At that time, this was isolated to a few customers in the retail and consumer goods industries. Since then, we have seen further evidence of slower decision-making and caution around spending, including some program ramp-downs. For most clients, caution around budgets has only resulted in a slowdown in growth.

But for some clients, we experienced actual reductions in spend in Q4, combined with continued cautious spending entering Q1. For two customers that were in our top 20 in 2022, we have seen ramp-downs in programs which will negatively impact Q1 revenues. We expect neither of these customers to be in our top 20 in Q1, but we already see one of those customers once again requesting incremental project teams. At this time, we are expecting a lower level of revenue in Q1, producing a slower start to our 2023 fiscal year.

Consistent with previous cycles, where we managed through a temporary softening in demand, we will continue to thoughtfully calibrate our expense levels while focusing on the preservation of our talent in preparation for expected stronger 2023 second-half demand. In the first half of 2023, we expect headcount will continue to decline as a result of reduction in hiring, combined with normal levels of attrition. We are planning on returning growth in production headcount in the second half of 2023. We expect utilization in the mid-70s in the first half of the year as demand and supply normalize with utilization in the second half of the year expected to return to our more traditional 77% to 79% range.

As a reminder, the exit of the Russian market and the reduction in Russia customer revenues produces a tougher year-over-year revenue comparison primarily in the first half of 2023. Starting with our full-year outlook, revenue growth will be at least 9% on both a reported and constant-currency basis. The impact of foreign exchange is expected to be negligible on a full-year basis. Additionally, at this time, there is no inorganic revenue contribution for 2023, so our guide includes organic revenue growth only.

Excluding the impact of the exit of the Russia market, reported revenue growth is expected to be approximately 11%. We expect first-half revenue growth to be in the single digits, returning to double-digit revenue growth in the second half of the year. In Q4 2023, we expect revenue growth in the high teens. We expect GAAP income from operations to be in the range of 11.5% to 12.5% and non-GAAP income from operations to be in the range of 15.5% to 16.5%.

We expect our GAAP effective tax rate to be approximately 21%. Our non-GAAP effective tax rate, which excludes excess tax benefits related to stock-based compensation, will be 23%. For earnings per share, we expect that GAAP diluted EPS will be in the range of $8.64 to $8.84 for the full year, and non-GAAP diluted EPS will be in the range of $11.15 to $11.35 for the full year. We expect weighted average share count of 59.6 million fully diluted shares outstanding.

For Q1 of 2023, we expect revenues to be in the range of 1.200 billion to 1.210 billion, producing a year-over-year growth rate of approximately 3%. Our guidance reflects an unfavorable FX impact of 2%, and the year-over-year growth rate on a constant currency basis is expected to be approximately 5%. We expect a negligible contribution to revenue growth from acquisitions. Adjusted for the impact of our decision to exit the Russian market, constant-currency revenue growth would be approximately 8%.

For the first quarter, we expect GAAP income from operations to be in the range of 9.5% to 10.5%, and non-GAAP income from operations to be in the range of 14% to 15%. Income from operations reflects the impact of the resetting of social security caps and lower utilization, which we expect to improve throughout the year. We expect our GAAP effective tax rate to be approximately 18% and our non-GAAP effective tax rate, which excludes excess tax benefits related to stock-based compensation, to be approximately 23%. For earnings per share, we expect GAAP diluted EPS to be in the range of $1.66 to $1.74 for the quarter and non-GAAP diluted EPS to be in the range of $2.30 to $2.38 for the quarter.

We expect a weighted average share count of 59.5 million diluted shares outstanding. Finally, a few key assumptions that support our GAAP to non-GAAP measurements in 2023. Stock-based compensation expenses is expected to be approximately 152 million, with 35 million in Q1, 36 million in Q2, and 81 million in the remaining quarters. Amortization of intangibles is expected to be approximately 22 million for the year evenly spread across each quarter.

The impact of foreign exchange is expected to be nominal for the year. Tax effective non-GAAP adjustments is expected to be around 44 million for the year, with 12 million in Q1, 10 million in Q2, and 11 million in each remaining quarter. And finally, we expect excess tax benefits to be around 23 million for the full year, with approximately 8 million in Q1, 6 million in Q2, and 9 million in the remaining quarters. Related to the support of our Ukrainian employees through December 31st, 2022, EPAM has spent approximately 45 million as part of the company's $100 million humanitarian commitment to our Ukrainian employees and their families.

We expect further humanitarian expenditures will be made during 2023. Lastly, our board of directors recently approved a share repurchase program, authorizing the company to purchase up to 500 million of the company's common stock over the next 24 months. This program will allow the company to substantially offset dilution associated with the issuance of employee equity. We expect to continue to generate solid free cash flows in 2023 and even stronger free cash flows in 2024.

With our significant cash position and our confidence in EPAM's ability to generate strong free cash flows, we believe the company can both continue to pursue significant strategic acquisitions while evolving our capital allocation strategy to include a share buyback program. Again, my thanks to all the EPAMers who made 2022 a successful year and will help us drive growth throughout 2023. Operator, let's open the call for questions.

Questions & Answers:

Operator

Thank you. [Operator instructions] Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. One moment for our first question. And the first question comes from the line of Ramsey El-Assal with Barclays.

Your line is open.

Ramsey El-Assal -- Barclays -- Analyst

Hi. Thanks so much for taking my question this morning. I wanted to ask about Ark's comments on some clients pre-emptively making the decision to move some workloads sort of off of EPAM, and that's sort of playing out as we speak. I guess the question is, is that dynamic already largely complete, or is that something that's sort of ongoing into -- deeper into the year? And then maybe you could speak to how do you, if you can, and how you can go about winning those workloads back.

Ark Dobkin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

I think let me clarify my [Inaudible]. First of all, it's very difficult to measure what's happening. But we've not taken say that work taken EPAM. What we were saying that we're realizing right now that some work, future work, which we traditionally we'll be getting from existing client base were offered probably to some alternative vendors, and decisions were made or started to explore this several quarters ago when clients were not sure how well we're going to navigate the whole disruption in Eastern Europe.

So, again, it's very difficult to measure. But seeing the current demand situation in Q1, that's what we assume happened. And the reconfirmation of this is not necessarily easy to get. At the same time, we know that with majority of the client, and we mentioned that we didn't lose practically any clients.

So, you didn't lose significant clients at all. So, they understand that we've been able to prove that we can navigate and continuously work from Ukraine and the quality of our delivery is comparable with traditional even when we are working in our new destinations for the work. So -- and we believe that right now, there is level of comfort that clients will be considering us for the future work as well. And there are some confirmations for this.

But at the same time, we mentioned cost changes as well. That's another challenge or another thing, which we're actively working to make sure that we bring in the balance there, too.

Ramsey El-Assal -- Barclays -- Analyst

OK. Thank you. And one quick follow-up for me. Maybe, Jason, could you comment on the margin cadence this year, should we expect margins to sort of step up along with revenue and somewhat of a straight line as we move deeper into the year and all the way to the fourth quarter, or is there any other color on just the cadence of margins that you might need to share?

Jason Peterson -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. Let me actually use this opportunity to be a little clear on kind of what we think we'll see in 2023. And so, I think the first thing that I would make is, clearly, we were very thoughtful about our guidance with the 15.5% to 16.5% adjusted IFO range. At the same time, we do anticipate that we would operate above the midpoint of that range in 2023.

And you are correct that in the first half of the year, we expect to see lower levels of profitability, and in the second half of the year, higher levels of profitability. And let me take this opportunity to be sort of specific. So, we entered 2023 with a reset of social security caps and a lower utilization, and that resulted from some of those ramp downs that I talked about earlier. So, we expect to see gross margin in the first half of the year, probably, in the 31% to 32% range and quite possibly closer to 31% than 32%.

At the same time, with a lower level of revenue, I think you're going to see SG&A go somewhat above 15% in the first half. And then what I anticipate in the second half with stronger growth -- a stronger amount of build days -- greater build days in the second half, improved utilization, and we'll be focusing on kind of matching our costs to our demand and then a little bit of SG&A efficiency that results when you have the stronger revenue growth that you would see an improvement in the gross margin, probably around the 34% range, in the second half. And then what you would see is SG&A below 15% in the second half. So, again, SG&A above 15% in the first half of the fiscal year and below 15% in the second half.

Ramsey El-Assal -- Barclays -- Analyst

Very helpful. Thanks so much.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Bryan Bergin with Cowen. Your line is now open.

Bryan Bergin -- Cowen and Company -- Analyst

Hi. Thank you. I wanted to ask on the outlook here. As you build the 1Q and the 2023 growth outlook, is that a baseline from 4Q and really the December client activity you saw? Or is that more so of a real-time view of applying contracting through the last few weeks.

I'm trying to understand the underlying assumptions there in that full-year guide. And maybe whether you have a different level of visibility to the full-year target versus what you would normally have at this point of the year, just given all the moving parts?

Jason Peterson -- Chief Financial Officer

Clearly, it's a more challenging environment to sort of forecast. And clearly, I think we're all seeing some positives around the macroeconomic environment that maybe gets us a little bit more comfortable. But as we exited 2022, we clearly saw a slow December and I would say a slow January. What I think we're beginning to see is what I would call a little bit of green shoots of incremental demand as clients potentially get more comfortable with what 2023 might look like.

And so, with this, I guess, full-year view, shows clearly the start of Q1, and then we're beginning to see more activity in terms of at least RFPs and other kind of requests for discussions with clients. And as a result, we feel relatively confident that we can generate stronger revenue growth and probably more consistent with the type of sequential growth that we've seen in the past. And I think, Brian, you'd know that usually prepandemic, we sort of generated between 5% and 8% sequential growth throughout the year.

Ark Dobkin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. I would say our assumptions -- again, everything what's happening definitely impacted by general economic slowdown, which everybody talking about. And very -- even very specific trends in the case of IPA, it's also in some way a reflection of this slowdown as well because clients have comparably less work out, and they also have more optionality with the vendors as well. So, our assumption right now -- as we mentioned that probably this difficult situation would be for several quarters, and then demand will start to pick up.

And then we measure this approximately in the terms which we consider it prepandemic. And in this situation, we know there is growth as we do. And with this, we think that again, high teens should be happen closer to the end of the year. And potentially, we will go to normal somewhere at the beginning of next year.

Bryan Bergin -- Cowen and Company -- Analyst

OK. My follow-up is on margin here. So, just within this margin outlook, can you talk about the degree to which lower growth impacted to the year-over-year decline versus the global investments you're making to support diversification versus just normal pricing and wage pressures just as you move to new locales, trying to rank order those three in this margin outlook. And, Jason, is there any structural change to the margin profile from here just based on how you're seeing this play out?

Jason Peterson -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. So, I think the first thing is that there's a little bit of a tail of two halves, where the first half is definitely lower profitability due to the unexpected lower level of demand. And so, you do just have lower utilization in the first half. And then as we said, we'll make certain that we're sort of appropriately matching cost to demand in the second half.

Then I think that the other piece, just on a year-over-year basis, is I do think that the pricing power that I think probably all of us saw over the last couple of years is going to be not quite as pronounced in 2023. And so, price is going to be a little bit harder to come by. And at the same time, you have an awful lot of cost inflation around the world that is driving relatively high-wage inflation. And so, I do think this year is going to be a different year where I think we've benefited from obviously strong price and, let's say, appropriate sort of wage inflation.

I think this year, you're going to see still relatively high-wage inflation and a little less opportunity on the price side. Structurally, Bryan, we've talked a lot about as we move into these new geographies that, over time, mobility will sort of scale and optimize and that will improve profitability. I think with the slowdown in demand, it's a little bit hard to make some of those changes to bring in more junior staff to improve authorization but improve scale. And so, I do think that as you move throughout the year, and particularly as you enter 2024, there's greater opportunities.

And generally, I feel comfortable that our ability to continue to improve our profitability when we enter 2024.

Bryan Bergin -- Cowen and Company -- Analyst

OK. Thank you for the detail.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Maggie Nolan with William Blair. Your line is now open.

Maggie Nolan -- William Blair and Company -- Analyst

Thanks very much. I'm curious what steps you're taking to revise the new business pipeline given that it was a secondary focus as you were adapting last year.

Jason Peterson -- Chief Financial Officer

What we're doing to revise the pipeline.

Ark Dobkin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

OK. I think we kind of mentioned this. But in general, there is much better stability in our global operation which has given us opportunity to focus on business. We were talking about our focus on consultancy, and this is working for us.

We have new opportunities which is driven by this. But also, we are working on a number of different models, specifically for this market today. And we talked about it a bit last time. So, attention to some shorter programs in mid time before bigger transformational programs will be a top of mind for our clients again.

So, multiple activities. I don't think it would be possible to kind of describe this is in a couple of minutes. But the focus really to support new remuneration right now from small deals to consulting late deals as well. What I think important to mention here is we're definitely seeing still pretty good life as the markets there are large deals where in [Inaudible] we participate in right now, like [Inaudible] as well.

And most important, we do believe that the clients' confidence that we can continue even in this environment and even we still not finished work. It's very, very different than it was at beginning of the disruption when some of them starting to consider alternatives. I think this situation will change. But as you understand, ever since there is a delay, and we were really seeing the -- had a visible impact at Q4 and Q1 right now.

Maggie Nolan -- William Blair and Company -- Analyst

OK. And then you mentioned a top 10 customer and a top 20 customer that was slowing. Outside of those two, can you talk about the rest of the top client portfolio, how you see growth materializing with that base, or is there a level of caution there into 2023? And then any patterns emerging among those top customers in terms of where they'd like you to deliver from a geographic perspective?

Ark Dobkin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

That's another point that we're actually delivering now from very different geographies. And I think majority of the clients is comfortable. And again, there is never 100% of clients ready to work in any location with the size of the portfolio we have today. We really don't have the problem from geographies point of view because there is enough clients working from different regions.

From this point of view, utilization, today, pretty well kind of balanced across the regions. At the same time, if you're talking about other trends in clients, then I would say that it's very much in line with every -- with everything else -- everybody else talking about it today because there is a caution. There is a slowdown. There are some clients which still grow it fast.

But again, some decisions making much more slower, and some of them still delayed. And on top of this, let's not forget it is a means of Q1. And even in a normal year, there is no full kind of confirmation what would happen. I think in the next month or two, we will understand a little bit more but taking into account that this is a very special year, not only for EPAM.

So, I think the delays in decisions would be even more. But in general, the rest of the portfolio action for us more in line with kind of normal to the market.

Maggie Nolan -- William Blair and Company -- Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And the next question comes from the line of James Faucette with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.

James Faucette -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Great. Thank you so much. I wanted to dig in just quickly a little bit on some of the comments, Ark, you and Jason have made around the relationships with your customers and the like. I'm wondering what levers right now you're looking to pull or can pull to reengage and maybe rebuild some of the relationships and more specifically the work streams.

And should we expect any changes to pricing or delivery strategy in response to kind of those client dynamics?

Ark Dobkin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

I will reply obviously in general terms. I think we're watching what's happening in real time. And for specific clients for specific deals, we're actually making sometimes real-time decisions as well. Because again, there are two [Inaudible] that we're very clear about, is there is a general situation in the market and there are some specifics to impact.

And some specific still will be staying here. But on another side, during the last 12 months. We probably make our clients feel much more comfortable in our ability to work out the challenge. You can imagine whether there was something like -- during the first couple of months after the war started or even when it was destruction in Ukraine in infrastructure.

And we kind of overcome all of these challenges that Ukraine has delivered. So, I think we mentioned in thousands of people which moved and they delivered into the [Inaudible] because we don't have complaints. But clients clearly were expecting some problems. What we're saying right now, this probably behind of us, while the challenge still there.

So, when you say in rebuilding the trust with the clients, I think, let's put caution kind of there.

Jason Peterson -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. And I'll just comment on the pricing. And so, as I said, the environment is probably a little less -- there's a little less opportunity for price improvement. And clearly, we're going to go off and make certain that we're able to sort of win opportunities.

But at the same time, we're still working on pricing, and we're certainly going to make certain that we don't do anything that would impair profitability over the long term.

James Faucette -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Thank you for that. And then quickly, just on capital allocation. How are you thinking about acquisitions, especially given the buyback authorization? And what are you looking for in acquisitions? And what's the current landscape and pipeline for potential deals? Thanks.

Jason Peterson -- Chief Financial Officer

Sure. So, similar to the comments that Ark made around where our priorities were in 2022, that would also be consistent for our acquisition activity. We had other priorities. And so, the aggressive pursuit of acquisitions was somewhat deprioritized.

At the same time, we have continued to be active through due diligence. Sometimes we've sort of disqualified potential opportunities. And so, what I said in my prepared script really is consistent with we believe that we can do pretty active acquisitions and also pursue a share buyback. And so, we do expect to be active throughout 2023, certainly a lot more active than we were in 2022.

And I would say that, generally, the same sort of focus. So, things that are probably somewhat more sort of consulting kind of oriented, maybe things that have a platform flavor to them. And we're tending to see a fair bit of growth in Continental Europe. And so, we'll clearly continue to look for opportunities to drive growth in that region as well.

James Faucette -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Thanks so much.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Surinder Thind with Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Surinder Thind -- Jefferies -- Analyst

Good morning. I think in your prepared commentary you talked about potentially seeing some green shoots. So, just as a clarification, are you seeing that clients are a bit more optimistic now than they were in December and January? And I guess, if that's the case, what kind of gives you comfort around maybe growth in the back half of 2023, given some of the challenges of maybe forecasting demand in the near term or the changes in demand that you've seen in the near term from clients?

Jason Peterson -- Chief Financial Officer

I'll start at the front end of that because I was the one who introduced the green shoot language, and that was in response to an earlier question. And so, David and I do sort of our own channel checks internally with the business units. And so, that commentary, Surinder, was based on a number of conversations that we've had with business unit heads. And so, you do see, even in consumer goods, hopefully, retail will also return with a little bit of strength in the retail sector.

So, we are seeing clients begin to come back and look for work. I specifically said in my prepared remarks that even the client who sort of had to ramp down between Q3 and Q4 is beginning to ask for new teams. And so, there's just a whole series of kind of anecdotes or more than one or two. And then maybe, Ark, you want to talk about what we're seeing in terms of larger deal opportunities and RFPs and that sort of thing.

Ark Dobkin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

As I mentioned, we've seen [Inaudible] that are opportunities. There is very active work with our business development and the sales team right now. There are some deals in probably some regions which we are participating in the process as well. So, when you are asking about how confident we are about the guidance right now and how have we calculate it, I think I was trying to address this already, but we are definitely working through multiple assumptions.

And how good is transaction, this is a different question because if you think about 2020 and 2021 and 2022, so each time, it was a very different situation in the last three years where there's a lot of news to the market. And results were really different than people expected at the beginning of the year. But versus assumptions, I think I feel that situation -- now, development efforts will be similar to what it is right now, including aggression in Eastern Europe. So, we assume that we will be maturing our delivery and pricing structure across new locations which we entered within the next quarters.

We assume that demand will grow stronger in the second part of the year, based on our, again, assumptions that what we were seeing before, maybe slowdown in technology, usage of [Inaudible] relatively fast comeback. Because as we've mentioned in the current world, new companies will be coming and bringing new technology, and the traditional, you have to protect the status quo, and started to invest very greatly despite of various events. And we saw it during the pandemic time. And again, we are absolutely a country that is not good with this type of growth, but it will be coming back.

I think the combination of these assumptions and our ability to come where we're standing right now in Q1 should lead us to the number which we shared with you.

Surinder Thind -- Jefferies -- Analyst

That's helpful. And as a follow-up here, can we maybe talk about the delivery footprint cost? Obviously, your global deliveries changed over the past year. The average cost of delivery has gone up. How should we think about that from a structural perspective? It seems like some of the competitive edge that you may be had in the past from maybe lower-cost talent in Eastern Europe, is that gone at this point, or how should we think about that from a competitive standpoint, the cost of your new delivery footprint and what clients think of it?

Ark Dobkin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

I think that's a question which -- or that's a challenge which we are working right now. We're still in Eastern Europe that we -- over aggression in many countries inside of EU but also outside of EU. At the same time, like the fastest growth in headcount happened in India and Latin America. So, this is two new countries now which is -- I mean, organic fast growth because we have kind of some countries which is growing fast but because of the allocation impact.

So, is in Latin America, this is a organically growing, and we will be focusing on these regions. Plus, we have in our portfolio right now across Central and Western Asia, a number of regions which we do believe will be cost-competitive and, at the same time, with a level of talent comparable and in line with general EPAM requirements. So, I think it's a little bit moving target, but that's exactly what we simply will be able to manage in the next quarters as well.

Surinder Thind -- Jefferies -- Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of David Grossman with Stifel. Your line is now open.

David Grossman -- Stifel Financial Corp. -- Analyst

Thank you. Good morning. I'm wondering if you could -- looking at the 2023 guide, perhaps you could break it down in terms of the headwinds that you're experiencing from geographic diversification concerns among your clients' demand and lower benefit from rates.

Jason Peterson -- Chief Financial Officer

And, David, are you talking about in terms of revenue growth or profitability or --

David Grossman -- Stifel Financial Corp. -- Analyst

Yeah, Jason, revenue growth, just the revenue growth headwind from each of those three things, if you could break it down.

Ark Dobkin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Let me clarify the question, was that breaking down between what -- breaking revenue --

David Grossman -- Stifel Financial Corp. -- Analyst

So, on a year-over-year basis, the revenue growth headwind. I think we identified kind of three buckets, right? One was some clients concerns earlier in 2022 about geographic diversification, who initiated a process for that. There is a demand issue on a year-over-year basis, as result of slowing economic growth. And then third, the environment is creating less opportunity to get rates than what you would typically get.

So, I'm just wondering if you could help us understand the size of the headwind of each of those three dynamics on a year-over-year basis.

Ark Dobkin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

I don't think we can speak specifics right now. I don't know, Jason, if you would be able to create some --

Jason Peterson -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. A little bit complicated, David, because we still have probably some benefit in rate from the rate changes that we did as people moved geographies in the second half of 2022. And then, of course, that shows up in a full-year impact in 2023. But we think we'll see less, what I would call traditional kind of pure rate in 2023.

We moved into a lot of new geographies, as Ark talked about, Central and West Asia, which we think is an attractive location longer term. We probably still need to make certain that our clients are comfortable with the region in the same way that decades ago we had to get clients comfortable with Belarus. And so, this is probably just some -- let's say, some timing lag [Inaudible] very comfortable with growing there.

Ark Dobkin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. David, I think it is very difficult to split between two things what you were talking about, some clients were making [Inaudible] we're counting on more growth in existing clients. And we don't see this and the cost factor as well. So, I think calculation between these two, almost impossible because it's more distended and there is a trend between these versus specific calculation.

So, we definitely can't say how much we counted on couple of clients which changed their mind. But I don't think -- again, it's tens of million of dollars as well. That's all.

Jason Peterson -- Chief Financial Officer

And then I just think I'll just sort of close, David, with -- these are things that, obviously, we're working to address throughout 2023, and as Ark said, already the ability to sort of deliver from these new geographies, we feel that clients are comfortable -- clearly comfortable with our ability to generate -- to deliver from geographies that have been impacted in Eastern Europe. And then, as Ark talked about, we continue to sort of grow geographies that offer our clients very cost-competitive solutions. And, of course, we've got the high-level of talent in geographies, might be a little bit more expensive, but more appropriate for specific clients need.

David Grossman -- Stifel Financial Corp. -- Analyst

Got it. Fair enough. Thank you for that. And maybe just back, I think, to the question came up about supply in a couple of previous questions, But I'm just curious, as you look at these new geographies, can you share any information in terms of trends in utilization rate or churn and how we should think about that in each of these locations? I'm sure it's all over the board given there are new start-up operations.

But just wondering if there's any observations about any of those dynamics as well, just kind of your recruiting model in these new geographies and how that template is playing out for you.

Ark Dobkin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. So, it's a big question to go in details. So, yes. As I mentioned, 2022 was a big growth in India and Latin America.

And so, I'll start actually in those locations. It was a significant growth in 2021 as well. As you know, 2021 was a reasonably good year. And what I -- so, it was already proved in 2021.

So, it was like India was growing like, I don't remember, 70%, 80%. And Latin America, probably in the same terms. Now, it's 30%, 40% in India and even more in Latin America as well. So, these regions, we are pretty comfortable.

And yes, it's different from traditional, but we bring in there a lot of experience or expertise, how to build and grow within our status. And I think it's working. So, this is one bucket. Another bucket, it's a number of locations where we have simultaneously bring in local talent and bring in experienced talent from other EPAM locations.

And we started to know it, as already mentioned previously, not only after the war started. It started actually in 2021. And we also feel comfortable that this has been in the quality results in line with what we experienced in kind of traditional EPAM locations as well. So, now, definitely second part of 2022 was a very different trend than before.

That's why when you were asking about practices, how are we hiring, what's the speed, how the group is working, I think we are very comfortable that we will be able to speed it up, but we didn't need to speed it up. And I think we are much more diversified, and we have many more kind of tools right now, how to grow as soon as the growth will be there, demanded as before.

David Straube -- Head of Investor Relations

So, operator, I think we are running a little bit late. We have time for one more quick question if we could.

Operator

Thank you. And our last question comes from the line of Jason Kupferberg with Bank of America. Your line is now open.

Jason Kupferberg -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Thanks, guys. I'll just ask a quick two-parter. I guess, of all the factors impacting the revenue growth in 2023, which really surprised you the most? And then can you just speak to the type of conservatism that you feel is in the revenue guide, in particular, because it does sound like you're incorporating these green shoots into the guide? There is some pretty big acceleration that you're building in between Q1 and Q4. Thank you.

Jason Peterson -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. I think what we clearly saw in the month of January was slower demand, and specifically, obviously, further ramp-downs with a couple of clients that we had talked about in our prepared script. And so, just probably the entry point, Q1 2023 is kind of what changed, and in a couple of cases, it was specific to a few large customers. At the same time, we've stripped those two customers out.

The dialogue with our BUs is they sort of drive revenues and carefully evaluate their pipelines. But actually, there were some positive tonalities associated with it. And so, the guide really does incorporate kind of the lower starting point. But, obviously, four quarters is -- it's 12 months, so it's hard to predict exactly where you are going to end up in Q4.

But it does already suggest that we're beginning to see an improvement in potential demand relative to that we saw in November, December, and January. And that's kind of what gives us the confidence in the guide. But at the same time, of course, we want to make certain that we'll be able to achieve the revenue guidance for the full year. So, that's -- hopefully, that answers that question.

Operator

Thank you. At this time, I'd like to hand the conference back to Mr. Ark Dobkin for closing remarks.

Ark Dobkin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you as always for attending today's call. As you know, any questions, and David is available to help. And talk to you in three months. Thank you.

Duration: 0 minutes

Call participants:

David Straube -- Head of Investor Relations

Ark Dobkin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Jason Peterson -- Chief Financial Officer

Ramsey El-Assal -- Barclays -- Analyst

Bryan Bergin -- Cowen and Company -- Analyst

Maggie Nolan -- William Blair and Company -- Analyst

James Faucette -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Surinder Thind -- Jefferies -- Analyst

David Grossman -- Stifel Financial Corp. -- Analyst

Jason Kupferberg -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

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