Akamai Technologies 10-Q 2023-09-30

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-Q

(Mark One)

or

Commission file number 000-27275

Akamai Technologies, Inc.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

145 Broadway

Cambridge, MA 02142

(617) 444-3000

(Address, Including Zip Code, and Telephone Number,

Including Area Code, of Registrant’s Principal Executive Offices)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant: (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Exchange Act”) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes x No ¨

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes x No ¨

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ¨

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). Yes ☐ No x

The number of shares outstanding of the registrant’s common stock as of November 3, 2023: 150,831,568

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AKAMAI TECHNOLOGIES, INC.

FORM 10-Q

FOR THE QUARTERLY PERIOD ENDED SEPTEMBER 30, 2023

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PART I. FINANCIAL INFORMATION

AKAMAI TECHNOLOGIES, INC.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS

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AKAMAI TECHNOLOGIES, INC.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS, continued

The accompanying notes are an integral part of the condensed consolidated financial statements.

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AKAMAI TECHNOLOGIES, INC.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF INCOME

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This quarterly report on Form 10-Q, particularly Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations set forth below, and notes to our unaudited interim condensed consolidated financial statements included herein contain “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements other than statements of historical facts are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and are based on the beliefs and assumptions of our management as of the date hereof based on information currently available to our management. Use of words such as “believes,” “could,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “intends,” “plans,” “projects,” “estimates,” “if,” “continues,” “goal,” “likely,” “may,” “will” or similar expressions indicates a forward-looking statement. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Actual results may differ materially from the forward-looking statements we make as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to: potential slowing revenue growth, global economic and geopolitical conditions, our ability to acquire or develop new solutions, our ability to compete effectively, including our ability to continue to grow our compute solutions, security risks stemming from ineffective information technology systems or cybersecurity breaches, risks of maintaining global operations, regulatory developments, intellectual property claims or disputes, investment related risks and maintaining an effective system of internal controls. See “Risk Factors” elsewhere in this quarterly report on Form 10-Q and in our other reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a discussion of certain risks associated with our business. We disclaim any obligation to update forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, including the potential impact of any mergers, acquisitions, divestitures or other events that may be announced after the date hereof.

Our management’s discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations is based upon our unaudited interim condensed consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this quarterly report on Form 10-Q, which we have prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America ("GAAP"), for interim periods and with Regulation S-X promulgated under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act"). The preparation of these unaudited interim condensed consolidated financial statements requires us to make estimates and judgments that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, revenues and expenses and related items, including, but not limited to, revenue recognition, accounts receivable and related reserves, valuation and impairment of marketable securities, goodwill and acquired intangible assets, capitalized internal-use software development costs, impairment and useful lives of long-lived assets, income taxes and stock-based compensation. We base our estimates and judgments on historical experience and on various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances at the time they are made. Actual results may differ from our estimates. See the section entitled “Application of Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates” in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022 for further discussion of our critical accounting policies and estimates.

Overview

We provide solutions to power and protect life online through our massively distributed edge and cloud platform, Akamai Connected Cloud. The Akamai Connected Cloud underpins our cloud computing, security and content delivery solutions, and is central to our financial success. The key factors that influence our financial success are our ability to build on recurring revenue commitments for our security and performance offerings, increase traffic on our network, continue to develop, scale and successfully bring to market our cloud computing platform and compute-to-edge solutions that meet the needs of professional

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users and enterprises, effectively manage the prices we charge for our solutions, develop new products and appropriately manage our capital spending and other expenses. The purpose of this discussion and analysis section is to provide material information relevant to an assessment of our financial condition and results of operations from management’s perspective, including to describe and explain key trends, events and other factors that impacted our reported results and that are likely to impact our future performance.

Revenue

For most of our solutions, our customers commit to contracts having terms of a year or longer, which allows us to have a consistent and predictable base level of revenue. In addition to a base level of revenue, we are also dependent on our ability to increase our product offerings and to cross-sell additional services to our existing customers, particularly for our security and compute solution portfolios. We are also dependent on our delivery customers, and to a lesser extent some security and compute customers, where usage of our solutions is more variable. As a result, our revenue is impacted by the amount of traffic we serve on our network and the usage of cloud computing services, the rate of adoption of gaming, social media and video platform offerings and the timing and variability of customer-specific one-time events. Geopolitical, economic and other developments that impact our customers' businesses can also impact our ability to attract new customers or continue to cross-sell additional services to existing customers. Over the longer term, our ability to expand our product portfolio and to effectively manage the prices we charge for our solutions are key factors impacting our revenue growth.

We have observed the following trends related to our revenue in recent years:

• Increased sales of our security solutions, led by application security solutions and segmentation solutions from our acquisition of Guardicore Ltd., and increased sales of our compute solutions, primarily attributable to our acquisition of Linode Limited Liability Company ("Linode") in early 2022, have made a significant contribution to revenue growth. During the first nine months of 2023, security represented the largest share of revenue with security and compute revenue representing over half of our total revenue. We plan to continue to invest in these areas with a focus on further enhancing our product portfolios and extending our go-to-market capabilities, particularly in certain markets and through our channel partners.

• Traffic on our network continues to grow as compared to prior years, however, the rate of traffic growth is impacted by a number of external factors. Most recently, as we and our customers manage through a time of economic headwinds and uncertainty, traffic growth rates have been impacted. Conversely, our rate of traffic growth increased significantly during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. These traffic fluctuations may continue to impact our delivery revenue. We expect traffic growth rates to improve for the remainder of 2023 as compared to last year.

• The prices paid by some of our delivery customers have declined in recent years due to competition and contract renewals, which negatively impacts our revenue growth rates. We have been able to mitigate some of the negative impacts to our revenue growth rates by upselling incremental solutions to our existing customers. We continue to take steps upon contract renewals to maintain alignment between custo

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Interest Rate Risk

Our portfolio of cash equivalents and short- and long-term investments is maintained in a variety of securities, including U.S. government agency obligations, commercial paper and high-quality corporate bonds. The majority of our investments are classified as available-for-sale securities and carried at fair market value with cumulative unrealized gains or losses recorded as a component of accumulated other comprehensive loss within stockholders' equity. A sharp rise in interest rates could have an adverse impact on the fair market value of certain securities in our portfolio. We do not currently hedge our interest rate exposure and do not enter into financial instruments for trading or speculative purposes. If market interest rates were to increase by 100 basis points from September 30, 2023 levels, the fair value of our available-for-sale portfolio would decline by approximately $18.2 million.

In August 2023, we issued $1,265 million in aggregate principal amount of 1.125% convertible senior notes due 2029. In August 2019, we issued $1,150.0 million aggregate principal amount of 0.375% convertible senior notes due 2027. In May 2018, we issued $1,150.0 million aggregate principal amount of 0.125% convertible senior notes due 2025. These notes have a fixed annual interest rate, so they do not give rise to financial or economic interest exposure associated with changes in interest rates. However, the fair value of fixed rate debt instruments fluctuates when interest rates change. Additionally, the fair value can be affected when the market price of our common stock fluctuates. We carry the notes at face value less an unamortized

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discount on our interim condensed consolidated balance sheet, and we present the fair value for required disclosure purposes only.

Our exposure to risk for changes in interest rates relates primarily to any borrowings under our 2022 Credit Agreement, which has a variable rate of interest. As of September 30, 2023, we had no outstanding borrowings under the 2022 Credit Agreement.

Foreign Currency Risk

Growth in our international operations will incrementally increase our exposure to foreign currency fluctuations as well as other risks typical of international operations that could impact our business, including, but not limited to, differing economic conditions, changes in political climate, differing tax structures and other regulations and restrictions. Due to the strengthening U.S. dollar, our revenue results have been negatively impacted. The strengthening U.S. dollar has the opposite effect on expenses that are denominated in foreign currencies, but only partially offsets the impact to our revenue. A hypothetical 10% strengthening or weakening in the value of the U.S. dollar relative to the foreign currencies in which our revenues and expenses are denominated would not result in a material impact to our interim condensed consolidated financial statements.

Transaction Exposure

Foreign exchange rate fluctuations may adversely impact our consolidated results of operations as exchange rate fluctuations on transactions denominated in currencies other than functional currencies result in gains and losses that are reflected in our interim condensed consolidated statements of income. We enter into short-term foreign currency forward contracts to offset foreign exchange gains and losses generated by the re-measurement of certain assets and liabilities recorded in non-functional currencies. Changes in the fair value of these derivatives, as well as re-measurement gains and losses, are recognized in our interim condensed consolidated statements of income within other expense, net. Foreign currency transaction gains and losses from these forward contracts were determined to be immaterial during the nine months ended September 30, 2023. We do not enter into derivative financial instruments for trading or speculative purposes.

Translation Exposure

To the extent the U.S. dollar weakens against foreign currencies, the translation of these foreign currency-denominated transactions will result in increased revenue and operating expenses. Conversely, our revenue and operating expenses will decrease when the U.S. dollar strengthens against foreign currencies.

Foreign exchange rate fluctuations may also adversely impact our consolidated financial condition as the assets and liabilities of our foreign operations are translated into U.S. dollars in preparing our interim condensed consolidated balance sheet. These gains or losses are recorded as a component of accumulated other comprehensive loss within stockholders' equity.

Credit Risk

Concentrations of credit risk with respect to accounts receivable are limited to certain customers to which we make substantial sales. Our customer base consists of a large number of geographically dispersed customers diversified across numerous industries. We believe that our accounts receivable credit risk exposure is limited. As of September 30, 2023, no customer had an accounts receivable balance of 10% or more of our accounts receivable. As of December 31, 2022, there was one customer with an accounts receivable balance greater than 10% of our accounts receivable. We believe that at September 30, 2023, the concentration of credit risk related to accounts receivable was insignificant.

Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures

Our management, with the participation of our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer (our principal executive officer and principal financial officer, respectively), evaluated the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures as of September 30, 2023. The term “disclosure controls and procedures,” as defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended ("the Exchange Act"), means controls and other procedures of a company that are designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed by a company in the reports that it files or submits under the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s rules and forms. Disclosure controls and procedures include, without limitation,

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controls and procedures designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed by a company in the reports that it files or submits under the Exchange Act is accumulated and communicated to the company’s management, including its principal executive and principal financial officers, as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosures. Based on the evaluation of our disclosure controls and procedures as of September 30, 2023, our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer concluded that, as of such date, our disclosure controls and procedures were not effective due to a material weakness in internal control over financial reporting as described below.

Material Weakness in Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

A material weakness is a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting, such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the Company’s annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis.

A material weakness in internal control over financial reporting related to income taxes was identified in the Company’s internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2022, which continues to exist as of September 30, 2023. Specifically, the Company did not design and maintain effective controls over the adoption and application of new accounting standards related to income taxes.

This material weakness resulted in immaterial errors to net deferred tax assets and provision for income taxes for the interim periods ended March 31, 2022, June 30, 2022 and September 30, 2022. These immaterial errors also resulted in a revision to previously issued quarterly financial statements for each of these periods. Additionally, this material weakness could result in misstatements of the aforementioned account balances or disclosures that would result in a material misstatement to the Company's annual or interim consolidated financial statements that would not be prevented or detected.

Remediation Plan for the Material Weakness

The Company’s management, under the oversight of the Audit Committee, has designed and implemented changes to remediate the material weakness. We have taken steps to enhance the design and precision of our process and control for evaluating the adoption and application of new accounting standards in the area of income taxes. Our enhanced design includes the involvement of external tax advisors, as applicable.

The material weakness will not be considered remediated until the enhanced control operates for a sufficient period of time and management has concluded, through testing, that the related control is operating effectively.

Changes in Internal Control over Financial Reporting

No change in our internal control over financial reporting (as defined in Rules 13a-15(f) and 15d-15(f) under the Exchange Act) occurred during the quarter ended September 30, 2023 that has materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.

PART II. OTHER INFORMATION

**Item 1.**Legal Proceedings

We are party to various litigation matters, governmental proceedings, investigations, claims and disputes that we consider routine and incidental to our business. We do not currently expect the results of any of these matters to have a material effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition or cash flows.

Certain factors may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations. You should consider carefully the risks and uncertainties described below, in addition to other information contained in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. The risks and uncertainties described below are not the only ones we face. Additional risks and uncertainties that we are unaware of, or that we currently believe are not material, may also become important factors that adversely affect our business. If any of the following risks actually occurs, our business, financial condition, results of operations, and future prospects could be materially and adversely affected. In that event, the trading price of our common stock could decline, and you could lose part or all of your investment.

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Financial and Operational Risks

We may face slowing revenue growth which could negatively impact our profitability and stock price.

The revenue growth we have enjoyed in recent years may not continue in future periods and could decline, which could negatively impact our profitability and stock price. Our revenue depends on the amount of services we deliver, continued growth in demand for our delivery, compute and security solutions and our ability to maintain the prices we charge for them.

A significant portion of our revenue is generated by our delivery solutions. We have experienced revenue declines in our delivery solutions and expect this trend to continue because of pricing pressure due to competition and fluctuations in traffic growth rates as a result of, among other factors, changes in the popularity of our customers' content including video delivery and gaming and the adoption of work from home policies by employers. For example, revenue from our delivery solutions increased significantly in 2020 due in large part to greater consumption of online media and games during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated stay-at-home orders across the globe. However, as these orders were lifted, our revenue from delivery solutions declined.

In recent years, an increasing proportion of our revenue has been generated by our security solutions. Our ability to generate revenue in our security business depends on our ability to increase our industry recognition as a provider of security solutions, develop or acquire new solutions in a rapidly-changing environment where security threats are constantly evolving and ensure that our solutions operate effectively and are competitive with products offered by others.

In addition, our ability to generate revenue in our compute business is dependent on our ability to successfully build our compute infrastructure, attract a customer base that has traditionally partnered with more established companies in the compute industry, and develop effective and attractive solutions.

If we are unable to increase revenues, our profitability and stock price could suffer.

Global economic and geopolitical conditions may harm our industry, business and results of operations.

We operate globally and as a result, our business, revenues and profitability are impacted by global macroeconomic conditions. The success of our activities is affected by general economic and market conditions, including, among others, inflation, interest rates, tax rates, economic uncertainty, political instability, warfare, changes in laws, trade barriers, the actual or perceived failure or financial difficulties of financial institutions, reduced consumer confidence and spending and economic and trade sanctions. For example, approximately 1% of our 2021 revenue had been generated from traffic into Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, and we experienced a decline in revenue in 2022 related to the war in Ukraine due to a decrease in traffic in these countries. The U.S. capital markets have experienced and may continue to experience extreme volatility and disruption in the recent past. Furthermore, inflation rates in the U.S. have recently increased to levels not seen in decades. Such economic volatility could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows, and future market disruptions could negatively impact us. These unfavorable economic conditions could increase our operating costs, which could negatively impact our profitability. Geopolitical destabilization and warfare have impacted and could continue to impact global currency exchange rates, resources from our suppliers, and our ability to operate or grow our business. For example, as a result of the recent uncertain macroeconomic environment, we experienced elongated sales cycles with our customers and prospects and customers delayed the purchase of our solutions. In addition, we have recently experienced rising energy costs in areas in which we operate, particularly in Europe.

Additionally, we have offices and employees located in regions that historically have and may again experience periods of political instability, warfare, changes in laws, trade barriers, and economic and trade sanctions. Adverse conditions in these countries directly affect our operations. As a result, our operations and employees could be disrupted and may not be able to function at full capacity, which could adversely affect our business, results of operations, financial condition, and cash flows. For example, approximately five percent of our global employees are located in Tel Aviv, Israel and have been and may continue to be impacted by the ongoing Israel-Hamas War.

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Failure to control expenses could reduce our profitability, which would negatively impact our stock price.

Maintaining or improving our profitability depends both on our ability to increase our revenue and limit our expenses. We base our decisions about expense levels and investments on estimates of our future revenue and future anticipated rates of growth and may incur varying levels of expense based on strategic initiatives, including the build our of our network to support our compute solutions. In addition, many of our expenses are fixed costs for a certain amount of time which may impact our ability to reduce costs in a timely manner or without incurring additional costs. If we are unable to increase revenue and limit expenses, our results of operations will suffer. We may take certain steps to reduce expenses, however, there are no assurances that we will be able to effectively reduce our expenses and such actions may negatively affect our ability to invest in our business for innovation, systems improvements and other initiatives.

If we do not develop or acquire new solutions that are attractive to our customers, our revenue and operating results could be adversely affected.

Innovation is important to our future success. In particular, as security and compute solutions have become, and are expected to continue to be, an increasingly important part of our business, we must be particularly adept at developing new security solutions that meet the constantly-changing threat landscape and compute and compute-to-edge solutions that meet the needs of professional users and enterprises looking to increase the utility of the internet for their business.

The process of developing new solutions and product enhancements is complex, lengthy and uncertain and has become increasingly complex due to the sophistication of our customers’ needs. The development timetable is uncertain and we may commit significant resources to developing solutions for which a viable market may not ultimately develop. For example, with the acquisition of Linode, we are investing significant resources in our compute solutions and platform, i

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(c) Director and Officer Trading Arrangements

The following table describes, for the quarterly period covered by this report, each trading arrangement for the sale or purchase of Company securities adopted, terminated or for which the amount, pricing or timing provisions were modified by our directors and officers that is either (1) a contract, instruction or written plan intended to satisfy the affirmative defense conditions of Rule 10b5-1(c) (a “Rule 10b5-1 trading arrangement”) or (2) a “non-Rule 10b5-1 trading arrangement” (as defined in Item 408(c) of Regulation S-K):

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Attached as Exhibit 101 to this report are the following formatted in XBRL (Extensible Business Reporting Language): (i) Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets at September 30, 2023 and December 31, 2022, (ii) Condensed Consolidated Statements of Income for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2023 and 2022, (iii) Condensed Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Income for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2023 and 2022, (iv) Condensed Consolidated Statements of Stockholders' Equity for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2023 and 2022, (v) Condensed Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows for the nine months ended September 30, 2023 and 2022 and (vi) Notes to Unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements.

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SIGNATURES

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned thereunto duly authorized.