Gen Digital Q4 2025 Earnings Report

Gen Digital EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.59
• Consensus EPS: $0.58
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.01
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.53

Gen Digital Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $1.01 billion
• Expected Revenue: $999.48 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$10.53 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +4.40%

Gen Digital Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2025
• Date: 5/6/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Tuesday, May 6, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 5:00PM ET

Gen Digital (NASDAQ:GEN) (NASDAQ: GEN) is a global provider of consumer and small business cybersecurity solutions, specializing in digital safety, privacy, and identity protection. The company’s portfolio includes antivirus and anti-malware software, identity theft protection, virtual private network (VPN) services, and secure password management tools. Gen Digital’s offerings are designed to safeguard devices, personal information, and online activities against an evolving range of cyber threats, delivering continuous threat detection, real-time data breach alerts, and advanced threat intelligence.

The company’s roots trace back to the consumer software division of Symantec, which was spun off in 2019 as NortonLifeLock. Following its establishment as an independent entity, the company pursued strategic acquisitions to expand its footprint and technology capabilities. In 2022, NortonLifeLock completed the acquisition of Avast, a leading cybersecurity firm based in Prague, uniting two established brands and rebranding the combined business as Gen Digital in 2023. This evolution reflects the company’s commitment to consolidating expertise and innovation across endpoint security, privacy, and identity management.

Gen Digital serves millions of customers in over 150 countries, with a strong presence in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. The company’s solutions cater to individual consumers, families, and small businesses, enabling them to secure their personal devices, networks, and online identities. By offering scalable subscription-based services, Gen Digital can address diverse security needs, from basic antivirus protection to comprehensive digital safety suites that integrate multiple layers of defense and privacy controls.

Under the leadership of Chief Executive Officer Vincent Pilette, Gen Digital continues to invest in research and development, focusing on machine learning, artificial intelligence, and cloud-based security platforms. The executive team emphasizes strategic partnerships, industry certifications, and regulatory compliance to maintain high standards of quality and trust. With a forward-looking product roadmap and a dedication to customer-centric innovation, Gen Digital aims to strengthen its position as a leading provider of consumer cybersecurity and privacy solutions worldwide.

Gen Digital Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Gen reported Q4 revenue growth of 5% and a record full-year $4 billion in bookings, delivering a 58.4% non-GAAP operating margin, $2.22 EPS, and nearly $2 billion in unlevered free cash flow while reducing net leverage to 3.2×.
• Launched Norton Genie Scam Protection, an AI-driven tool that has boosted overall scam detection efficacy by up to tenfold since its release.
• Closed the acquisition of MoneyLion to expand into financial wellness, leveraging its PFM architecture and marketplace to cross-sell to 65 million Gen users, with plans to drive MoneyLion’s operating margin from ~15% to >20% in FY26.
• Guided FY26 revenue to $4.7–$4.8 billion (6–8% pro forma growth) and non-GAAP EPS of $2.46–$2.54 (12–15% growth), while splitting reporting into Cyber Safety Platform and Trust Based Solutions segments with quarterly bookings and operating margin disclosure.
• Direct paid subscriptions reached 40.4 million (+1.3 million Y/Y) and 65 million total paid customers amid broad-based growth across direct, partner channels, and geographies, underscoring resilience of its subscription model even in uncertain macro conditions.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for standing by. My name is Tamiya, and I will be your conference operator today. Today's call is being recorded and all lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session.

[Operator]

At this time, for opening remarks, I would like to pass the call over to Jason Starr, Head of Investor Relations.

[Jason Starr, VP - IR at Gen Digital]

Thanks, Tamiya, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Gen's fourth quarter and full fiscal year twenty twenty five earnings call. Joining me today are Vincent Pallet, CEO and Natalie Dursey, CFO. As a reminder, there will be a replay of this call posted on the Investor Relations website along with our slides and press release. I'd like to remind everyone that during this call, all references to the financial metrics are non GAAP, and all growth rates are year over year unless otherwise stated.

[Jason Starr, VP - IR at Gen Digital]

A reconciliation of non GAAP to GAAP measures is included in our press release and earnings presentation, both of which are available on our IR website at investor.gendigital.com. We encourage investors to monitor this website as we routinely post investor oriented information such as news and events and financial filings. Today's call contains statements regarding our business, financial performance and operations, including the impact on our business and industry that may be considered forward looking statements, and such statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. Those statements are based on current beliefs, assumptions and expectations as of today's date, 05/06/2025. We undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events.

[Jason Starr, VP - IR at Gen Digital]

For more information, please refer to the cautionary statements in our press release and the risk factors in our filings with the SEC, and in particular, our most recent reports on Form 10 ks and Form 10 Q. And now I'll turn the call over to Vincent.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

Thanks, Jason, and good afternoon, everyone. I appreciate you taking the time to be with us today as we share our Q4 results, review our fiscal year twenty twenty five performance and share our plans for the upcoming year. Fiscal twenty twenty five was a transformative year for Gen and our results demonstrate the significant progress we have made in driving accelerated growth in a profitable manner. We continued to execute on our strategy to delivering the best cyber safety solutions to our customers, investing to drive innovation across our portfolio and growing our customer base, all while maintaining strong financial discipline. Q4 marks another quarter of mid single digit top line growth, up 5%, our twenty third consecutive quarter of growth, another quarter of customer count growth and double digit growth in earnings.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

Our reliable and consistent execution may seem easy, but it is not. And I'm very proud of our team for their drive to protect our customers with passion and care every day. Nathalie will walk you through the details of Q4 in a moment, but I would like to first summarize our fiscal twenty twenty five financial results and further expand on our operating plans for this coming fiscal year. In fiscal twenty twenty five, total bookings was a record $4,000,000,000 up 4% year over year with revenue above the high end of our annual guidance. The growth was broad based, driven across our core cyber safety offerings, security and privacy, as well as in identity theft protection, a market leading trust based solution.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

Our accelerating top line growth was underpinned by record non GAAP operating margin of 58.4%, reflecting a strong cost controls and continued operational efficiencies, including leveraging AI in and for our product portfolio. Non GAAP EPS of $2.22 was also a record at 15 year on year and at the high end of our annual guidance. To round out these strong results, our business remains a robust cash flow generator with unlevered free cash flow of nearly $2,000,000,000 Throughout the year, we continue to delever, finishing Q4 with a net leverage at 3.2 times EBITDA and an interest expense coverage ratio of over 4.5, representing a very comfortable financial debt position, especially considering our exceptionally strong operating margins and free cash flow generation. Mid single digit top line growth, double digit EPS gains and net leverage reduced to nearly three times EBITDA, as well as a record direct customer count, all demonstrate the significant progress we have made in achieving the long term commitments shared at our Investor Day in 2023. More importantly and beyond the financial results, consumers need our solutions given the dynamic threat landscape, which shows no signs of slowing.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

We are committed to increasing the pace of our innovation and expanding our geographic reach and channels to bring our cyber safety platform and trust based solutions to everyone. During fiscal year 2025, the consumer cyber safety landscape continued to evolve with AI powered threats becoming increasingly sophisticated and widespread. AI is now used to generate scam websites, clone voices for scam calls, or create deepfakes for impersonation scams like a romance scam. Hyperseralized scams like deepfake WhatsApp video calls from a relative or colleague are fueled by widespread breaches that give the threat actors your personal data. In the meantime, ransomware attacks are still very active and have evolved with attackers no longer just encrypting data, but now also using it to extort their victims.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

Our research shows incidents targeting consumers and very small businesses have more than doubled over the past year with scams now accounting for over 80% of consumer cyber incidents. This underscores the critical need for smaller AI driven anti scam technologies that can analyze behavior in real time and stop attacks before they impact consumers. This year, we significantly enhanced our AI driven threat detection capabilities with key investments not only in enhancing our existing security engines, which now covers all gen brands, but also in developing new engines to expand our protection leadership across additional channels like SMS, emails or phone calls. In Q4, we launched Genie Scam Protection in our Norton Cyber Safety products to help defend against phony calls, texts, emails or website. Norton Genie has significantly boosted our overall scan detection efficacy by as much as tenfold since its release.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

Genie marks a significant advancement in our threat detection and defense, and is a true AI powered cyber safety companion that not only proactively protects people, but also serves as a personal scam AI agent that educates and guides people on how to keep their data and assets safe. Our Norton three sixty platform continues to resonate strongly in global markets, particularly as we added Genie Scam protection, refreshed our user interface, and migrated our technology to our new Genstack. These enhancements not only improve the user experience, but also enable faster innovation and a unified dataset across products and brands, allowing us to better personalize communications and product recommendations. With the Northern migration now essentially complete, we are focused on delivering an enhanced experience to Avast customers next. In parallel, our identity theft protection products and solutions have contributed meaningfully to our fiscal year twenty twenty five growth with increased demand for LifeLock following heightened consumer awareness after major breaches like the national public data breach.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

We give consumers peace of mind by helping protect their personal data by providing real time alerts and visibility when the data is exposed and loss protection should they need it. We enhanced our offering with credit score insights, easier onboarding, financial alerts and even introduce access to credit cards and saving accounts based on customers' digital and financial reputation. We have invested in personal data vaults, privacy dashboards and proactive security updates. LifeLock's four point eight rating across Trustpilot and the App Store demonstrate the value that our customers see in these offerings and investments. Beyond this strong focus on innovation, we continue to expand our geographic and channel reach by entering new markets.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

Privacy and Identity products were introduced into 15 new markets with encouraging early results, and overall identity category grew double digits internationally. We also doubled down on our partner program, signing up many new accounts, gaining share in Latin America and other emerging markets as well as expanding our share of wallet in the employee benefit program. As a result of both accelerated innovation and expanded reach, we grew our direct customer count by 1,300,000 to over 40,000,000 direct paid customers and a total of over 65,000,000 direct and indirect paid customers in addition to hundreds of millions of freemium users. And now nearly 45% of our direct customers have comprehensive cyber safety memberships, reflecting the increasing value of our expanding product portfolio. With our leading and foundational cyber safety platform firmly established, we started to invest in developing additional trust based adjacencies beyond our core identity protection solutions.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

After connecting their personal identifiable information and linking their financial accounts for fraud detection, our customers began asking for deeper insights into their financial position and additional ways to benefit beyond just protection, alerts and restoration. What began as an organic effort to provide more financial insight to our backlog customers, ultimately led to the acquisition of MoneyLion, which closed a couple of weeks ago. This transaction expands our TAM, accelerates our entry into financial wellness market and further enables us to address new consumer needs to accelerate growth. MoneyLion provides the technology and the architectural backbone of our personal financial management, banking and investing solutions and delivers a white label marketplace to match millions of consumers with thousands of financial service offerings from hundreds of partners. Leveraging our deep consumer insight, Jen will be their trusted ally, empowering them to make well informed decisions that significantly improve their financial well-being.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

And we're thrilled to welcome MoneyLion to the Gen team. Although we just closed the transaction, we're already making progress on integrating Moneyline into GEM. We're applying our proven operational discipline with a continued focus on driving profitable growth. Operational synergies are targeted at funding growth and improving Moneyline operational margin from around 15% today to over 20% in fiscal year twenty twenty six. To ensure financial prudence, we structured the business with a forward flow model supporting the InstaCash product, which shifts short term loans to other financial partners who service them and eliminating any balance sheet exposure to GEM.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

In parallel, we're embedding key MoneyLion capabilities like banking and marketplace into new LifeLock and Northern Financial wellness features planned to launch throughout fiscal year twenty twenty six. This strategic move enables us to accelerate pro form a growth post acquisition and we look forward to providing further updates throughout the year. To maintain our pace of innovation, focus and operational discipline, we are organizing our business around two key segments. Our Cyber Safety Platform segment will consist of our award winning security and privacy offerings. Our mission in the Cyber Safety Platform segment is to provide advanced technology and threat protection that helps customers navigate the digital world securely, privately and confidently.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

This segment has a growth potential of mid single digit and approximately 60 non GAAP operating margin. We are accelerating the adoption of Genie, our AI powered anti scan solution, which is driving membership growth and upgrades to higher tiers plans. Our new Genstack, which features AI driven dynamic segmentation and a reimagined customer journey, is set to boost customer lifetime value. As we move forward, our continued solid mid single digit growth in security and privacy will be supported by key initiatives such as AI powered scan protection, mobile and privacy first entry points, international expansion and partnerships branded a white label. Our second segment, trust based solutions, will include both our identity and financial wellness offerings.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

In this segment, our mission is to deliver innovative solutions and insights that empower consumers to manage their identity, reputation and finances with confidence and freedom. This segment has a high single digit revenue growth potential and a non GAAP operating margin target in excess of 30% as we scale up financial wellness. We enter fiscal year twenty twenty six with strong momentum in our identity and reputation business, gaining traction by expanding our customer base through increased risk awareness campaigns in both The U. S. And international markets through distribution channels like employee benefits and scaling up strategic partnerships.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

We expect to grow ARPU and open new channel opportunities through an expanded value proposition that includes embedded financial wellness features. The acquisition of MoneyLion presents a powerful opportunity to bring financial wellness to all of Gen's sixty five million paid customers and hundreds of millions of users. Initiatives for fiscal year twenty twenty six include integrating MoneyLion's financial marketplace into our U. S. Customer base, expanding partnership with credit bureaus and financial institutions to deliver personalized solutions and launching our financial wellness company to help our customers make smarter and more informed financial decisions.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

It's definitely an exciting time and we're just getting started. When I think about the opportunities, our newly formed Trust Based Solutions segment provides and combine them with the growth and momentum exiting fiscal year twenty twenty five, I could not be more excited by our prospects. As you will hear from Natalie, we're guiding fiscal year twenty twenty six revenue to be between 4,700,000,000.0 and 4,800,000,000.0 representing 6% to 8% pro form a growth. To sum it all up, we are proud of all we accomplished in fiscal year twenty twenty five, and we're looking forward to building on this momentum in the years ahead. Jennie is very well positioned to lead in a world where digital safety and trust are more important than ever to consumers.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

People are asking to do more with their data. So being empowered and enabled by the best in class cyber safety platform and trust based solutions is even more critical. We remain very focused on delivering value to our customers, our employees and our shareholders. So thank you for your continued support. And I will now pass it to Natalie, who will share more details on our financial performance and our financial outlook.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

Thank you, Vincent, and hello, everyone. It's a very exciting time for Jen. We've made significant progress in transforming our business over the past five years, and now we are thrilled to welcome the MoneyLion team into our portfolio. With the financial wellness capabilities gained through this acquisition, we're extending our momentum in the fiscal year twenty twenty six. For today's call, I will walk through our full year fiscal twenty twenty five results, followed by our Q4 results, then share our outlook for Q1 and fiscal year twenty twenty six.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

I will focus on non GAAP financials and year over year growth rates unless otherwise stated. Fiscal year twenty twenty five was a defining year for Jen as we posted our sixth straight year of growth while continually delivering on our guidance commitments and now positioning ourselves for further acceleration with our acquisition of Moneyline. Our results demonstrate the significant progress we're making across the five growth levers that we shared in our twenty twenty three Analyst Day, resulting in broad based growth across our brands, regions and expanding product portfolio. Total bookings for the year were 4,000,000,000 up 4% in both constant currency and cyber safety and up 3% in USD. We finished with $3,935,000,000 in total revenue, also growing 4% in USD and constant currency.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

Operating income was $2,300,000,000 and operating margin was 58.4%. Our robust revenue growth combined with our operating discipline and capital allocation enabled us to deliver $2.22 in full year EPS at the high end of our guidance and up 14% year over year as reported and up 15% in constant currency. Turning to Q4 performance. Q4 was a record quarter, reflecting our twenty third consecutive quarter of growth with financial results at or above the high end of our guidance. Q4 bookings was $1,080,000,000 up 5% in constant currency.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

Total Q4 revenue exceeded the $1,000,000,000 hurdle for the first time at $1,010,000,000 up 5% in USD and in constant currency. We saw broad based growth across the product portfolio and markets. Our direct KPIs remain healthy, and our partner channels are scaling through identity adoption. I'll now walk through the results in more detail. Direct revenue was $877,000,000 up 4% in constant currency.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

A key ingredient to our growth strategy is driving net new customers. And in Q4, we expanded our customer base for the seventh consecutive quarter, increasing to $40,400,000 up over $300,000 sequentially and up $1,300,000 year over year. Our growth is driven by our diverse set of customer acquisition channels, particularly international growth markets and through mobile app stores. While the unit economics vary across channels, our strategy is to reach these customers early in their cyber safety journey and leverage our brands, a comprehensive product set and leading customer service to drive long term loyalty and healthy returns. Our playbook is working as customer retention is improving at the cohort level, and our overall retention rate increased slightly year over year to 78%.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

As we continue to provide reliable comprehensive protection, enhance our Norton three sixty memberships, and expand financial wellness features in our identity offerings, we are driving long lasting customer relationships and increasing customer lifetime value. On monetization, our monthly direct ARPU was $7.27 in USD, in line with the previous quarter and up $05 from last year's result. This result absorbs about $01 of negative FX headwinds sequentially and about $02 of negative FX headwinds year over year. We are growing ARPU mid single digits in our online customer base, primarily through increased cross sell penetration in our Norton base and increased Norton three sixty membership adoption. Approximately a quarter of our Norton base now has more than one product, an improvement of five points since last year and progressing towards our goal of 30% penetration.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

As demand for increased cyber protection grows with the threat landscape, we are well positioned to provide customers with a targeted point solution or provide them with an option to move to a higher tier comprehensive cyber safety membership offering. Now nearly 45% of our direct customer base has a membership offering that provides even greater peace of mind. This is where the breadth and depth of our portfolio shines, and we will continue to drive higher monetization with our product innovation efforts. In our mobile base, we are growing ARPU double digits, which has primarily been driven by higher Norton three sixty membership adoption. The recent in product messaging capabilities we have embedded into our mobile products are enabling us to engage more closely with the customer during their purchasing journey, driving higher sales conversion and a larger percentage of new mobile customers who purchase our Norton three sixty membership.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

Whether it's through first purchases, cross sells, upsells, we have a proven track record of driving increased share of wallet and customer lifetime value after initial purchase with a tailored growth flywheel and playbook for each diverse customer acquisition channel. Turning to our partner business. Partner revenue was $121,000,000 in Q4, up 15% year over year. This acceleration was primarily driven by record growth in our employee benefits channel during open enrollment. New sales in open enrollment increased by over 75%, driven by the strong and healthy pipeline we've built over time, and employers are increasingly turning to our offerings to protect their employees' identity and protection.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

We're seeing a substantial increase in employers paying direct for our our services as a benefit as opposed to offering it as a voluntary benefit to be elected by their employees, which results in higher conversion rates. Through our telco partnerships, we're driving further expansion momentum of our identity offerings internationally. We are proud of the traction we we're making as we leverage these partner channels to expand our reach, and we look forward to sharing more progress in the coming quarters. Rounding out revenue, our legacy business lines contribute about $12,000,000 this quarter, down from $15,000,000 in prior year as expected. Turning to profitability.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

Q4 operating income was $590,000,000 translating to an operating margin of 58.4%. You will see us continue to invest in product and technology as well as marketing with our consistent disciplined approach. We invest to bolster our product portfolio with differentiated solutions to reach new and existing customers, to extend our international presence, especially in identity and privacy and expand into trust based adjacencies that will touch more parts of the consumer's digital and financial life. Q4 net income was $366,000,000 up 10% year over year. Diluted EPS was $0.59 for the quarter, up 12% year over year and up 13% in constant currency.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

Interest expense related to our debt was approximately $129,000,000 in Q4. Our non GAAP tax rate remained steady at 22%, and our ending share count was $624,000,000, down 13,000,000 year over year reflecting the impact of share repurchases. I'd like to now review a few items related to our balance sheet and cash flow, including our recent debt refinancing and material cash activity since our last earnings call, including our MoneyLion acquisition. Q4 ending cash balance was just over $1,000,000,000 with over $2,500,000,000 of liquidity when including our $1,500,000,000 revolver. Q4 operating cash flow was $473,000,000 and free cash flow was $470,000,000 and net leverage was 3.2 times.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

At the February, we issued $950,000,000 in senior unsecured notes with a coupon of 6.25% due in April 2033. And we paid off our $1100000000.0.20 25 note with the proceeds. Following our fiscal year end, we secured an additional $750,000,000 of TLB with an interest rate of SOFR plus 175 basis points due April 2032 and paid approximately $1,000,000,000 in cash for the MoneyLion acquisition. We have no material debt due until fiscal twenty twenty eight. For more detail about our capital structure, please refer to the appendix slide in our earnings presentation.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

We paid $77,000,000 to shareholders in the form of our regular quarterly dividend of $0.25 per common share. For Q1 fiscal twenty twenty six, the Board of Directors approved a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.01 $25 per common share to be paid on 06/11/2025, for all shareholders of record as of the close of business on 05/19/2025. Since the start of fiscal year twenty twenty three, we have deployed a total of $1,600,000,000 of share repurchases, over $2,000,000,000 for debt pay down and $950,000,000 for dividends, totaling $4,600,000,000 As a reminder, our current buyback program has $2,700,000,000 remaining with no expiration date. We will also continue to drive net leverage to less than 3x EBITDA by the end of fiscal twenty twenty seven through our balanced capital allocation strategy and accelerating growth. Before turning to fiscal twenty twenty six, I'd like to sincerely thank the Gen team for your hard work and dedication in all we've accomplished, not only this past fiscal year, but throughout the past five.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

With the acquisition of MoneyLion, we're taking the next step in our journey, expanding into financial wellness and trust based solutions, which opens an even greater opportunity to drive profitable, accelerating revenue growth, while maintaining the same operating discipline that will continue to drive increasing value for our customers, our employees and our shareholders. I couldn't be prouder of the team, and I look forward to this next chapter of our journey together. Now let me provide some color on how we will operate and report on our business moving forward. As Vincent mentioned, we will operate with two business segments: Cyber Safety Platform and Trust Based Solutions. While our top financial priority remains driving accelerating and profitable growth for total Gen, this new segmented approach will drive a differentiated focus embedded in our product innovation, resource prioritization and our go to market approach, always keeping the customer at the center of all we do.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

The two key metrics we will use internally to measure performance in these segments are bookings and non GAAP operating margin. We prioritize these metrics because bookings reflects all the aspects of our growth framework, be it new customer acquisition, cross sell, upsell activity, renewals, partner expansion and the value we deliver to our customers every day. Operating margin reflects our overall efficiency, encompassing marketing investments, sales activities, product innovation and our strong history of delivering profitable growth. To provide greater visibility to investors, we will report our bookings and operating margin for Cyber Safety Platform and Trust Based Solutions on a quarterly basis. Now let me share our q one and fiscal twenty twenty six outlook and some of the assumptions that underpin it.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

We enter fiscal twenty twenty six in a strong financial position with a strategic growth framework. Despite general macroeconomic uncertainty, our business remains resilient, bolstered by a highly recurring revenue base, strong customer retention, and global diversification. We are further supported by the dynamic threat landscape and, to an extent, the current economic backdrop, both of which reinforce the need for a world class cyber safety platform and trust based solutions built on top. For fiscal year twenty twenty six, we expect full year revenue in the range of $4,700,000,000 to $4,800,000,000 translating to six to 8% pro form a annual growth. We expect non GAAP EPS to be in the range of $2.46 to $2.54 per share, representing double digit growth of 12% to 15% for the year.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

For Q1, we expect non GAAP revenue in the range of $1,180,000,000 to $1,210,000,000 translating to approximately 5% to 7% pro form a year over year growth. We expect Q1 non GAAP EPS to be in the range of $0.59 to $0.61 representing double digit growth of 12% to 15% in constant currency. Note that this fiscal year includes an extra week in Q1, which will increase our reported Q1 and full year revenue, offset by MoneyLion pre acquisition stub revenue and business model transition. This guidance also assumes current FX rates through significant fluctuations remain possible given the current volatility in financial markets. We will continue to monitor our operating environment and stay focused on what we can control.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

Our initial outlook captures a range of outcomes with the midpoint representing our base case. In summary, fiscal year twenty twenty five was a breakthrough year for Jen, and we're excited about our plans for fiscal twenty twenty six. We're accelerating growth with the same operating discipline you've come to expect. Our margins remain exceptional, enabling disciplined investments in our growth and innovation initiatives to further scale our business. And our free cash flow generation is robust, creating capacity for ongoing opportunistic share repurchases and further delevering to drive strong returns for our shareholders.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

As always, thank you for your time today, and I will now turn the call back to the operator to take your questions. Operator?

[Operator]

Thank you. The first comes from Andrew Nowinski with Wells Fargo. You may proceed.

[Andrew Nowinski, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Okay. Good afternoon and congrats on the solid results. I really like the way you segment the business between cyber safety and the trust based solutions. Certainly makes a lot of sense putting that life lock in the trust based segment. So I guess my question is, my first one would be on guidance.

[Andrew Nowinski, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

It looks roughly like your guidance for fiscal twenty twenty six assumes money line growth can kind of stay in that 29% to 30% range that they delivered this last fiscal year. How much visibility do you have in that segment relative to your cyber safety platform?

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

So maybe maybe I'll take that one from Steve, Matt, that you want to confirm. So so you're right that the guidance is basically based on what we had said in the past, which is our cyber safety all in before MoneyLion as a gross potential of about mid single digit. And, you know, we delivered q four, exiting at 5%, full year at 4%. You have a similar momentum and and and a similar trend if you want going into fiscal year twenty six. When we combine MoneyLion, MoneyLion grew at around 24%, twenty five %, in the last calendar year.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

There will be a few shifts here. So a few things to keep in mind in your guidance is we closed the the business at the April, so you don't have a full year. And then while we maintain the current momentum in the MoneyLion business, we really are focusing on, a, cross selling into our installed base, building branded version of our cyber safety but financial wellness feature using the MoneyLion architecture. And then secondly, transforming the business from a pure transactional revenue engine today to something that is moving over the years towards a subscription business. And so you have those two, combination of trends going into, the view.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

And so when you combine it all in, it gives the guidance that he gave you a 6% to 8% pro form a.

[Andrew Nowinski, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Got it. Thank you. And then maybe a question on capital allocation. I guess, how are you thinking about share repurchases this year while you're balancing the dividend and driving down the net leverage ratio?

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

Yes. Thanks for the question. We'll get right back to it. You know, the last couple of quarters, we've been on pause because of the pending acquisition activity, so we couldn't really get out there. We very much look forward to getting back into a balanced capital allocation application or allocation, and we'll do that with a mixed bag of accelerated debt pay down as well as opportunistic share buyback given the different given the different factors that we that we use to to make those decisions.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

You know, we're we're high, you know, cash flow generation. You know, q two, keep in mind, we do have to, have that, you know, elevated level in q two of tax payments. But outside of that, very much, looking forward to leveraging the cash flow generation that we will build and then allocating in a disciplined way. In terms of the balance and and how we'll decide, I would I would just say, you know, very much going to continue a balanced approach. You see the balanced approach we've had the last couple of years between opportunistic share buyback and accelerated debt pay down, and our plan is to continue that playbook as we look forward.

[Andrew Nowinski, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Got it. Thank you.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. The following comes from the second Kalya with Barclays. You may proceed.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

Hey, second.

[Saket Kalia, Managing Director at Barclays Capital]

Okay. Great. Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my hey, Vincent. Hey, Natalie. Congrats on closing MoneyLion. Vincent, for sure. Vincent, maybe for you. Moneyline and you touched on this in your prepared remarks, MoneyLion really brings a big network of of potential customers to to cross sell to. And and maybe one question around that is, how does that network maybe change the type of of potential subscribers that you can go after? Does that make sense?

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

Yeah. It does. And and and if you don't mind, let me first step back on the strategy. Right? So we have a big platform, cybersecurity, cybersecurity platform where we extend it to almost all aspect of an online safe and confident digital lives.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

And, you know, as the world digital world expands, the first need for everyone is to be safe, and so we offer that. And following our consumer demands, we said, okay. Now what do you do in that safe environment? You have your data that are protected. You empowered and control your data.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

What else can you do? And, obviously, as we discussed, protecting your identity, of course, is next having a good digital reputation. What do you do with that reputation? You also maximize your financial potential and and do best financial decision, and that's how we entered first organically and not inorganically into financial wellness. And that's how I would look at it.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

Cyber safety is a foundation and then and then charge based solutions on top. So the first view is to use the MoneyLion architecture, the engine they've developed, the PFM features they have to embed that into the solutions and cater it for our current 65,000,000 plus customers and cross sell into that installed base. So that's the number one focus. You'll hear more about product and feature launch as we progress to fiscal year twenty six. It does evolve and follow that consumer need, if you want, into better financial decision.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

The second one that it's it's providing as a benefit is it gets it gets us the ability to improve MoneyLion itself in terms of offering. They've been essentially a premium with a transactional revenue stream. As you know, we're very strong into subscription, customer retention, and and basically applying the gen overall consumer Internet platform skills, if you want, to the MoneyLion business. And then the third one, which is a little bit further down the line, is to offer the full life cycle of a cyber safety and financial wellness offering. So think about in the past, we're only offering protection and restoration of your credits monitoring system if you want.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

And MoneyLion was offering you different banking and and investment or lending solutions. And now you're going to have the full spectrum from building new credits to leveraging new credits to then protecting it and then expanding it. And and that full cycle, if you want, as the customer move from different cycles of their journey, we will have or we will be the trusted brand, whatever brands you take, to follow you in that that digital journey. So those three steps will be as we deploy Jen over the next few years, and that's why when Natalie said this is a new chapter, and we're excited by all those opportunities, I think, that truly reflects it.

[Saket Kalia, Managing Director at Barclays Capital]

Yes. Absolutely. That's helpful. Natalie, maybe the follow-up for you and kind of related to sort of that big customer base that Moneyline brings. You've always been very thoughtful just around customer acquisition cost and sort of individual kind of customer economics.

[Saket Kalia, Managing Director at Barclays Capital]

How does Moneyline maybe change that customer acquisition cost or how you think about that equation?

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

Hi, Takit. It makes me very, very excited. We just have so much opportunity ahead of us to, take the existing MoneyLion customers and that scaling base and that scaling business model, combine it with our growing customer population, our growing ARPU, our growing retention, now bring them together in a synergistic way, and we just have in an environment where financial wellness demand has never been greater. And so now we just have the we have the opportunity to leverage all of the strength in our cyber safety business, combine it with the MoneyLion assets like, you know, their their proven model and their proven penetration and customer base of the financial wellness tools, their proven AI recommendation engine, and just even further expanding us into customer lives maybe earlier in their financial journey. And so it just allows us even more breadth and depth, more opportunity, a wider range of portfolio and products to to go to market with.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

And in just such a data driven way with a recommendation engine on top of all of the data that we have for our existing customers, the world's our oyster, quite frankly. And so with that will come efficiencies. In terms of the dollars that we can free up to invest in the capacity to drive that growth, yes, the efficiency should go along with it. You know, we we typically say cash is king. Here, its volume is king.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

And so we'll leverage that volume from a margin appreciation or accretion perspective, always trying to free up as much capacity as we can to invest behind that growth. But when you think about the actual pack, we should be seeing efficiencies with that additional expansion.

[Saket Kalia, Managing Director at Barclays Capital]

Very helpful. Thanks, guys.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

Thanks, Saket.

[Operator]

Thank you. The next question comes from Tomer Zilberman with Bank of America. You may proceed.

[Tomer Zilberman, Analyst at Bank of America]

Hi guys. Appreciate the comment earlier that you said that the business remains resilient despite some macro uncertainty. But I wanted to ask, as you look at the remainder of the year, especially in the second half of the calendar year where the tariff pause kind of goes away, are you seeing or what I should say like this, what signs of demand are you seeing that gives you confidence that the business remains durable? And maybe the second part to that question, as we think about MoneyLion, is there any concerns that that could be more macro sensitive versus other parts of your business?

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

Thomas, this is Vincent. I'll take that one. You and I have in October, we did a lot of study around our business, the resilience of our business, the curve during difficult moment, whether it was 02/2008 or the COVID period. And and frankly, with a high level of subscription, a high level of auto renewal, so our business model, if you want, is extremely resilient. In an environment where the threat landscape donkey continues to be as active as ever, We don't see a direct correlation to the overall macro environment.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

I would not say we are immune. Obviously, it serves with it, but the demand is there for, frankly, a cyber safety product that is, in my opinion, very cheap in term of giving you full confidence to serve in a secure way on the digital world. So from that perspective, we feel confident that we have a good grasp on our business. We exited March on a strong note, as you've seen by our results, but March was actually a stronger month within the quarter. And frankly, April is in line to that.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

So from that perspective, feel good. When you add MoneyLion, maybe introduce a little bit more volatility. But again, remember that the number one opportunity in this transaction is to offer those features to our current customers that have asked for more PFM and marketplace features. And I think we feel good about that view. And then if really the environment gets a little bit more tense, frankly, people will need to make even better financial decision in a price environment.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

And I think that's where the MoneyLion offering fits right in that overall view.

[Tomer Zilberman, Analyst at Bank of America]

Got it. Thank you. Maybe just a quick follow-up. Given your experience maybe in past market downturn, is there anything that you're doing in terms of go to market or any marketing programs to kind of get ahead of a weaker macro?

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

You know, we we, paranoids bunch here on the table. I can tell you that. So so we're always looking at, okay, what can we roll? What what opportunities do we have? And I think when you look at the diversification of our business, whether that is geographical diversification, product and needs that we address diversifications, or channels diversifications, or marketing channels diversifications, we feel really, really well balanced to be able to play and leverage any opportunity we see in the market while we have a very good grasp on our business being a data data driven team.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

And I'd I'd just supplement that or complement that with we keep the we keep our customer right at the center. And so whether it's web using our products as customers, understanding what macro or any kind of economic factors our customers are facing and navigating through, we really challenge ourselves to keep that customer at the center, whether it's through our products, whether it's the way we talk to them, engage with them, or service them, or what they're going through. And we had such a diverse set of product solutions and now such a wider breadth of solutions that we can go to market to help our customers. That's what we're going to stay committed to. No matter what comes our way, what comes our customer's way, we have a way to go to market and figure out ways and solutions and products that can help them through that.

[Tomer Zilberman, Analyst at Bank of America]

Got it. Thank you very much.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

Thanks, Connor.

[Operator]

Thank you. The next question comes from Roger Boyd with UBS. You may proceed.

[Roger Boyd, Executive Director at UBS Group]

Great. Thanks for taking the questions. And again, congrats on a strong quarter and closing the acquisition. A nice quarter of of subscriber ads, and you we've gotten a couple of questions from investors around Google AI overviews might impact your business. So I'd I'd love to hear about how you're thinking about this potentially impacting your SEO lead gen strategy.

[Roger Boyd, Executive Director at UBS Group]

Any any assumptions you're making around click through rates or customer acquisition costs or anything on that side of the lead gen?

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

Yeah. Maybe I can take it first. So first of all, as you know, right, we have a very diversified reach to market if you want. And whether it's desktop or or online, whether it's on long form or short form marketing, there is a a lot of diversification, and we almost play in every dimension that you could think of. Definitely, AI is changing the landscape.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

We have not seen any current immediate change, and it's all about context to marketing, adapting as you go, and and trying to make sure you're right where the context is right. So so maybe AI will bring maybe some efficiencies and different ways of doing certain things, But but, you know, we stay we stay in touch with how the markets moves. We we we're not too worried about it. Actually, it might even be an opportunity.

[Roger Boyd, Executive Director at UBS Group]

Good good to hear. And then maybe just to to circle back to indirect revenue, a real really nice acceleration there. Natalie, I I know you noted strong traction with employee benefits, but any any guardrails for how we should be thinking about indirect growth in your initial outlook for fiscal twenty six? Anything to keep an keep an eye on in terms of potential revenue timing around open enrollment? And then I think you also brought in a new partnership leader there.

[Roger Boyd, Executive Director at UBS Group]

Any any specific changes they're making or new opportunities that you're thinking about for fiscal twenty six? Thanks.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

Yeah. Our indirect channel is just for you know, just to kinda circle around is about 10% share of our revenue. 15% growth for the quarter, very, very happy to see that. That growth came from broad based. We've got a lot of channels that make up the indirect revenue.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

We saw broad based growth across all of them. The leaders, I I always try and call out, the bulk of the growth is gonna be coming from employee benefits and telcos. They're not the only ones that grew, but those are the those are the heavier contribution to the growth. And that's a pretty consistent growth profile. It's a growth trend that we've seen.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

The acceleration employee benefits was exactly what we talked about during the script, which was we do see just a change of behavior. We see the investments that we've put into building those pipelines for multi years now, whether it's through our direct sales or it's through the brokers that we use in the employee benefits channel, just the quality and the effectiveness that of those sales channels have really built a very, very profitable, very robust pipeline, and we see we see the the fruit coming from those labors. And then from a telco perspective, we just continue to have those strong partnerships, increase the the expansion, and with that expansion is coming increased demand. We have a great new sales leader over the overall partner channels. He brings a ton of expertise in the market, a ton of experience.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

And, you know, with any new leader, they have the opportunity and the privilege to have a clear eyed approach. And so we very much have very high expectations for the for the indirect channel under his leadership. But keep in mind too, let's go back to AID back in, our our fiscal year 2023 AID look forward. We said that we wanted to scale, high single digit rate of growth in overall partner. Of course, you know, we're not limiting ourselves to that.

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

We'll take, scaling double digits all day long. But in terms of as we look forward, especially in the next year, we're looking to a sustainable, profitable, high single digit rate of growth for all the partner.

[Roger Boyd, Executive Director at UBS Group]

That's really helpful. Thank you both.

[Operator]

Thank you. The final question comes from Dan Bergstrom with RBC. You may proceed.

[Dan Bergstrom, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Hey, it's Dan Bergstrom for Matt Hedberg. Thanks for taking our questions. Congrats on the MoneyLion close. I guess, maybe on those two new segments, sounds like we're going to get bookings and operating margins. Are there any other KPIs for those trust based solutions that we should be thinking about?

[Dan Bergstrom, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Anything that maybe MoneyLion brings in that was either maybe disclosed historically or might make sense to disclose from time to time?

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

Let me take that one from a business perspective, and Natalia wants to supplement, she can. But we're very strong making sure we align. How we talk to you about the business is also how we, of course, share the results with our Board, is then how we drive internally and it's how we organize around the consumer needs at the core, core, core. I think that's a super important one. The way we look at our business and the strategy, as I mentioned, is looking at that cyber safety platform as the opportunity to then upgrade your needs to then wanted to manage your identity, your reputation and all the way to your financial wellness.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

And that's how we've organized the innovations and the approach all the way to the the the market communications or marketing and go to market activities. And so we'll report in those segments for you to better understand because we see different dynamics and we see different different opportunities in those two segments. Operationally, we'll supplement with some KPIs. We're still refining exactly how we're going to position the KPIs. So I'm not sure I want to hear on the call already say exactly what we will report, but we will share more at our Q1 results in at the July, early August, and we'll make sure that every investors understand how we look at the business and how those KPIs support the things.

[Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director at Gen Digital]

Otherwise, they will be part of the classic KPIs, obviously, that you already probably have in mind on the core business.

[Dan Bergstrom, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

That's great. Very helpful. And then the presentation talked to stronger growth here in The U. S. Just any thoughts?

[Dan Bergstrom, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Or could you drill down into that stronger domestic growth?

[Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer at Gen Digital]

I would say, look, we saw broad based growth across the different product lines and the global markets. So we saw mid single digit rate of growth in The US. That was propped up by you know, a couple quarters ago, we had that NPD breach really brought in a lot of LifeLock awareness, additional LifeLock customers. Those identity offerings and the scaling of the identity offerings as well as the increase of membership adoption all is helping to drive the the growth in The United States as well, of course, the membership adoption helping across the across the world.

[Dan Bergstrom, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Thank you.

[Jason Starr, VP - IR at Gen Digital]

Hey, everyone. Thank you. This concludes our conference call today. Thank you very much for joining.

[Operator]

You have been removed from the call. Goodbye. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your line.

Participants

Executives

• Jason Starr, VP - IR
• Vincent Pilette, CEO, President & Director
• Natalie Derse, Chief Financial Officer

Analysts

• Andrew Nowinski, Analyst at Wells Fargo
• Saket Kalia, Managing Director at Barclays Capital
• Tomer Zilberman, Analyst at Bank of America
• Roger Boyd, Executive Director at UBS Group
• Dan Bergstrom, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets