EPAM Systems, Inc. (NYSE:EPAM) Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call May 9, 2024 8:00 AM ET

Company Participants

David Straube – Head of Investor Relations
Arkadiy Dobkin – Chief Executive Officer and President
Jason Peterson – Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Bryan Bergin – TD Cowen
Jonathan Lee – Guggenheim Securities
Maggie Nolan – William Blair
Surinder Thind – Jefferies
Jason Kupferberg – Bank of America
Moshe Katri – Wedbush Securities
Ramsey El-Assal – Barclays
Ryan Potter – Citigroup
James Friedman – Susquehanna
James Faucette – Morgan Stanley
Arvind Ramnani – Piper Sandler

Operator

Thank you for standing by. My name is Eric and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the First Quarter 2024 EPAM Systems Earnings Conference Call. 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 Instructions] Thank you.

I would now like to turn the call over to David Straube, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

David Straube

Thank you operator. Good morning everyone. By now, you should have received your copy of the earnings release for the company's first quarter 2024 results. If you have not, a copy is available on epam.com in the Investors section. With me on today's call are Arkadiy Dobkin, CEO and President; and Jason Peterson, Chief Financial Officer. I would like to remind those listening that some of the 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 measures and are available in our quarterly earnings materials located in the Investors section of our website.

With that said, I'd like to now turn the call over to Ark.

Arkadiy Dobkin

Thank you, David. Good morning everyone. Thank you for joining us today. First, about our guidance change. As you saw from our press release, we are seeing some continuing volatility in our global demand environment. And while there are encouraging signs of new deals and new types of very different domain specific demands than even in cyclical nature of 2023 follow us well in 2024, which now leads us to adjust our thinking for both Q2 and for whole full year outlook. As I mentioned during our fourth quarter earnings call, our initial view was the 2024 environment will be, at least for the first half of the year, a continuation of second part of 2023's trends, with a potential demand upturn right after. And that would take us into sequential growth for 2024. This view, which we now believe was optimistic, was supported by broadly anticipated more positive macro assumptions and now active interactions with the clients during the very end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024.