Private Cloud Bookings Surge and Strategic Expansion
Private Cloud bookings grew 24% sequentially and 42% year-over-year, driven by large, long-term deals across healthcare, BFSI, and telecom sectors.
Despite a delayed healthcare deal, management expects it to close in Q3, indicating ongoing pipeline strength.
Revenue for Private Cloud was $250 million, down 4% YoY, but shows signs of stabilization as existing bookings convert into revenue.
The company is expanding into mid-market and enterprise segments, with a focus on larger, longer-term contracts, increasing deal size and contract length.
Notable wins include a U.S. healthcare provider transitioning from hyperscale public cloud to private cloud for better control and cost predictability.
Strategic product releases, including Rackspace OpenStack Business, aim to support mission-critical and regulated workloads, reinforcing technical leadership.
Adjusted diluted earnings per share were $2.45, flat year-over-year in U.S. dollars and down 1% in constant currency.
Adjusted earnings from operations margin was 6.2%, also a Q2 record.
Adjusted EBITDA was $138 million, a 2% decrease, while margin expanded 10 basis points to 6.6%.
Adjusted return on invested capital for trailing 12 months was 14.4%, down from 17% a year ago.
Adjusted SG&A expenses were down 3% due to prudent expense management.
Cash flow from operations used $177 million in Q2, primarily due to inter-quarter working capital requirements which reversed in July.
Cloud gross profit was $123 million, down 5% due to partner program changes, in line with expectations.
Gross profit decreased 2%, primarily due to partner program changes, with hardware gross profit up 2%.
Hardware revenue increased 2%, marking the second consecutive quarter of growth, with hardware revenue in North America growing 4%.
Insight Core Services gross profit was $78 million, down 3% due to delays in large enterprise client projects.
Net revenue was $2.1 billion, a decrease of 3% in U.S. dollars and 4% in constant currency, driven by a 4% decline in product revenue primarily due to on-prem software decline of 14%.
Share repurchases totaled approximately $76 million in Q2, with $224 million remaining in the program.
Total debt at quarter end was approximately $1.3 billion, up from $1 billion a year ago.
Total gross margin was 21.1%, an increase of 10 basis points, setting a Q2 record.
Current Remaining Performance Obligations (RPO) ended at approximately $23.9 billion, representing 25.5% year-over-year constant currency growth.
Free cash flow margin was 16.5%, up 3% year-over-year, with a strong balance sheet including $10.8 billion in cash and investments.
Operating margin was 29.5%, over 2.5 points above guidance, driven by top line outperformance and AI operational efficiencies.
Renewal rate remained robust at 98%, underscoring ServiceNow's strategic importance as an AI platform for business transformation.
ServiceNow reported Q2 subscription revenues of $3.113 billion, growing 21.5% year-over-year in constant currency, beating guidance by 200 basis points.
Strong growth was seen across industries, notably transportation and logistics (100%+ growth), technology, media and telecom (70%+ growth), retail and hospitality, and energy & utilities (50%+ growth).
The company closed 89 deals greater than $1 million in net new ACV, including 11 deals over $5 million, with 528 customers generating over $5 million in ACV.