Cisco Chairman and CEO Chuck Robbins speaks at a keynote address at the Cisco Live! conference in Las Vegas on June 7, 2023.
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Cisco reported earnings and revenue that topped analysts’ estimates on Wednesday and issued guidance that also exceeded Wall Street’s predictions.
Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:
- Earnings per share:96 cents adjusted vs. 92 cents expected
- Revenue:$14.15 billion vs. $14.08 billion expected
Revenue increased 11% during the quarter, which ended on April 26, from $12.7 billion a year earlier, according to a statement. Net income rose to $2.49 billion, or 62 cents per share, from $1.89 billion, or 46 cents per share, a year ago.
The macroeconomic environment is uncertain, CEO Chuck Robbins said on a conference call with analysts.
Robbins said Cisco’s finance chief, Scott Herren, will retire on July 26 after joining in 2020 from Autodeskwhere he had held the same role. Mark Patterson, Cisco’s chief strategy officer and a nearly 25-year company veteran, will be Herren’s successor.
Management called for 96 cents to 98 cents in fiscal 2025 earnings per share on $14.5 billion to $14.7 billion in revenue. Analysts surveyed by LSEG had predicted 95 cents in adjusted earnings per share on $14.58 billion in revenue.
Cisco said the guidance factors in the expected impact of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on goods imported into the U.S. That includes 30% for China and 25% for Canada and Mexico, Robbins said.
The company didn’t see broad purchasing before the enactment of tariffs during the quarter.
“We haven’t seen any meaningful change in their purchasing, and so we haven’t seen any customers really fundamentally slowing down,” Robbins said.
Cisco reported more than $600 million in artificial intelligence infrastructure orders from web companies. That brings the total for the fiscal year to upward of $1.25 billion. Cisco said the sum passed the $1 billion mark a quarter ahead of schedule. One web company, Metahas explored Ethernet fabrics for AI clusters as well as InfiniBand, an alternative networking standard pioneered partly by Mellanox, a networking hardware maker that Nvidia acquired for $7 billion in 2020.
“It’s been the intent of these customers from day one to move away from InfiniBand,” Robbins said. “And the gating factor was, how soon did they feel good about the technology? And they feel very good about the technology and how it’s enabling them to run these training models over, over native Ethernet or some enhanced Ethernet that we’re delivering.”
During the quarter, Cisco started selling a Webex You have an agent for customer service, and it announced Ethernet switches that contain AMD Pensando data processing units that could help with hardware consolidation.
Networking revenue rose 8% to $7.07 billion, Cisco said. Analysts polled by StreetAccount had expected $6.81 billion.
Revenue from security products jumped 54% to $2.01 billion, below StreetAccount’s $2.17 billion consensus. The unit includes the addition of Splunk, which Cisco bought last year for $27 billion.
Jeetu Patel, Cisco’s executive vice president and chief product officer, is being promoted to Cisco’s president and chief product officer, Cisco said.
As of Wednesday’s close, Cisco shares were up 3.5% for the year, while the S&P 500 index was about flat.
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