Cisco Earnings Match Analyst Estimates

Cisco Systems posted net income of US$1.9 billion, or $0.31 per share, on revenue of $8.4 billion in its fiscal second-quarter financial results reported Tuesday, exceeding revenue but matching earnings-per-share estimates of analysts.

A consensus of analysts who follow Cisco estimated it would earn $0.31 per share, not including stock-based compensation, on revenue of $8.28 billion, according to a report from Thomson Financial.

Revenue grew by more than 27 percent from $6.6 billion, and net income on a generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) basis grew 39.7 percent from $1.4 billion, compared to the previous year’s quarter. Earnings per share rose 40.9 percent from $0.22 a share, compared to the same quarter a year ago.

Excluding certain expenses, Cisco, a maker of computer networking equipment, earned $2.1 billion, or $0.33 a share in the quarter that ended Jan. 27.

Growth was strong in almost all areas and product categories, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Chambers said on a conference call following the announcement. The major exception was the enterprise business in the United States, which showed order growth in the mid-single digits. This was a dip from the strong growth in preceding quarters and probably doesn’t represent a long-term trend, Chambers said. In the United States, sales to service providers led growth.

The company is meeting or exceeding its standing prediction of 10 percent to 15 percent revenue growth for the foreseeable future, Chambers said. For the company’s fiscal third quarter, it predicted revenue growth of 15 percent to 17 percent from a year earlier, or 19 percent to 20 percent including revenue from Scientific-Atlanta, the video technology vendor it acquired last year.

Chambers attributed the gains to Cisco’s strategy of tightly coupling its products and to the boom in video on IP networks, which drives bandwidth needs and equipment purchases.

Cisco’s advanced technologies, the new product categories the company has entered in the past few years, continued to be a bright spot. Including Scientific-Atlanta sales, the new technologies now account for more of Cisco’s revenue than routing, Chambers said.

Advanced technologies revenue grew 23 percent, or 66 percent counting Scientific-Atlanta. The fastest growth among Cisco’s own advanced technologies was in storage, with a gain of more than 45 percent from a year earlier. Unified communications—IP telephony and related technologies—grew 38 percent, and wireless and security had strong revenue gains.

The company also has high expectations for developing markets. Product orders grew 40 percent in the areas Cisco groups under emerging markets: Eastern Europe, Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Middle East and Africa, and Latin America. This growth rate might continue for the next two years, Chambers said.

-Stephen Lawson and Robert Mullins, IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)

Check out our CIO News Alerts and Tech Informer pages for more updated news coverage.