Reflecting a strengthening market for networking equipment, Cisco Systems reported continued sequential and year-over-year growth in revenue and net income. Quarterly sales were $5.4 billion, an increase of 14.5% compared with $4.7 billion for the same period a year earlier and an increase of 5.8% compared with $5.1 billion for the preceding quarter. Net income was$1.3 billion or $0.18 per share. Some highlights of the quarter for Cisco:
- Product sales were approximately $5.4 billion while service sales were $848 million
- Routers represented 26% of sales compared with 25% a year ago; switches represented 39% compared with 42% a year ago; advanced technology products represented 15% compared with 10% a year ago; services represented 16% compared with 17% a year ago
- Regional sales breakdown was: U.S. 45%, EMEA 30%, Asia/Pac 12%, Japan 7%, Americas International 6%
- Product gross margins were 68.7%
- Cisco generated $1.7 billion in cash flow from operations and now has $19.8 billion in cash and investments on hand.
- Employee headcount at the end of the quarter was 34,093 compared to 34,987 a year ago
- Linksys revenues were up 39% sequentially
- Storage revenues were up 70% sequentially
- Security revenues were up in the high single digits sequentially
- Enterprise IP telephony orders were up 20% sequentially
- Optical revenue was up over 10% sequentially
- Cisco CEO John Chambers maintained his "cautiously optimistic" view about future directions of the market.
