San Francisco — Cisco Systems Inc. chief executive officer John Chambers said Wednesday that the company's latest quarterly numbers reinforce his observation that recession-dampened orders are improving after passing a “tipping point” this summer.
Net income for the world's No. 1 maker of computer-networking gear dropped 19 per cent and sales fell 13 per cent, but still topped Wall Street's forecasts.
The stock climbed 82 cents (U.S.), or 3.5 per cent, to $24.11 a share in extended trading Wednesday after the results were reported. In regular trading earlier, it gained 31 cents, or 1.4 per cent, to close at $23.22.
Cisco said net income was down 19 per cent from the year-ago period to $1.8-billion, or 30 cents per share.
Excluding one-time charges, Cisco earned 36 cents per share, ahead of analysts' expectation for 31 cents per share in net income, on that same basis.
Revenue dropped 13 per cent to $9-billion. Analysts expected $8.7-billion for the fiscal first quarter that ended Oct. 24, according to a poll by Thomson Reuters.
“Building off what we saw as a clear tipping point in Q4, our Q1 results continued to reflect strong sequential growth trends that meet or exceed expectations during normal economic times,” Mr. Chambers said in a statement.
Cisco's fourth quarter ended July 25.
Cisco also announced that its board has approved $10-billion more for stock buybacks, lifting the total amount available under that and previous plans to $13.1-billion.
More to come