Cisco’s revenues for fiscal Q4 were up 6% year-on-year
Cisco foresees large investments by telecom operators in 5G technologies in 2020, the company’s CEO Chuck Robbins said on a conference call with investors.
“We expect that is still a year out before many will start [investing in 5G] and probably see it in earnest into 2020 to be fair,” the executive said.
“Starting at Mobile World Congress earlier this year, we heard operators in earnest begin and engage in discussions around what network requirements would look like for the infrastructure to support 5G assuming that they’re going to add lots of high speed connections at the edge it will require high performance networks with quality of service and network slicing and all those things,” Robbins said.
Cisco reported revenue of $12.8 billion in fiscal Q4, ended July 28, up 6% compared to the year-ago quarter. Net profits for the period amounted to $3.8 billion, climbing 57% versus fiscal Q4 2017.
Revenues in the Americas region reached $7.55 billion, surging 5% versus the year-ago period.
“Our results demonstrate a combination of strong customer adoption of our latest innovations, the ongoing value customers see in our software and subscription offerings, and excellent execution across our customer segments and geographies. Our strategy is working and we believe that are well-positioned to capture growth across our portfolio with our pipeline of innovation,” Robbins added.
Cisco’s product revenues reached $9.64 billion in the quarter, up from $9.02 billion in the same quarter the previous fiscal year. Service revenue hit $3.20 billion, up compared to $3.10 billion in fiscal Q4 2017.
Service provider product orders were up 6% year-over-year in fiscal Q4, with enterprise up 11%. However, Robbins cautioned that quarterly fluctuations are likely, as Cisco relies on big customers in that sector. “This is a business that is dominated by large customers. And so, as we’ve always said, when we have several of them that are slowing their spending, it looks bad and when we have several that are spending it looks pretty good and that’s just the nature of this business.”
In the product segment, revenue from infrastructure platforms reached $7.44 billion in the quarter, followed by applications, with $1.34 billion and security, with $627 million.
During the call, Robbins said that security was customers’ number one concern and a top priority for the company.
Cisco also said it expects revenue growth of 5% to 7% year-over-year for the first quarter of fiscal 2019.
