Cisco Systems Inc (NASDAQ:CSCO, ETR:CIS) after Wednesday’s close reported better than expected earnings and revenue for its fiscal first quarter 2026 and lifted its guidance on strong AI cloud demand.
The networking equipment maker posted earnings per share for the quarter of $1, edging past the $0.98 Wall Street forecast.
Its revenue for the period, meanwhile, rose 8% year over year to $14.88 billion, surpassing the analyst consensus estimate of $14.77 billion.
"We had a solid start to fiscal 2026, and Cisco is on track to deliver our strongest year yet," Cisco Systems CEO Chuck Robbins said in a statement.
"The widespread demand for our technologies highlights the critical role of secure networking and the value of our portfolio as customers move quickly to unlock the potential of AI."
Robbins also noted that Cisco secured more than $2 billion in AI-related orders for fiscal 2025, nearly all from hyperscalers, and expects $3 billion in AI infrastructure revenue in fiscal 2026.
The company added that it anticipates fiscal 2026 revenue of between $60.2 billion and $61 billion, up from its previous forecast of $59 billion to $60 billion.
In a note to clients on Wednesday, Wedbush analysts highlighted Cisco’s double-digit growth in Networking product orders for the fifth consecutive quarter, with orders up 13% year over year in Q1.
“Typically, we would view the healthy product order growth as positive for storage vendors as well as global enterprise spend more broadly, however, with much of Cisco’s order momentum seemingly coming from telco and cloud (versus traditional enterprise), we'd be a bit more cautious about making this assertion," the analysts wrote.
Cisco Systems shares gained more than 4% to $77.10 in early trading on Thursday.