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All systems are go at Cisco

Cisco's sales and profits fell last quarter, but there are signs of improvement.
May 19, 2014

Shares in US networking titan Cisco (US: CSCO) - whose products include routers, set-top boxes and enterprise software - climbed 6 per cent after the company reported third-quarter results. That may come as a surprise, given that Cisco's sales fell about 6 per cent to $11.5bn (£6.9bn) and its operating profit tumbled 14 per cent.

IC TIP: Buy at $24.18

But investors were cheered by the company forecasting sales growth of up to 6 per cent next quarter, from last quarter's figures. It also showed gains in several divisions: its security and data centre sales jumped 10 and 29 per cent, respectively, while cloud-networking business, Meraki's, revenues soared 150 per cent.

Cisco also returned $3bn to shareholders through share buy-backs and dividends, and reported rising order volumes in the US and Northern Europe - offset by declines of over a quarter in Brazil and China.