Cisco 's (US: CSCO) full-year sales slipped for the first time in five years as the American networking titan struggled to offset slowing sales of older products with newer technologies. The group - which sells items such as routers and set-top boxes - recorded a 17 per cent drop in operating profit to $9.3bn (£5.6bn).
Cisco also announced plans to slash its headcount by 8 per cent or 6,000 employees. That looks reasonable given that its headcount has grown by 11 per cent in the past two years to north of 74,000 but its sales have grown only 2 per cent in that period.
Those cuts are likely to impact its workforces in emerging markets, where sales slumped 9 per cent last quarter. That included a 23 per cent revenue decline in China as concerns over government spying and the security of US technology continued to weigh on sentiment there.
Cisco did triple the orders for its Nexus 9000 switches last quarter, reflecting strong global demand for data centre equipment. And it increased its overall service revenue by 4 per cent to almost $11bn.
