Cisco this week posted third quarter pro forma earnings a penny better than analyst estimates on revenue in line with expectations.

Cisco's net income for the period ended April 30, 2005, was $1.5 billion, excluding charges and other items, or 23 cents per share. Analysts queried by Thomson Financial expected pro forma net of 22 cents per share.

This compares with $1.4 billion or 19 cents per share for the third quarter of fiscal 2004, and $1.5 billion or 22 cents per share for the second quarter of fiscal 2005.

Third quarter 2005 revenue came in at $6.2 billion, generally in line with analyst estimates. This is up 10.1% from the third quarter of a year ago, and 2.1% from the second quarter of fiscal 2005.

Net sales for the first nine months of fiscal 2005 were $18.2 billion, compared with $16.1 billion for the first nine months of fiscal 2004, an increase of 13%.

Pro forma net income for the first nine months of fiscal 2005 was $4.4 billion, or 67 cents per share, compared with $3.9 billion, or 54 cents per share for the first nine months of fiscal 2004.

"Today's results are a clear indication that our integrated technology strategy is working -- customers are realizing the benefits of an intelligent network architecture," said John Chambers, Cisco president and CEO, in a statement. "The long-term momentum we are seeing across product families, geographies and market segments clearly points to Cisco's strong competitive advantage.

"As we continue to manage the business for long-term growth, we are pleased with our very solid results in what is typically a seasonally challenging quarter," Chambers added.

Product orders in the quarter were up in the high single digits sequentially and in the mid-teens year-over-year. Forty-six percent of product bookings were in the U.S.

Product revenue was $5.2 billion while services revenue was $998 million. Routers accounted for $ 1.44 billion of that product revenue, while switches logged $2,42 billion.

Chambers says Cisco expects to pick up one to three points of market share in the core, edge and broadband aggregation router segments. Cisco now has 15 customers for its new CRS-1 core router and another 15 trials underway for the high-end product.

Advanced technology products -- IP Telephony, storage, security and wireless among them -- came in at $1.13 billion while products in the "other" category accounted for $196 million in revenue for the quarter. Advanced technologies bookings were up 30% year-over-year but down 2% sequentially.