Cisco beats earnings expectations, cautions for next quarter

Cisco posted earnings two cents per share better than expectations on revenue that met Wall Street forecasts, but warned that the next quarter may not keep pace.

Net sales for the company’s second fiscal quarter of 2003, which ended Jan. 25, were $4.7 billion, a decrease of 2.1% from the same period a year ago and from the first quarter. The sequential revenue decrease was due to a drop in product revenue, says Cisco president and CEO John Chambers.

Pro forma net income for the second quarter was $1.1 billion, or $0.15 per share, compared with pro forma net income of $664 million, or $0.09 per share, for the second quarter of fiscal 2002, and $1.0 billion, or $0.14 per share, for the first quarter of fiscal 2003.

Analysts queried by Thomson First Call expected earnings per share of $0.13.

Net sales for the first six months of fiscal 2003 were $9.6 billion, compared with $9.3 billion for the first six months of fiscal 2002, an increase of 3.2%. Pro forma net income for the first six months of fiscal 2003 was $2.1 billion, or $0.29 per share, compared with pro forma net income of $1.0 billion, or $0.13 per share, for the first six months of fiscal 2002.

“This was a very solid quarter for Cisco, one of the best in our history,” Chambers says.

Chambers cautioned, however, that the third quarter would be flat to down slightly from the second quarter due to continued budgetary conservatism and limited visibility on the part of Cisco’s customers. Also, Cisco’s fiscal third quarter is historically the company’s softest.

Product sales in the second quarter, meanwhile, accounted for 83% of Cisco’s revenue. On a product segment breakdown, routers accounted for 26%, down from 27% in the first quarter; switches were 41%, down from 42% in the first quarter; access was flat at 5%; other — which includes optical, IP telephony and software — logged 11%, up from 9% last quarter; and services was flat at 17%.

U.S. enterprise orders in the second quarter were weaker than expected while service provider orders were flat to slightly up in all geographies, Chambers says. Sales of Cisco’s optical products were a highlight, with the company’s ONS 15454 transport platform experiencing double digit growth in the second quarter compared to the first quarter, he says.

On a geographical basis, 45% of Cisco’s revenue came from the U.S. Europe, Middle East and Asia accounted for 31%; Americas International, 5%; Japan, 7%; and Asia Pacific, 12%.

Cisco finished the quarter with a headcount of 34,987 employees, down 291 from the first quarter.