By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com - Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) on Wednesday delivered better-than-expected guidance after reporting fiscal third-quarter results that topped consensus estimates.
Cisco shares gained 3.60% in after-hours trade following the report.
Cisco announced earnings per share of $0.79 on revenue of $11.98 billion. Analysts polled by Investing.com anticipated EPS of $0.71 on revenue of $11.91 billion. That compared with an EPS of $0.78 on revenue of $12.96 billion in the same period a year before. Cisco had reported EPS of $0.77 on revenue of $12.01 billion in the previous quarter.
Revenue in the company's largest business, infrastructure platforms, which includes hardware, fell 15% to $6.4 billion in the quarter year on year.
Its applications business also fell 5% to $1.36 billion, while its services business grew 5% to $3.39 billion.
Gross margin rose to 64.9% in the quarter from 63.1% year on year.
"We executed well in Q3 in a very challenging environment, delivering strong margins and non-GAAP EPS growth," Kelly Kramer, chief financial officer of Cisco, said in a statement. "The resiliency that we have been building into our business model is paying off, with software subscriptions now at 74% of our software revenue, up 9 points year over year. "
The company guided earnings in the range of 72 cents to 74 cents per share, with revenue expected to decline 8.5% to 11.5% in the fiscal fourth quarter year on year. Analysts were expecting EPS of $0.71 and revenue of $12.12 billion in the upcoming quarter.
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