Tech bellwether and network solutions leader Cisco Systems (CSCO) reported fiscal 2nd quarter earnings after the bell Wednesday. Revenues of $11.16 billion in topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $11049 million, while earnings per share (after stock-based compensation and before non-recurring items) was 42 cents per share, beating the Zacks estimate by a penny.
Cash flow form operations grew frown $2.6 billion in the company's fiscal Q1 (ended October 2013) to $2.9 billion, which is good, but year over year GAAP revenue was down close to 8% while Net Income was down 54%. Cisco had made many large acquisitions to help forge new growth in the future over the past year, but it looks like investors will have to wait a bit to see the monetization of new businesses WhipTail Technologies, Collaborate.com and Insieme Networks.
Cisco managed to bump up its quarterly dividend yield from 17 cents to 19 cents per share, and also bought back $4 billion worth of stock for a total return to shareholders of $4.9 billion. Just the company's way of saying "thank you for your patience," I suppose.
No analysts had made any upward or downward estimate revisions to Cisco estimates in the last two months, for either the quarter just reported, the current Q3, fiscal 2014 or fiscal 2015. Apparently everyone is in "wait and see" mode when it comes to Cisco's "Next Generation of IT." At least the game-plan is in place, however; acquisitions this massive usually take time to turn into big growth.
The conference call should be instructional regarding what the initial earnings report did not provide: gross margin, in particular (63% in Q1), and forward guidance, of course. But if the company starts gaining traction from its various acquired growth initiatives, Cisco investors will be happy they waited.
Currently the company is a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), but shares are trading down 3% in the after-market after earnings were reported. CSCO shares are up mildly both year to date and year over year.
To read this article on Zacks.com click here.
Get all Zacks Research Reports and be alerted to fast-breaking buy and sell opportunities every trading day.
Be the first to comment