Cisco beat fourth quater analyst expectations with net sales up 4% compared to last year. Overall revenues were $11.7 billion with reporting of 47 cents per share. For the year, net sales were $46.1 billion , up 7% compared to last year.
Analysts had forecast a profit of 45 cents a share, on revenue of $11.62 billion, according to FactSet.
Looking ahead to its fiscal first-quarter, analysts expect a profit of 46 cents and revenue of $11.67 billion, or year-over-year growth of 4%.
Net income for the year was $8 billion.
Cisco CEO John Chambers warned analysts back in May of a “cautious IT spending environment” and a “very slow painful progress” in a market recovery. But that may been an over cautious view for the telecommunications giant.
Most noteworthy is the growth in data center revenues. Revenues were up 90% compared to last year. Revenues compared to last year were up 42%. Chambers cited its unified data center strategy as a driver for the company’s growth. He referred to the company’s focus on unified network, compute and storage as a driver for the growth.
Chambers made a point of discussing VCE, Cisco’s partnership with VMware and EMC to offer converged infrastructure environments. He said orders were up 58% compared to last year.
Story is developing. We’ll continue to update as mor news comes available.