Cisco Boosts Dividend, Buyback Program After a Strong Quarter
Company swings to a profit and beats analysts’ expectations
Cisco swung to a second-quarter profit of $2.82 billion, or 63 cents a share Photo: Paul Sakuma/Associated Press
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By
Maria Armental
Feb. 13, 2019 4:29 p.m. ET
Cisco Systems Inc. CSCO -0.81% boosted its quarterly dividend and stock buyback program following a strong quarter in which revenue growth beat Wall Street targets.
The San Jose, Calif., company is considered a proxy for high-tech hardware demand. Analysts had also been looking at the tariff impact from the trade dispute between the U.S. and China.
Cisco Chief Executive Chuck Robbins has said Cisco had largely evaded financial damage from tariffs so far by raising prices.
Cisco said Wednesday it was boosting its quarterly dividend to 35 cents a share, from 33 cents a share, and adding $15 billion to its share repurchase program.
Over all, Cisco swung to a second-quarter profit of $2.82 billion, or 63 cents a share, from a year-earlier loss of $8.78 billion, or $1.78 a share, which was driven by U.S. tax-overhaul-related charges. On an adjusted basis, profit rose to 73 cents a share from 63 cents a share.
Revenue rose to $12.45 billion from $11.89 billion.
Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected an adjusted profit of 72 cents a share on $12.42 billion in revenue.
Cisco’s core business selling switches, routers and other networking equipment to business customers reported a 6% revenue increase to $7.13 billion, beating analysts’ expectation of $7.07 billion.
Security-segment revenue rose 18% to $658 million, while revenue for the applications business rose 24% to $1.47 billion.
This quarter, Cisco forecast adjusted profit of 76 cents to 78 cents a share with revenue increasing 4% to 6%. That compares with analysts expecting 76 cents a share in profit and revenue rising 3% to $12.84 billion.
—Jay Greene contributed to this article
Write to Maria Armental at maria.armental@wsj.com
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