Cisco’s revenue rose 24% to US$18.5bn, its fastest growth in more than 15 years

01Where the growth came from

Product revenue rose 32% and services revenue 1%. Outside networking, security grew 7%, to US$2.12bn, collaboration 8% and observability 2%. Every region grew by double digits: the Americas 28%, Europe, the Middle East and Africa 18%, and Asia-Pacific, Japan and China 21%.¹ The hyperscaler business began as orders: in August Cisco said it had taken US$9.3bn of AI infrastructure orders from hyperscalers in fiscal 2026, US$4bn of them in its last quarter.²

02A lower margin, and a guide below this quarter

The growth came at a lower gross margin: 65.6% on Cisco’s non-GAAP measure, down from 68.1%, and 63.7% on products, down from 67.2%. The release does not break the change down. Operating costs rose 2% on the same measure, so the non-GAAP operating margin reached a record 37.8%.¹

For the quarter to late January Cisco guides revenue to US$18.0–18.2bn, below the quarter just reported. It gave the same range in August for the quarter just reported, which came in at US$18.5bn.¹² Against US$15.35bn a year earlier, the new range means growth of 17–19%.³ The full-year guide rose to US$74.8–75.8bn, from US$72.2–73.4bn, against US$63.3bn in fiscal 2026.¹²

Cisco’s shares closed at US$102.01 on 12 November, before the results reached the SEC at 4:06pm New York time. In after-hours trading they touched US$110.63, 8.5% higher, at 4:06pm, and stood at US$101.70 at 8pm. At 9:28am New York time on 13 November (7:58pm IST), before the open, they were at US$100.09, down 1.9%.⁴ What to watch: the non-GAAP gross margin, guided to 65–66% for this quarter, and hyperscaler AI revenue against the US$9bn. How other hardware sellers trade growth against margin is in our Trend on Arista, AMD and Supermicro.