Cisco sees APAC turnaround, but enterprise and router sales slide

Cisco has turned in Q1 revenue and income well ahead of the same-time last year numbers, but has given traders a chill with less-bullish guidance for the future.

The first quarter 2016 revenue, at US$12.7 billion, was only 3.6 per cent better than Q1 2015, but slimming down its costs meant the Borg reported net income of $2.4 billion, 32.9 per cent better than last year's $1.8 billion.

It's the guidance that sent the company's shares sliding after the announcement, with growth forecast to be between 0 and 2 per cent in Q2.

Some of this will be down to revenue that the company is slicing off, such as the CPE business being sold to Technicolor. Acquisitions expected to close next quarter include Portcullis, Lancope, ParStream and 1 Mainstream.

At just over $4 billion, Cisco's switching business was up 5 per cent year-on-year, but routing slumped by 8 per cent to $1.793 billion.

Other bright spots were collaboration (up 17 per cent to $1.115 billion) and data center products (up 24 per cent to $859 million).

Service provider video slipped 2 per cent to $850 million, while the relatively small wireless (up 7 per cent to $645 million) and growing-by-acquisition security (also up 7 per cent to $485 million) segments performed well.

Enterprise (down 3 per cent) and public sector (flat) sales were weak, but the company's long efforts to turn around the Asia Pacific bore fruit, with that region putting on a healthy 9 per cent year-on-year.

The company's full results presentation is here. ®