SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Cisco Systems Inc. reported late Tuesday quarterly profit surged 40%, boosted by surging demand for its Internet equipment among telecom service providers, corporate customers and consumers.
The San Jose, Calif.-based giant said net income for the fiscal second-quarter ended Jan. 27 rose to $1.92 billion, or 31 cents a share, from $1.38 billion, or 22 cents, a year earlier.
Excluding the cost of employee stock options and other items, Cisco said it would have earned 33 cents a share, more than the 31-cents-a-share estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.
Sales surged 27% to $8.44 billion, beating expectations of $8.28 billion, as telecom firms and large corporations upgraded their networks and Cisco expanded its push into the consumer market for low-cost networking gear.
As the No. 1 maker of Internet routers, Cisco is benefiting as phone companies and cable providers race each other to combine voice calls, broadband connections and on-demand video into a single service.
The company's growth was boosted by its acquisition of Scientific-Atlanta, which sells set-top boxes used to provide digital services to cable customers. Cisco is bundling those products with its sophisticated routers that let Internet providers roll out and manage those services. Scientific-Atlanta products contributed $639 million in quarterly sales.
"The cable business is dynamic," said Walter Price, a portfolio manager with RCM Capital Management in San Francisco, which owns Cisco shares.
Cisco has risen about 60% since early August, when Chief Executive John Chambers raised the company's forecast for annual growth to a range of 15% to 20%, from a prior forecast of no more than 15%.
The shares hit a multi-year high of $28.99 on Jan. 11.
Chief Financial Officer Dennis Powell said in a statement that Cisco's stand-alone sales during the quarter rose 18% from a year earlier, while sales of Scientific-Atlanta products climbed 21%.
Servus, J.B.
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