Networking powerhouse Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO ) came through with a brilliant quarterly report last Thursday, sending the share price up by 9% overnight. The numbers were great, as sales spiked 25% over the first quarter of last year and EPS jumped even higher with a 30% boost. Even if you backed out the $584 million of sales contributed by high-profile acquisition Scientific-Atlanta, you'd still get a 16% organic revenue growth figure. Not too shabby for a company with $8.1 billion in quarterly sales and a gargantuan $162 billion market cap.
Judging from the earnings conference call, the good times won't stop rolling for quite some time. This quarter's stellar performance didn't come from any particular market, or segment, or individual product. Instead, CEO John Chambers stressed that "this is probably the key takeaway from the whole call. The balance was amazingly good everywhere. All elements of our vision have evolved the way we thought. Our strategy is hitting on all cylinders and it was remarkably balanced. It was not due to any geography or any product stats."
Strong words indeed, especially since Chambers isn't known for hyperbole. He likes to keep a long-term view of business, and generally refuses to pander to shortsighted market demands if it would get in the way of the larger goals. And he is careful to point out the negatives. Regarding this remarkably balanced performance, he said that "[w]e do not expect this type of balance to occur very often, even in very good and strong quarters." In other words, don't expect a repeat performance in Q2.
But even if you take a couple of octanes out of Cisco's rocket fuel, the company will clearly continue to do very well. 3Com (Nasdaq: COMS ) , Nortel (NYSE: NT ) , Juniper Networks (Nasdaq: JNPR ) , and even upstart Radware (Nasdaq: RDWR ) all have very strong, even exciting, product portfolios in the network infrastructure field, but none of them can match Cisco's top-to-bottom, enterprise-to-living room vision of network integration. And its $13 billion of net cash, with a consistent $2 billion of free cash flow per quarter, gives the company clout and freedom to maneuver that the others can only dream about.
I should stop writing about Cisco so I can buy a few shares. I'd be happy to hitch my wagon to John Chambers' cash cow, unconventional as that might be.
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