Markets
Cisco's Revenue Jumped 24% to a Record $18.5 Billion
Cisco's fiscal first-quarter revenue rose 24% to a record $18.5 billion, it said on November 12, 2026, and it raised its full-year outlook to $74.8–75.8 billion.
Cisco has not grown like this since the financial crisis. The networking company said after the close on Thursday, November 12, that revenue in its fiscal first quarter, the three months to October 24, rose 24% to a record $18.5 billion. Adjusted earnings were $1.40 a share, up 40%. Its own guidance three months ago had been $18.0 billion to $18.2 billion and $1.32 to $1.34 a share, which was roughly where analysts sat too. Chief executive Chuck Robbins called it "the strongest revenue and non-GAAP earnings per share growth rates for Cisco in over 15 years."
Networking did the work. The segment's revenue rose 43% to $11.1 billion, while security grew 7%, collaboration 8% and observability 2%, and services were up only 1%. The driver is equipment for AI data centres: Cisco now expects about $9 billion of revenue from hyperscalers' AI infrastructure in fiscal 2027, up from $7.5 billion at its August report and more than double last year. Robbins described it as "the very early stages of a multi-year networking supercycle."
The cost of that growth shows in the margins. Adjusted gross margin fell to 65.6% from 68.1% a year earlier, and on products alone to 63.7% from 67.2%, because the switches and optics sold to cloud companies are priced more tightly than Cisco's traditional enterprise gear. That margin shift is exactly why Morgan Stanley downgraded the stock to Equal Weight on November 5, cutting its target to $120 from $135.
The outlook went up anyway. Cisco now expects fiscal 2027 revenue of $74.8 billion to $75.8 billion, against $72.2 billion to $73.4 billion before, and adjusted earnings of $5.47 to $5.53 a share, against $5.05 to $5.11. For the second quarter it guided to revenue of $18.0 billion to $18.2 billion. It returned $3.7 billion to shareholders in the quarter, including $2.0 billion of buybacks at an average of $112.38 a share. The shares rose about 3% in after-hours trading, according to Closing Look, after gaining 1.24% in the regular session.
The contrast with Nvidia on the same day was hard to miss. One AI supplier lost its founder; another, older one showed that the spending boom now reaches the plumbing between the chips. What investors will want to see next is whether the guidance for the second quarter, which is roughly flat on the first, is caution or a sign that the surge pulled orders forward.