Networking giant Cisco on May 13 posted better-than-expected quarterly results and said companies around the world were spending again following the global economic downturn.
The San Jose, California-based manufacturer of switches and routers for the Internet and wireless networks said net profit rose 62.6% in the third quarter to $2.2 billion.
Revenue increased by 27% in the quarter ended May 1 to $10.4 billion, better than the 23% to 26% rise that Cisco forecast three months ago.
"We witnessed a return to strong balanced growth across geographies, products and customer segments that we haven't seen since before the global economic challenges began," chief executive John Chambers said. "We emerge from this downturn gaining market share (and) a larger share of the total wallet spend of our customers."
In a conference call with analysts, Chambers said he expected Cisco to continue to add jobs this year after already adding 1,000 in the third quarter.
"You'll see our expenses grow at a faster rate," he said. "We believe the recovery is accelerating, but no knows how strong it will be or for how long it will last."
Cisco said it expected revenue growth of between 25% and 28% during the current quarter with the recent acquisition of Norwegian videoconferencing company Tandberg contributing some $200 million in revenue.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2010
