Networking giant Cisco today reported a 31 per cent rise in net profit to USD 3.1 billion for the December quarter on the back of strong growth in Asia Pacific region, including India and China.
The company had posted a net profit of USD 2.4 billion in the same quarter last fiscal. It follows July-June as its financial calendar.
The US-based firm saw its revenues grow two per cent to USD 11.8 billion (excluding SP Video CPE Business for all periods) in the quarter under review, helped by 23 per cent growth in markets like India and China (64 per cent).
It had guided its second quarter revenues to see 0-2 per cent growth year-on-year.
"We delivered a strong Q2, and are managing the business extremely well in a challenging macro environment. We're managing the company on two fronts. We're focused on continued strong execution in the near term while investing in the innovation to lead our customers into the future," Cisco CEO Charles Robbins said.
Cisco expects its revenues to grow 1-4 per cent year-on-year (normalised to exclude SP Video CPE Business for third quarter). In November last year, it had completed its divestiture of the SP Video CPE Business.
Talking about the growth drivers, he said Americas was flat and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) declined one per cent but Asia Pacific, Japan and China grew 17 per cent.
"Total emerging markets grew 7 per cent, with the BRICs plus Mexico (BRICM) showing strength at up 17 per cent, with China up 64 per cent and India up 23 per cent," he said.
Total emerging minus the BRICM countries was down three per cent, he said.
Cisco's India business has continued to grow at a steady pace over the last five quarters.
"We've talked a lot about what we've seen happening in India. We've seen tremendous success there. That's one of the key countries, that we have a country digitisation effort that John (Chambers) has been leading for us, and our business there continues to grow very well," he said.
Cisco's board of directors has also approved a USD 15 billion increase to the authorisation of the stock repurchase programme.
