By Akanksha Rana
(Reuters) - Cisco Systems Inc (NASDAQ:CSCO) beat analysts' estimates for quarterly revenue and profit on Wednesday, as the network gear maker benefited from demand for its routers and switches as well as growth in newer areas of focus such as software.
Shares of the company, which also forecast second-quarter revenue largely above expectations, rose 4 percent in extended trading, putting them on track to add to a near 16 percent gain for the year.
Cisco pivoted to software and cyber security to cushion the impact from slowing demand for its routers and switches from companies increasingly shifting to cloud services offered by Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN), Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Inc instead of building their own networks.
Revenue in its application software businesses rose 18 percent to $1.42 billion, beating analysts' average estimate of $1.37 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Sales in its security business, which offers firewall protection and breach detection systems, rose 11 percent to $651 million. That fell short of the IBES estimate of $656.4 million, but beat research firm FactSet's estimate of $648.1 million.
Deals such as the $2.35 billion purchase of cyber security provider Duo Security in August have played an important part in driving growth in Cisco's newer business.
Acquisitions provided an 80-basis-point boost to the company's first-quarter results compared with a year ago, Chief Financial Officer Kelly Kramer said on a post-earnings call with analysts.
Revenue in its infrastructure platform unit, which houses the switches and routers business, rose about 9 percent to $7.64 billion, topping expectation of $7.39 billion.
Subscriptions, which provide a more steady revenue flow, accounted for 57 percent of total software revenue in the first quarter, the company said. The preceding quarter's share was 56 percent.
"Cisco is executing on its plan to move its business model to software and subscriptions while benefiting from a strong IT spending environment," said Mark Cash, an analyst with Morningstar.
Cisco Chief Executive Charles Robbins said in an interview that the company was impacted by the Trump administration's 10 percent tariffs on imports from China in the first quarter.
"We implemented some price increases, as we said we would, and frankly, we didn't see any difference in the momentum before we did that and the momentum we saw after that in the quarter," Robbins told CNBC. "Obviously, we would prefer that the tariffs don't get increased to 25 percent in January."
Robbins also told CNBC https://cnb.cx/2K4QUic he is hopeful that a solution could be reached over the U.S.-China trade dispute now that U.S. midterm elections are over.
The company said it expects second-quarter revenue growth of between 5 percent and 7 percent from a year earlier. This implies a range of between $12.48 billion and $12.72 billion, while analysts forecast $12.53 billion.
For its first quarter ended Oct. 27, the company posted an adjusted profit of 75 cents per share, above the average estimate of 72 cents.
Total revenue rose 7.7 percent to $13.07 billion, topping estimate of $12.87 billion. However, the company said deferred revenue fell 9.4 percent to $16.81 billion.