FILE PHOTO – A visitor uses a mobile phone in front of the Cisco booth at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, February 26, 2019. REUTERS/Rafael Marchante
(Reuters) – Cisco Systems Inc edged past Wall Street estimates for quarterly revenue and profit on Wednesday, as growth in its cyber-security unit helped offset weakness in its routers and switches business.
Revenue in its security business, which offers firewall protection and breach detection systems, rose 9% to $748 million in the second quarter ended Jan. 25, beating estimates of $740.2 million.
Infrastructure platform business, which includes the company’s traditional business of supplying switches and routers, posted an 8% drop in revenue to $6.53 billion. Analysts were expecting revenue of $6.61 billion.
Sales in its application software businesses fell 8% to $1.35 billion, missing estimates of about $1.42 billion.
Cisco forecast adjusted profit of 79 cents to 81 cents per share for the current quarter, the midpoint of which was in line with analysts’ estimate.
Revenue fell 3.5% to $12 billion in the second quarter, but still beat analysts’ estimate of $11.98 billion.
Excluding items, Cisco earned 77 cents per share, beating estimates of 76 cents.
Shares of the company fell 2% in extended trading.
Reporting by Ayanti Bera in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva