(By Balaseshan) Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) reported a 44
percent jump in quarterly earnings on strong sales growth. Results
exceeded the Street's expectations.
Earnings for the second quarter were $3.14 billion, or $0.59 per
share, up from $2.18 billion, or $0.40 per share, last year. Adjusted
earnings per share (EPS) rose to $0.51 from $0.47.
Sales increased 5 percent to $12.10 billion.
Analysts, on average, polled by Thomson Reuters expected a profit of
$0.48 per share on revenue of $12.06 billion for the second quarter.
Product sales increased to $9.44 billion from $9.12 billion, while service sales rose to $2.66 billion from $2.41 billion.
Operating expenses rose 5.1 percent to $4.55 billion. Operating income rose to $2.79 billion from $2.73 billion.
Cash
flows from operations were $3.3 billion for the second quarter, up from
$3.1 billion last year. Cash and cash equivalents and investments were
$46.4 billion at the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2013, up from
$45.0 billion at the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2013.
Cisco repurchased about 25 million common shares under the stock
repurchase program at an average price of $20.15 per share for an
aggregate $500 million.
As of January 26, 2013, Cisco had
repurchased and retired 3.8 billion common shares at $20.34 per share
for an aggregate purchase price of about $76.9 billion since the
inception of the stock repurchase program. The balance authorized amount
for stock repurchases under this program is about $5.1 billion with no
termination date.
CSCO closed Wednesday's regular session up 0.81 percent at $21.14.
The stock has been trading between $14.96 and $21.34 for the past 52
weeks.