Cisco surpasses Q3 profit predictions

Cisco Systems reported a 33 per cent increase in net income to $646 million or 38 cents per share for its financial third quarter ended 1 May, beating Wall Street analysts' expectations by a penny.

Revenue increased 44 per cent to $3.15 billion for the same period, taking Cisco's overall turnover for the first three quarters of its financial year to $8.56 billion.

The networking vendor also announced its eighth two-for-one stock split, since the company's critical public offering in February 1990 and nine months after the last split took place in August 1998.

Cisco's share price nearly reached a 52-week high on the strength of the announcements, leaping six per cent on 12 May to close at $118.75.

It's previous high for the period was $120.

John Chambers, chief executive of Cisco, said the board was relieved to have recorded such strong results in the third quarter which is 'generally challenging' for the company. He added: 'We were pleased with the performance of our key European subsidiaries.'

But Cisco executives warned that gross profit margins would continue to fall slightly due to changes in the vendor's product mix and ongoing competitive pricing pressures.

Meanwhile, Cisco has unveiled five training programmes designed to help channel partners sell, design, install and support networking technology systems.

Dubbed the Cisco Specialisation Programme, the five tracks will cover Wans, SNA/IP integration, voice access, security and network management.

The Wan programme is available now. The other four will be available by the end of second quarter.