Chambers praises David Cameron as Cisco bounces back
John Chambers argues US could learn from pro-business philosophy of European leaders as networking goliath posts double-digit growth
Cisco boss John Chambers has praised the pro-business agenda of European leaders including David Cameron as the networking juggernaut returned to double-digit growth.
The vendor, which kicked off a restructuring drive last May after admitting it had "lost credibility", smashed Wall Street estimates by posting Q2 revenue and net profit growth of 11 per cent and 44 per cent respectively.
Revenue for the three months ending 28 January 2012 hit $11.5bn (£7.3bn) – compared with $10.4bn a year earlier – as its bread-and-butter routing and switching business returned to solid growth. Switching and NGN routing sales each grew by eight per cent, high-end routing by 11 per cent and mid- to low-end routing by six per cent.
Unified Computing System (UCS) product revenue surged by 91 per cent year on year as Cisco added 1,786 new UCS customers during the quarter. Collaboration grew by 10 per cent.
Talking on CNBC, Chambers (pictured) said he was pleased with the results, stressing that Cisco hit its $1bn expense reduction target a quarter early.
"The key takeaway is the growth we are achieving," he said. "It goes well beyond routing and switching – it goes into collaboration, cloud, datacentre and architectures."
Chambers said he is now a "little more optimistic" for Europe after hearing the region's leaders speak at the recent World Economic Forum. The UK grew 13 per cent in the quarter, with Germany and France dropping back two and three per cent respectively, Chambers said on a conference call – a transcript of which can be found here.
Chambers, who has been vocal on the issue of US tax reform, hailed the "pro-business" philosophy of European and other non-US world leaders, singling out David Cameron and Angela Merkel for praise.
"I think you are seeing business and governments coming together around the world – with the appropriate caveats – and saying ‘how do we put this world back to work'," he said.
"I would like to see us do that a bit better in the US."