Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins speaks at The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything Festival in New York on May 21, 2024.
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Cisco reported a fourth straight quarter of declining revenue even as results topped analysts’ estimates. The stock slipped 2.5% in extended trading.
Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:
Earnings per share: 91 cents adjusted vs. 87 cents expected
Revenue: $13.84 billion vs. $13.77 billion expected
Cisco’s revenue dropped 6% in the quarter ended Oct. 26, from $14.7 billion a year earlier, according to a statement. Net income fell to $2.71 billion, or 68 cents per share, from $3.64 billion, or 89 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago.
Networking revenue plunged 23% to $6.75 billion, slightly below the $6.8 billion consensus of analysts surveyed by StreetAccount.
Security revenue doubled to $2.02 billion, topping the StreetAccount consensus of $1.93 billion. Cisco’s revenue from collaboration was $1.09 billion, a bit below the $1.04 billion consensus estimate.
Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins said on the earnings call on Wednesday that orders from large-scale clients for artificial intelligence infrastructure exceeded $300 million in the quarter. Server makers such as Dell and HPE have also focused on sales of hardware that can help clients implement generative AI.
“We have earned more design wins and remain confident that we will exceed our target of $1 billion of AI orders this fiscal year from web-scale customers,” Robbins said.
Cisco has announced hardware containing Nvidia’s graphics processing units, which are widely used for training AI models, Robbins said.
“Over time, you’ll see us support other GPUs as the market demands,” he said. “But that partnership is still going fine. It’s still early. And I think 2025 is when we’ll start to see enterprise real deployment of some of these technologies.”
For now, enterprises are updating data center infrastructure to prepare for AI and the widespread deployment of AI applications, Robbins said.
U.S. government agencies have delayed deals with Cisco, rather than scrapping them altogether. The Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, which became law in June of last year, has limited U.S. government spending, said Scott Herren, Cisco’s finance chief.
Herren said that with Republicans poised to control the White House and both houses of Congress, he expects “to get a budget in place relatively soon.”
During the quarter, Cisco acquired security startups DeepFactor and Robust Intelligence.
Cisco lifted its full-year guidance to $3.60 to $3.66 in adjusted earnings per share on $55.3 billion to $56.3 billion in revenue, up from a prior forecast of $3.52 to $3.58 in EPS and $55 billion to $56.2 billion in revenue. Guidance would indicate projected revenue growth of 3.3% at the middle of the range.
Analysts expected adjusted earnings for the year of $3.58 per share on $55.89 billion in revenue.
As of Wednesday’s close, Cisco’s stock was up 17% year to date, while the S&P 500 index is up around 26% over that stretch.
Govini, a defense tech software startup taking on the likes of Palantir, has blown past $100 million in annual recurring revenue, the company announced Friday.
“We’re growing faster than 100% in a three-year CAGR, and I expect that next year we’ll continue to do the same,” CEO Tara Murphy Dougherty told CNBC’s Morgan Brennan in an interview. With how “big this market is, we can keep growing for a long, long time, and that’s really exciting.”
CAGR stands for compound annual growth rate, a measurement of the rate of return.
The Arlington, Virginia-based company also announced a $150 million growth investment from Bain Capital. It plans to use the money to expand its team and product offering to satisfy growing security demands.
In recent years, venture capitalists have poured more money into defense tech startups like Govini to satisfy heightened national security concerns and modernize the military as global conflict ensues.
The group, which includes unicorns like Palmer Luckey’s Anduril, Shield AI and artificial intelligence beneficiary Palantir, is taking on legacy giants such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, that have long leaned on contracts from the Pentagon.
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Dougherty, who previously worked at Palantir, said she hopes the company can seize a “vertical slice” of the defense technology space.
The 14-year-old Govini has already secured a string of big wins in recent years, including an over $900-million U.S. government contract and deals with the Department of War.
Govini is known for its flagship AI software Ark, which it says can help modernize the military’s defense tech supply chain by better managing product lifecycles as military needs grow more sophisticated.
“If the United States can get this acquisition system right, it can actually be a decisive advantage for us,” Dougherty said.
Looking ahead, Dougherty told CNBC that she anticipates some setbacks from the government shutdown.
Navy customers could be particularly hard hit, and that could put the U.S. at a major disadvantage.
While the U.S. is maintaining its AI dominance, China is outpacing its shipbuilding capacity and that needs to be taken “very seriously,” she added.
The launch of OpenAI’s updated Sora 2 AI video service kicked off another round of anxiety among musicians, actors and other content creators.
Sora allows users to generate short videos for free by typing in a prompt. The app is only available on iOS devices and is limited to invitees, meaning people need a code to access it. Still, Sora has climbed to the No. 1 spot in Apple’s App Store, and OpenAI said this week it hit 1 million downloads in less than five days after launch.
CNBC’s Julia Boorstin got access to Sora 2 and tried prompts like “show me a video of a fat orange cartoon cat eating lasagna” and “create a superhero that wears a black cape and is saving a woman from a burning building.” Some of the prompts failed due to copyright infringement, while others worked. Watch the video to see what happens when we put Sora 2 to the test.
Applied Digital shares jumped 16% on Friday after the company posted strong first-quarter revenue that was boosted by artificial intelligence data center demand, putting the stock up more than 350% for the year.
Here’s how the company did compared to LSEG estimates:
Loss per share: Loss of 7 cents vs. a loss of 13 cents expected
Revenue: $64.2 million vs. $50 million expected
First quarter revenue of $64.2 million was up 84% from a year ago, when it reported $34.85 million in revenue.
The data center company reported earnings after the bell on Thursday.
During the quarter, Applied Digital built on its $7 billion lease agreement with CoreWeave that was announced in June for another 150 megawatts at the firm’s Polaris Forge 1 campus in North Dakota. The additional capacity brings the anticipated contracted lease revenue for the project up to $11 billion.
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“With hyperscalers expected to invest approximately $350 billion into AI deployment this year, we believe we are in a prime position to serve as the modern-day picks and shovels of the intelligence era,” CEO Wes Cummins said in a release.
The new 150 MW building will join two other data cell blocks, each hosting 100 MW and 150 MW. The company noted that one building is nearly complete and construction will begin on the other.
Applied Digital also secured funding from Macquarie Equipment Capital for a second campus in North Dakota, dubbed Polaris Forge 2. The estimated $3 billion factory will hold two 150 MW buildings, bringing the total leased capacity to 600 MW across both campuses.
An initial 200 MW of power is expected to come online in 2026 and reach full capacity in 2027, the company said.
The company had a net loss of $18.5 million in the first quarter, a loss of 7 cents per share. A year ago, the company posted a net loss of $4.29 million, a loss of 3 cents per share.
Analysts polled by LSEG expect a loss of 15 cents per share for the second quarter on revenue of $76 million.