Cisco Q4 2026 earnings: record quarter tops estimates on AI order surge
Cisco topped profit and revenue estimates for fiscal Q4 2026, driven by surging AI infrastructure orders, and guided fiscal 2027 revenue above Wall Street's forecast.
| Q4 2026 | Reported | Expected | Surprise |
|---|---|---|---|
| EPS | $1.22 | $1.19 | +2.2% |
| Revenue | $17.25B | $17.16B | +0.5% |
Key takeaways
- Cisco’s non-GAAP profit of $1.22 per share and revenue of $17.25 billion both came in above what Wall Street analysts had been expecting, and the company said revenue, non-GAAP operating income and earnings per share all landed above the top end of its own guidance range for the quarter.
- Total product orders jumped 35% from a year earlier (25% even excluding big cloud-computing customers), and orders for networking gear specifically rose 40% — the eighth quarter in a row of double-digit order growth, suggesting demand kept building rather than being a one-quarter blip.
- Orders tied to AI infrastructure hit $4 billion in the quarter, pushing the full-year total to $9.3 billion — far above the $5 billion goal Cisco had set for the year — as data-center operators keep buying networking equipment to build out AI computing capacity.
- Cash generated from the business rose 27% year over year to $5.4 billion in the quarter. Combined with a TTM gross margin near 64% and operating margin above 23%, that points to a company converting a large share of each sales dollar into cash it can reinvest, pay dividends with, or use for acquisitions.
- CEO Chuck Robbins called it ‘a very strong close to fiscal 2026, marking another record year for Cisco,’ and framed the company as ‘critical infrastructure for the AI era,’ arguing its networking and security products position it to benefit regardless of how customers choose to deploy AI.
- For the full fiscal year, revenue reached $63.3 billion, up 12%, with GAAP operating margin expanding to 24.3% — evidence the AI-driven order growth is translating into more profitable, not just bigger, sales.
- Cisco’s security business, which includes the roughly $28 billion Splunk acquisition, grew more slowly than the rest of the company as customers shift from upfront license purchases to pay-as-you-go subscriptions — a mix shift that pushes some revenue into future periods even when underlying demand holds up.
- Looking ahead, Cisco guided to fiscal 2027 revenue of $72.2 billion to $73.4 billion, above the roughly $69.1 billion analysts had penciled in, and non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.32 to $1.34 for the current (fiscal first) quarter, signaling management expects the order strength to continue.
Q4 2026 in context
| Metric | Jul 2026 | Jul 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $17.3B | $14.7B | +17.6% |
| Net income | $3.9B | $2.5B | +51.3% |
| Free cash flow | $5.0B | $4.0B | +24.4% |
| Gross margin | 64.1% | 63.2% | +0.9 pts |
| Operating margin | 24.7% | 21.0% | +3.7 pts |
| Net margin | 22.4% | 17.4% | +5.0 pts |
Figures for the quarter ended Jul 2026 and the quarter ended Jul 2025, as reported to the SEC. Fourth-quarter flows are derived as the fiscal year minus its first three quarters.
How the stock took it
Cisco Systems Inc closed at $120.43 on Aug 11, 2026, the last session before the report, and at $113.47 on Aug 13, 2026, the first session after it — -5.8% across the report.
Closes from the market's daily record. Each figure spans the report date — from the last session that closed before it to the first that closed after — because a company may report before the open or after the close.
Fundamentals
| Metric | Value | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Gross margin | 64.3% | Trailing 12 months |
| Operating margin | 23.4% | Trailing 12 months |
| Net profit margin | 19.7% | Trailing 12 months |
| Pretax margin | 23.2% | Trailing 12 months |
| EPS | $3.00 | Trailing 12 months |
| Revenue growth (YoY) | 9.2% | Trailing 12 months |
| EPS growth (YoY) | 23.0% | Trailing 12 months |
| Return on equity | 25.1% | Trailing 12 months |
Sources: company report · earnings call · CNBC · MarketScreener