TL;DR:
• Cisco beats Q4 estimates with $14.67B revenue, up 7.6% YoY
• AI infrastructure orders hit $2B+ in fiscal 2025, doubling company goals
• Stock up 19% in 2025 vs S&P 500's 10% as enterprise AI spending accelerates
• Company joins BlackRock-Microsoft AI infrastructure partnership and Middle East Stargate initiative
Cisco just delivered a narrow earnings beat that masks a massive AI infrastructure story. The networking giant posted Q4 revenue of $14.67 billion, up 7.6% year-over-year, while AI infrastructure orders exploded to over $2 billion for fiscal 2025 – more than doubling company targets and signaling the enterprise world's sprint toward AI readiness.
Cisco just proved that the AI infrastructure boom isn't just a hyperscaler story – it's reshaping enterprise networking from the ground up. The company's Q4 earnings, released Wednesday evening, showed revenue climbing 7.6% to $14.67 billion, narrowly beating analyst expectations of $14.62 billion. But dig deeper into the numbers, and a more compelling narrative emerges about corporate America's AI transformation.
The real headline isn't the modest earnings beat – it's the explosive growth in AI infrastructure orders. CEO Chuck Robbins revealed that AI infrastructure orders from web companies reached $800 million in Q4 alone, pushing the full fiscal year total past $2 billion, more than double the company's original target. "About $1 billion of those orders for the fiscal year were earmarked for back-end networks that connect graphics processing units," Robbins told analysts during the earnings call.
This surge reflects a fundamental shift in how enterprises are approaching AI deployment. Where early AI adoption focused on cloud-based solutions, companies are now investing heavily in on-premises infrastructure to handle sensitive workloads and reduce latency. Cisco's networking revenue jumped 12% to $7.63 billion in Q4, crushing analyst estimates of $7.34 billion as organizations scramble to upgrade their backbone infrastructure.
The company's strategic positioning became clearer during the quarter as Cisco announced collaborations with heavyweights including , , and others on AI infrastructure investments. The networking giant also joined the for the Middle East, working alongside OpenAI and SoftBank to build sovereign AI capabilities.
