CSCO
Cisco’s not exactly asleep at the switch
Cisco came in hot for Q3 FY 2026, with revenue up 12% to a record $15.8 billion and GAAP EPS jumping 37% year over year to $0.85. Translation: this isn’t one of those “we crushed it, but mostly because of accounting magic” quarters. The business actually looks like it’s firing on more cylinders than a demo room at CES.
The real story: AI is moving from slide deck to cash flow
The biggest takeaway for investors is that Cisco’s AI and networking story is getting real. Total product orders rose 35% year over year, and networking product orders accelerated to more than 50% growth. Hyperscalers are still part of the mix, but even excluding them, orders were up 19%, which is a nice reminder that this isn’t just one giant customer doing all the lifting.
And then there’s the AI infrastructure angle. Cisco said it has already taken $5.3 billion of orders year to date and raised its expected FY26 orders to $9 billion, up from $5 billion. It also lifted expected FY26 revenue to $4 billion from $3 billion. That’s the kind of upgrade that makes Wall Street perk up like it just heard free coffee in the break room.
Guidance got a little more swagger
For Q4, Cisco guided revenue to $16.7 billion-$16.9 billion and non-GAAP EPS to $1.16-$1.18. For the full year, it now expects revenue of $62.8 billion-$63.0 billion and non-GAAP EPS of $4.27-$4.29.
One thing to keep an eye on: those EPS numbers bake in the estimated impact of tariffs based on current trade policy. So yes, even in a giant networking company story, geopolitics and trade policy still get a cameo.
Big picture
Cisco is looking less like an old-school networking dinosaur and more like a beneficiary of the AI buildout. If campus refreshes, data-center switching, and hyperscaler spend keep running like this, the stock has a cleaner growth narrative than it did a year ago.