Yesterday, Cisco announced strong 2018 Q4 results, and offered a positive outlook for the upcoming year. Revenue was a record $12.8 billion, up 6% year-over-year. The company focus on recurring revenue has been fruitful, at 32% of total revenue, up one point year-over-year. Software subscriptions were more than half of overall software revenue: 56%, up five percent year-over-year.  Cisco has been diversifying away from hardware sales, where there is margin pressure from competitors such as Huawei.

Non-GAAP earnings per share for the quarter were $0.70, up 15% year-over-year. For the year, revenue was $49.3 billion, up 3%, and non-GAP EPS was $2.60, up 9% year-over-year.

“We had a very strong finish to a great year and generated our highest quarterly revenue of $12.8 billion,” said Chuck Robbins, Chairman and CEO of Cisco. “Our results demonstrate a combination of strong customer adoption of our latest innovations, the ongoing value customers see in our software and subscription offerings, and excellent execution across our customer segments and geographies. Our strategy is working and we believe that are well-positioned to capture growth across our portfolio with our pipeline of innovation.”

Service provider product orders were up 6% year-over-year in the fourth quarter, with enterprise up 11%. “This is a business that is dominated by large customers,” Robbins said. “When we have several of them that are slowing their spending, it looks bad, and when we have several of them that are spending, it looks good.”

Cisco expects revenue growth of 5% to 7% year-over-year and non-GAAP EPS of $0.70 to $0.72 for the first quarter of fiscal 2019.

To see information on their previous financial results, see http://www.truepulse.com/cisco-2018q3-tops-estimates/

For details on the financial results, see their press release at https://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1939009