Cisco Systems Inc (CISCO, Financial), the world leader in networking that tells how people would connect, communicate, and collaborate posted its second quarter 2015 results. The company reported 2Q 2015 revenue of $11.9 billion with the non-GAAP net income of $2.7 billion or earnings per share of $0.53 per share.
The company’s 2Q 2015 result reflects an ongoing progress as the management transforms Cisco to become the number one IT Company. During the quarter, the company revenue grew by 7% with strong EPS growth. Moreover, the company saw the best balance of growth in all geographies, products, and segments. Cisco delivered this strong performance despite the volatile economic environment. Cisco’s strong momentum is the result of how well the management has managed the company’s transformation over the last couple of years and the company leads in the key technology transitions of cloud, mobility, big data, security, and collaboration.
Moreover, the company reported its revenue for the first six months of the fiscal year 2015 as $24.2 billion, compared with $23.2 billion last year for the first six months of the fiscal year 2014. Further, the company reported non-GAAP net income for the first six months of fiscal year 2015 as $5.5 billion or EPS of $1.08 per share compared to $5.4 billion or $1.00 per share in the same first six months of the fiscal year 2014. Cisco also announced a quarterly dividend of $0.21 per common share, which is a two-cent increase from the previous quarter dividend.
The company management said this was a good quarter to begin with as the momentum in the business feels good. In addition, they are excited about the opportunities ahead. Furthermore, the growth and increased EPS gives the company an opportunity to give back to the shareholders and in so doing, they returned $2.2 billion to the shareholders in the second quarter 2015.
Besides this, Cisco is committed to return at least 50% of the free cash flow annually. So far, the management also increased its dividend to $0.21 this quarter, which is an increase of 11% from previous quarter.
The cash flows from operations were reported as $2.9 billion for the quarter two of the fiscal year 2015 when compared to $2.5 billion reported in the first quarter of the fiscal year 2015. In the second quarter of the fiscal year 2014, a total of $2.9 billion was on record. In addition, Cisco’s cash and cash equivalents as well as investments were reported at $53 billion in the quarter two of the fiscal year 2015, compared to $52.1 billion reported in the first quarter of the fiscal year 2015. The first quarter of the fiscal year 2015 was compared to $52.1 billion reported at the fourth quarter of the fiscal year 2014. Furthermore, during the second quarter of the fiscal year 2015, the company paid a cash dividend of $0.19 per common share amounting to $974 million.
Cisco went ahead and repurchased approximately 44 million shares of common stock under the stock repurchase program, which is at an average price of $27.63 per share. The aggregate purchase price of the shares valued at $1.2 billion during the second quarter of the fiscal year 2015.
Also as of January 24, 2015, Cisco has repurchased and retired 4.4 billion shares of company’s common stock, which is at an average price of $20.73 per share for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $ 90.7 since the beginning of the stock repurchase program. Besides this, the remaining authorized amount for stock repurchase given in this program is approximately $ 6.3 billion without any termination date.
Cisco is ready to post its third quarter result soon in which the company is expected to perform well both in revenue and bottom-line profitability. The company is also expected to announce a dividend as well for its shareholders in the third quarter of 2015.
