Although it beat Q4 estimates, Cisco shares fell 2% after it said that carrier sales were down 11%. It was also hit by weak demand in emerging markets, particularly Russia, down 30%. Cisco had planned a $1bn investment here, but confidence is falling.
EMEA grew 2% as it saw 'continued relative stabilisation across Europe', noted CEO John Chambers. In EMEA, enterprise business grew 8% and commercial grew 7%. Leading the way, the UK grew 6% and within the UK commercial was up 18% and enterprise was up 19%. Germany in this most recent quarter grew 16% and again within Germany it was similar: commercial was up 13% and enterprise was up 17%.
Chambers said: "In the UK and Germany we are seeing similar success in these marketplaces as we begin to move to selling architectures, then solutions, then business outcomes. This is the transformation we're working onto drive more broadly. Just to give you a sense of an emerging country's impact on EMEA as an example and its growth excluding Russia which declined 30%, EMEA would have grown 4% instead of 2%."
Enterprise business was up over 9%, with a similar strength in commercial up over 8%, while the public sector on a global basis was flat.
Challenges continue in the service provider market which declined 11%.
Within the service provider market the largest impact came from continued decline in video with orders down 13% and the ongoing decline in emerging markets where service providers are more of the business.
"Our service provider customers are dealing with transitions in their own business and have been aggressively consolidating with the transaction volumes of these consolidations over the last 12 months about as much as we have seen in the past four years combined."