Cisco Dials Up Price Hikes as Last Resort Amid Revenue Growth

Cisco Systems has emphasized that price hikes are only used as a last resort to secure revenue growth. In its fourth-quarter earnings call, CFO Mark Patterson stated that the company's price increases are narrowly targeted at hardware products with heavier memory utilization and not software pricing.

Patterson noted that while customers may not like the price increases, they understand it is an industry issue, not a Cisco issue. The company has seen a significant impact from price hikes on revenue growth, contributing approximately four to five percentage points in ex-webscale orders.

Cisco expects its first-quarter revenue to reach $18 billion to $18.2 billion and adjusted EPS of $1.32 to $1.34, both surpassing analyst estimates. The company also projected fiscal 2027 revenue of $72.2 billion to $73.4 billion and adjusted EPS of $5.05 to $5.11, exceeding Wall Street's expectations.