Cisco quarterly profit drops 7.9 %

Cisco Systems Inc., the world 's biggest networking equipment maker, on Wednesday reported that its profit fell about 7.9 percent in the most recent quarter. In the company's fiscal 2012 first quarter ending on Oct. 29, Cisco posted its net income of nearly 1.78 billion U.S. dollars, compared with 1.93 billion dollars in the same period a year earlier. Excluding some items, earnings per share in the quarter were 43 cents, better than the 39 cents estimated by analysts, according to Bloomberg. Cisco's sales in the quarter reached 11.26 billion dollars, an increase of 4.7 percent year-on-year and also topped analysts' projection of about 11 billion dollars. "We delivered a solid quarter," John Chambers, Cisco's chief executive officer, said in a statement. "We've completed the majority of our restructuring and have organized Cisco to successfully execute against our strategy of providing intelligent networks, architectures and integrated products that solve customers' business problems," he added.