Cisco reported record third-quarter revenue of $15.8 billion on May 13, saying sales rose 12% from a year earlier as orders accelerated across its core businesses. The networking giant said GAAP earnings per share were $0.85, up 37% year over year, while non-GAAP EPS came in at $1.06, up 10%.
The company also reported GAAP gross margin of 63.6%, non-GAAP gross margin of 66.0%, GAAP operating margin of 25.0% and non-GAAP operating margin of 34.2%. Those results give Cisco a strong run rate heading into the rest of fiscal 2026, especially as demand in networking and data center equipment keeps improving.
The numbers matter because Cisco said total product orders climbed 35% from a year earlier, or 19% excluding hyperscalers, with networking product orders accelerating to more than 50% growth. Campus networking orders rose more than 25%, and data center switching orders climbed more than 40%, a sign that the company is seeing broad-based demand rather than strength in just one slice of the market.
That demand has already shown up in the pipeline. Cisco said it had taken $5.3 billion of orders year to date and raised its FY26 expectations to $9 billion in orders from $5 billion, while lifting revenue expectations to $4 billion from $3 billion. The company said it sees significant momentum and higher expectations for AI infrastructure from hyperscalers, while also describing a major multi-year, multi-billion-dollar campus networking refresh cycle as underway.
The tension is in the guidance itself. Cisco said its EPS outlook includes the estimated impact of tariffs under current trade policy, which means the company is still modeling a cost pressure that could weigh on margins even as orders improve. For now, though, the message from the quarter is clear: Cisco is selling more, earning more and seeing enough demand to push its targets higher.
