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Year-over-year tone shift - average net-tone change across Risk Factors and MD&A vs the prior 10-K. This filing is -0.00pp more bearish than last year's.
Why YoY instead of absolute: the LM lexicon has ~6.6× more negative words than positive (legal/risk-disclosure language is heavy on hedging), so every 10-K reads bearish on raw tone. Year-over-year change strips that bias and surfaces the actual shift in management's framing.
Tone shift by section
The two components the gauge averages: how Risk Factors and MD&A each shifted in net tone versus last year's 10-K. The headline above is their average, so a green needle over a soft section just means the other section carried it.
Risk Factors
+0.00pp
Flat
Net-tone change vs last year's 10-K.
MD&A
-0.01pp
Flat
Net-tone change vs last year's 10-K.
Per-snippet highlights
Sentence-level sentiment highlighting with category and subcategory filters is coming once the snippet-scoring pipeline lands. For now, dig into the actual section text on the Sections tab.
Language change vs prior 10-K
Risk Factors (Item 1A) - words with the biggest YoY frequency increase
Negative rising
claims+6
litigation+3
investigations+2
conflicts+2
dispute+2
Positive rising
enhancements+2
inventions+2
successfully+1
effective+1
enable+1
Risk Factors (Item 1A)
13,413 words
Item 1A.
Risk Factors
Set forth below and elsewhere in this report and in other documents we file with the SEC are descriptions of the risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from the results contemplated by the forward-looking statements contained in this report.
Risks Related to our Business and Industry
Our operations can be difficult to predict because our operating results may fluctuate in future periods.
Our operating results have been in the past, and will continue to be, subject to quarterly and annual fluctuations as a result of numerous factors, some of which may contribute to more pronounced fluctuations in an uncertain global economic environment. These factors include:
• Fluctuations in demand for our products and services, especially with respect to service providers and Internet businesses, in part due to changes in the global economic environment
• Changes in sales and implementation cycles for our products and reduced visibility into our customers’ spending plans and associated revenue
• Our ability to maintain appropriate inventory levels and purchase commitments
• Price and product competition in the communications and networking industries, which can change rapidly due to technological innovation and different business models from various geographic regions
• The overall movement toward industry consolidation among both our competitors and our customers
Language change vs prior 10-K
MD&A (Item 7) - words with the biggest YoY frequency increase
Negative rising
dispute+11
erosion+3
impairment+2
decline+2
threat+1
Positive rising
improvements+6
positive+4
gains+1
innovation+1
enhancing+1
MD&A (Item 7)
10,894 words
Item 7.
Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations
Forward-Looking Statements
This Annual Report on Form 10-K, including this Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations, contains forward-looking statements regarding future events and our future results that are subject to the safe harbors created under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). All statements other than statements of historical facts are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations, estimates, forecasts, and projections about the industries in which we operate and the beliefs and assumptions of our management. Words such as “expects,” “anticipates,” “targets,” “goals,” “projects,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “momentum,” “seeks,” “estimates,” “continues,” “endeavors,” “strives,” “may,” variations of such words, and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. In addition, any statements that refer to projections of our future financial performance, our anticipated growth and trends in our businesses, and other characterizations of future events or circumstances are forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are only predictions and are subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that are difficult to predict, including those under “Part I, Item 1A. Risk Factors,” and elsewhere herein. Therefore, actual results may differ materially and from those expressed in any forward-looking statements. We undertake no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements for any reason.
• The introduction and market acceptance of new technologies and products, and our success in new and evolving markets, and in emerging technologies, including AI, as well as the adoption of new standards
• Variations in sales channels, product costs, mix of products sold, or mix of direct sales and indirect sales
• The timing, size, and mix of orders from customers
• Manufacturing and customer lead times
• Fluctuations in our gross margins, and the factors that contribute to such fluctuations
• The ability of our direct sale customers, channel partners, contract manufacturers and suppliers to obtain financing or to fund capital expenditures, especially in the event of direct sale customers, channel partner, contract manufacturer or supplier financial problems
• Actual events, circumstances, outcomes, and amounts differing from judgments, assumptions, and estimates used in determining the values of certain assets (including the amounts of related valuation allowances), liabilities, and other items reflected in our Consolidated Financial Statements
• How well we execute on our strategy and operating plans and the impact of changes in our business model that could result in significant restructuring charges
• Our ability to achieve targeted cost reductions
• Benefits anticipated from our investments
• Changes in tax laws or accounting rules, or interpretations thereof
As a consequence, operating results for a particular future period are difficult to predict, and, therefore, prior results are not necessarily indicative of results to be expected in future periods. Any of the foregoing factors, or any other factors discussed elsewhere herein, could materially harm our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
Our operating results may be negatively impacted by unfavorable economic and market conditions and the uncertain geopolitical environment.
Challenging global economic conditions, including tariffs or other trade barriers, rising inflation, or other changes, have from time to time contributed, and may continue to contribute, to slowdowns in the communications and networking industries at large, as well as in specific segments and markets in which we operate, resulting in: reduced demand for our products as a result of continued constraints on IT-related capital spending by our customers, particularly service provider and cloud as well as enterprise and other customer markets; increased price competition for our products, not only from our competitors but also as a consequence of customers disposing of unutilized products; risk of excess and obsolete inventories; risk of supply constraints; risk of excess facilities and manufacturing capacity; and higher overhead costs as a percentage of revenue and higher interest expense.
The global macroeconomic environment can be challenging and uncertain. For example, the impact of uncertainty regarding global central bank monetary policy, the instability in the geopolitical environment in many parts of the world (including as a
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result of the on-going Russia and Ukraine war, Middle East conflicts and wars, and China-Taiwan relations), and other disruptions may continue to put pressure on global economic conditions. If global economic and market conditions were to deteriorate, we may experience material harm to our business, operating results, and financial condition.
Our operating results in one or more segments may also be affected by uncertain or changing economic conditions particularly germane to that segment or to particular customer markets within that segment. In addition, previous reports of certain intelligence gathering methods of the U.S. government could affect customers’ perception of the products of IT companies which design and manufacture products in the United States.
Our revenue for a particular period is difficult to predict, and a shortfall in revenue may harm our operating results.
As a result of a variety of factors discussed in this report, our revenue for a particular quarter is difficult to predict, which can be exacerbated during periods when the global macroenvironment is challenging and can result in market uncertainty. Our revenue may grow at a slower rate than in past peri ods, or decline as it did in certain prior periods on a year-over-year basis. Our ability to meet financial expectations could also be negatively impacted if the nonlinear sales pattern seen in some of our past quarters recurs in future periods. We have also experienced periods of time during which shipments have exceeded net bookings or manufacturing issues have delayed shipments, leading to nonlinearity in shipping patterns. In addition to making it difficult to predict revenue for a particular period, nonlinearity in shipping can increase costs, because irregular shipment patterns result in periods of underutilized capacity and periods in which overtime expenses may be incurred, as well as in potential additional inventory management-related costs. In addition, to the extent that manufacturing issues and any related component shortages result in delayed shipments in the future, and particularly in periods in which our contract manufacturers are operating at higher levels of capacity, it is possible that revenue for a quarter could be negatively impacted if such matters occur and are not remediated within the same quarter.
The timing of large orders can also have a significant impact on our business and operating results from quarter to quarter. From time to time, we receive large orders that have a significant effect on our operating results in the period in which the order is recognized as revenue. The timing of such orders is difficult to predict, and the timing of revenue recognition from such orders may affect period to period changes in revenue. As a result, our operating results could vary materially from quarter to quarter based on the receipt of such orders and their ultimate recognition as revenue. Longer than normal manufacturing lead times in the past have caused, and in the future could cause, some customers to place the same or a similar order multiple times within our various sales channels and to cancel the duplicative orders upon shipment or receipt of the product, or to also place orders with other vendors with shorter manufacturing lead times. Such multiple ordering (along with other factors) or risk of order cancellation may cause difficulty in predicting our revenue. Further, our efforts to improve manufacturing lead-time performance may result in more variability and less predictability in our revenue and operating results. In addition, when facing component supply-related challenges, we have in the past and may in the future increase our efforts in procuring components in order to meet customer expectations, which in turn contributes to an increase in inventory and purchase commitments. These increases in our inventory and purchase commitments to shorten lead times could also lead to potential material excess and obsolete inventory charges or other negative impacts to our product gross margin in future periods if product demand significantly decreases for a sustained duration, we are unable to generate demand for certain products planned for development, or we are unable to continue to mitigate the remaining supply chain exposures. Product demand conditions for future periods can be difficult to predict or may persist longer than anticipated. We plan our operating expense levels based primarily on forecasted revenue levels. These expenses and the impact of long-term commitments are relatively fixed in the short term. A shortfall in revenue could lead to operating results being below expectations because we may not be able to quickly reduce these fixed expenses in response to short-term business changes. Any of the above factors could materially harm our operations and financial results. For additional information and a further discussion of impacts and risks related to our inventory commitments and our purchase commitments with contract manufacturers and suppliers, see “Results of Operations—Product Gross Margin—Supply Chain Impacts and Risks”, “Liquidity and Capital Resources—Inventory Supply Chain” under Item 7 and Note 14 to the Consolidated Financial Statements of this report.
Supply chain issues, including financial problems of contract manufacturers or component suppliers, or a shortage of adequate component supply or manufacturing capacity that increase our costs or cause a delay in our ability to fulfill orders, could have an adverse impact on our business and operating results, and our failure to estimate customer demand properly may result in excess or obsolete component supply, which could negatively impact our gross margins.
The fact that we do not own or operate the bulk of our manufacturing facilities and that we are reliant on our extended supply chain could have an adverse impact on the supply of our products and on our business and operating results. Financial problems of either contract manufacturers or component suppliers, reservation of manufacturing capacity at our contract manufacturers by other companies, and industry consolidation occurring within one or more component supplier markets, such as the semiconductor market, in each case, could either limit supply or increase costs.
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A reduction or interruption in supply, including disruptions on our global supply chain, caused in part by public health emergencies, geopolitical tensions (including as a result of China-Taiwan relations, increasing tariffs or any other trade tensions) or a significant natural disaster (including as a result of climate change); a significant increase in the price of one or more components (including as a result of inflation); a failure to adequately authorize procurement of inventory by our contract manufacturers; a failure by suppliers to deliver on our contracts; a failure to appropriately cancel, reschedule, or adjust our requirements based on our business needs; or a decrease in demand for our products could materially harm our business, operating results, and financial condition and could materially damage customer relationships. Furthermore, as a result of binding price or purchase commitments with suppliers, we may be obligated to purchase components at prices that are higher than those available in the current market. In the event that we become committed to purchase components at prices in excess of the current market price when the components are actually used, our gross margins could decrease. In addition, vendors may be under pressure to allocate product to certain customers for business, regulatory or political reasons, and/or demand changes in agreed pricing as a condition of supply. Although we have generally secured additional supply or taken other mitigation actions when significant disruptions have occurred, if similar situations occur in the future, they could materially harm our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
Our growth and ability to meet customer demands depend in part on our ability to obtain timely deliveries of parts from our suppliers and contract manufacturers. We have experienced component shortages in the past, including shortages caused by manufacturing process issues, that have affected our operations, including longer than normal lead times. Additionally, we may in the future experience a shortage of certain component parts as a result of our own manufacturing issues, manufacturing issues at our suppliers or contract manufacturers, capacity problems experienced by our suppliers or contract manufacturers including capacity or cost problems resulting from industry consolidation, or strong demand for those parts. Growth in the economy is likely to create greater pressures on us and our suppliers to accurately project component demand and to establish optimal component levels and manufacturing capacity, especially for labor-intensive components, components for which we purchase a substantial portion of the supply, or the re-ramping of manufacturing capacity for highly complex products. During periods of shortages or delays the price of components may increase, or the components may not be available at all, and we may also encounter shortages if we do not accurately anticipate our needs. We may not be able to secure enough components at reasonable prices or of acceptable quality to build new products in a timely manner in the quantities or configurations needed. Accordingly, our revenue and gross margins could suffer until other sources can be developed.
Although in many cases we use standard parts and components for our products, certain components are presently available only from a single source or limited sources, and a global economic downturn and related market uncertainty could negatively impact the availability of components from one or more of these sources, especially during times when there are supplier constraints based on labor and other actions taken during economic downturns. We may not be able to diversify sources in a timely manner, which could harm our ability to deliver products to customers and seriously impact present and future sales.
We believe that we may be faced with the following challenges in the future: new markets in which we participate may grow quickly, which may make it difficult to quickly obtain significant component capacity; as we acquire companies and new technologies, we may be dependent on unfamiliar supply chains or relatively small supply partners; and we face competition for certain components that are supply-constrained from existing competitors and companies in other markets.
Manufacturing capacity and component supply constraints could be significant issues for us as they have been in certain prior periods. We purchase components from a variety of suppliers and use several contract manufacturers to provide manufacturing services for our products. During the normal course of business, in order to improve manufacturing lead-time performance and to help ensure adequate component supply, we enter into agreements with contract manufacturers and suppliers that either allow them to procure inventory based upon criteria as defined by us or that establish the parameters defining our requirements. In certain instances, these agreements allow us the option to cancel, reschedule, and adjust our requirements based on our business needs prior to firm orders being placed. When facing component supply-related challenges, we have increased our efforts in procuring components in order to meet customer expectations, such as we have done in past periods due to supply constraints, which in turn contributes to an increase in inventory and purchase commitments. In fiscal 2025, we entered into additional purchase commitments with contract manufacturers and suppliers related to manufacturing Cisco Silicon One and other products to meet demand from webscale and other customers. We expect to continue entering into these additional purchase commitments in fiscal 2026. These past efforts and additional purchase commitments significantly increased our supply chain exposure, which resulted in negative impacts to our product gross margin in recent periods and may result in further negative impacts in future periods. On August 26, 2025, we settled a legal dispute with a supplier relating to purchase obligations arising under long-term supply arrangements, which resulted in a charge to product cost of sales, which is described in Note 21 to the Consolidated Financial Statements. The remaining and new supply chain exposures include potential material excess and obsolete or other charges if product demand significantly decreases for a sustained duration, we are unable to generate demand for certain products planned for development, or we are otherwise unable to mitigate these supply chain exposures. Product demand conditions for future periods can be difficult to predict or may persist longer than anticipated.
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We expect gross margin to vary over time, and our level of product gross margin may not be sustainable.
Although our product gross margin increased in fiscal 2025, our level of product gross margins has declined in certain prior periods, and could decline in future periods due to adverse impacts from various factors, including:
• Changes in customer, geographic, or product mix, including the mix of hardware and software
• Introduction of new products, including products with price-performance advantages, and new business models (including continuing to increase the use of business models where revenue is recognized over multiple periods)
• Our ability to reduce production costs
• Entry into new markets or growth in lower margin markets, including markets with different pricing and cost structures, through acquisitions or internal development
• Sales discounts
• Increases in material, labor or other manufacturing-related costs (i.e. component costs, broker fees, expedited freight and overtime) or higher supply chain logistics costs, any of which could be significant, especially during periods of supply constraints for certain costs, such as those that have impacted the market for components, including semiconductors and memory in past periods, and which costs have in the past and may continue to be exacerbated by inflation
• Excess inventory, inventory holding charges, and obsolescence charges
• Changes in shipment volume
• The timing of revenue recognition and revenue deferrals
• Increased costs (including those caused by tariffs or economic conditions, including inflation), loss of cost savings or dilution of savings due to changes in component pricing or charges incurred due to inventory holding periods if parts ordering does not correctly anticipate product demand or if the financial health of either contract manufacturers or suppliers deteriorates
• Lower than expected benefits from value engineering
• Increased price competition, including competitors from Asia, especially from China
• Changes in distribution channels
• Increased warranty or royalty costs
• Increased amortization of purchased intangible assets, especially from acquisitions
• How well we execute on our strategy and operating plans
Changes in service gross margin may result from various factors such as changes in the mix between technical support services and advanced services, as well as the timing of technical support service contract initiations and renewals, the addition of personnel and other related costs, and other resources to support higher levels of service business in future periods.
Sales to the service provider and cloud market are especially volatile, and weakness in orders from this industry may harm our operating results and financial condition.
Sales to the service provider and cloud market have been characterized by large and sporadic purchases, especially relating to our router sales and sales of certain other Networking and Collaboration products, in addition to longer sales cycles. Although service provider and cloud product orders increased during fiscal 2025, service provider and cloud market product orders decreased in fiscal 2024, and at various times in the past we have experienced significant weakness in product orders from the service provider and cloud market. Product orders from the service provider and cloud market could decline in the future and, as has been the case in the past, such weakness could persist over extended periods of time given fluctuating market conditions. Products in the service provider and cloud market could also face a high degree of customer concentration, with bespoke product designs and features that would be difficult to sell to alternate customers should the primary customer reduce its product orders with Cisco. Sales activity in this industry depends upon the stage of completion of expanding network infrastructures; the availability of funding; and the extent to which service provider and cloud customers are affected by regulatory, economic, and business conditions in the country of operations. Weakness in orders from this industry, including as a result of any slowdown in capital expenditures by service providers (which may be more prevalent during a global economic downturn, or periods of economic, political or regulatory uncertainty), could materially harm our business, operating results, and financial condition. Such slowdowns may continue or recur in future periods. Orders from this industry could decline for many reasons other than the competitiveness of our products and services within their respective markets. For example, in the past, many of our service provider and cloud customers have been negatively impacted by slowdowns in the general economy, by overcapacity, by changes in the service provider and cloud market, by regulatory developments, and by constraints on capital availability, resulting in business failures and substantial reductions in spending and expansion plans. These conditions have negatively impacted our business and operating results in the past, and could materially harm our business and operating
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results in any future period. Finally, service provider and cloud customers typically have longer implementation cycles; require a broader range of services, including design services; demand that vendors take on a larger share of risks; often require acceptance provisions, which can lead to a delay in revenue recognition; and expect financing from vendors. All these factors can add further risk to business conducted with service providers.
Disruption of or changes in our distribution model could harm our sales and margins.
If we fail to manage distribution of our products and services properly, or if our distributors’ financial condition or operations weaken, our revenue and gross margins could be negatively impacted. A substantial portion of our products and services is sold through our channel partners, and the remainder is sold through direct sales. Our channel partners include systems integrators, service providers, other third-party resellers, and distributors. Systems integrators and service providers typically sell directly to end users and often provide system installation, technical support, professional services, and other support services in addition to network equipment sales. Systems integrators also typically integrate our products into an overall solution, and a number of service providers are also systems integrators. Distributors stock inventory and typically sell to systems integrators, service providers, and other third-party resellers. We refer to sales through distributors as our two-tier system of sales to the end user. If sales through indirect channels increase, this may lead to greaterdifficulty in forecasting the mix of our products and, to a degree, the timing of orders from our customers.
Historically, we have seen fluctuations in our gross margins based on changes in the balance of our distribution channels. There can be no assurance that changes in the balance of our distribution model in future periods would not have an adverse effect on our gross margins and profitability. Some factors could result in disruption of or changes in our distribution model, which could harm our sales and margins, including the following: competition with some of our channel partners, including through our direct sales, which may lead these channel partners to use other suppliers that do not directly sell their own products or otherwise compete with them; some of our channel partners may demand that we absorb a greater share of the risks that their customers may ask them to bear; some of our channel partners may have insufficient financial resources and may not be able to withstand changes and challenges in business conditions; and revenue from indirect sales could suffer if our distributors’ financial condition or operations weaken. In addition, we depend on our channel partners globally to comply with applicable regulatory requirements. To the extent that they fail to do so, that could materially harm our business, operating results, and financial condition. Further, sales of our products outside of agreed territories can result in disruption to our distribution channels.
The markets in which we compete are intensely competitive, which could negatively impact our achievement of revenue growth.
The markets in which we compete are characterized by rapid change, converging technologies, and a migration to networking and communications solutions that offer relative advantages. These market factors represent a competitive threat to us. We compete with numerous vendors in each product category. The overall number of our competitors providing niche product solutions may increase. Also, the identity and composition of competitors may change as we increase our activity in newer product areas, and in key priority areas. For example, as products related to network programmability, such as software defined networking (SDN) products, have become more prevalent, we have faced increased competition from companies that develop networking products based on commoditized hardware, referred to as “white box” hardware, to the extent customers decide to purchase those product offerings instead of ours. In addition, the growth in demand for technology delivered as a service enables new competitors to enter the market. As we continue to expand globally, we may see new competition in different geographic regions. In particular, we have experienced price-focused competition from competitors in Asia, especially from China, and we anticipate this will continue. For information regarding our competitors, see the section entitled “Competition” contained in “Item 1. Business” of this report.
Some of our competitors compete across many of our product lines, while others are primarily focused in a specific product area. Barriers to entry are relatively low, and new ventures to create products that do or could compete with our products are regularly formed. In addition, some of our competitors may have greater resources, including technical and engineering resources, than we do. As we expand into new markets, we will face competition not only from our existing competitors but also from other competitors, including existing companies with strong technological, marketing, and sales positions in those markets. We also sometimes face competition from resellers and distributors of our products. Companies with which we have strategic alliances in some areas may be competitors in other areas, and this trend may increase. For example, the enterprise data center is undergoing a fundamental transformation arising from the convergence of technologies, including computing, networking, storage, and software, that previously were segregated. Due to several factors, including the availability of highly scalable and general purpose microprocessors, application specific integrated circuits offering advanced services, standards based protocols, cloud computing and virtualization, the convergence of technologies within the enterprise data center is spanning multiple, previously independent, technology segments. Also, some of our current and potential competitors for enterprise data center business have made acquisitions, or announced new strategic alliances, designed to position them to provide end-to-end technology solutions for the enterprise data center. As a result of all of these developments, we face greater
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competition in the development and sale of enterprise data center technologies, including competition from entities that are among our long-term strategic alliance partners. Companies that are strategic alliance partners in some areas of our business may acquire or form alliances with our competitors, thereby reducing their business with us.
We also face competition from customers to which we license or supply technology and suppliers from which we transfer technology. The inherent nature of networking requires interoperability. As such, we must cooperate and at the same time compete with many companies. Any inability to effectively manage these complicated relationships with customers, suppliers, and strategic alliance partners could materially harm our business, operating results, and financial condition and accordingly affect our chances of success.
Inventory management relating to our sales to our two-tier distribution channel is complex, and excess inventory may harm our gross margins.
We must manage inventory relating to sales to our distributors effectively, because inventory held by them could affect our results of operations. Our distributors may increase orders during periods of product shortages, cancel orders if their inventory is too high, or delay orders in anticipation of new products. They also may adjust their orders in response to the supply of our products and the products of our competitors that are available to them, and in response to seasonal fluctuations in end-user demand. Our distributors are generally given business terms that allow them to return a portion of inventory, receive credits for changes in selling price, and participate in various cooperative marketing programs. Inventory management remains an area of focus as we balance the need to maintain strategic inventory levels to ensure competitive lead times against the risk of inventory obsolescence because of rapidly changing technology and customer requirements. When facing component supply-related challenges, we have in the past and may in the future increase our efforts in procuring components or enter additional purchase commitments with contract manufacturers and suppliers in order to meet customer expectations. If we ultimately determine that we have excess inventory, we may have to reduce our prices and write down inventory, which in turn could result in lower gross margins.
Issues related to the development and use of artificial intelligence (AI) could give rise to legal and/or regulatory action, damage our reputation or otherwise materially harm our business.
We currently incorporate AI technology in certain of our commercial offerings and in our business operations. Our research and development of AI technology remains ongoing. AI presents risks and challenges and may result in unintended consequences, including inadvertent disclosure or misuse of intellectual property, confidential, personal, and/or competitive information, that could affect our reputation, our further AI development or our and our customers’ adoption and use of this technology. AI algorithms and training methodologies may be flawed. Additionally, AI technologies are complex and rapidly evolving, and we face significant competition in the market and from other companies regarding such technologies. Leveraging AI capabilities to potentially improve our internal functions and operations also presents risks, costs, and challenges. While we aim to develop and use AI responsibly and attempt to identify and mitigate ethical and legal issues and risks presented by its use, we may be unsuccessful in identifying or resolving issues and risks before they arise. The AI-related legal and regulatory landscape is constantly evolving and therefore remains uncertain and may be inconsistent from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Our obligations to comply with the evolving legal and regulatory landscape could entail significant costs or limit our ability to incorporate certain AI capabilities into our offerings. AI-related issues, deficiencies and/or failures could also give rise to legal and/or regulatory action (including with respect to proposed legislation regulating AI in jurisdictions such as the European Union and others, and as a result of new and different applications of existing and new data protection, privacy, intellectual property, and other laws); damage our reputation; or otherwise materially harm our business.
Our financial performance may be negatively impacted by demand for, and costs to deliver, our software subscription offerings; and interruptions or performance problems associated with these offerings, including interruptions or performance problems caused by third-party providers on which we rely, may negatively impact our business and financial results.
In recent years, we have shifted our business model to deliver more recurring software and subscription offerings. This shift in our business model was accelerated by recent acquisitions, including our acquisition of Splunk in the third quarter of fiscal 2024. Mark et acceptance of our software subscription offerings, which includes our as-a-service solutions, can be affected by a variety of factors, including: security, reliability, performance, terms of service, support terms, customer preference, community engagement, concerns regarding data privacy or data protection, and the enactment of laws or regulations in jurisdictions in which we operate. To generate sales growth for our software subscription offerings, we need to convince potential customers to purchase new licenses or subscriptions and generate timely renewals and additional purchases from existing customers. Any failure to do so could result in decreased revenue, reduced sales, increased churn or otherwise negatively impact our results of operations and financial condition. Further, growth of our software subscription offerings depends, in part, on the ability of customers to use and access these solutions. We have experienced, and may in the future experience, interruptions in service, storage failures, and other performance-related problems due to a variety of factors, such as infrastructure and software
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changes, human or software errors, capacity constraints, unauthorized access, denial of service or other cyber attacks. In some instances, we may not be able to timely identify the cause or causes of these performance problems and, even if timely identified, we may be unable to timely remediate the underlying cause. It may become increasingly difficult to maintain and improve our performance for our software subscription offerings, especially during peak usage times and as our solutions become more complex and our user traffic increases. Performance-related issues of our software subscription offerings may result in increased operational costs, delays in new feature rollouts, customer loss, reputational damage, and legal or regulatory liability, including liability under customer contracts or for lossessuffered by our customers.
To deliver our software subscription offerings, we have incurred and will continue to incur substantial costs to implement and maintain this business. We make significant investments to increase or maintain capacity and to develop and implement new technologies in our infrastructure and operations, including those provided by third-party providers on which we rely. We may not be successful in developing or implementing these technologies. To the extent that we do not effectively scale our operations to meet the needs of our customers and to maintain performance as our customers expand their use of our solutions, we may not be able to grow this business as quickly as we anticipate, our customers may reduce or cancel use of our solutions, and we may be unable to compete as effectively and our business and results of operations may be harmed. Additionally, if our costs associated with our software subscription offerings were to significantly increase, our business, results of operations and financial condition may be negatively impacted. We are also subject to the risk of performance-related problems or interruption of the services provided by third-party providers on which we rely, which could cause revenues for software subscription offerings to decline, damage to our reputation, legal liability exposure, and/or increased expenses, all of which could negatively impact our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
We depend upon the development of new products and services, and enhancements to existing products and services, and if we fail to predict and respond to emerging technological trends and customers’ changing needs, our operating results and market share may suffer.
The markets for our products and services are characterized by rapidly changing technology, evolving industry standards, new product and service introductions, and evolving methods of building and operating networks. Our operating results depend on our ability to develop and introduce new products and services into existing and emerging markets and to reduce the production costs of existing products. If customers do not purchase and/or renew our offerings our business could be harmed.
The process of developing new technology, including more programmable, flexible and virtual networks, and technology related to other market transitions— such as AI, security, observability, and cloud— is complex and uncertain, and if we fail to accurately predict customers’ changing needs and emerging technological trends our business could be harmed. We must commit significant resources, including the investments we have been making in our strategic priorities to developing new products and services before knowing whether our investments will result in products and services the market will accept. In particular, if our model of the evolution of networking, security, or observability does not emerge as we believe it will, or these industries do not evolve as we believe they will, or if our strategy for addressing this evolution is not successful, many of our strategic initiatives and investments may be of no or limited value. For example, if we do not timely introduce products related to these markets, or if such products or offerings that ultimately succeed in these markets are based on technology, or an approach to technology, that differs from ours, our business could be harmed. In addition, our business could be negatively impacted in periods surrounding our new product introductions if customers delay purchasing decisions to qualify or otherwise evaluate the new product offerings. We have also been seeking to meet the evolving needs of customers which include offering our products and solutions in the manner in which customers wish to consume them. As a part of these efforts, we continue to make changes to how we are organized and how we build and deliver our technology, including changes in our business models with customers. If our strategy for addressing our customer needs, or the architectures and solutions we develop do not meet those needs, or the changes we are making in how we are organized and how we build and deliver or technology is incorrect or ineffective, our business could be harmed.
Furthermore, we may not execute successfully on our vision or strategy because of challenges with regard to product planning and timing, technical hurdles that we fail to overcome in a timely fashion, or a lack of appropriate resources. This could result in competitors, some of which may also be our strategic alliance partners, providing those solutions before we do and loss of market share, revenue, and earnings. In addition, the growth in demand for technology delivered as a service enables new competitors to enter the market. The success of new products and services depends on several factors, including proper new product and service definition, component costs, timely completion and introduction of these products and services, differentiation of new products and services from those of our competitors, and market acceptance of these products and services. There can be no assurance that we will successfully identify new product and services opportunities, develop and bring new products and services to market in a timely manner, or achieve market acceptance of our products and services or that products, services and technologies developed by others will not render our products, services or technologies obsolete or noncompetitive. The products and technologies in our other product categories and key priority areas may not prove to have the market success we anticipate, and we may not successfully identify and invest in other emerging or new products and services.
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Changes in industry structure and market conditions could lead to charges related to discontinuances of certain of our products or businesses, asset impairments and workforce reductions or restructurings.
In response to changes in industry and market conditions, we may be required to strategically realign our resources and to consider restructuring, disposing of, or otherwise exiting businesses. Any resource realignment, or decision to limit investment in or dispose of or otherwise exit businesses, may result in the recording of special charges, such as inventory and technology-related write-offs, workforce reduction or restructuring costs, charges relating to consolidation of excess facilities, or claims from third parties who were resellers or users of discontinued products. Our estimates with respect to the useful life or ultimate recoverability of our carrying basis of assets, including purchased intangible assets, could change as a result of such assessments and decisions. Although in certain instances our supply agreements allow us the option to cancel, reschedule, and adjust our requirements based on our business needs prior to firm orders being placed, our loss contingencies may include liabilities for contracts that we cannot cancel with contract manufacturers and suppliers. Further, our estimates relating to the liabilities for excess facilities are affected by changes in real estate market conditions. Additionally, we are required to perform goodwill impairment tests on an annual basis and between annual tests in certain circumstances, and future goodwill impairment tests may result in a charge to earnings. From time to time we initiate restructuring plans. Our business may not be more efficient or effective than prior to implementation of such plans. Our restructuring activities, including any related charges and the impact of the related headcount restructurings, could materially harm our business, operating results, and financial condition.
Over the long term we intend to invest in engineering, sales, service and marketing activities, and in key priority areas, and these investments may achievedelayed, or lower than expected, benefits which could harm our operating results.
While we intend to focus on managing our costs and expenses, over the long term, we also intend to invest in personnel and other resources related to our engineering, sales, service and marketing functions as we realign and dedicate resources on key priority areas, such as AI, cloud, and cybersecurity. We also intend to focus on maintaining leadership in core networking and services. We are likely to recognize the costs associated with these investments earlier than some of the anticipated benefits, and the return on these investments may be lower, or may develop more slowly, than we expect. If we do not achieve the benefits anticipated from these investments (including if our selection of areas for investment does not play out as we expect), or if the achievement of these benefits is delayed, our operating results may be negatively impacted.
We have made and expect to continue to make acquisitions that could disrupt our operations and harm our operating results.
Our growth depends upon market growth, our ability to enhance our existing products, and our ability to introduce new products on a timely basis. We intend to continue to address the need to develop new products and enhance existing products through acquisitions of other companies, product lines, technologies, and personnel. Acquisitions involve numerous risks, including the following:
• Difficulties or delays in integrating the operations (including IT security), systems, technologies, products, and personnel of the acquired companies, particularly with companies that have large and widespread operations and/or complex products (such as Splunk)
• Diversion of management’s attention from normal daily operations of the business and the challenges of managing larger and more widespread operations resulting from acquisitions
• Potential difficulties in completing projects associated with in-process research and development intangibles
• Difficulties in entering markets in which we have no or limited direct prior experience and where competitors in such markets have stronger market positions
• Initial dependence on unfamiliar supply chains or relatively small supply partners
• Insufficient revenue to offset increased expenses associated with acquisitions
• The potential loss of key employees, customers, distributors, vendors and other business partners of the companies we acquire following and continuing after announcement of acquisition plans
Acquisitions have in the past and may in the future also cause us to:
• Issue common stock that would dilute our current stockholders’ percentage ownership
• Use a substantial portion of our cash resources, or incur debt
• Significantly increase our interest expense, leverage and debt service requirements if we incur additional debt to pay for an acquisition
• Assume liabilities
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• Record goodwill and intangible assets that are subject to impairment testing on a regular basis and potential periodic impairment charges
• Incur amortization expenses related to certain intangible assets
• Incur tax expenses related to the effect of acquisitions on our legal structure
• Incur large write-offs and restructuring and other related expenses
• Become subject to intellectual property or other litigation
Mergers and acquisitions of high-technology companies are inherently risky and subject to many factors outside of our control, and no assurance can be given that our previous or future acquisitions will be successful and will not materially harm our business, operating results, or financial condition. Failure to manage and successfully integrate acquisitions could materially harm our business and operating results. Prior acquisitions have resulted in a wide range of outcomes, from successful introduction of new products and technologies to a failure to do so. Even when an acquired company has already developed and marketed products, there can be no assurance that product enhancements will be made in a timely fashion or that pre-acquisition due diligence will have identified all possible issues that might arise with respect to such products. In addition, our effective tax rate for future periods is uncertain and could be impacted by mergers and acquisitions. Risks described with respect to new product development also apply to acquisitions.
Entrance into new or developing markets exposes us to additional competition and will likely increase demands on our service and support operations.
As we focus on new market opportunities and key priority areas, such as AI, cloud, and cybersecurity, we compete with companies of all sizes. Several of our competitors may have greater resources, including technical and engineering resources, than we do. Additionally, as customers complete infrastructure deployments, they may require greater levels of service, support, and financing than we have provided in the past, especially in emerging countries. Demand for these types of service, support, or financing contracts may increase in the future. There can be no assurance that we can provide products, service, support, and financing to effectively compete for these market opportunities. Further, entry into other markets has subjected and will subject us to additional risks, particularly to those markets, including the effects of general market conditions and reduced consumer confidence. For example, as we add direct selling capabilities globally to meet changing customer demands, we will face increased legal and regulatory requirements.
If we do not successfully manage our strategic alliances, we may not realize the expected benefits from such alliances, and we may experience increased competition or delays in product development.
We have several strategic alliances with large and complex organizations and other companies with which we work to offer complementary products and services. These arrangements are generally limited to specific projects, the goal of which is generally to facilitate product compatibility and adoption of industry standards. There can be no assurance we will realize the expected benefits from these strategic alliances or from joint ventures. If successful, these relationships may be mutually beneficial and result in industry growth. However, alliances carry an element of risk because, in most cases, we must compete in some business areas with a company with which we have a strategic alliance and, at the same time, cooperate with that company in other business areas. Also, if these companies fail to perform or if these relationships fail to materialize as expected, we could sufferdelays in product development or other operational difficulties. Joint ventures can be difficult to manage, given the potentially different interests of joint venture partners.
Product quality problems could lead to reduced revenue, gross margins, and net income.
We produce highly complex products that incorporate leading-edge technology, including both hardware and software. Software typically contains bugs or other quality or reliability problems that can unexpectedlyinterfere with its intended operations or the intended operation of the systems in which our software is installed. There can be no assurance that our pre-shipment or pre-release testing programs will be adequate to detect all defects, either ones in individual products or ones that could affect numerous shipments, which might interfere with customer satisfaction, reduce sales opportunities, or affect gross margins. From time to time, we have had to replace certain components and provide remediation in response to the discovery of defects or bugs in products that we had shipped. There can be no assurance that such remediation, depending on the product involved, would not have a material impact. An inability to cure a product defect or bug could result in the failure of a product line, temporary or permanent withdrawal from a product or market, damage to our reputation, inventory costs, product reengineering expenses or legal liability, any of which could materially harm our revenue, margins, and net income.
Due to the global nature of our operations, political or economic changes or other factors in a specific country or region could harm our operating results and financial condition.
We conduct significant sales and customer support operations in countries around the world. As such, our growth depends in part on our increasing sales into emerging countries. We also depend on non-U.S. operations of our contract manufacturers,
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component suppliers and distribution partners. Our business in emerging countries in the aggregate experienced a decline in orders in certain prior periods. We continue to assess the sustainability of any improvements in our business in these countries and there can be no assurance that our investments in these countries will be successful. Our future results could be negatively impacted by a variety of political, economic or other factors relating to our operations inside and outside the United States, any or all of which could materially harm our operating results and financial condition, including the following: impacts from global central bank monetary policy; issues related to the political relationship between the United States and other countries that can affect regulatory matters, affect the willingness of customers in those countries to purchase products from companies headquartered in the United States or affect our ability to procure components if a government body were to deny us access to those components; government-related disruptions or shutdowns; the challenging and inconsistent global macroeconomic environment; foreign currency exchange rates; geopolitical tensions (including China-Taiwan relations); political or social unrest; economic instability or weakness or natural disasters in a specific country or region, including economic challenges in China and global economic ramifications of Chinese economic difficulties; environmental protection regulations (including new laws and regulations related to climate change); trade protection measures, such as tariffs; other legal and regulatory requirements, some of which may affect our ability to import our products to, export our products from, or sell our products in various countries or affect our ability to procure components; political considerations that affect service provider and government spending patterns; health or similar issues, including pandemics or epidemics; difficulties in staffing and managing international operations; and adverse tax consequences, including imposition of withholding or other taxes on our global operations.
We are exposed to the credit risk of some of our customers and to credit exposures in weakened markets, which could result in material losses.
Most of our sales are on an open credit basis, with typical payment terms of 30 days in the United States, and, because of local customs or conditions, longer in some markets outside the United States. Beyond our open credit arrangements, we have also experienced demands for customer financing and facilitation of leasing arrangements. Our loan financing arrangements may include not only financing the acquisition of our products and services but also providing additional funds for other costs associated with network installation and integration of our products and services. Our exposure to the credit risks relating to our financing activities may increase if our customers are negatively impacted by a global economic downturn or periods of economic uncertainty. There can be no assurance that programs we have in place to monitor and mitigate credit risks will be effective. In the past, there have been significant bankruptcies among customers both on open credit and with loan or lease financing arrangements, particularly among Internet businesses and service providers, causing us to incur economic or financial losses. There can be no assurance that additional losses will not be incurred. Although these losses have not been material to date, future losses, if incurred, could materially harm our business, operating results, or financial condition. Additionally, to the degree that turmoil in the credit markets makes it more difficult for some customers to obtain financing, those customers’ ability to pay could be adversely impacted, which in turn could materially harm our business, operating results, and financial condition.
We are exposed to fluctuations in the market values of our portfolio investments and in interest rates; impairment of our investments could harm our earnings.
We maintain an investment portfolio of various holdings, types, and maturities. Our portfolio includes available-for-sale debt investments and equity investments, the values of which are subject to market price volatility. If such investments suffer market price declines, as we experienced with some of our investments in the past, we may recognize in earnings the decline in the fair value of our investments below their cost basis. Our privately held investments are subject to risk of loss of investment capital. These investments are inherently risky because the markets for the technologies or products they have under development are typically in the early stages and may never materialize. We could lose our entire investment in these companies. For information regarding the market risks associated with the fair value of portfolio investments and interest rates, refer to the section titled “Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk.”
We are exposed to fluctuations in currency exchange rates that could negatively impact our financial results and cash flows.
Because a significant portion of our business is conducted outside the United States, we face exposure to adverse movements in foreign currency exchange rates, including emerging market currencies which can have extreme currency volatility. An increase in the value of the dollar could increase the real cost to our customers of our products in those markets outside the United States where we sell in dollars and a weakened dollar could increase the cost of local operating expenses and procurement of raw materials to the extent that we must purchase components in foreign currencies. These exposures may change over time as business practices evolve, and they could materially harm our financial results and cash flows.
Failure to retain and recruit key personnel would harm our ability to meet key objectives.
Our success has always depended in large part on our ability to attract and retain highly skilled technical, managerial, sales, and marketing personnel. Competition for such personnel is intense, especially in the Silicon Valley area of Northern California and
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other major United States locations. Stock incentive plans are designed to reward employees for their long-term contributions and provide incentives for them to remain with us. Volatility or lack of positive performance in our stock price or equity incentive awards, or changes to our overall compensation program, including our stock incentive program, resulting from the management of share dilution and share-based compensation expense or otherwise, may also negatively impact our ability to retain key employees. As a result of one or more of these factors, we may increase our hiring in geographic areas outside the United States, which could subject us to additional geopolitical and exchange rate risk. The loss of services of any of our key personnel; the inability to retain and attract qualified personnel in the future; or delays in hiring required personnel, particularly in engineering and sales fields, could make it difficult to meet key objectives, such as timely and effective product introductions. In addition, companies in our industry whose employees accept positions with competitors frequently claim that competitors have engaged in improper hiring practices. We have received these claims in the past and may receive additional claims in the future.
Adverse resolution of claims, litigation or governmental investigations may harm our operating results or financial condition.
We are a party to a variety of claims, litigation and governmental investigations in the normal course of our business. Claims, litigation and governmental investigations may arise from a wide variety of business practices and initiatives, including major new product releases, significant business transactions, warranty or product claims, employment practices, and regulation. Any claim, litigation or governmental investigation can be costly, lengthy, and disruptive to normal business operations. For example, on August 26, 2025, we settled a legal dispute with a supplier relating to purchase obligations arising under long-term supply arrangements, which resulted in a charge to product cost of sales, which is described in Note 21 to the Consolidated Financial Statements. Moreover, the results of complex legal proceedings are difficult to predict, and management's view of these matters may change in the future. An unfavorable resolution of claims, litigation or governmental investigations could materially harm our business, operating results, or financial condition. For additional information regarding certain of the matters in which we are involved, see Note 14 to the Consolidated Financial Statements, subsection (f) “Legal Proceedings.”
Our operating results may be negatively impacted and damage to our reputation may occur due to the production and sale of counterfeit versions of our products.
As is the case with leading products around the world, our products are subject to efforts by third parties to produce counterfeit versions of our products. While we work diligently with law enforcement authorities in various countries to block the manufacture of counterfeit goods and to interdict their sale, and to detect counterfeit products in customer networks, and have succeeded in prosecutingcounterfeiters and their distributors, resulting in fines, imprisonment and restitution to us, there can be no guarantee that such efforts will succeed. While counterfeiters often aim their sales at customers who might not have otherwise purchased our products due to lack of verifiability of origin and service, such counterfeit sales, to the extent they replace otherwise legitimate sales, could negatively impact our operating results.
Changes in our provision for income taxes or adverse outcomes resulting from examination of our income tax returns could negatively impact our results.
Our provision for income taxes is subject to volatility and could be negatively impacted by earnings being lower than anticipated in countries that have lower tax rates and higher than anticipated in countries that have higher tax rates; by changes in the valuation of our deferred tax assets and liabilities; by changes to foreign-derived intangible income, global intangible low-tax income and base erosion and anti-abuse tax, research and development capitalization and amortization, and corporate alternative minimum tax laws, regulations, or interpretations thereof; by expiration of or lapses in tax incentives; by transfer pricing adjustments, including the effect of acquisitions on our legal structure; by tax effects of nondeductible compensation; by tax costs related to intercompany realignments; by changes in accounting principles; or by changes in tax laws and regulations, treaties, or interpretations thereof, including changes to the taxation of earnings of our foreign subsidiaries, the deductibility of expenses attributable to foreign income, and the foreign tax credit rules. Significant judgment is required to determine the recognition and measurement attribute prescribed in the accounting guidance for uncertainty in income taxes. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an international association comprised of 38 countries, including the United States, has made changes, including a Pillar Two framework that imposes a minimum tax rate of 15% in each taxing jurisdiction, and is contemplating additional changes to numerous long-standing tax principles. There can be no assurance that these changes and any contemplated changes if finalized, once adopted by countries, will not have an adverse impact on our provision for income taxes. Further, as a result of certain of our ongoing employment and capital investment actions and commitments, our income in certain countries was subject to reduced tax rates. Our failure to meet these commitments could adversely impact our provision for income taxes. In addition, we are subject to the continuous examination of our income tax returns by the Internal Revenue Service and other tax authorities. We regularly assess the likelihood of adverse outcomes resulting from these examinations to determine the adequacy of our provision for income taxes. There can be no assurance that the outcomes from these continuous examinations will not have an adverse effect on our operating results and financial condition.
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Our business and operations are especially subject to the risks of earthquakes, floods, and other natural catastrophic events (including as a result of global climate change).
Our corporate headquarters, including certain of our research and development operations are located in the Silicon Valley area of Northern California, a region known for seismic activity. Additionally, a certain number of our facilities are located near rivers that have experienced flooding in the past. Also certain of our customers, suppliers and logistics centers are located in regions that have been or may be affected by earthquake, tsunami and flooding or other weather-related activity which in the past has disrupted, and in the future could disrupt, the flow of supply chain components and delivery of products. In addition, global climate change may result in significant natural disasters occurring more frequently and/or with greater intensity, such as drought, wildfires, storms, sea-level rise, changing precipitation, and flooding. We have not to date experienced a material event as a result of these kinds of natural disasters; however, the occurrence of any such event in the future could materially harm our business, operating results, and financial condition.
Terrorism, war, and other events may harm our business, operating results and financial condition.
The continued threat of terrorism and heightened security and military action in response thereto, or any other current or future acts of terrorism, war (such as the on-going Russia-Ukraine war and Middle East conflicts and wars), and other events (such as economic sanctions, trade restrictions and reactions of the governments, markets and the general public, including the sanctions and restrictions related to the on-going Russia-Ukraine war) may cause further disruptions to the economies of the United States and other countries and create further uncertainties or could otherwise negatively impact our business, operating results, and financial condition. Likewise, events such as loss of infrastructure and utilities services such as energy, transportation, or telecommunications could have similar negative impacts. To the extent that such disruptions or uncertainties result in delays or cancellations of customer orders or the manufacture or shipment of our products, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be materially harmed.
There can be no assurance that our operating results and financial condition will not be negatively impacted by our incurrence of debt.
As of the end of fiscal 2025, we have senior unsecured notes outstanding in an aggregate principal amount of $24.8 billion that mature at specific dates from calendar year 2026 through 2064. We have also established a commercial paper program under which we may issue short-term, unsecured commercial paper notes on a private placement basis up to a maximum aggregate amount outstanding at any time of $15.0 billion, and we had $3.5 billion in commercial paper notes outstanding under this program as of July 26, 2025. There can be no assurance that our incurrence of this debt or any future debt, including any additional debt to refinance maturing debt, will be a better means of providing liquidity to us than would our use of our existing cash resources. Further, we cannot be assured that our maintenance of this indebtedness or incurrence of future indebtedness will not negatively impact our operating results or financial condition. In addition, changes by any rating agency to our credit rating can negatively impact the value and liquidity of both our debt and equity securities, as well as the terms upon which we may borrow under our commercial paper program or future debt issuances.
Our reputation and/or business could be negatively impacted by matters relating to environmental, social, and governance and/or our reporting of such matters.
We are subject to evolving and sometimes conflicting, laws, regulations, policies, and investor and other stakeholder expectations concerning environmental, social, and governance matters, such as environmental sustainability and climate change, both in the United States and internationally. Any initiatives, goals, or commitments we disclose in this regard involve risks and uncertainties and could be difficult to achieve and costly to implement. For example, in September 2021, we announced our goal to achieve net zero across all scopes of greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, the achievement of which relies, in large part, on the accuracy of our estimates and assumptions around the enhanced power efficiency of our products, the adoption of renewable energy at customer and supplier sites, and the adoption of certain of our products and services by our customers. We could fail to achieve, or be perceived to fail to achieve, our 2040 net zero goal or other initiatives, goals, or commitments. In addition, in a climate where there are changing and increasingly divergent views on where our focus should be on these matters, our initiatives, goals, or commitments, or any revisions to them, are often criticized and the accuracy, adequacy, or completeness of such disclosures challenged. Our actual or perceived failure to achieve our initiatives, goals, or commitments, or otherwise successfully manage investor or other stakeholder expectations on these matters, could negatively impact our reputation or otherwise harm our business.
Risks Related to Intellectual Property
Our proprietary rights may prove difficult to enforce.
We generally rely on patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secret laws to establish and maintain proprietary rights in our technology and products. Although we have been issued numerous patents and other patent applications are currently pending, there can be no assurance that any of these patents or other proprietary rights will not be challenged, invalidated, or
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circumvented or that our rights will, in fact, provide competitive advantages to us. Furthermore, many key aspects of our technology are governed by industry-wide standards, which are usable by all market entrants. In addition, there can be no assurance that patents will be issued from pending applications or that claims allowed on any patents will be sufficiently broad to protect our technology. Additionally, some U.S. governmental entities and courts have expressed a position that U.S. copyright and patent protection should be limited to protecting inventions and works of authorship created by humans. Therefore, U.S. copyright or patent protection for inventions or works developed in part or wholly by generative AI tools may be limited, or not available at all. In addition, the laws of some foreign countries may not protect our proprietary rights to the same extent as do the laws of the United States. The outcome of any actions taken in these foreign countries may be different than if such actions were determined under the laws of the United States. Although we are not dependent on any individual patents or group of patents for particular segments of the business in which we compete, if we are unable to protect our proprietary rights to the totality of the features (including aspects of products protected other than by patent rights) in a market, we may find ourselves at a competitive disadvantage to others who need not incur the substantial expense, time, and effort required to create innovative products that have enabled us to be successful.
We may be found to infringe on intellectual property rights of others.
Third parties, including customers, have in the past and may in the future assert claims or initiate litigation related to exclusive patent, copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property rights to technologies and related standards that are relevant to us. These assertions have increased over time as a result of our growth and the general increase in the pace of patent claimsassertions, particularly in the United States. Because of the existence of a large number of patents in the information technology field, the secrecy of some pending patents, and the rapid rate of issuance of new patents, it is not economically practical or even possible to determine in advance whether a product or any of its components infringes or will infringe on the patent rights of others. The asserted claims and/or initiated litigation can include claimsagainst us or our manufacturers, suppliers, or customers, alleginginfringement of their proprietary rights with respect to our existing or future products or components of those products. Regardless of the merit of these claims, they can be time-consuming, result in costlylitigation and diversion of technical and management personnel, or require us to develop a non-infringing technology or enter into license agreements. Where claims are made by customers, resistance even to unmeritoriousclaims could damage customer relationships. There can be no assurance that licenses will be available on acceptable terms and conditions, if at all, or that our indemnification by our suppliers will be adequate to cover our costs if a claim were brought directly against us or our customers. Furthermore, because of the potential for high court awards, including injunctive relief, that are not necessarily predictable, it is not unusual to find even arguably unmeritoriousclaims settled for significant amounts. If any infringement or other intellectual property claim made against us by any third party is successful, if we are required to indemnify a customer with respect to a claim against the customer, or if we fail to develop non-infringing technology or license the proprietary rights on commercially reasonable terms and conditions, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be materially harmed. For additional information regarding our indemnification obligations, see Note 14(e) to the Consolidated Financial Statements contained in this report. Our exposure to risks associated with the use of intellectual property may be increased as a result of acquisitions, as we have a lower level of visibility into the development process with respect to such technology or the care taken to safeguard againstinfringement risks. Further, in the past, third parties have made infringement and similar claims after we have acquired technology that had not been asserted prior to our acquisition.
We rely on the availability of third-party licenses.
Many of our commercial offerings are designed to include software or other intellectual property licensed from third parties. It may be necessary in the future to seek or renew licenses relating to various aspects of these products. There can be no assurance that the necessary licenses would be available on acceptable terms, if at all. The inability to obtain certain licenses or other rights or to obtain such licenses or rights on favorable terms, or the need to engage in litigation regarding these matters, could materially harm our business, operating results, and financial condition. Moreover, the inclusion in our commercial offerings of software or other intellectual property licensed from third parties on a nonexclusive basis could limit our ability to protect our proprietary rights in our products.
Risks Related to Cybersecurity, Privacy, and Regulatory Requirements
Cyber attacks, data breaches or other incidents impacting our solutions and IT environment may disrupt our operations, harm our operating results and financial condition, and damage our reputation or otherwise materially harm our business; and cyber attacks, data breaches or other incidents on our customers’ or third-party providers’ networks, or in third-party products we use, could result in claims of liability against us, give rise to legal and/or regulatory action, damage our reputation or otherwise materially harm our business.
We experience cyber attacks and other attempts to gainunauthorized access on a regular basis to (i) our products and services (together, our “solutions”) and (ii) the servers, data centers, networks, systems, and cloud-based services operated or enabled by us, or by third parties upon which we rely, on or through which our and third-party data are stored, processed, or can be
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accessed (collectively, our “IT environment”). We anticipate continuing to be increasingly subject to such attempts as cyber attacks become more sophisticated and difficult to predict and protect against. Furthermore, the emergence and maturation of AI capabilities has led to new and/or more effective methods of cyber attacks. Despite our active implementation of security and other measures, our solutions and IT environment have been, and continue to be, vulnerable to cyber attacks, incidents, data breaches, malware, inadvertenterror, disruptions, failures, physical security breaches, tampering or other theft or misuse, including by employees, contingent workers, and malicious actors. Additionally, nation-state actors or their agents have in the past successfully attacked our IT environment and have also exploitedvulnerabilities in our solutions to carry out attacks, and we anticipate that these attacks and the exploitation of vulnerabilities in our solutions will continue and may intensify during periods of diplomatic or armed conflict or other geopolitical tensions. Further, a cyber attack, vulnerabilityexploitation, or other incident could go undetected and persist in our environments, or those of our customers or third-party providers upon which we rely, for extended periods. Cyber-related events have caused, and in the future could result in, compromise to, or the disruption of access to, the operation of our solutions and IT environment or those of our customers or third-party providers upon which we rely, or result in confidential information stored on our systems or our customers’ or other third-party systems being improperly accessed, processed, disclosed now (or in the future), or being lost or stolen. Efforts to limit the ability of malicious actors to disrupt the operations of the Internet or undermine our security efforts are costly to implement and may not be successful. Breaches of security in our IT environment, our customers’ or third-party providers’ networks, or in third-party products we use, regardless of whether the breach is attributable to a vulnerability in our solutions, a failure by us to timely mitigate or apply a security fix for products we use that are found vulnerable, or a failure to maintain the digital security infrastructure or security tools that protect the integrity of our solutions and IT environment, could, in each case, result in claims of legal and/or regulatory action against us, damage our reputation or otherwise materially harm our business. The occurrence of a cyber attack, data breach or other incident could subject us to direct or indirect liability to our customers, data subjects, suppliers, business partners, employees, and others, give rise to legal and/or regulatory action, could damage our reputation or could otherwise negatively impact our business, any of which could materially harm our business, operating results, and financial condition.
Vulnerabilities and critical security defects, prioritization decisions regarding remedying vulnerabilities or security defects, failure of third-party providers to remedy vulnerabilities or security defects, or customers not deploying security updates in a timely manner or deciding not to upgrade our solutions to those with security updates or security enhancements applied could result in claims of liability against us, damage our reputation, or otherwise materially harm our business.
The products and services (together, our “solutions”) we sell to customers, and the cloud-based services operated or enabled by us, or by third parties upon which we rely, inevitably contain vulnerabilities or security defects (despite our efforts to prevent and detect them through secure development lifecycle practices, testing, or other means), which have not been remedied or cannot be disclosed without compromising security. We also make prioritization decisions in determining which vulnerabilities or security defects to fix and the timing of these fixes. Even when we prioritize a vulnerability or security defect, in certain instances it has taken, and in the future could take, time for us to develop and test a remedy and the remedy may ultimately be insufficient to fully fix the issue or may be found to create other issues. In addition, workarounds or other mitigation efforts in certain instances have not been, and in the future may not be, available or sufficient to protect customers prior to a security update being made available. Vulnerabilities can persist even after we have issued security updates if we have not identified and addressed the root cause of a particular vulnerability, if customers have not installed the most recent updates, if the attackers exploited the vulnerabilities before a security update is applied (such as to install additional malware to further compromise customers’ systems), or if a previously patched vulnerability is inadvertently reintroduced due to a security regression during future development or a changed deployment. Additionally, customers may also desire to test security updates before they can be deployed which can delay implementation. When customers do not deploy security updates in a timely manner, use solutions that are end of life and no longer receive security updates, decide not to upgrade to the latest versions of our solutions containing security updates or security enhancements, configure our solutions in insecure ways, or fail to sufficiently monitor activity on those solutions, they are left vulnerable. In addition, we rely on third-party providers of software (including open source) and cloud-based services on which our and third-party data is stored or processed, and we cannot control the timing at which third-party providers remedy vulnerabilities, which could leave us vulnerable. Failure to comply with internal security policies and standards, including secure development lifecycle practices, failure to prevent or promptly mitigate vulnerabilities and security defects, prioritization errors in remedying vulnerabilities or security defects, failure of third-party providers to remedy vulnerabilities or security defects, or customers not deploying security updates in a timely manner, deciding not to upgrade solutions, or configuring our solutions in insecure ways could, in each case, result in claims of legal and/or regulatory action against us, damage our reputation, or otherwise materially harm our business.
Our actual or perceived failure to adequately protect and appropriately use data could result in claims of legal and/or regulatory action against us, damage our reputation, or otherwise materially harm our business.
Global privacy and data protection-related laws and regulations, including cybersecurity laws, are evolving, extensive, and complex. Compliance with these laws and regulations is difficult and costly. In addition, evolving legal requirements restricting
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or controlling the collection, processing, use or cross-border transmission of data, including regulation of cloud-based services, could materially affect our customers’ ability to use, and our ability to sell, our products and services. The interpretation and application of these laws in some instances is uncertain, and our legal and regulatory obligations are subject to frequent changes. For example, the European Union’s (“EU”) General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) applies to our activities conducted from an establishment in the EU or related to products and services offered in the EU and imposes a range of compliance obligations regarding the handling of personal data for both ourselves and our customers. Additionally, we are subject to California’s Consumer Privacy Act, Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Act, and other laws, regulations, and obligations around the world that govern the handling of personal data. Our actual or perceived failure to comply with applicable laws and regulations or other obligations relating to the use of data and protecting data from unauthorized access, use, or other processing, could subject us to claims of liability, or give rise to legal and/or regulatory action, damage our reputation, and/ or otherwise negatively impact our business, any of which could materially harm our operating results and financial condition.
Our business, operating results, and financial condition could be materially harmed by evolving regulatory uncertainty or obligations applicable to our products and services.
Changes in regulatory requirements applicable to the industries and sectors in which we operate, in the United States and in other countries, could materially affect the sales and use of our products and services. In particular, economic sanctions and changes to export and import control requirements have impacted and may continue to impact our ability to sell and support our products and services in certain jurisdictions. In addition, changes in telecommunications regulations could impact our service provider customers’ purchase of our products and services, and they could also impact sales of our own regulated offerings. Government and other customers' procurement policies, priorities, regulations, technology initiatives and/or other obligations often give rise to evolving privacy, cybersecurity, operational resilience, data governance, or other requirements; the failure or delay in meeting and maintaining compliance with such requirements could negatively impact our business, including by limiting our ability to sell products and services, directly or indirectly, to public sector, critical infrastructure, and other customers. Additional areas of uncertainty that could impact sales of our products and services include laws, regulations, or customer procurement requirements related to encryption technology, data, AI, privacy, cybersecurity, operational resilience, environmental sustainability (including climate change), human rights, product certification, product and digital accessibility, country of origin, and national security and other security controls applicable to our offerings and supply chain. Changes in regulatory requirements or our actual or perceived failure to comply (or to enable our customers to comply when using our offerings) with applicable laws, regulations, or other obligations could materially harm our business, operating results, and financial condition.
Risks Related to Ownership of Our Stock
Our stock price may be volatile.
Historically, our common stock has experienced substantial price volatility, particularly as a result of variations between our actual financial results and the published expectations of analysts and as a result of announcements by our competitors and us. Furthermore, speculation in the press or investment community about our strategic position, financial condition, results of operations, business, security of our products, or significant transactions can cause changes in our stock price. In addition, the stock market has experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have affected the market price of many technology companies, in particular, and that have often been unrelated to the operating performance of these companies. These factors, as well as general economic and political conditions and the announcement of proposed and completed acquisitions or other significant transactions, or any difficulties associated with such transactions, by us or our current or potential competitors, may materially harm the market price of our common stock in the future. Additionally, volatility, lack of positive performance in our stock price or changes to our overall compensation program, including our stock incentive program, may negatively impact our ability to retain key employees, virtually all of whom are compensated, in part, based on the performance of our stock price.
adversely
OVERVIEW
Cisco designs and sells a broad range of technologies that help to power, secure, and draw insights from the Internet. We are incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) into our product portfolios across networking, security, collaboration and observability as well as integrating our products more tightly together. We are simplifying how our technology is delivered, managed and optimized and helping customers maximize the business value of their technology investments.
A summary of our results is as follows (in millions, except percentages and per-share amounts):
Three Months Ended
Years Ended
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
Variance
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
Variance
Revenue
Gross margin percentage
pts
pts
Research and development
Sales and marketing
General and administrative
Total R&D, sales and marketing, general and administrative
Total as a percentage of revenue
pts
pts
Restructuring and other charges included in operating expenses
Operating income as a percentage of revenue
pts
pts
Interest and other income (loss), net
Income tax percentage
pts
pts
Net income
Net income as a percentage of revenue
pts
pts
Earnings per share—diluted
Percentages may not recalculate due to rounding.
NM — Not meaningful
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CISCO SYSTEMS, INC.
MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS (Continued)
Fiscal 2025 Compared with Fiscal 2024
In fiscal 2025, we delivered strong revenue growth across all geographies and solid margins as we saw a positive demand environment. Total revenue increased by 5% compared with fiscal 2024. Our results for fiscal 2025 include a full year of Splunk's results compared to approximately four months for fiscal 2024. Within total revenue, product revenue increased by 6% and services revenue increased by 3%. In fiscal 2025, total software revenue was $22.3 billion, an increase of 21%, driven by the contribution of Splunk. Total subscription revenue increased 15%, driven by the contribution of Splunk.
Total gross margin increased by 0.2 percentage points. Product gross margin increased by 0.2 percentage points, driven by benefits from Splunk and productivity improvements, partially offset by negative impacts from pricing, a charge as a result of a legal dispute with a supplier, and the amortization of purchased intangible assets primarily related to Splunk. As a percentage of revenue, research and development, sales and marketing, and general and administrative expenses, collectively, increased by 1.8 percentage points. Operating income as a percentage of revenue decreased by 1.8 percentage points primarily due to increases in amortization of purchased intangible assets and share-based compensation expense in fiscal 2025, and a charge in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 as a result of a legal dispute with a supplier. Diluted earnings per share was flat compared with fiscal 2024.
In terms of our geographic segments, revenue from the Americas increased by $1.7 billion, EMEA revenue increased by $0.7 billion and revenue in our APJC segment increased by $0.5 billion. From a customer market perspective, product revenue growth was led by the enterprise market and the service provider and cloud market. The revenue increase in our service provider and cloud market was driven by AI infrastructure revenue from webscale customers. From a product category perspective, the product revenue increased 6% year over year, driven by a growth in revenue in Security of 59%, Observability of 26%, and Collaboration of 1%, partially offset by a decline in Networking of 3%. The product revenue growth in Security and Observability were each driven in large part by the contribution of Splunk.
We continue to operate in a highly competitive environment, and one that is complex especially with respect to tariffs and trade policy. We plan to continue to invest in key priority areas with the objective of driving profitable growth over the long term. We remain focused on delivering innovation across our technologies to assist our customers in executing on their digital transformations and on accelerating innovation across our portfolio. We believe that we are making progress on our strategic priorities.
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CISCO SYSTEMS, INC.
MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS (Continued)
Fourth Quarter Snapshot
For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, as compared with the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024, total revenue increased by 8%. Within total revenue, product revenue increased by 10% and services revenue was flat. With regard to our geographic segment performance, on a year-over-year basis, revenue in Americas increased by 9%, EMEA increased by 4% and APJC increased by 7%. From a product category perspective, we experienced product revenue growth in Networking, Security, Observability, and Collaboration . Total gross margin decreased by 1.2 percentage point s, driven primarily by a charge as a result of a legal dispute with a supplier. As a percentage of revenue, research and development, sales and marketing, and general and administrative expenses, collectively, decreased by 2.2 percentage points. Operating income as a percentage of revenue increased by 1.8 percentage points primarily driven by lower amortization of purchased intangible assets, lower restructuring and other charges, and a decrease in cash compensation expenses from acquisitions, partially offset by a charge as a result of a legal dispute with a supplier. Diluted earnings per share increased by 19%, primarily driven by the revenue increase and the increase in our operating margin percentage.
Strategy and Priorities
In today's digital-first world, businesses and organizations globally are deploying technology to pursue their strategic objectives, from accelerating growth to enhancing operational efficiency and fostering innovation. Our strategy is to securely connect everything to make those desired outcomes possible.
For a full discussion of our strategy and priorities, see “Item 1. Business.”
Other Key Financial Measures
The following is a summary of our other key financial measures for fiscal 2025 compared with fiscal 2024 (in millions):
Fiscal 2025
Fiscal 2024
Cash and cash equivalents and investments
Cash provided by operating activities
Remaining performance obligations
Repurchases of common stock—stock repurchase program
Dividends paid
Inventories
Total debt
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CISCO SYSTEMS, INC.
MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS (Continued)
CRITICAL ACCOUNTING ESTIMATES
The preparation of financial statements and related disclosures in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States requires us to make judgments, assumptions, and estimates that affect the amounts reported in the Consolidated Financial Statements and accompanying notes. Note 2 to the Consolidated Financial Statements describes the significant accounting policies and methods used in the preparation of the Consolidated Financial Statements. The accounting policies described below are significantly affected by critical accounting estimates. Such accounting policies require significant judgments, assumptions, and estimates used in the preparation of the Consolidated Financial Statements, and actual results could differ materially from the amounts reported based on these policies.
Revenue Recognition
We enter into contracts with customers that can include various combinations of products and services which are generally distinct and accounted for as separate performance obligations, resulting in contracts that may contain multiple performance obligations. We determine whether arrangements are distinct based on whether the customer can benefit from the product or service on its own or together with other resources that are readily available and whether our commitment to transfer the product or service to the customer is separately identifiable from other obligations in the contract. We classify our hardware, perpetual software licenses, and SaaS as distinct performance obligations. Term software licenses represent multiple obligations, which include software licenses and software maintenance. In transactions where we deliver hardware or software, we are typically the principal and we record revenue and costs of goods sold on a gross basis.
We recognize revenue upon transfer of control of promised goods or services in a contract with a customer in an amount that reflects the consideration we expect to receive in exchange for those products or services. Transfer of control occurs once the customer has the contractual right to use the product, generally upon shipment, electronic delivery (or when the software is available for download by the customer), or once title and risk of loss has transferred to the customer. Transfer of control can also occur over time for software maintenance and services as the customer receives the benefit over the contract term. Our hardware and perpetual software licenses are distinct performance obligations where revenue is recognized upfront upon transfer of control. Term software licenses include multiple performance obligations where the term licenses are recognized upfront upon transfer of control, with the associated software maintenance revenue recognized ratably over the contract term as services and software updates are provided. SaaS arrangements do not include the right for the customer to take possession of the software during the term, and therefore have one distinct performance obligation which is satisfied over time with revenue recognized ratably over the contract term as the customer consumes the services. On our product sales, we record consideration from shipping and handling on a gross basis within net product sales. We record our revenue net of any associated sales taxes.
Revenue is allocated among these performance obligations in a manner that reflects the consideration that we expect to be entitled to for the promised goods or services based on standalone selling prices (SSP). SSP is estimated for each distinct performance obligation and judgment may be required in their determination. The best evidence of SSP is the observable price of a product or service when we sell the goods separately in similar circumstances and to similar customers. In instances where SSP is not directly observable, we determine SSP using information that may include market conditions and other observable inputs.
We assess relevant contractual terms in our customer contracts to determine the transaction price. We apply judgment in identifying contractual terms and determining the transaction price as we may be required to estimate variable consideration when determining the amount of revenue to recognize. Variable consideration includes potential contractual penalties and various rebate, cooperative marketing and other incentive programs that we offer to our distributors, channel partners and customers that we sell to directly. When determining the amount of revenue to recognize, we estimate the expected usage of these programs, applying the expected value or most likely estimate and update the estimate at each reporting period as actual utilization becomes available. We also consider the customers’ right of return in determining the transaction price, where applicable. If actual credits received by customers under these programs were to deviate significantly from our estimates, which are based on historical experience, our revenue could be adversely affected.
See Note 3 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for more details.
Inventory Valuation and Liability for Purchase Commitments with Contract Manufacturers and Suppliers
Inventory is written down based on excess and obsolete inventories, determined primarily by future demand forecasts. Inventory write-downs are measured as the difference between the cost of the inventory and net realizable value, based upon assumptions about future demand, and are charged to the provision for inventory. At the point of the loss recognition, a new, lower cost basis for that inventory is established, and subsequent changes in facts and circumstances do not result in the restoration or increase in that newly established cost basis.
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CISCO SYSTEMS, INC.
MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS (Continued)
We record a provision for firm, noncancelable, and unconditional purchase commitments with contract manufacturers and suppliers for quantities in excess of our future demand forecasts consistent with the valuation of our excess and obsolete inventory. Both provisions are a component of cost of sales.
Our total provisions for inventory and the liability related to purchase commitments with contract manufacturers and suppliers were $493 million, $819 million, and $730 million in fiscal 2025, 2024, and 2023, respectively. If there were to be a sudden and significant decrease in demand for our products, or a higher incidence of inventory obsolescence because of rapidly changing technology or customer requirements, then we could be required to increase our inventory write-downs and our liability for purchase commitments with contract manufacturers and suppliers, and accordingly our profitability, could be adversely affected. We regularly evaluate our exposure for inventory write-downs, and the adequacy of our liability for purchase commitments. For further discussion around the supply chain impacts and risks, see “—Results of Operations—Gross Margin—Supply Chain Impacts and Risks” and “—Liquidity and Capital Resources—Inventory Supply Chain” under Item 7 of this report.
Loss Contingencies
We are subject to the possibility of various losses arising in the ordinary course of business. We consider the likelihood of the incurrence of a liability, as well as our ability to reasonably estimate the amount of loss, in determining loss contingencies. An estimated loss contingency is accrued when it is probable that a liability has been incurred and the amount of loss can be reasonably estimated. We regularly evaluate information available to us to determine whether such accruals should be made or adjusted and whether new accruals are required.
Third parties, including customers, have in the past and may in the future assert claims or initiate litigation related to exclusive patent, copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property rights to technologies and related standards that are relevant to us. These assertions have increased over time as a result of our growth and the general increase in the pace of patent claimsassertions, particularly in the United States. If any infringement or other intellectual property claim made against us by any third party is successful, or if we fail to develop non-infringing technology or license the proprietary rights on commercially reasonable terms and conditions, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be materially and adversely affected.
Valuation of Goodwill and Purchased Intangible Assets
Goodwill
Our methodology for allocating the purchase price relating to purchase acquisitions is determined through established valuation techniques. Goodwill represents a residual value as of the acquisition date, which in most cases results in measuring goodwill as an excess of the purchase consideration transferred plus the fair value of any noncontrolling interest in the acquired company over the fair value of net assets acquired, including contingent consideration. We perform goodwill impairment tests on an annual basis in the fourth fiscal quarter and between annual tests in certain circumstances for each reporting unit. The assessment of fair value for goodwill and purchased intangible assets is based on factors that market participants would use in an orderly transaction in accordance with the guidance for the fair value measurement of nonfinancial assets.
In response to changes in industry and market conditions, we could be required to strategically realign our resources and consider restructuring, disposing of, or otherwise exiting businesses, which could result in an impairment of goodwill. There was no impairment of goodwill in fiscal 2025, 2024, and 2023. For the annual impairment testing in fiscal 2025, the excess of the fair value over the carrying value for each of our reporting units was $56.5 billion for the Americas, $80.1 billion for EMEA, and $32.9 billion for APJC.
During the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, we performed a sensitivity analysis for goodwill impairment with respect to each of our respective reporting units and determined that a hypothetical 10% decline in the fair value of each reporting unit would not result in an impairment of goodwill for any reporting unit.
Purchased Intangible Assets
The accounting for acquisitions requires significant estimates and judgments in the valuation of purchased intangible assets. Critical estimates used in the valuation of purchased intangible assets include, but are not limited to, the amount and timing of expected future cash flows, useful lives and discount rates. While our estimates of fair value are based on assumptions that are believed to be reasonable, these assumptions are inherently uncertain and unpredictable and would not reflect unanticipated events and circumstances that may occur.
We make judgments about the recoverability of purchased intangible assets with finite lives whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that an impairment may exist. Recoverability of purchased intangible assets with finite lives is measured
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CISCO SYSTEMS, INC.
MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS (Continued)
by comparing the carrying amount of the asset group to the future undiscounted cash flows the asset group is expected to generate. We review indefinite-lived intangible assets for impairment annually or whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that the asset might be impaired. If the asset is considered impaired, the amount of any impairment is measured as the difference between the carrying value and the fair value of the impaired asset. Assumptions and estimates about future values and remaining useful lives of our purchased intangible assets are complex and subjective. They can be affected by a variety of factors, including external factors such as industry and economic trends, and internal factors such as changes in our business strategy and our internal forecasts. Our ongoing consideration of all the factors described previously could result in impairment charges in the future, which could adversely affect our net income.
Income Taxes
We are subject to income taxes in the United States and numerous foreign jurisdictions. Our effective tax rates differ from the statutory rate, primarily due to the tax impact of state taxes, foreign operations, R&D tax credits, foreign-derived intangible income deductions, global intangible low-taxed income, tax audit settlements, nondeductible compensation, and international realignments. Our effective tax rate was 8.3%, 15.6%, and 17.7% in fiscal 2025, 2024, and 2023, respectively.
Significant judgment is required in evaluating our uncertain tax positions and determining our provision for income taxes. Although we believe our reserves are reasonable, no assurance can be given that the final tax outcome of these matters will not be different from that which is reflected in our historical income tax provisions and accruals. We adjust these reserves due to changing facts and circumstances, such as the closing of a tax audit or the refinement of an estimate. To the extent that the final tax outcome of these matters is different than the amounts recorded, such differences will impact the provision for income taxes in the period in which such determination is made. The provision for income taxes includes the impact of reserve provisions and changes to reserves that are considered appropriate, and the related net interest and penalties.
Significant judgment is also required in determining any valuation allowance recorded against deferred tax assets. In assessing the need for a valuation allowance, we consider all available evidence, including past operating results, estimates of future taxable income, and the feasibility of tax planning strategies. If we change our determination as to the amount of deferred tax assets that can be realized, we will adjust our valuation allowance with a corresponding impact to the provision for income taxes in the period in which such determination is made.
Our provision for income taxes is subject to volatility and could be adversely impacted by earnings being lower than anticipated in countries that have lower tax rates and higher than anticipated in countries that have higher tax rates; by changes in the valuation of our deferred tax assets and liabilities; by changes to foreign-derived intangible income deduction, global intangible low-tax income and base erosion and anti-abuse tax, research and development capitalization and amortization, and corporate alternative minimum tax laws, regulations, or interpretations thereof; by expiration of or lapses in tax incentives; by transfer pricing adjustments, including the effect of acquisitions on our legal structure; by tax effects of nondeductible compensation; by tax costs related to intercompany realignments; by changes in accounting principles; or by changes in tax laws and regulations, treaties, or interpretations thereof, including changes to the taxation of earnings of our foreign subsidiaries, the deductibility of expenses attributable to foreign income, and the foreign tax credit rules. Significant judgment is required to determine the recognition and measurement attributes prescribed in the accounting guidance for uncertainty in income taxes. The OECD, an international association comprised of 38 countries, including the United States, has made changes, including a Pillar Two framework that imposes a minimum tax rate of 15% in each taxing jurisdiction, and is contemplating additional changes to numerous long-standing tax principles. There can be no assurance that these changes and any contemplated changes if finalized, once adopted by countries, will not have an adverse impact on our provision for income taxes. As a result of certain of our ongoing employment and capital investment actions and commitments, our income in certain countries was subject to reduced tax rates. Our failure to meet these commitments could adversely impact our provision for income taxes. In addition, we are subject to the continuous examination of our income tax returns by the IRS and other tax authorities. We regularly assess the likelihood of adverse outcomes resulting from these examinations to determine the adequacy of our provision for income taxes. There can be no assurance that the outcomes from these continuous examinations will not have an adverse impact on our operating results and financial condition.
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CISCO SYSTEMS, INC.
MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS (Continued)
RESULTS OF OPERATIONS
Subsequent to the issuance of our earnings release on August 13, 2025, we settled a legal dispute with a supplier, resulting in a GAAP charge to product cost of sales, which is described in Note 21 to the Consolidated Financial Statements. The information in this Annual Report on Form 10-K supersedes the information contained in our earnings release.
A discussion regarding our financial condition and results of operations for fiscal 2025 compared to fiscal 2024 is presented below. A discussion regarding our financial condition and results of operations for fiscal 2024 compared to fiscal 2023 can be found under Item 7 in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended July 27, 2024, filed with the SEC on September 5, 2024.
Revenue
The following table presents the breakdown of revenue between product and services (in millions, except percentages):
Years Ended
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
July 29, 2023
Variance in Dollars
Variance in Percent
Revenue:
Product
Percentage of revenue
Services
Percentage of revenue
Total
Amounts may not sum and percentages may not recalculate due to rounding.
We manage our business primarily on a geographic basis, organized into three geographic segments. Our revenue, which includes product and services for each segment, is summarized in the following table (in millions, except percentages):
Years Ended
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
July 29, 2023
Variance in Dollars
Variance in Percent
Revenue:
Americas
Percentage of revenue
EMEA
Percentage of revenue
APJC
Percentage of revenue
Total
Amounts may not sum and percentages may not recalculate due to rounding.
Total revenue in fiscal 2025 increased by 5% compared with fiscal 2024. Product revenue increased by 6% and services revenue increased by 3%. Our total revenue reflected growth across each of our geographic segments.
In addition to the impact of macroeconomic factors, including the IT spending environment and the level of spending by government entities, revenue by segment in a particular period may be significantly impacted by the timing of revenue recognition for complex transactions with multiple performance obligations. In addition, certain customers tend to make large and sporadic purchases, and the revenue related to these transactions may also be affected by the timing of revenue recognition, which in turn would impact the revenue of the relevant segment.
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CISCO SYSTEMS, INC.
MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS (Continued)
Product Revenue by Segment
The following table presents the breakdown of product revenue by segment (in millions, except percentages):
Years Ended
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
July 29, 2023
Variance in Dollars
Variance in Percent
Product revenue:
Americas
Percentage of product revenue
EMEA
Percentage of product revenue
APJC
Percentage of product revenue
Total
Amounts may not sum and percentages may not recalculate due to rounding.
Americas
Product revenue in the Americas segment increased by 6%, with growth in the enterprise market and the service provider and cloud market. The growth in the service provider and cloud market was driven by AI infrastructure revenue from webscale customers. These increases were partially offset by a decline in the public sector market. From a country perspective, product revenue increased in the United States, Canada, and Brazil by 7%, 4%, and 8%, respectively.
EMEA
Product revenue in the EMEA segment increased by 4%, driven by growth in the public sector and enterprise markets, partially offset by a slight decline in the service provider and cloud market. From a country perspective, product revenue increased in the United Kingdom, Germany, and France by 9%, 4%, and 6%, respectively.
APJC
Product revenue in the APJC segment increased by 7%, with growth across each of our customer markets. From a country perspective, product revenue increased in Japan, Australia, India, and China by 7%, 11%, 11%, and 10% respectively .
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CISCO SYSTEMS, INC.
MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS (Continued)
Product Revenue by Category
In addition to the primary view on a geographic basis, we also prepare financial information related to product categories and customer markets for various purposes.
The following table presents product revenue by category (in millions, except percentages):
Years Ended
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
July 29, 2023
Variance in Dollars
Variance in Percent
Product revenue:
Networking
Security
Collaboration
Observability
Total
Amounts may not sum and percentages may not recalculate due to rounding.
Networking
The Networking product category consists of our core networking technologies of switching, routing, wireless, and servers. Revenue from the Networking product category decreased by 3%, or $0.9 billion. Revenue declined across the portfolio as a result of product shipments returning to normalized levels during the first half of fiscal 2025 from the elevated levels of product shipments we experienced in the first half of fiscal 2024. Within the portfolio, the revenue decline was primarily driven by servers. We also experienced a revenue decline in switching as a result of a decline in campus switching.
Security
The Security product category consists of our Network Security, Identity and Access Management, SASE and Threat Intelligence, Detection, and Response offerings. Revenue in our Security product category increased by 59%, or $3.0 billion, primarily driven by Threat Intelligence, Detection, and Response offerings, which includes the offerings from Splunk, and to a lesser extent, growth in our SASE and Network Security offerings.
Collaboration
The Collaboration product category consists of our Webex Suite, Collaboration Devices, Contact Center and CPaaS offerings. Revenue in our Collaboration product category increased 1%, or $41 million, primarily driven by revenue growth in our Collaboration Devices, CPaaS and Contact Center offerings, partially offset by a decline in our Webex Suite offerings.
Observability
The Observability product category consists of our network assurance, monitoring and analytics and observability suite offerings. Revenue in our Observability product category increased by 26%, or $218 million, primarily driven by our Observability Suite offerings from Splunk and growth in our ThousandEyes network services offerings, partially offset by a decline in monitoring and analytics.
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CISCO SYSTEMS, INC.
MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS (Continued)
Services Revenue by Segment
The following table presents the breakdown of services revenue by segment (in millions, except percentages):
Years Ended
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
July 29, 2023
Variance in Dollars
Variance in Percent
Services revenue:
Americas
Percentage of service revenue
EMEA
Percentage of service revenue
APJC
Percentage of service revenue
Total
Amounts may not sum and percentages may not recalculate due to rounding.
Services revenue increased 3%, primarily driven by software, cloud and virtualization support from Splunk and product offering support services. Services revenue increased across each of our geographic segments.
Gross Margin
The following table presents the gross margin for products and services (in millions, except percentages):
AMOUNT
PERCENTAGE
Years Ended
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
July 29, 2023
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
July 29, 2023
Gross margin:
Product
Services
Total
Product Gross Margin
The following table summarizes the key factors that contributed to the change in product gross margin percentage from fiscal 2024 to fiscal 2025:
Product Gross Margin Percentage
Fiscal 2024
Productivity (1)
Product pricing
Mix of products sold
Legal dispute with supplier
Amortization of purchased intangible assets
Others
Fiscal 2025
(1) Productivity includes overall manufacturing-related costs, such as component costs, warranty expense, provisions for inventory and the liability related to purchase commitments with contract manufacturers and suppliers, freight, logistics, shipment volume, and other items not categorized elsewhere.
Product gross margin increased by 0.2 percentage points primarily driven by benefits from Splunk and productivity improvements, partially offset by negative impacts from pricing, a charge as a result of a legal dispute with a supplier, and amortization of purchased intangible assets primarily related to Splunk. The productivity improvements were primarily driven
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MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS (Continued)
by the effects of higher shipment volume and lower total provisions for inventory and the liability related to purchase commitments with contract manufacturers and suppliers.
Supply Chain Impacts and Risks
In past periods, we took multiple actions in order to mitigate component shortages and address significant supply constraints, which resulted in the need to secure long-term supply and increased our inventory supply chain balances compared to historical levels. In fiscal 2025, we entered into additional purchase commitments with contract manufacturers and suppliers related to manufacturing Cisco Silicon One and other products to meet demand from webscale and other customers. We expect to continue entering into these additional purchase commitments in fiscal 2026. These actions and additional purchase commitments have in turn significantly increased our supply chain exposure, which has resulted in negative impacts to our product gross margin in recent periods and may result in further negative impacts in future periods. In addition, on August 26, 2025, we settled a legal dispute with a supplier relating to purchase obligations arising under long-term supply arrangements, which resulted in a charge to product cost of sales, which is described in Note 21 to the Consolidated Financial Statements. The remaining and new supply chain exposures include potential material excess and obsolete or other charges if product demand significantly decreases for a sustained duration, we are unable to generate demand for certain products planned for development, or we are otherwise unable to mitigate these supply chain exposures. Additionally, while we are exposed to new and proposed tariffs and other trade policies, the extent of such exposure is uncertain but could be significant if the exposure remains and we are unable to mitigate it.
Services Gross Margin
Our services gross margin percentage increased by 0.4 percentage points primarily due to higher sales volume and lower delivery costs, partially offset by higher headcount-related costs.
Our services gross margin normally experiences some fluctuations due to various factors such as the timing of contract initiations in our renewals, our strategic investments in headcount, and the resources we deploy to support the overall service business. Other factors include the mix of service offerings, as the gross margin from our advanced services is typically lower than the gross margin from technical support services.
Gross Margin by Segment
The following table presents the total gross margin for each segment (in millions, except percentages):
AMOUNT
PERCENTAGE
Years Ended
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
July 29, 2023
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
July 29, 2023
Gross margin:
Americas
EMEA
APJC
Segment total
Unallocated corporate items (1)
Total
(1) The unallocated corporate items include the effects of amortization and impairments of acquisition-related intangible assets, share-based compensation expense, significant litigation settlements (which includes the supplier-related legal settlement as described in Note 21 to the Consolidated Financial Statements) and other contingencies, charges related to asset impairments and restructurings, and certain other charges. We do not allocate these items to the gross margin for each segment because management does not include such information in measuring the performance of the operating segments.
Amounts may not sum and percentages may not recalculate due to rounding.
The Americas segment had a gross margin percentage increase driven by positive impacts from productivity improvements and favorable product mix, partially offset by pricing erosion.
The gross margin percentage increase in our EMEA segment was primarily due to positive impacts from productivity improvements and favorable product mix, partially offset by pricing erosion.
The APJC segment had a gross margin percentage decrease driven primarily by pricing erosion and lower services gross margin, partially offset by positive impacts from productivity improvements and favorable product mix.
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CISCO SYSTEMS, INC.
MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS (Continued)
Research and Development (“R&D”), Sales and Marketing, and General and Administrative (“G&A”) Expenses
R&D, sales and marketing, and G&A expenses are summarized in the following table (in millions, except percentages):
Years Ended
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
July 29, 2023
Variance in Dollars
Variance in Percent
Research and development
Percentage of revenue
Sales and marketing
Percentage of revenue
General and administrative
Percentage of revenue
Total
Percentage of revenue
R&D Expenses
R&D expenses increased primarily due to higher headcount-related expenses reflecting our investments in AI, share-based compensation expense, cash compensation expenses from acquisitions, and discretionary spending.
Sales and Marketing Expenses
Sales and marketing expenses increased primarily due to higher headcount-related expenses, cash compensation expenses from acquisitions, share-based compensation expense, and discretionary spending, partially offset by lower contracted services spending.
G&A Expenses
G&A expenses increased primarily due to higher headcount-related expenses, share-based compensation expense, and discretionary spending, partially offset by lower acquisition-related costs and lower contracted services spending.
Effect of Foreign Currency
In fiscal 2025, foreign currency fluctuations, net of hedging, decreased the combined R&D, sales and marketing, and G&A expenses by approximately $16 million, or 0.1%, compared with fiscal 2024.
Amortization of Purchased Intangible Assets
The following table presents the amortization of purchased intangible assets including impairment charges (in millions):
Years Ended
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
July 29, 2023
Amortization of purchased intangible assets:
Cost of sales
Operating expenses
Total
The increase in amortization of purchased intangible assets was primarily due to the acquisition of Splunk and other recent acquisitions, partially offset by certain purchased intangible assets that became fully amortized in larger part from our fiscal 2021 acquisition of Acacia, and lower impairment charges in fiscal 2025. Impairment charges related to purchased intangible assets were $40 million and $145 million for fiscal 2025 and fiscal 2024, respectively. The impairment charges were a result of declines in estimated fair values resulting from the reductions in or the elimination of expected future cash flows associated with certain in-process research and development and technology intangible assets.
Restructuring and Other Charges
We recognized total restructuring and other charges, which are included in operating expenses, of $744 million and $789 million in fiscal 2025 and 2024, respectively.
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MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS (Continued)
In the first quarter of fiscal 2025, we announced a restructuring plan in order to allow us to invest in key growth opportunities and drive more efficiencies in our business. This restructuring plan is expected to impact approximately 7% of our global workforce with estimated pre-tax charges of approximately $1 billion. In connection with this restructuring plan, we incurred charges of $744 million during fiscal 2025. We expect this plan to be substantially completed by the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2026.
In the third quarter of fiscal 2024, we initiated a restructuring plan in order to realign the organization and enable further investment in key priority areas. In connection with this plan, we incurred charges of $654 million for fiscal 2024 and the plan is complete.
Operating Income
The following table presents our operating income and our operating income as a percentage of revenue (in millions, except percentages):
Years Ended
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
July 29, 2023
Operating income
Operating income as a percentage of revenue
Operating income decreased by 3%, and as a percentage of revenue operating income decreased by 1.8 percentage points. These changes resulted primarily from higher share-based compensation expense, higher amortization of purchased intangible assets, a charge as a result of a legal dispute with a supplier, and higher cash compensation expenses from acquisitions.
Interest and Other Income (Loss), Net
Interest Income (Expense), Net The following table summarizes interest income and interest expense (in millions):
Years Ended
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
July 29, 2023
Variance in Dollars
Interest income
Interest expense
Interest income (expense), net
The decrease in interest income was driven by a lower average balance of cash and available-for-sale debt investments and lower interest rates. The increase in interest expense was primarily driven by a higher average balance of debt outstanding during the period.
Other Income (Loss), Net The components of other income (loss), net, are summarized as follows (in millions):
Years Ended
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
July 29, 2023
Variance in Dollars
Gains (losses) on investments, net:
Available-for-sale debt investments
Marketable equity investments
Privately held investments
Net gains (losses) on investments
Other gains (losses), net
Other income (loss), net
The change in our other income (loss), net was primarily driven by lower impairment charges, higher unrealized gains on our privately held investments, and higher gains on our marketable equity investments.
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CISCO SYSTEMS, INC.
MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS (Continued)
Provision for Income Taxes
The provision for income taxes resulted in an effective tax rate of 8.3% for fiscal 2025, compared with 15.6% for fiscal 2024. The net 7.3 percentage points decrease in the effective tax rate was primarily due to a $720 million tax benefit related to the U.S. Tax Court opinion issued during the first quarter of fiscal 2025 regarding the U.S. taxation of deemed foreign dividends in the transition year of the Tax Cut and Job Act ("Tax Act") (our fiscal 2018) and an increase in stock-based compensation windfall.
For a full reconciliation of our effective tax rate to the U.S. federal statutory rate of 21% and for further explanation of our provision for income taxes, see Note 18 to the Consolidated Financial Statements.
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CISCO SYSTEMS, INC.
MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS (Continued)
LIQUIDITY AND CAPITAL RESOURCES
The following sections discuss the effects of changes in our balance sheet, our capital allocation strategy including stock repurchase program and dividends, our contractual obligations, and certain other commitments and activities on our liquidity and capital resources.
Balance Sheet and Cash Flows
Cash and Cash Equivalents and Investments The following table summarizes our cash and cash equivalents and investments (in millions):
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
Increase (Decrease)
Cash and cash equivalents
Available-for-sale debt investments
Marketable equity securities
Total
The net decrease in cash and cash equivalents and investments from fiscal 2024 to fiscal 2025 was primarily driven by cash returned to stockholders in the form of cash dividends of $6.4 billion and repurchases of common stock of $6.0 billion, net repayments of debt and short-term borrowing of $2.8 billion, and capital expenditures of $0.9 billion. These uses of cash were partially offset by net cash provided by operating activities of $14.2 billion. The net cash provided by operating activities during fiscal 2025 benefited from lower tax payments.
We maintain an investment portfolio of various holdings, types, and maturities. We classify our investments as short-term investments based on their nature and their availability for use in current operations. We believe the overall credit quality of our portfolio is strong, with our cash equivalents and our available-for-sale debt investment portfolio consisting primarily of high quality investment-grade securities. We believe that our strong cash and cash equivalents and investments position allows us to use our cash resources for strategic investments to gain access to new technologies, for acquisitions, for customer financing activities, for working capital needs, and for the repurchase of shares of common stock and payment of dividends as discussed below.
Securities Lending We periodically engage in securities lending activities with certain of our available-for-sale debt investments. These transactions are accounted for as a secured lending of the securities, and the securities are typically loaned only on an overnight basis. We require collateral equal to at least 102% of the fair market value of the loaned security and that the collateral be in the form of cash or liquid, high-quality assets. We engage in these secured lending transactions only with highly creditworthy counterparties, and the associated portfolio custodian has agreed to indemnify us against collateral losses. We did not experience any losses in connection with the secured lending of securities during the periods presented. As of July 26, 2025 and July 27, 2024, we had no outstanding securities lending transactions.
Free Cash Flow and Capital Allocation As part of our capital allocation strategy, we target to return a minimum of 50% of our free cash flow annually to our stockholders through cash dividends and repurchases of common stock.
We define free cash flow as net cash provided by operating activities less cash used to acquire property and equipment. The following table reconciles our net cash provided by operating activities to free cash flow (in millions):
Years Ended
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
July 29, 2023
Net cash provided by operating activities
Acquisition of property and equipment
Free cash flow
We expect that cash provided by operating activities may fluctuate in future periods as a result of a number of factors, including fluctuations in our operating results, the rate at which products are shipped during the quarter (which we refer to as shipment linearity), the timing and collection of accounts receivable and financing receivables, inventory and supply chain management, deferred revenue and the timing and amount of tax and other payments. For additional discussion, see “Part I, Item 1A. Risk Factors” in this report.
We consider free cash flow to be a liquidity measure that provides useful information to management and investors because of our intent to return a stated percentage of free cash flow to stockholders in the form of dividends and stock repurchases. We
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MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS (Continued)
further regard free cash flow as a useful measure because it reflects cash that can be used to, among other things, invest in our business, make strategic acquisitions, repurchase common stock, and pay dividends on our common stock, after deducting capital investments. A limitation of the utility of free cash flow as a measure of financial performance and liquidity is that the free cash flow does not represent the total increase or decrease in our cash balance for the period. In addition, we have other required uses of cash, including repaying the principal of our outstanding indebtedness. Free cash flow is not a measure calculated in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles and should not be regarded in isolation or as an alternative for net cash provided by operating activities or any other measure calculated in accordance with such principles, and other companies may calculate free cash flow in a different manner than we do.
The following table summarizes the dividends paid and stock repurchases (in millions, except per-share amounts):
DIVIDENDS
STOCK REPURCHASE PROGRAM
TOTAL
Years Ended
Per Share
Amount
Shares
Weighted-Average Price per Share
Amount
Amount
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
July 29, 2023
On August 13, 2025, our Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.41 per common share to be paid on October 22, 2025, to all stockholders of record as of the close of business on October 3, 2025. Future dividends will be subject to the approval of our Board of Directors.
The remaining authorized amount for stock repurchases under this program is approximately $14.2 billion, with no termination date.
Accounts Receivable, Net The following table summarizes our accounts receivable, net (in millions):
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
Increase (Decrease)
Accounts receivable, net
Our accounts receivable net, as of July 26, 2025 was flat year over year as the increase in the amount of product and service billings was substantially offset by improved shipment linearity in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025.
Inventory Supply Chain The following table summarizes our inventories and inventory purchase commitments with contract manufacturers and suppliers (in millions):
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
July 29, 2023
Variance vs. July 27, 2024
Variance vs. July 29, 2023
Inventories
Inventory purchase commitments
Inventory deposits and prepayments
The following table summarizes our inventory purchase commitments with contract manufacturers and suppliers by period (in millions):
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
July 29, 2023
Variance vs. July 27, 2024
Variance vs. July 29, 2023
Less than 1 year
1 to 3 years
3 to 5 years
Total (1)
( 1) The purchase commitments with contract manufacturers and suppliers as of July 26, 2025 has been reduced to give effect to the settlement of a legal dispute with a supplier over purchase obligations arising under certain long-term supply arrangements. See Note 21 to the Consolidated Financial Statements.
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MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS (Continued)
Inventory as of July 26, 2025 decreased by 6% and inventory purchase commitments with contract manufacturers and suppliers increased by 47% from our balances at the end of fiscal 2024. The combined increase of 26% in our inventory and inventory purchase commitments as compared with the end of fiscal 2024 was primarily related to commitments with contract manufacturers and suppliers related to manufacturing Cisco Silicon One and other products to meet the demand from webscale and other customers. We expect our inventory balances may increase in future quarters as we work to fulfill this demand.
In addition, we have increased our levels of inventory in recent years in order to help mitigate risks in our supply chain, and began increasing our inventory supply chain balances starting in fiscal 2021 in order to address significant supply constraints seen industry-wide at the time. The increases were primarily due to arrangements to secure supply and pricing for certain product components and commitments with contract manufacturers to meet customer demand and to address extended lead times, as well as advance payments with suppliers to secure future supply, as a result of the supply constraints. Our risks of future material excess and obsolete inventory and related losses are further outlined in the Result of Operations—Product Gross Margin section.
We purchase components from a variety of suppliers and use several contract manufacturers to provide manufacturing services for our products. During the normal course of business, in order to manage manufacturing lead times and help ensure adequate component supply, we enter into agreements with contract manufacturers and suppliers that allow them to procure inventory based upon criteria as defined by us or that establish the parameters defining our requirements and our commitment to securing manufacturing capacity.
Our inventory purchase commitments are for short-term product manufacturing requirements as well as for commitments to suppliers to secure manufacturing capacity. Certain of our inventory purchase commitments are entered into directly with suppliers and relate to fixed-dollar commitments to secure supply and pricing for certain product components for multi-year periods. A significant portion of our reported purchase commitments arising from these agreements are firm, noncancelable, and unconditional commitments. In certain instances, these agreements allow us the option to cancel, reschedule, and adjust our requirements based on our business needs prior to firm orders being placed.
Inventory and supply chain management remain areas of focus as we balance the need to maintain supply chain flexibility to help ensure competitive lead times with the risk of inventory obsolescence because of supply constraints, rapidly changing technology and customer requirements. We believe the amount of our inventory and inventory purchase commitments is appropriate for our current and expected customer demand and revenue levels.
Financing Receivables and Guarantees The following table summarizes our financing receivables (in millions):
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
Increase (Decrease)
Loan receivables, net
Lease receivables, net
Total, net
Financing Receivables Our financing arrangements include loans and leases. Our loan receivables include customer financing for purchases of our hardware, software and services (including technical support and advanced services), and also may include additional funds for other costs associated with network installation and integration of our products and services. Lease receivables include sales-type leases. Arrangements related to leases are generally collateralized by a security interest in the underlying assets. Financing receivables decreased by 3% as compared with the end of fiscal 2024.
Financing Guarantees In the normal course of business, third parties may provide financing arrangements to our customers and channel partners under financing programs. The financing arrangements provided by third parties are related to leases and loans and typically have terms of up to three years. In some cases, we provide guarantees to third parties for these lease and loan arrangements. The financing arrangements to channel partners consist of revolving short-term financing provided by third parties, with payment terms generally ranging from 60 to 90 days. In certain instances, these financing arrangements result in a transfer of our receivables to the third party. The receivables are derecognized upon transfer, as these transfers qualify as true sales, and we receive payments for the receivables from the third party based on our standard payment terms.
The volume of channel partner financing was $24.9 billion, $27.1 billion, and $32.1 billion in fiscal 2025, 2024, and 2023, respectively. These financing arrangements facilitate the working capital requirements of the channel partners, and in some cases, we guarantee a portion of these arrangements. The balance of the channel partner financing subject to guarantees was $1.3 billion and $1.2 billion as of July 26, 2025 and July 27, 2024, respectively. We could be called upon to make payments under these guarantees in the event of nonpayment by the channel partners. Historically, our payments under these arrangements have been immaterial. Where we provide a guarantee, we defer the revenue associated with the channel partner
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MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS (Continued)
financing arrangement in accordance with revenue recognition policies, or we record a liability for the fair value of the guarantees. In either case, the deferred revenue is recognized as revenue when the guarantee is removed. As of July 26, 2025, the total maximum potential future payments related to these guarantees was approximately $123 million, of which approximately $13 million was recorded as deferred revenue.
Borrowings
Senior Notes The following table summarizes the principal amount of our senior notes (in millions):
Maturity Date
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
Senior notes:
Fixed-rate notes:
June 15, 2025
February 26, 2026
February 28, 2026
September 20, 2026
February 26, 2027
February 24, 2028
February 26, 2029
February 24, 2030
February 26, 2031
February 24, 2032
February 26, 2034
February 24, 2035
February 15, 2039
January 15, 2040
February 26, 2054
February 24, 2055
February 26, 2064
Total
In February 2025, we issued senior notes for an aggregate principal amount of $5.0 billion.
Interest is payable semiannually on each class of the senior fixed-rate notes, each of which is redeemable by us at any time, subject to a make-whole premium. We were in compliance with all debt covenants as of July 26, 2025.
Commercial Paper We have a short-term debt financing program in which up to $15.0 billion is available through the issuance of commercial paper notes. We use the proceeds from the issuance of commercial paper notes for general corporate purposes. We had $3.5 billion and $10.9 billion in commercial paper notes outstanding as of July 26, 2025, and July 27, 2024, respectively.
Credit Facility On February 2, 2024, we entered into an amended and restated 5-year $5.0 billion unsecured revolving credit agreement. The interest rate for the credit agreement is determined based on a formula using certain market rates. The credit agreement requires that we comply with certain covenants, including that we maintain an interest coverage ratio (defined in the agreement as the ratio of consolidated EBITDA to consolidated interest expense) of not less than 3.0 to 1.0. As of July 26, 2025, we were in compliance with all associated covenants and we had not borrowed any funds under our credit agreement.
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CISCO SYSTEMS, INC.
MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS (Continued)
Remaining Performance Obligations The following table presents the breakdown of remaining performance obligations (in millions):
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
Increase (Decrease)
Product
Services
Total
Short-term RPO
Long-term RPO
Total
Total remaining performance obligations increased 6% in fiscal 2025. Remaining performance obligations for product increased 8% and remaining performance obligations for services increased 5%, compared to fiscal 2024. We expect approximately 50% of total remaining performance obligations to be recognized as revenue over the next 12 months.
Deferred Revenue The following table presents the breakdown of deferred revenue (in millions):
July 26, 2025
July 27, 2024
Increase (Decrease)
Product
Services
Total
Reported as:
Current
Noncurrent
Total
Total deferred revenue increased 1% in fiscal 2025. The increase in deferred product revenue of 2% was primarily due to increased deferrals related to our recurring software offerings. Deferred service revenue was flat year over year.
Contractual Obligations
The impact of contractual obligations on our liquidity and capital resources in future periods should be analyzed in conjunction with the factors that impact our cash flows from operations discussed previously. In addition, we plan for and measure our liquidity and capital resources through an annual budgeting process. The following table summarizes our contractual obligations at July 26, 2025 (in millions):
PAYMENTS DUE BY PERIOD
July 26, 2025
Total
Less than 1 Year
1 to 3 Years
3 to 5 Years
More than 5 Years
Operating leases
Purchase commitments with contract manufacturers and suppliers
Other purchase obligations
Long-term debt
Transition tax payable
Other long-term liabilities
Total by period
Other long-term liabilities (uncertainty in the timing of future payments)
Total
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MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS (Continued)
Operating Leases For more information on our operating leases, see Note 8 to the Consolidated Financial Statements.
Purchase Commitments with Contract Manufacturers and Suppliers We purchase components from a variety of suppliers and use several contract manufacturers to provide manufacturing services for our products. Our inventory purchase commitments are for short-term product manufacturing requirements as well as for commitments to suppliers to secure manufacturing capacity. Certain of our inventory purchase commitments are directly with suppliers and relate to fixed-dollar commitments to secure supply and pricing for certain product components for multi-year periods. A significant portion of our reported purchase commitments arising from these agreements are firm, noncancelable, and unconditional commitments. The purchase commitments with contract manufacturers and suppliers as of July 26, 2025 has been reduced to give effect to the settlement of a legal dispute with a supplier over purchase obligations arising under certain long-term supply arrangements. See Note 21 to the Consolidated Financial Statements. We record a liability for firm, noncancelable, and unconditional purchase commitments for quantities in excess of our future demand forecasts consistent with the valuation of our excess and obsolete inventory. See further discussion in “Inventory Supply Chain.”
Other Purchase Obligations Other purchase obligations represent an estimate of all contractual obligations in the ordinary course of business, other than operating leases and commitments with contract manufacturers and suppliers, for which we have not received the goods or services. Purchase orders are not included in the preceding table as they typically represent our authorization to purchase rather than binding contractual purchase obligations.
Long-Term Debt The amount of long-term debt in the preceding table represents the principal amount of the respective debt instruments. See Note 12 to the Consolidated Financial Statements.
Transition Tax Payable Transition tax payable represents future cash tax payments associated with the one-time U.S. transition tax on accumulated earnings for foreign subsidiaries as a result of the Tax Act.
Other Long-Term Liabilities Other long-term liabilities primarily include noncurrent income taxes payable, accrued liabilities for deferred compensation, deferred tax liabilities, and certain other long-term liabilities. Due to the uncertainty in the timing of future payments, our noncurrent income taxes payable of approximately $2.2 billion and deferred tax liabilities of $75 million were presented as one aggregated amount in the total column on a separate line in the preceding table. Noncurrent income taxes payable include uncertain tax positions. See Note 18 to the Consolidated Financial Statements.
Other Commitments
In connection with our acquisitions, we have agreed to pay certain additional amounts contingent upon the continued employment with us of certain employees of the acquired entities. See Note 4 to the Consolidated Financial Statements.
Of the total carrying value of our investments in privately held companies as of July 26, 2025, $0.8 billion of such investments are considered to be in variable interest entities which are unconsolidated. We have total funding commitments of $0.3 billion related to privately held investments. The carrying value of these investments and the additional funding commitments, collectively, represent our maximum exposure related to privately held investments. See Note 10 to the Consolidated Financial Statements.
We provide financing guarantees, which are generally for various third-party financing arrangements extended to our channel partners. We could be called upon to make payments under these guarantees in the event of nonpayment by the channel partners. See the previous discussion of these financing guarantees under “Financing Receivables and Guarantees.”
Liquidity and Capital Resource Requirements
Based on past performance and current expectations, we believe our cash and cash equivalents, investments, cash generated from operations, and ability to access capital markets and committed credit lines will satisfy, through at least the next 12 months, our liquidity requirements, both in total and domestically, including the following: working capital needs (including inventory and other supply related payments), capital expenditures, investment requirements, stock repurchases, cash dividends, contractual obligations, commitments, principal and interest payments on debt, pending acquisitions, future customer financings, and other liquidity requirements associated with our operations. There are no other transactions, arrangements, or relationships with unconsolidated entities or other persons that are reasonably likely to materially affect the liquidity and the availability of, as well as our requirements for, capital resources.
