Cisco exceeded expectations for fiscal first-quarter earnings on Thursday; however, analysts remain cautiously optimistic regarding the future of networking technologies in the context of the AI boom. Tim Long upheld his equal-weight rating on the stock in a Friday note, setting a price target of $109, which suggests a potential upside of 6.9%.
“One area of weakness in the quarter was that hyperscaler AI orders were likely down meaningfully Q/Q in FQ1 based on our estimates, but these orders tend to be lumpy,” he said.
Michael Ng at Goldman Sachs has assigned a neutral rating to the stock, highlighting a “orders miss,” according to a note dated Nov. 12. “The margin outlook and upgrade was better-than-expected with CSCO demonstrating strong operating leverage, though growing hyperscale revenue mix may be headwinds to gross margin in F2H27,” he said.
