What Was Cisco Telling You Before Its Stock Ran?
Cisco Systems (CSCO) stock returned 62% in the twelve months to September 24, 2026, against 16% for the S&P 500. A $10,000 holding at the start was worth about $16,220 at the end. The run was about AI data center orders from hyperscalers, the largest cloud companies. You could have read the run early only if two things held: Cisco was saying it, and its results were showing it.
Was Cisco Saying It Before Its Shares Moved?
Yes, as early as August 2024, when management set a $1 billion target for AI orders from webscale customers in fiscal 2025. On the November 13, 2024 call, it said it expected to beat that target.
That was a modest sum for Cisco, but it was a number you could track. Product orders in that quarter also rose 9% from a year earlier, not counting acquired businesses. A target is only a promise, so the filed results had to back it up.
Cisco’s Filed Revenue Turned Up Through Fiscal 2025
The filed results turned up, though they did not yet show AI on their own. In fiscal Q1 2025, filed in November 2024, revenue fell 5.6% from a year earlier. In fiscal Q3 2025, filed in May 2025, revenue rose 11.4%.
Then came the clearest sign. On the fiscal Q4 2025 call, on August 13, 2025, management reported record AI infrastructure orders from web-scale customers. Management also said its new campus switches marked “the beginning of a major multiyear refresh cycle opportunity” for its large installed base. A refresh cycle is a stretch when customers replace older networking gear. That call came six weeks before the run began.
Revenue growth did slow to 7.6% in fiscal Q4 2025, filed on September 3, 2025. When the run began, Cisco was saying it and its revenue was growing again, but the AI business was still small.
Where Did Cisco’s Business Actually Change?
Cisco’s business changed in orders far more than in revenue. In fiscal 2026, Cisco took $9.3 billion of AI infrastructure orders. Management put that at about 4.5 times its fiscal 2025 total, or roughly $2.1 billion.
Revenue moved more slowly. AI infrastructure brought in about $4 billion of revenue in fiscal 2026. Total revenue that year was $63.3 billion, so AI infrastructure was about 6% of the revenue.
Dell Technologies returned 311% over the same twelve months. Investors were paying up for AI hardware makers as a group. For Cisco, that meant paying for orders well ahead of revenue, and today’s figures have to close that gap.
Cisco Now Asks You To Watch AI Revenue
The shares fell 9.8% over the past three months, while the S&P 500 gained about 5%. Cisco’s orders are still building, though. The company took $4 billion of AI infrastructure orders in fiscal Q4 2026 alone. Total product orders that quarter rose 35% from a year earlier. Revenue for the quarter rose 18%, about 5 points of it from price increases. Management said it believes networking is in a multiyear upswing.
But Cisco will no longer set an annual target for AI orders. It has moved to a revenue goal instead: $7.5 billion of AI infrastructure revenue in fiscal 2027.
So Cisco is still saying it, and its orders and revenue still show it. The weaker part is how fast AI orders turn into revenue. Cisco’s fiscal Q1 2027 report will give the first read on AI infrastructure revenue against that goal. Management has said orders will turn into revenue unevenly, so one quarter will not settle it. If AI infrastructure revenue reaches that goal, the evidence behind the run is still building. If that revenue falls short, the orders ran further ahead of the business than the shares assumed.
How To Act On CSCO?
