Following the release of Cisco's (CSCO.US) latest earnings report and guidance, the stock experienced a modest decline. However, analysts remain optimistic about the company's steady growth trajectory, particularly in network business performance driven by artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure demand.

Bank of America analyst Tal Liani's team noted in a Thursday investor report: "While the earnings report and guidance lacked major surprises, they still slightly exceeded expectations: revenue growth of 7.6% surpassed market expectations of 7.3%, margins met expectations, and earnings per share of $0.99 beat consensus by 1 cent. More importantly, the company shows continuous improvement across multiple areas—excluding weak government business, order growth reached 10%, network business maintained strong momentum, and security business growth showed signs of recovery."

BofA reiterated its "Buy" rating and raised the target price from $76 to $85. Liani added: "Driven by cloud services and enterprise infrastructure demand cycles, network business revenue achieved 12% year-over-year and 8% quarter-over-quarter growth. AI infrastructure orders reached $800 million this quarter, with full-year cumulative orders of $2.1 billion. Fourth-quarter overall network orders achieved double-digit growth. Cisco's product portfolio innovation is generating results across various verticals."

KeyBanc maintained its "Overweight" rating and $77 target price while raising earnings forecasts. Analyst Brandon Nispel stated in a report: "Based on the latest earnings and guidance, we raised our fiscal 2026/2027 revenue forecasts by 0.2%/0.4% respectively, and adjusted EPS forecasts by 0.2% each. We believe network business growth is sufficient to offset weakness in other product lines."

Citigroup significantly raised its target price from $71 to $80, maintaining a "Buy" rating. Analyst Atif Malik noted: "Positive AI business prospects represent a major catalyst—fiscal 2025 network-scale AI orders of approximately $2.1 billion, AI-related revenue of $1 billion, triple-digit growth in network AI orders, and enterprise AI channel pipeline worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Additionally, campus network equipment refresh cycles will bring sustained benefits. However, we believe achieving 15%+ growth in the security business (compared to this quarter's 9% year-over-year growth) still faces high hurdles."