Here’s what Wall Street experts are saying about Cisco ahead of earnings

Cisco (CSCO) is scheduled to report results of its fiscal fourth quarter after the market closes on August 13 with a conference call scheduled for 4:30 pm ET. What to watch for:

GUIDANCE: Along with its last report, Cisco guided for Q4 adjusted earnings per share for 96c-98c on revenue of $14.5B-$14.7B. At the time, analysts were expecting the company to report Q4 EPS of 95c on revenue of $14.52B, but those figures have since risen to 98c and $14.62B, respectively.

EVERCORE DOWNGRADE: Late last month, Evercore ISI downgraded Cisco to In Line from Outperform with an unchanged price target of $72 following a 46% move over the previous twelve months that the firm sees being driven by a cyclical recovery in the company’s core enterprise networking business as well as “a more compelling narrative” around cloud and AI markets. While noting that other AI-levered names have seen more sizable multiple expansion, the firm thinks Cisco will “struggle to get credited as an AI winner” without disclosing AI revenue numbers, the analyst told investors at the time.

DEUTSCHE BANK: The Evercore move came about a month and a half after Deutsche Bank analyst Matt Niknam upgraded Cisco to Buy from Hold with a price target of $73, up from $65. The firm said at the time that it sees improved visibility towards “durable” mid-single-digit growth in upcoming years for Cisco, with tailwinds from artificial intelligence, a Campus portfolio refresh, more favorable near-term competitive dynamics in Networking and improved scale in Security. Incremental growth in higher-margin revenues, alongside Cisco’s breadth of supply chain, enables it to more “deftly navigate” incremental tariffs and re-invest in growth, the analyst told investors in a research note. Deutsche believes the company’s “significant” free cash flow FCF generation should support incremental cash returns to shareholders via buybacks and dividend growth.

PT HIKES: Last month, Morgan Stanley increased the firm’s price target on Cisco to $70 from $67 and maintained an Overweight rating on the shares after having hosted the firm’s quarterly Enterprise value added reseller call. The firm reports that Q2 VAR performance was in-line to slightly above expectations, adding that its checks point to “clear improvement” in spending patterns in May and June versus April.

That same week, JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee raised the firm’s price target on Cisco to $78 from $73 and reiterated an Overweight rating on the shares. The firm adjusted price targets in hardware and networking, saying it expects upside to second half of 2025 estimates from “robust” cloud spending. However, underlying end market drivers for other customer verticals “remain a watchpoint” as they exhibit more sensitivity to the macro environment, the analyst told investors in a research note.

KEYBANC INIT: In late June, KeyBanc initiated coverage of Cisco with an Overweight rating and $77 price target KeyBanc noted that it has seen product order growth remain healthy for several quarters in a row, which “bodes well for 2026/2027 revenue growth expectations.” Additionally, the firm believes the subscription/software mix shift makes Cisco appear “relatively attractively valued” versus its software and security peers. KeyBanc concluded that it sees “ample room for future shareholder returns.” CICC and Wolfe Research later initiated coverage of Cisco with an Outperform rating and Peer Perform rating, respectively.

DATA BREACH: Earlier this month, Cisco disclosed that on July 24, 2025, it was made aware of an incident involving a bad actor targeting a Cisco representative through a voice phishing attack, also known as vishing. As a result, the actor was able to access and export a subset of basic profile information from one instance of a third-party, cloud-based Customer Relationship Management system that Cisco uses. Upon learning of the incident, the actor’s access to that CRM system instance was immediately terminated and Cisco commenced an investigation.

“Our investigation has determined that the exported data primarily consisted of basic account profile information of individuals who registered for a user account on Cisco.com,” the company said at the time. “The actor did not obtain any of our organizational customers’ confidential or proprietary information, or any passwords or other types of sensitive information. Cisco did not identify any impact to our products or services, and no other Cisco CRM instances were affected. Cisco has engaged with data protection authorities and notified affected users where required by law. Every cybersecurity incident is an opportunity to learn, strengthen our resilience, and help the wider security community. We are implementing further security measures to mitigate the risk of similar incidents occurring in the future, including re-educating personnel on how to identify and protect against potential vishing attacks. We apologize for any inconvenience or concern that this incident may have caused. Customers and partners with additional questions are encouraged to contact their account teams.”