CISCO SYSTEMS, INC. (CSCO)

Cisco designs and sells hardware, software, and AI-powered digital infrastructure to power, help secure, and draw insights from the Internet. The company is incorporating AI across its networking, security, collaboration, and observability portfolios and integrating them more tightly into a platform it calls One Cisco. Its stated strategy is to securely connect everything, focused on three customer priorities: building modern infrastructure, protecting against cyber threats, and harnessing AI and data. These priorities are delivered through three outcomes: AI-ready data centers, future-proofed workplaces, and digital resilience.

Cisco manages its business by geography, with three segments: Americas; Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA); and Asia Pacific, Japan, and China (APJC). Its products fall into four categories. Networking covers switching (campus and data center, including the Catalyst/Cisco 9000 and Nexus 9000 families), routing (including Cisco 8000 series and enterprise routing), wireless, servers, industrial IoT, and Acacia coherent optics, with much of it built on Cisco Silicon One. Security spans network security, identity and access management, SASE, XDR, Cisco Hypershield, and AI Defense. Collaboration includes the Webex Suite, collaboration devices, contact center, and CPaaS offerings. Observability includes Splunk Observability, AppDynamics, and ThousandEyes network assurance. Cisco also provides technical support and professional services, delivered largely through the Cisco IQ interface, covering planning, design, implementation, and consulting.

Customers include businesses of all sizes, public institutions, governments, and service providers, including hyperscalers. They are grouped into three markets: enterprise (large organizations plus mid-market and small businesses), public sector (federal, state and local governments and educational institutions), and service provider and cloud (carriers, hyperscalers, Internet, cable, and wireless providers, and media and content providers). Cisco's customer base is not limited to any specific industry, geography, or market segment. It also offers financing through Cisco Capital, including loans, leases, and channel financing for qualified customers.

Cisco sells directly and, for a substantial portion of its business, indirectly through channel partners such as systems integrators, service providers, resellers, and distributors, using a two-tier distribution system. Its worldwide sales and marketing functions had approximately 25,400 employees at the end of fiscal 2026. The company grows through acquisitions, investments in privately held companies, and strategic alliances. Cisco was incorporated in California in 1984, reincorporated in Delaware in 2021, and is headquartered in San Jose, California.