Boston, MA 10/25/2013 (wallstreetpr) – Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) is looking at the increasing sales of smartphones with glee. Smartphone users surf the net a lot and the apps also consume more bandwidth. Such smart connected devices use a lot of data. Cisco makes it possible for the data to flow. Cisco keeps a close watch on sales of smartphones, tablets and even laptops. The company recently came out with data about data usage by all smart connected devices. The company forecasted that the current high-growth rates would continue till 2017 and the growth would come from Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa. Cisco is also retrenching people. A slimmer company has the agility to grab new opportunities before they are taken away by the competitors.
Cisco has been having trouble shoring up its revenues. It is doing great in many markets and segments. We see news everyday about the new businesses tapped by Cisco. The company crossed a critical milestone of 100 million in subscriber base in conditional access and digital rights management solutions in Asia. The company has kept a war chest of approximately $50 billion in surplus cash reserves to aggressively go after acquisitions. Cisco has always profited from its acquisitions, it has managed to acquire more than 140 companies in the last decade. Market rumors suggest that Cisco may be eying Blackberry. This acquisition would give Cisco a foothold in the smartphone segment and also be in tune with its offering in security services. Cisco is not the only suitor for Blackberry; in fact Blackberry may not be up for sale as yet. With a market cap of $120.47 billion and cash reserves of $50 billion, investors will be asking the company to deploy the reserves for productive use or return the capital to them by way of share buyback.
The stocks are also not making any long moves on the markets. They have been trading in a very narrow margin. The shares closed at $22.37 at the close of trading on October 25, 2013.
