Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO) Stock Price & How to Invest

Cisco Systems, founded in 1984 by Stanford University computer scientists and headquartered in San Jose, California, designs, develops, and sells technologies that power, secure, and draw insights from the internet across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific. The company generates revenue across four main product categories: Networking (switches, routers, wireless, and increasingly AI-optimized silicon and infrastructure), Security (firewall, identity, and endpoint products plus the acquired Splunk platform for observability and threat detection), Collaboration (Webex-based unified communications and video), and Observability (application performance and IT operations monitoring). Services revenue, which includes software subscriptions and technical support, accounts for a material and growing share of the overall mix, giving the company a recurring-revenue cushion alongside its hardware cycles.

Cisco went public in 1990 and became one of the most valuable companies in the world during the dot-com era before a prolonged restructuring phase. Under Chair and CEO Chuck Robbins, who has led the company since 2015, Cisco has steadily shifted toward software and subscription models and completed its largest acquisition ever, the approximately $28 billion purchase of Splunk, which closed in March 2024. Splunk adds market-leading data platform and security information and event management capabilities. The Splunk integration remains a central strategic and financial narrative for the company heading into fiscal year 2027.

Cisco's trailing P/E has expanded materially above its 3- and 5-year historical averages, meaning the stock reflects optimistic assumptions about AI-driven growth that require sustained execution to justify. Splunk's ongoing shift from on-premises licenses to cloud subscriptions creates a near-term reported-revenue drag that complicates year-over-year comparisons. Gross margins have shown some compression, with GAAP total gross margin in Q3 FY2026 declining to 63.6% from 65.6% in the same quarter a year earlier, partly driven by memory cost increases and product mix. Finally, Cisco faces aggressive competition in high-speed switching from Arista Networks, in cybersecurity from a wide field of dedicated vendors, and broader macro sensitivity if enterprise IT budgets tighten.

A simple financial snapshot. These are approximations and refresh quarterly; for current figures see Cisco Systems, Inc.'s investor relations page or your broker.

• Revenue (TTM, as of April 2026): ~$60.7 billion
• Revenue Growth (YoY, TTM): ~9%
• Non-GAAP EPS (Q3 FY2026): $1.06
• GAAP Gross Margin (Q3 FY2026): ~63.6%
• Trailing P/E Ratio: ~40-43x (sources vary; well above 3- and 5-year averages of ~21-22x)
• Forward P/E Ratio: ~25x
• Market Capitalization: ~$470-505 billion (range across recent sources)
• Annual Dividend Per Share: $1.68 (paid quarterly at $0.42)

Cisco's trailing P/E of roughly 40x sits meaningfully above its 3-year average of around 21-22x, reflecting the market's repricing of the stock as an AI infrastructure beneficiary rather than a mature hardware company. The forward P/E of approximately 25x suggests analysts expect earnings growth to close some of that gap, but execution on Splunk integration and security revenue recovery will be key. Gross margin compression, from approximately 65.6% to 63.6% GAAP year over year in the most recent quarter, is a metric worth tracking as product mix and memory costs evolve.

If you want CSCO exposure as part of a larger bundle rather than directly, these ETFs hold it meaningfully. Weights are approximate and refresh quarterly.

There are three common ways to get CSCO exposure. Buy shares (or fractional shares) directly at any major broker. Hold an ETF that includes it (VLUE, VGT, XLK), which spreads the position across many companies. Or build it into a focused thematic basket, so CSCO sits alongside other stocks that express the same thesis.

Walnut takes the basket route. Describe a thesis where CSCO fits (for example “AI infrastructure” or “dividend-growth large-caps”) and the AI proposes 5 to 6 constituents with target weights. You review the plan and fund it through your own broker when you're ready.

New to this? Start with how to invest in stocks, see how to analyze a stock with AI, or compare the best AI stock analyzers.

Cisco today is best understood as a networking-infrastructure-plus-security platform company riding the AI buildout cycle, with Q3 FY2026 networking revenue up 25% year over year and non-GAAP operating margin near 34%. If you believe enterprise and hyperscaler spending on AI networking, cybersecurity, and observability will sustain multi-year growth and that Cisco's scale gives it an enduring share-gain advantage, the question becomes sizing and overlap with other tech holdings, not timing. The risk is that the stock's trailing P/E of approximately 40 or more leaves little room for disappointment on Splunk integration, security portfolio recovery, or gross margin pressure from memory costs and product mix shift.

Whether CSCO is worth buying today depends more on your time horizon and what you already hold than on any single call. We walk through valuation, what would have to go right, and the risks in is CSCO a buy?, and where the stock could go from here in the CSCO stock forecast.

For income investors, whether CSCO pays a dividend and how the payout looks is covered in does CSCO pay a dividend?