Cisco tops Q1 earnings expectations with mixed outlook

Cisco published fiscal first quarter financial results after the bell on Thursday, which reflected well on the last three months but might not be as optimistic for the near future.

Non-GAAP earnings were 59 cents per share on a revenue of $12.7 billion, up four percent year-over-year.

Wall Street was looking for earnings of 56 cents per share with $12.65 billion in revenue.

For the current quarter, Wall Street is looking for non-GAAP earnings of 56 cents per share with $12.55 billion in revenue.

Cisco responded with a revenue guidance range that would put Q2 results higher than analyst expectations, projecting flat revenue or up to two percent growth, year-over-year.

But Cisco's projection on earnings per share is bit lower with a forecast of 53 to 55 cents a pop.

Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins admitted in prepared remarks that the "guidance reflects lower than expected order growth in Q1, driven largely by the uncertainty of the macro environment and currency impacts."

Nevertheless, Robbins framed Q1 as "a very strong quarter," driven especially by software and cloud strategies.

Cisco is also closing a handful of acquisitions during the second quarter -- most of which have been to bolster video, data analytics and security services. Among them are U.K.-based consultancy firm Portcullis and ParStream, a German company with a database for analyzing and storing large data sets in real-time.

Cisco also completed the $635 million acquisition of threat protection security firm OpenDNS in Q1.