Cisco Systems on Wednesday reported quarterly earnings and revenue that beat Wall Street expectations on strong demand for switching equipment and routers.
The network technology company posted earnings of 53 cents a share for its fiscal second quarter, up from 47 cents per share a year earlier. Revenue rose to $11.94 billion from $11.16 billion, a 7 percent increase.
Cisco shares were up nearly 5 percent in extended trading.
"In the quarter we grew revenues by 7 percent, with strong EPS growth, and saw the best balance of growth across all our geographies, products and segments," said John Chambers, Cisco chairman and CEO.
On the company's earnings call, Chambers said the results were its best in three years. He said that guidance for the fiscal third quarter was 51 cents to 53 cents per share, in line with Wall Street expectations.
Cisco also announced that it would issue a quarterly dividend of 21 cents per common share in April, up 2 cents from last quarter.
Analysts had expected the company to post earnings of 51 cents per share on $11.8 billion in revenue, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters.
Chambers also touted 7 percent growth in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, but added that sales in China were sluggish.
The company enjoyed strong order growth, particularly in enterprise, which jumped 10 percent, Chambers said.
Cisco shares have climbed about 20 percent in the last year, slightly outpacing a roughly 12 percent gain for the wider Dow. The network services company has faced its share of challenges in that span, though.
It has looked to overcome pressures on emerging market growth from factors like oil prices and currency fluctuations.
Cisco's profitability has fallen for five straight quarters and sales have been sluggish, CNBC reported in December. Wall Street expects about 3 percent revenue growth for the company's fiscal 2015.
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Cisco has recently puts its weight behind the "Internet of Things" sphere. It unveiled two new networking products designed to help businesses adopt Internet of Things applications.
Last month, it also added Internet of Things start-ups to its in-house entrepreneurship program.
—CNBC's Ari Levy contributed to this report.