Cisco hikes prices to cover memory cost rises, says you don’t much care
(2026/02/12)
- Reference: 1770871545
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/02/12/cisco_q2_2026/
- Source link:
Cisco has increased the prices for its hardware to cover the increased cost of memory and says the resulting bigger bills are not changing customers’ buying habits.
The networking giant discussed the price hikes on its Q2 2026 earnings call, during which CEO Chuck Robbins said Cisco has already announced price increases and will “continue to monitor market trends and make additional adjustments as necessary.” The CEO said Cisco is also “revising contractual terms with channel partners and customers to address evolving component prices,” and is using its scale to “help us negotiate favorable terms and secure supply to fulfill current and future demand.”
Robbins noted that networking appliances require less memory than servers, “So the price increases are more nominal” and he thinks buyers understand bigger bills aren’t Cisco’s fault.
[1]
“Customers get it. And while they may not like it, they understand that it's a dynamic that we're all dealing with,” he said.
[2]
[3]
CFO Mark Patterson said buyers haven’t changed plans due to memory price impacts.
“I haven't talked to any customers that are really willing to delay or defer any sort of strategic investments,” he said. Nor did customers try to get in early to buy kit at low prices before memory storage prices surged. “I think, frankly, also a lot of them understand that we'll probably be able to manage this a lot better than some of our peers, too.”
[4]
Feel free to [5]let us know if you agree.
Cisco won $15.3 billion revenue for the quarter, a company record and a ten percent year-over-year jump.
Robbins said Cisco is surfing the AI wave in two ways.
[6]
One is selling upgrades to existing networks. “Legacy infrastructure was not designed for the performance, speed and security needs of AI,” he said.
The other is selling to hyperscalers, and that’s more complicated because Robbins said they are “lumpy” buyers. Cisco announced it won $2.1 billion of orders from hyperscalers in the quarter and said that represents “a significant acceleration in growth” as that sum was $800 million higher than the previous quarter, and higher than all orders from hyperscalers in the previous financial year.
Financial analysts on the earnings call, however, felt those are tiny sums compared to the $635 billion that Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft [7]plan to spend on infrastructure this year.
Robbins said hyperscalers like Cisco’s optics portfolio and its programmable Silicon One processors, and that sovereign clouds and neoclouds represent new opportunities.
[8]Cisco challenges Broadcom, Nvidia with a 102.4T switch of its own
[9]Cisco looses Splunk to probe and tame its growing agentic menagerie
[10]No fire sale for firewalls as memory shortages could push prices higher
[11]Cisco decides its homegrown AI model is ready to power its products
Cisco has opportunities beyond AI. Robbins said buyers are at the beginning of a major multi-year, multi-billion-dollar campus networking refresh cycle. He also pointed to double-digit datacenter switching sales growth across in six of the last eight quarters.
The company forecast Q3 revenue of $15.4 to $15.6 billion, and a full-year haul of $61.2 to $61.7 billion. If achieved, both figures would be records for the company.
Investors weren’t satisfied. The company’s shares drifted down by almost one percent on Wednesday, then sent it tumbling 7.5 percent in after-hours trading. ®
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[7] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/06/ai_capex_plans/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/10/cisco_challenges_broadcom_nvidia_switch_chips/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/11/cisco_agentic_ai_update/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/12/no_fire_sale_on_firewalls/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/17/cisco_foundation_model_indentity_intelligence/
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
The networking giant discussed the price hikes on its Q2 2026 earnings call, during which CEO Chuck Robbins said Cisco has already announced price increases and will “continue to monitor market trends and make additional adjustments as necessary.” The CEO said Cisco is also “revising contractual terms with channel partners and customers to address evolving component prices,” and is using its scale to “help us negotiate favorable terms and secure supply to fulfill current and future demand.”
Robbins noted that networking appliances require less memory than servers, “So the price increases are more nominal” and he thinks buyers understand bigger bills aren’t Cisco’s fault.
[1]
“Customers get it. And while they may not like it, they understand that it's a dynamic that we're all dealing with,” he said.
[2]
[3]
CFO Mark Patterson said buyers haven’t changed plans due to memory price impacts.
“I haven't talked to any customers that are really willing to delay or defer any sort of strategic investments,” he said. Nor did customers try to get in early to buy kit at low prices before memory storage prices surged. “I think, frankly, also a lot of them understand that we'll probably be able to manage this a lot better than some of our peers, too.”
[4]
Feel free to [5]let us know if you agree.
Cisco won $15.3 billion revenue for the quarter, a company record and a ten percent year-over-year jump.
Robbins said Cisco is surfing the AI wave in two ways.
[6]
One is selling upgrades to existing networks. “Legacy infrastructure was not designed for the performance, speed and security needs of AI,” he said.
The other is selling to hyperscalers, and that’s more complicated because Robbins said they are “lumpy” buyers. Cisco announced it won $2.1 billion of orders from hyperscalers in the quarter and said that represents “a significant acceleration in growth” as that sum was $800 million higher than the previous quarter, and higher than all orders from hyperscalers in the previous financial year.
Financial analysts on the earnings call, however, felt those are tiny sums compared to the $635 billion that Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft [7]plan to spend on infrastructure this year.
Robbins said hyperscalers like Cisco’s optics portfolio and its programmable Silicon One processors, and that sovereign clouds and neoclouds represent new opportunities.
[8]Cisco challenges Broadcom, Nvidia with a 102.4T switch of its own
[9]Cisco looses Splunk to probe and tame its growing agentic menagerie
[10]No fire sale for firewalls as memory shortages could push prices higher
[11]Cisco decides its homegrown AI model is ready to power its products
Cisco has opportunities beyond AI. Robbins said buyers are at the beginning of a major multi-year, multi-billion-dollar campus networking refresh cycle. He also pointed to double-digit datacenter switching sales growth across in six of the last eight quarters.
The company forecast Q3 revenue of $15.4 to $15.6 billion, and a full-year haul of $61.2 to $61.7 billion. If achieved, both figures would be records for the company.
Investors weren’t satisfied. The company’s shares drifted down by almost one percent on Wednesday, then sent it tumbling 7.5 percent in after-hours trading. ®
Get our [12]Tech Resources
[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aY1ebxk8N3exCOs62g8epAAAAMI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[5] https://www.theregister.com/Author/Email/Simon-Sharwood
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aY1ebxk8N3exCOs62g8epAAAAMI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/06/ai_capex_plans/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/10/cisco_challenges_broadcom_nvidia_switch_chips/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/11/cisco_agentic_ai_update/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/12/no_fire_sale_on_firewalls/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/17/cisco_foundation_model_indentity_intelligence/
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/