The Internet giant has won praise from Wall Street after it announced better-than-expected fourth-quarter results and issued strong guidance.

Morgan Stanley analyst Meta Marshall gave Cisco a "neutral" rating and raised its target price to $48 from $46. He pointed out that Cisco's 2% to 4% sales growth outlook was "significantly" higher than market expectations, but its profit expectations were only in line with expectations.

"although we believe that part of the reason for this strength is that Cisco received orders before the fifth price increase last quarter and continued to maintain an online layout while the supply chain is still tight, it does illustrate the importance of the network," Marshall wrote in a report to customers.

As companies continue to modernise technology, "catch-up spending" will have some impact, but if these modernisation projects continue as the economy cools, Cisco may continue to benefit, the analyst added. Morgan Stanley's view of the company will also become more positive.

Citigroup analyst Jim Suva gave Cisco a "sell" rating but raised its target price to $44 from $40. He pointed out that the sales growth outlook of 2 to 4 per cent was "significantly" higher than the consensus forecast of 0.6 per cent decline, but the 2023 earnings per share guidance was in line with expectations, which led the analyst to note that there were some views on both bulls and bears. In addition, Suva points out that the result may be good for JBL.US because it has built applications for both Cisco and Arista (ANET.US).

Simon Leopold, an analyst at Raymond James, rated Cisco an "outperform" but lowered its target price to $59 from $63. He pointed out that although the supply chain was still subject to some restrictions, the company "withstood the impact of bearish sentiment" as product orders fell 6 per cent year-on-year.

Leopold wrote: "investors are concerned about order indicators, but we believe that due to supply chain constraints and changes in duration, investors should focus on order levels rather than growth (year-on-year). Cisco's indicators show that demand is still healthy, but its prospects face supply chain constraints. "

Cisco said it expected revenue in fiscal 2023 to grow by 4 to 6 per cent compared with 2022, compared with a previous forecast of 3.3 per cent. The company also said it expected earnings per share, excluding one-time items, to be between $3.49 and $3.56.

In a conference call to discuss Cisco's performance, Cisco's chief executive said he expected "all [technology] portfolios to perform strongly". The supply chain constraints that affected Cisco's business earlier this year "began to ease slightly in the second half of the fourth quarter", and the demand signal remained strong.

Cisco recently disclosed that it was attacked by an unknown entity in May, allegedly from an organization linked to UNC2447, Lapsus$ and yanluwang blackmail software operators.