Tough year ahead for Cisco

Telecom network equipment company Cisco Systems reported increased profits for its second quarter as the company kept a tight check on its spending.

However, revenue at $4.71bn (€4.3bn) was down on the $4.82bn (€4.4bn) reported a year ago.

The company doesn't expect to see a real recovery in revenue until the global economy shows some improvement.

Its CEO John Chambers said: "In a real tough market, we're doing very well. But until the economies on a global basis start to pick up, you won't see our revenues really pick up. The market has been dramatically down over the last year...our top 10 competitors in North America actually decreased in sales 34%. Our business has been relatively flat so we're gaining market share at a very rapid rate."

The company predicted that it expected that revenue in the next quarter would fall by around 2%-3%.