Cisco Systems posted better-than-expected quarterly earnings yesterday, which was music to investors’ ears.

Cisco, which makes a variety of service provider and consumer products including switches and routers, is often viewed as a barometer for the economy, and yesterday’s fourth-quarter results were encouraging enough to drive its shares up 7 percent in after-market trading.

Cisco’s net income for the fourth quarter, ended July 26, increased 4.4 percent from a year ago to $2 billion, or 33 cents per share, while revenue rose 10 percent to $10.4 billion. Excluding one-time items, Cisco’s earnings of 40 cents per share beat the forecast of 39 cents per share in an analyst survey by Thomson Financial.

Quarterly revenue increased by 9.9 percent, to $10.4 billion, after analysts had forecast, on average, revenue of $10.3 billion.

For the full fiscal year, Cisco’s earnings were $8.1 billion, or $1.31 per share, on sales of $39.5 billion. Cisco’s net income in the previous fiscal year was $7.3 billion on revenue of $34.9 billion.

"Cisco delivered solid quarterly and annual results as network-enabled business process changes and productivity increases gain traction on a global basis," said Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers. "Today's strong results demonstrate the company's ability to execute. The market is clearly in transition, and we will use this time as an opportunity to expand our share of customer spend and to aggressively move into market adjacencies."

While Chambers didn’t give a full-year outlook, he forecast revenue growth of 8 percent for the first quarter and 8.5 percent for the second quarter.

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