In the three months ended October 24, profit before a charge climbed to $559 million, or 34 cents a diluted share, from $415.7 million, or 26 cents, in the corresponding period a year ago. Revenue rose 39 per cent to $2.59 billion from $1.87 billion.

The latest earnings surpassed analyst expectations of 33 cents a share by one penny, according to First Call Corp, which tracks such forecasts.

The earnings announcement came after the close of regular US trading, and Cisco's stock rose to $66.13 on the Instinet electronic system after hours. Earlier, it finished $2.19 higher at $65.56 on the Nasdaq.

San Jose, California-based Cisco continues to hold its own against traditional competitors -- No. 2 networking company 3Com Corp. and Ascend Communications Inc. -- as it races to compete againsttelephone equipment makers such as Lucent Technologies Inc. in selling gear to providers of phone, Internet and cable service.

"It was another great, boring quarter for Cisco," Paul Johnson, an analyst at BancBoston Robertson Stephens said, who rates Cisco stock as a buy. "In traditional data networking, they've cleaned house; it's over."

Cisco's share price has risen more than 40 per cent since October 7, when concern about slowing sales of communications equipment started to abate.

Sales of Cisco's most profitable product -- powerful routers that direct and control traffic on large networks -- rose 10 per cent in the first quarter from the fourth, Cisco chief executive John Chambers said on a conference call with analysts.

"It was a good geographic mix and also across most all of our product lines," Chambers said in an interview. "Results were very good in Europe and good in the US."

In addition to having 80 per cent of the router market, gross margin on the devices -- or revenue minus productcosts expressed as a percentage -- were more than 80 per cent, Johnson said.

Sales of Internet equipment also surged. Cisco's so-called service provider business -- gear sold to telephone and cable companies and Internet service providers -- increased more than 50 per cent from the same period last year, Chambers said.

"We continue to gain market share against traditional competitors and old-world telecommunications equipment companies," Larry Carter, chief financial officer, said during the conference call.

Cisco cautioned that sales of data-networking equipment to large businesses in the current fiscal year will lag overall revenue growth. That partly reflects expectations of global financial institutions paring spending on networking amid recent economic uncertainty.

"The good news is their consistency is amazing," Johnson said. "The bad news is they can't control international and domestic economics."

Bookings in Europe, the Middle East and Africa represented 29 per cent of the total, theAmericas accounted for 61 per cent, and the United States 55 per cent. Asia including Japan accounted for 10 per cent, and Japan alone 5 per cent, Cisco said.

"We anticipate Asia's economic situation will continue to be a challenge for the next couple of years," Chambers said.

Including a first-quarter charge of $41 million, or 3 cents a share, Cisco had net income of $518 million, or 31 cents a share.

In the year-ago quarter, a charge of $127.2 million and a gain of $5.4 million resulted in net income of $337 million, or 21 cents a share.

The company also said it would take a charge of 12 to 21 cents a share in its second quarter for acquisitions it expects to close.