Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Cisco's 2023 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. This is Sami Badri, head of Investor Relations, and I'm joined by Chuck Robbins, our Chair and CEO, and Evan Sloves, our Secretary of the company. The matters we will be discussing today include forward-looking statements, which are subject to the risks and uncertainties that we discuss in detail in our documents filed with the SEC, specifically the most recent reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q, which identify important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. You will also find full GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliation information in the Financial Information section of our Investor Relations website. I will now turn the meeting over to Chuck.
Good morning. It's now 8:00 A.M., and the 2023 Annual Meeting of the Stockholders of Cisco Systems, Incorporated will please come to order. I am Chuck Robbins, Chair and CEO, and I will chair this meeting. On behalf of all of us at Cisco, I wanna welcome you and thank you for your attendance. We're holding our annual meeting in a virtual format, and copies of the agenda and rules of conduct are available on the virtual meeting site. With that, it is my pleasure to turn the meeting over to Evan to lead the business portion of the meeting.
Thank you, Chuck. I will conduct the formal portion of this meeting. The polls are open and will close after the presentation of our formal business matters. If you have previously voted via the internet, phone, or mail, you do not need to take any additional action. If you have not already voted or wish to change your vote, please do so before the closing of the polls by using the voting buttons on the portal. After the polls close, we will announce the preliminary results of the vote. After the formal portion of this meeting, we'll have a business review presented by Chuck, followed by a Q&A session. During the Q&A session, we'll be answering previously submitted questions as well as questions submitted online during today's meeting.
Any stockholder who would like to ask a question can do so by typing the question in the Ask a Question box and clicking Submit. If we receive SIEMilar written questions, we may group such questions together and provide a single response to avoid repetition. If we are unable to respond to a stockholder's properly submitted question due to time constraints, we will respond directly to that stockholder after the meeting using the contact information provided. I would now like to acknowledge Cisco's officers that are joining via phone. Kevin Healy of PricewaterhouseCoopers, the company's independent registered public accounting firm, has also called in today. Next, I would like to introduce the rest of the directors that are joining us via phone today: Wesley Bush, Michael Capellas, Mark Garrett, John Harris, Kristina Johnson, Sarah Rae Murphy, Dan Schulman, and Marianna Tessel.
The board of directors has fixed the close of business on October ninth, 2023, as the record date for the determination of stockholders entitled to vote at this meeting. We have an affidavit from Broadridge certifying that notice of this meeting was duly given to all stockholders of record commencing on or about October 17th, 2023. American Election Services has been appointed as the Inspector of Election for this meeting. Mr. Jim Raittt, who is representing American Election Services, has also called into the meeting. Mr. Rait has informed me that stockholders owning a majority of the outstanding shares of common stock are present in person or represented by proxy, and as a result, there is a quorum of stockholders for this meeting. Therefore, this meeting is now open to proceed with its business.
We now proceed to the items of business set forth in the agenda. The first matter to be considered is the election of directors of the company. The following individuals have been nominated by the board of directors upon recommendation of the Nominating and Governance Committee to serve as directors until the next annual meeting of stockholders and until their successors are elected and qualified: Wesley Bush, Michael Capellas, Mark Garrett, John Harris, Kristina Johnson, Sarah Rae Murphy, Charles Robbins, Daniel Schulman, and Marianna Tessel. No other nominations were received by the deadline of August nineteenth, two thousand twenty-three. Therefore, the nominations are closed. The board of directors recommends stockholders vote for the election of each nominee. Our next item of business is the approval of the amendment and restatement of the Cisco Systems, Inc.
2005 Stock Incentive Plan, including an addition of 80.575 million shares authorized for issuance under the plan and other amendments as described in the proxy statement. The nature of and reasons for the amendment and restatement of the 2005 Stock Incentive Plan for which stockholder approval is being sought are set forth in the proxy statement. The board of directors recommends stockholders vote for this proposal. Our next item of business is the advisory resolution to approve executive compensation. This is a non-binding advisory resolution that stockholders approve the compensation of Cisco's named executive officers as disclosed pursuant to the SEC's compensation disclosure rules. The board of directors recommends stockholders vote for this proposal.
The next matter to be considered is whether the frequency of future voting to approve the compensation of our named executive officers should be every one year, two years, or three years. The board of directors recommends a vote for every one year for the frequency of holding future voting regarding executive compensation for the reasons set forth in the proxy statement. Next is the ratification of the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending July 27, 2024. The board of directors recommends stockholders vote for this proposal. I will now introduce a resolution proposed by a stockholder for consideration. Cisco's response to this proposal can be found in the proxy statement.
Etica, as lead filer, together with its co-filers, have given notice of a proposed resolution, has notified us that Aldo Bonati is authorized to act as a proxy at this meeting to present the proposed resolution. Is Mr. Bonati here to propose the resolution?
... Yes, I'm here.
Great. Thank you. Please present the proposal and supporting statement. You have a total of five minutes.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Dear fellow shareholders and distinguished members of the board of directors, my name is Aldo Bonati, and I represent the Italian asset manager, Etica SGR. Along with our co-filers, AkademikerP ension, PenSam, Greater Manchester Pension Fund, and OIP Trust, we have filed shareholder Proposal 6, regarding the publication of a tax transparency report. Our proposal calls on Cisco Systems to align with other leading multinational companies and use the Global Reporting Initiative, GRI, tax standard. The GRI is the most widely used sustainability standard worldwide and is the only comprehensive global tax reporting standard today. A transition to the GRI standard will not require a drastic transformation for our company. Cisco already submits country-by-country reporting to OECD tax authorities privately. Any burdens to the company should, therefore, be minimal.
The GRI standard provides transparency of our company's approach to taxes, tax governance, controls, and risk management, stakeholder engagement related to tax, and perhaps most importantly, public country-by-country tax reporting. In a world faced by multiple crises, the scrutiny of corporate tax payments is likely to increase year-over-year. If investors are to make informed assessments of Cisco's tax strategy and evaluations of the company's tax risks, we need accurate, accessible, and transparent data on a country-by-country basis. We have taken note of the opposition statement from the board. Indeed, peers, especially in the USA, do not provide tax transparency at the moment. We think this is likely to change in coming years, and that front-runner companies stand to benefit from staying ahead of the curve. We encourage the board to demonstrate leadership and embrace tax transparency, and we urge fellow shareholders to consider voting for Shareholder Proposal 6.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. The board of directors recommends the stockholders vote against this proposal for the reasons set forth in the proxy statement. The business matters for stockholder consideration have been completed, and the polls are now closed. I'll share with you the preliminary voting tabulation. Final vote tallies will be posted in an 8-K filing with the SEC within four business days and available on our investor relations website. According to the preliminary report of the Inspector of Election, each of the persons nominated as a director has been elected. Each nominee received the support of at least approximately 91% of the shares voted, with approximately 96% average support. The proposal to approve the amendment and restatement of the Cisco Systems, Inc. 2005 Stock Incentive Plan has been approved with support of approximately 95% of the shares voted.
The advisory resolution regarding executive compensation has been approved with support of approximately 75% of the shares voted. One year has been determined to be the preferred frequency of holding future votes regarding executive compensation, with the support of approximately 99% of shares voted. The proposal to ratify the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as the company's independent registered public accounting firm has been approved with the support of approximately 94% of shares voted. The stockholder proposal submitted by Etica SGR and its co-filers was not approved, with approximately 75% of shares voted, voting against this proposal. I will now turn the meeting back over to Chuck.
Thank you, Evan. The matters for which this annual meeting of the stockholders was called to consider have been completed. Since we have received no notice of any other business to come before the meeting, the 2023 annual meeting of stockholders is hereby adjourned. I will now proceed with a business review presentation. The Q&A session will follow my presentation. Eric, if you could get to the slide that is FY 2023 year in review, please. So fiscal year 2023 was a milestone year for Cisco. We delivered our highest revenue growth rate in over a decade, record net income, EPS, operating cash flow, and returned $10.6 billion to stockholders. These were a result of our ongoing business transformation to software and subscriptions, delivering new products and innovation for our customers, and ongoing discipline in managing our business. A few highlights.
Our revenue was $57 billion, up 11% year-over-year. Our non-GAAP EPS was $3.89, up 16% year-over-year. Our non-GAAP gross margin was 64.5%. Our non-GAAP operating income was $19.1 billion, up 10%. Our non-GAAP net income was $16 billion, up 13% year-over-year. I am really proud of our results, and I'm proud of all the hard work that our teams did. Next slide, please. From a capital allocation perspective, this past year, we continued to deliver growth and value to our stockholders. From FY 2019 through FY 2023, we've repurchased 775 million shares. In the most recent year, we repurchased $4.3 billion worth of shares. In FY 2023 alone, we had an annualized dividend per share of $1.56.
Next slide, please. From a capital allocation perspective, we've returned $68.8 billion total of from FY19 through 2023, 90% of our free cash flow. For fiscal 2023 alone, a diluted shares outstanding was 4.1 billion, and we returned $10.6 billion of capital, which was 56% of our free cash flow. Next slide, please. In our quarter that we most recently reported, our Q1 FY24, revenue was $14.7 billion, up 8%, which was also the strongest first quarter results in Cisco's history in terms of revenue and profitability. Non-GAAP EPS was up 29% at $1.11. Subscriptions as a percentage of software revenue was 85%. Non-GAAP gross margin, 67.1. Non-GAAP operating income, $5.4 billion, up 24%.
Our non-GAAP net income, $4.5 billion, up 28% year-over-year. As we have articulated on several of our recent earnings calls, we remain committed to driving operating leverage. We're also very confident in the foundational strength of our business and our future growth opportunities, fueled by artificial intelligence, security, cloud, and observability. In Q1, we also announced our intent to acquire Splunk. The combination of Cisco and Splunk will create an end-to-end data platform to enhance our customers' digital resiliency with our complementary capabilities in AI, security, and observability, all key drivers of our business and future growth opportunities for Cisco. From a guidance perspective, Cisco did experience a slowdown of new product orders in the first quarter of fiscal 2024, after three quarters of exceptionally strong product shipments.
We believe this to be temporary, as customers are now focused on installing and implementing these products, and estimate that there's an additional 1-2 quarters worth of shipped orders in our customers' hands still waiting to be implemented. During Q1, on the next slide, our fiscal year 2024 Q1 transformation metrics, we shared these on our earnings call. We continued to drive our transformation forward to more software and recurring revenue streams, fueled by accelerated innovation, greater visibility—driving greater visibility and predictability in our business. During Q1, we had ARR of $24.5 billion, up 5% year-over-year. We had remaining performance obligations of $34.8 billion, up 12% year-over-year. Of that, $17.6 billion is considered short term, which will be recognized as revenue over the next 12 months.
Our total software revenue in Q1 was $4.4 billion, up 13% year-over-year, and our total subscription revenue was $6.5 billion, an increase of 10%. I'm very encouraged by the progress we continue to make as we shift to more recurring revenue, while also remaining focused on disciplined expense management without losing sight of the strategic investments necessary to innovate and capitalize on our growth opportunities. Our strategy is quite SIEMple: We securely connect everything to make anything possible, and that requires us to cut through layers of technology complexity and SIEMplify these technology capabilities for everyone. It comes to life through focusing on our customer priorities and the things that our customers deeply care about right now.
I've said repeatedly that I don't believe in my career I've ever seen a set of such consistent priorities that virtually every customer is focused on, but there are five areas that we've identified. The first is every customer is effectively re-architecting their application strategy. They're making decisions as to whether to run them in the cloud or on-prem or as a service, or run them privately as cloud-native applications. And our differentiation here is observability. We can really derive insights and value from the technology assets that we have. We launched a Cisco Full-Stack Observability Platform. We have digital experience monitoring, which is really anchored in ThousandEyes and AppDynamics integration. We had double-digit order growth in FY 23, and we expect that this will only accelerate. Secondly, every customer is trying to figure out how to power hybrid work.
According to IDC, there'll be $1.6 trillion spent on the future of work, technology, and services in 2026. We've made incredible progress across devices, workspaces, our work experience, meetings, security, networking, everything that's needed for our customers to actually enable hybrid work. While our customers continue down this multi-cloud path, they're also transforming their infrastructure to accommodate new traffic patterns. What sets us apart is really our history and connectivity, as well as our focus on security, AI, full-stack observability, and collab. They all rely on the network, and we'll continue to own this space. It's what gives us opportunities to help our customers really re-architect how their technology infrastructure supports this multi-cloud world. Every customer on the planet is looking at how they drive sustainability.
At least 72% of C-suite executives today identified sustainability as a priority, and becoming a sustainable and responsible business is a very top priority over the next three years. We brought this forward as a key customer commitment in FY 2023, trying to drive down our own net zero goals and helping our customers do the same. We're designing our products and driving our business with sustainability in mind across technologies like Silicon One, our UCS X-Series, and advanced energy monitoring, as well as others. Then finally, all of this requires an incredible focus on cybersecurity. It's more important than ever. There are more threats, sophisticated bad actors, and the network is the one constant where we need to really identify these threats and help our customers defend against them. Last year, we shared a new vision and strategy.
We've made huge progress, focused on SIEMplicity, focused on delivering platforms, all driven by AI, AI-focused Cisco Security Cloud. And finally, we do all this while walking in our purpose to power an inclusive future for all. This guides our efforts where we know we can make the most impact. I'm incredibly proud of our progress in lots of areas, with a few highlights. NetAcad, our Networking Academy program, has served over 20.5 million students across 190 countries since 1997. We've set a goal of net zero by 2040, which, there's a huge internal motion to embed sustainability into our products and help our customers meet their own sustainability goals.
In fiscal year 16, we announced an effort to positively impact 1 billion people by FY 2025, and we now have positively impacted 1.1 billion people through our social impact programs, grants, and other efforts. This is a number that has been audited by one of our external auditors, so it's a very, very impressive achievement, and I'm really proud of our teams for what they've done. I'm confident we'll continue to bring together the power of our people, our technology, and our innovation to show up in times of need, and to power a more connected, secure, and inclusive future. I'm very optimistic about the opportunities that lie ahead of us. The power of our technology will continue to be a driver of economic growth and productivity, and I look forward to experiencing the tailwinds across our business.
I believe they'll enable us to deliver success for our customers, our partners, our communities, and our stockholders in the remainder of fiscal 2024 and into the future. Now it's my pleasure to turn the meeting over to Sami to lead the Q&A portion. Sami, over to you.
Thank you, Chuck. We will now address questions which have been submitted by stockholders. As mentioned earlier, any stockholder who would like to ask a question can do so by typing the question in the Ask a Question box and clicking Submit. If we are unable to respond to stockholders' properly submitted questions due to time constraints, we will respond directly to that stockholder after the meeting using the contact information provided. We already have some questions submitted, so, Chuck, first one I'm gonna direct your way is: how will you ensure the successful integration of Splunk, and how will this acquisition unlock further shareholder value for the company?
Well, Sami. So first of all, ensuring the successful integration is just an effort of incredible hard work and planning. We've spent a lot of time with the executives from Splunk. We have incredible cultural alignment, which I think will help a lot. We have geographic alignment. We believe in a shared vision for what we can achieve together, and we have set up a dedicated office inside Cisco that is actually driving the planning that we're allowed to do today, and we'll continue to do that. So I think when we actually get the deal approved, we're gonna have a lot of work completed, and we're gonna hit the ground running.
From a value perspective, we think that the integration of Splunk's SIEM platform and our security and our extended detection and response capabilities coming together, our customers are telling us that it's a very unique, differentiated opportunity for us to help them to actually get much more proactive relative to cybersecurity issues. And then we also have the ability to bring our observability solutions together and help our customers with next-generation observability in this new era of applications.
Got it. The next question we've received is on recent company results, and here's the question: in your most recent earnings call, you talked about a slowdown in orders due to inventory digestion issues. Can you discuss what this means?
Yeah, what we realized is that, obviously, we dealt with a supply chain situation over the last few years that is unprecedented, that none of us have ever seen before. Effectively, the bottleneck that was in the supply chain as we shipped and got our backlog back down to normal levels, the problem that we experienced in supply chain has now shifted to our customers. Our customers fundamentally have—we have shipped them so much equipment that they, for reasons of project timing, windows of opportunity, and/or people and staffing, they just have a massive amount of work to do to actually digest and deploy that equipment.
And so that, combined with their ordering cycles now getting back to ordering against 8-week lead times or 10-week lead times versus 52-week lead times, led to an order slowdown, but we expect this to be temporary. We said it would last another quarter or two, and then we think we'll get back to normal.
The next question we've received is on artificial intelligence.
Mm.
It's a two-part question. First part is: how is AI impacting operations at Cisco and its business plan for 2024? Part two is: is artificial intelligence a winner-take-all scenario, and what inning are we in?
So from an AI perspective, there's several things we're doing. Number 1, every function, every business unit inside our company has built a plan for how we will leverage artificial intelligence to drive productivity and improve customer experience and actually run our business more effectively. Second thing is that artificial intelligence is a huge business opportunity for us as all the first starting with the web scale and the cloud providers, the underlying network technology that they need to run these large language models is a huge opportunity for us. We stated on our last earnings call that we're now deployed in pilots in 3 of the 4 largest web scale players in the United States, and then that opportunity will then shift over to the enterprise as the enterprise adopt artificial intelligence. It is definitely not a winner-take-all.
I think it's something that's gonna benefit every company in the world. It's a great opportunity for us. There are so many aspects of AI that different companies are gonna participate in. I think it's probably, you know, the largest technology transition that we've experienced since the advent of the Internet.
And then, one of our final questions on ESG. How is the board engaging on and exercising oversight of ESG, and what is the level of commitment management has regarding ESG initiatives?
Well, first of all, from a management perspective, our compensation actually has an aspect that's, that's tied to delivering on ESG on an annual basis. And the board, we, we set up a public policy committee that, that also looks at it, as well as we have auditors that audit the results that we have. So it's a, it's a very well monitored set of priorities that we have as a leadership team by the board, and I'd say it's reviewed at virtually every board meeting.
That is all the time we have today for questions. Thank you for attending this meeting. The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation, and you may now disconnect.