Things are looking up for Cisco Systems Inc., which reported third-quarter earnings today that beat estimates.

Even more important, the networking giant provided upbeat guidance for the next quarter, saying it expects minimal impact to its business from the ongoing trade dispute between the U.S. and China.

For the third quarter, Cisco said its earnings before certain costs such as stock compensation came to 78 cents per share on revenue of $13 billion, up 6% from a year ago. That was just above Wall Street’s forecast of earnings of 77 cents per share on revenue of $12.89 billion.

Cisco’s earnings report comes just days after U.S. President Donald Trump announced he was raising tariffs by 25% on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports. That prompted China to retaliate, increasing duties on $60 billion worth of U.S. imports.

The escalation in the trade war may have been cause for concern for some analysts and shareholders, because many of Cisco’s network switches and routers are manufactured in China. But on a conference call, Cisco executives said they expect to ride out any disruption as they’ve been working to adapt their supply chain for the last six months in anticipation of potential problems.

“We see very minimal impact this point based on all the great work the teams have done, and it is absolutely baked into our guide going forward,” Cisco Chief Executive Officer Chuck Robbins (pictured) told analysts on the call.

In a later interview with Reuters, Cisco Chief Financial Officer Kelly Kramer admitted that the company does still have some manufacturing operations in China. “But we’ve greatly reduced our exposure working with our supply chain and our suppliers,” she said.

Kramer also pointed out that Cisco is unlikely to see much damage from sales in China itself, as that accounts for just 3% of the firm’s overall revenue, in contrast to other tech companies such as Apple Inc., where Chinese sales are a crucial part of its business.

Analyst Charles King of Pund-IT Inc. told SiliconANGLE that this was good news for Cisco’s shareholders.

“Many assumed that the company could suffer a severe hit due to its supply chain and manufacturing concerns in the PRC,” King said. “Instead, it sounds as if Cisco has shifted the endangered product lines and sourcing to other locations, largely negating the potential impact of tariffs.”

Looking deeper into Cisco’s businesses, there were plenty more positives to take home. The bulk of Cisco’s revenue still comes from its Infrastructure Platforms division, which includes its traditional switches and routers for enterprise data centers. That unit pulled in $7.55 billion in revenue in the quarter, beating Wall Street’s estimate of $7.46 billion.

Sales there may have been boosted by the launch of several new products that expand the company’s Enterprise Network portfolio, including its new Catalyst 9600 Campus core switches designed for cloud-scale networks.

“By combining our automation and analytics software with our broad portfolio of switches, access points and controllers, we are creating a seamless, end-to-end, wireless-first architecture for our customers,” Robbins said in the call.

Cisco has also been investing heavily into areas such as cybersecurity as it looks to diversify itself away from its core business. And that investment looks to be paying off, as Cisco’s Security business, which mostly sells breach detection systems and firewall software, saw revenue jump by 21% to $707 million in the quarter.

Meanwhile Cisco’s Applications business, which includes its AppDynamics application performance monitoring tools and video conferencing software, generated $1.43 billion in revenue. That was lower than the $1.5 billion revenue forecast, however.

Still, analysts viewed Cisco’s quarter as a successful one, despite that blip.

“Cisco had a great quarter and a very solid outlook,” said Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy. “I think this is a testament to the company’s refocus on security software while at the same time succeeding with its core switching business.”

Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. agreed that Cisco seems to be turning the corner with steady growth in the 5% to 10% range, following several quarters during which its growth was much slower.

“Getting into higher gear is certainly what investors will want to see, and now it requires discipline and execution by Cisco to stay in that range,” Mueller said. “The product portfolio for that growth is certainly there, so it really comes back to sales execution.”

And that looks to be going well, if Cisco’s guidance for the next quarter is anything to go by. For the fourth quarter, Cisco said it’s expecting to see earnings in the region of 80 to 82 cents per share, with revenue growth of between 4.5% and 6.5%. Analysts had pegged Cisco’s earnings at 81 cents per share, with revenue growth of just 3.5%.

Cisco’s stock rose 2.75% in the after-hours trading session.

Photo: Cisco Pics/Flickr