Cisco saw a faster growth than the market with India sales revenue touching Rs 2,703 crore in FY 2005, up by 46% over FY 2004; the company also accounted for more than 47% of the total enterprise networking equipment sales in India during the period.

One reason why it beat the market and managed to do what it did was because of SMBs who started using networking technology, giving Cisco a whole new area of opportunity. Aggressive pricing coupled with product releases that were simple to deploy and manage, introduction of service and support catering to this market, and a 50-city integrated campaign targeting the end customer and partners, ensured strong adoption.

HIGHLIGHTS Registers 46% growth in revenues to touch Rs 2,703 crore Clinches India's biggest metro Ethernet deal of the year worth Rs 500 crore Unchallenged in Router and Switch business with 84% and 70% share Growing SMB focus and penetration; wide portfolio now includes consumers (Linksys) Business groups to focus on IT services, enterprises, service providers and govt Still not able to shake off the image of a costly, high-end equipment vendor   Competition from a range of small and niche players l Products and Services: Voice/Data networking, network security, storage, wireless, IP telephony l Branches: 5 l Address: 2nd Floor, Brigade South Parade, 10,MG Road, Bangalore, India l Tel: 51593000 l Fax: 25327282 l Website: www.cisco.com/in

Very strong deals were also reported from the BPO sector, banking and financial services, manufacturing and the telecom verticals, particularly, where one of the key highlights was VSNL's Metro Ethernet deployment, worth Rs 500 crore.

Fuelled by good uptake amongst service providers and the enterprise segments, Cisco remained the undisputed king of routers and switches with 84% and 70% market share respectively. Its router business grew by 35%, helped to some extent, by the launch of mid-range Integrated Services Routers. At the very high-end, it launched Carrier Routing Services (CRS1) targeted at the telecom market, a product in which Cisco had invested around half a billion dollars in R&D.

Cisco's switch business shot up to Rs 911 crore in FY 2005 from Rs 510 crore the previous fiscal, particularly due to its good performance in the telecom and BPO space. Key wins here were with the Tata group, SBI, Mahindra & Mahindra, IDRBT, Wipro BPO and BITS. The company also saw significant penetration in "advanced technologies" like network security, IP telephony, wireless and in next generation network broadband, with the contribution of this segment going up to 18%.

There were minor changes in the management team with former VP Sales (West) Naresh Wadha moving to Cisco Honk Kong to look after North Asia; Jangoo Dalal, senior VP, Enterprise, has taken his place. The rest of the line-up largely remains the same with Rangnath Salgame very much at the helm.