Applied Materials’ own guidance asks for revenue about 51% above the year-ago quarter when it reports on Thursday, 12 November, by our arithmetic. Its August release guided fourth-quarter revenue to $10.25 billion, plus or minus $500 million, against $6.8 billion a year earlier.
Cisco, reporting the same evening, guided to $18.0 billion to $18.2 billion, about 21.6% above its year-ago quarter at the midpoint, by the same arithmetic. Nebius reports first, before the US market opens; our Nebius preview covers what its guidance implies.
Business Pill · Forecast vs Commitment Explained
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on forecasts and commitments. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss Cisco, Applied Materials or Nebius.
The key insight: As we read it, Thursday tests two different shapes of AI demand: Applied Materials guided to revenue about 51% above its year-ago quarter, chip-making tools for the factories, while Cisco guided to 21.6%, networking for the data centres, by our arithmetic on their own filings.
Applied’s outlook for its fiscal fourth quarter, which ends in October, is total revenue of $10,250 million, plus or minus $500 million, and non-GAAP diluted EPS of $4.02, plus or minus $0.20. A year earlier it reported revenue of $6,800 million and non-GAAP EPS of $2.17, its November 2025 release shows.
The midpoint is about 12.5% above the record $9.12 billion of the third quarter, by our arithmetic. Chief executive Gary Dickerson said in August: “Based on the increased demand visibility we are receiving from our customers, we expect another strong growth year for Applied Materials in 2027”.
Chief financial officer Brice Hill said the company expects “continued strong revenuegrowth in the second half of the calendar year, particularly in DRAM as well as leading-edge foundry-logic and advanced packaging”. DRAM was 26% of Semiconductor Systems revenue of $7.04 billion in the third quarter, against 22% a year earlier.
Year-ago quarter indexed to 100 against the midpoint of each company’s guidance for the quarter it reports on 12 November 2026, from Cisco’s and Applied Materials’ earnings releases on SEC EDGAR. Applied: revenue 151 and non-GAAP EPS 185; Cisco: revenue 122 and non-GAAP EPS 133. Indexing is our arithmetic.
What Cisco Has Guided
Cisco’s August release guided its first fiscal 2027 quarter to revenue of $18.0 billion to $18.2 billion and non-GAAP EPS of $1.32 to $1.34. In the same quarter a year earlier it reported revenue of $14,883 million and non-GAAP EPS of $1.00, according to its November 2025 release.
The release says Cisco took $4 billion of AI infrastructure orders from hyperscalers in the fourth quarter, bringing fiscal 2026 to $9.3 billion. It says it delivered approximately $4 billion of AI infrastructure revenue in fiscal 2026 and expects $7.5 billion in fiscal 2027. A year earlier, the first-quarter figure for such orders was $1.3 billion.
Our Numbers
At the midpoints, Applied’s guidance implies revenuegrowth of 50.7% and non-GAAP EPS growth of 85.3% on the year-ago quarter, by our arithmetic. The ends of its ranges imply 43.4% to 58.1% for revenue and 76.0% to 94.5% for EPS.
Cisco’s midpoints imply 21.6% revenuegrowth and 33% non-GAAP EPS growth, by our arithmetic, with a range of 20.9% to 22.3% for revenue. Its midpoint is about 4.9% above the $17,252 million of its fourth quarter.
Nasdaq’s earnings calendar lists a consensus EPS forecast of $4.06 for Applied, from 10 estimates, inside the company’s range. For Cisco it lists $1.15 from eight estimates and a year-ago figure of $0.81, which matches neither Cisco’s reported GAAP EPS of $0.72 nor its non-GAAP $1.00, so we do not compare Nasdaq’s forecast with Cisco’s guidance.
Growth against the year-ago quarter implied by the low and high end of each company’s guidance range, from Cisco’s and Applied Materials’ earnings releases on SEC EDGAR. Growth rates are our arithmetic; EPS is non-GAAP.
What to Watch
For Applied: where revenue lands in the $9.75 billion to $10.75 billion range, the DRAM share of systems sales, and any first figures for 2027. Its October filing says an agreement would take it to about 20% of BE Semiconductor, pending US antitrust clearance.
For Cisco: the next figure for AI infrastructure orders from hyperscalers, against $4 billion in the fourth quarter, and whether it keeps its fiscal 2027 guidance of $72.2 billion to $73.4 billion of revenue. BE Semiconductor closed up 5.94% on Wednesday, our European close piece shows.
The Structural Read
As we read Applied’s range, it is wide in absolute terms: $1 billion between the low and high end of revenue, and EPS growth anywhere from 76.0% to 94.5% on the year-ago quarter, by our arithmetic.
As we read Cisco’s guide, the total is narrow, $200 million from end to end, so the AI order line is where the new information sits: $4 billion in its fourth fiscal 2026 quarter and $1.3 billion in its first fiscal 2026 quarter, in its own releases.
Gary Dickerson, Applied Materials chief executive, 13 August 2026
“As the rapid global adoption of AI drives unprecedented demand for our materials engineering solutions, we are further raising our Semiconductor Systems revenue expectations for calendar 2026”
Three Implications
FOR CHIP-TOOL MAKERS Applied’s guide is $10.25 billion of revenue, plus or minus $500 million, against $6.8 billion a year earlier.
FOR NETWORKING Cisco expects $7.5 billion of AI infrastructure revenue from hyperscalers in fiscal 2027, after about $4 billion in fiscal 2026, its release says.
FOR NEOCLOUDS Nebius reports before the US open; our earlier piece puts the second half implied by its full-year guide at $2.02 billion to $2.42 billion.
The framework says: “the capex race is no longer a corporate spending cycle. It is a sovereign-scale financing problem dressed in tech-company clothing.”
As we read it, Applied’s and Cisco’s guides are the supplier end of that spending: tools for chip factories and networks for data centres. The framework predates these reports and does not discuss them.
What Is Not Established
Guidance is the companies’ own forecast, not a result; the actual figures arrive after the US close on Thursday. The consensus numbers are Nasdaq’s, and we did not see the estimates behind them. Growth rates on guidance are our arithmetic, not company statements.
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Applied Materials goes into Thursday guided to revenue about 51% and non-GAAP EPS about 85% above a year earlier, against 21.6% and 33% for Cisco, by our arithmetic on their own filings. Cisco’s AI infrastructure orders from hyperscalers were $4 billion in its fourth fiscal 2026 quarter, against $1.3 billion in its first fiscal 2026 quarter, the year-ago period of the quarter it reports on Thursday.
A note on sourcing. We read Cisco’s and Applied Materials’ earnings releases for their last reported quarters and for the year-ago quarters, filed as Exhibit 99.1 to their 8-Ks on SEC EDGAR, Applied’s 8-K of 26 October 2026, and Nasdaq’s earnings calendar for 12 November, read at about 17:40 UTC on 11 November. Growth rates on guidance are our arithmetic. Nebius figures are from our earlier piece. No company was contacted for this piece.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
