全球经济晴雨表思科预示中国还有阴雨

    上个月，IBM指出它在新兴市场上的收益下跌了9%，这主要是由于中国经济政策的调整导致的。这次思科的收益预期一出，又引起了人们的一番争论，比如有人表示中国是因为美国禁止进口华为的产品而在进行报复，也有人称这与美国国安局泄密事件的进一步发酵有关等等。但是思科的问题远非中国政策调整那么简单。

    在上周二的年度股东大会上，钱伯斯进一步解释道：“我相信，由于各种原因共同导致，使我们现在正处于一个经济增长比正常情况下慢得多的时期。”他还表示，对于新兴经济体来说，“他们很可能会出现硬着陆……我们的数据表明，经济形势可能会变得更困难。”

    钱伯斯的看法与经济合作与发展组织（OECD）的看法不谋而合。OECD近日表示，由于印度、巴西等新兴市场的经济可能将很快放缓，因而该组织调低了对今年和明年全球经济增长的预测。

    1998年的亚洲金融风暴期间，思科公司加大了在新兴市场的投资，因此等这个地区从危机中恢复过来之后，思科在该地区好几个国家的市场份额都有所增强。这次我们尚不清楚该公司是否还会采取这样激进的策略。钱伯斯上周二在回答一位股东问题的时候说：“考虑到市场的不确定性，我们打算留下一部分的‘弹药’，等待机会。”

    思科可能还会利用它的现金囤积它自己的股份。上个季度，思科公司斥资20亿美元回购自己的股票。去年同一季度，思科也回购了价值2.53亿美元的本公司股票，约合今年这笔交易的八分之一。上周，思科表示公司将为回购计划斥资150亿美元，也就是说，未来思科还将回购价值310亿美元的股份。

    或许思科依然擅于预测全球经济的变化，但如果它也深陷在这股长期艰难的低潮里无法自拔，恐怕也很难能利用这种能力为自己服务。（财富中文网）

    译者：朴成奎

    Last month, IBM (IBM) reported a 9% drop in revenue from emerging markets, driven largely by China's shift in economic policies. Cisco's earnings forecast spurred discussion that China is retaliating against U.S. policies limiting the import of telecom equipment from Huawei, as well as the fallout from the NSA leaks. But Cisco's problems went well beyond China.

    At its annual shareholder meeting Tuesday, Chambers elaborated further. "I believe that we are in a period of much slower economic growth than we should be in for a whole bunch of different reasons," he said. In terms of emerging economies, "they are going to hit pretty hard ... Our numbers would indicate it might get tougher before it gets better."

    Chambers comments Tuesday coincided with news that the OECD was cutting its global growth forecasts for this year and next, citing an imminent slowdown in emerging markets like India and Brazil.

    During the 1998 financial crisis in Asia, Cisco increased its investment in the region, strengthening its market share in several countries when they recovered. It's not clear the company will be so aggressive this time. "We've decided that given the uncertainty of the market, we want to keep a certain amount of our powder dry in terms of opportunities," Chambers said in answer to a shareholder question Tuesday.

    Instead, Cisco will be applying its cash to shore up its own stock. Last quarter, the company bought $2 billion of its own stock. In the same quarter a year earlier, Cisco bought $253 million, or one-eighth as much. The company also said last week it would increase its repurchase program by $15 billion, giving it a total of $31 billion to spend on its flagging stock in the future.

    Cisco may be as prescient as ever about predicting shifts in the global economy, but as long as it's stuck in the middle of a long and difficult turnaround it will have a hard time taking advantage of them.