SAN JOSE, California (Reuters) - Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO.O: Quote, Profile, Research) is best known for selling routers and switches to telecoms companies, but its strongest sales growth these days comes from an area that seldom gets much attention: hospitals.
Cisco has sold routers and switches to hospitals and insurance companies for years, but in 2005 it created a business segment focusing on health care. Since then, it has launched a wide range of equipment designed for hospitals.
“It’s growing at a pace that is faster than Cisco overall, and the industry overall. We have doubled our sales over the last two years,” Jeffrey Rideout, head of Cisco’s health care practice, told Reuters in an interview.
While the company does not disclose financial results from the segment, Rideout said annual revenue is well over a billion dollars, out of Cisco’s overall sales of about $35 billion.