Scott Herren
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Cisco Systems
Thanks, Chuck. Our fourth quarter reflects a strong close to our fiscal year with significant momentum across our business. We saw robust customer demand, demonstrating the third consecutive increase in product order growth and solid execution by our teams. I'll provide some detail on our financial results for the quarter, then cover the full fiscal year, followed by our guidance.
Q4 was a very strong quarter in a very dynamic environment. We executed exceptionally well with greater than 30% product order growth year-on-year, and more than 17% order growth versus our pre-COVID Q4 fiscal '19 product bookings, driven by strength across our portfolio. In fact, it was the strongest product order growth rate in over a decade. We also had strong results across revenue, net income, earnings per share and as Chuck said earlier, record operating cash flows.
Total revenue increased to $13.1 billion, up 8% year-over-year, coming in at the high end of our guidance range for the quarter. We saw strength in a number of product areas and across all geographies. Our business continued to recover well and build momentum with sequential revenue growth of 3%. Our non-GAAP operating margin was 33.5% up 50 basis points. Non-GAAP net income was $3.6 billion and non-GAAP earnings per share was $0.84, both up 5% year-over-year and exceeding the high end of our guidance range.
Now, let me turn to provide more detail on our Q4 revenue. Total product revenue was $9.7 billion, up 10%. Service revenue was $3.4 billion, up 3%. Infrastructure Platforms performed very well with revenues up 13%. All businesses saw double-digit growth with the exception of data center. Switching had strong growth driven by double-digit increase in campus switching, led by our Catalyst 9K and Meraki switching offerings. We also had solid growth in our data center switching portfolio with the Nexus 9K products.
Routing grew driven by both the service provider and enterprise markets, as we saw strong adoption across our portfolio including robust uptake of our Cisco 8000 platform. Wireless had strong growth, driven by the continued ramp of our Wi-Fi 6 products and our Meraki wireless offerings. Data center revenue declined driven primarily by servers, as we experienced continued market contraction. Applications were down 1%, driven by a slight decline in our collaboration portfolio. However, recurring subscription revenue within our Webex suite grew 9% in Q4.
We also saw solid growth in IoT software, AppDynamics, cloud contact center and our cloud calling platforms. Security was up 1%. Our cloud security and Zero Trust portfolios performed well with greater than 20% growth, as we had continued momentum in our Duo and Umbrella offerings. Our security recurring subscription revenue grew 13% in Q4 and 18% for the full fiscal year. In both applications and security, we are seeing strong revenue growth in the strategic areas that we and our customers are investing in. We continue to transform our business, delivering more software offerings and driving growth in subscriptions and recurring revenue.
Software revenue was $4 billion, an increase of 6%. Subscriptions were 81% of total software revenue, up 3 points year-over-year. Software subscription revenue grew 9% in Q4 and 15% for the full fiscal year. As we continue to increase our software subscriptions, we're driving higher levels of recurring revenue. Additionally, the strength of our portfolio and transition to more software and services, is driving growth in remaining performance obligations or RPO. At the end of Q4, RPO crossed the $30 billion mark at $30.9 billion, up 9%. RPO for product was up 18% and service was up 3%. Approximately 53% of the total RPO is short term; meaning it will be recognized as revenue in the next 12 months.
As I mentioned, we had exceptionally strong order momentum in Q4, as total product orders were up 31% with strength across the business. Looking at our geographies, the Americas was up 34%, EMEA was up 24%, and APJC was up 29%. Total emerging markets were up 25%, with the BRICS plus Mexico up 37%. In our customer segments, commercial was up 41%. Service provider was up 40%. The enterprise returned to growth and was up 25%, while public sector was up 22%.
Non-GAAP total gross margins came in at 65.6%, up 60 basis points year-over-year. Product gross margin was 65%, up 180 basis points and services gross margin was 67.4%, down 240 basis points, which was in line with our expectations, as we do see variability from quarter to quarter. The increase in product gross margin was driven by productivity improvements from lower freight and other costs, partially offset by relatively modest price erosion.
As we discussed last quarter, we continue to manage through the supply chain constraints seen industry-wide due to component shortages. We've closely partnered with our key suppliers, leveraging our volume purchasing and extended supply commitments, as we address the supply challenges and cost impacts, which we expect will continue at least through the first half of our fiscal year and potentially into the second half. Our Number 1 ranked global supply chain team continues to perform at a world-class level.
When you look at the impact of acquisitions on our Q4 results year-over-year, there was a positive 210 basis point impact on revenue and no material impact on our non-GAAP earnings per share. From a cash perspective, operating cash flow for the quarter was a record $4.5 billion, up 18% year-over-year, driven by strong cash collections. We ended Q4 with total cash, cash equivalents and investments of $24.5 billion, up approximately $900 million sequentially. In terms of capital allocation, we returned $2.4 billion to shareholders during the quarter. That was comprised of $1.6 billion for our quarterly cash dividend and $791 million of share repurchases.
We continue to invest organically and inorganically in our innovation pipeline. During Q4, we closed five acquisitions, Kenna Security, Socio Labs, Slido, Sedona Systems and Involvio. These investments are consistent with our strategy of complementing our internal innovation and R&D, with targeted M&A to allow us to further strengthen and differentiate our market position in our key growth areas.
Turning to the full fiscal year results. Overall, our financial results were solid in a very challenging global pandemic environment, with strong operational execution. Revenue was $49.8 billion, up 1%. Total non-GAAP gross margin was 66.1%, up 10 basis points. And our non-GAAP operating margin was 33.5%, down 30 basis points. From a bottom line perspective, our non-GAAP net income was flat at $13.6 billion, and non-GAAP earnings per share was $3.22. We delivered operating cash flow of $15.5 billion, flat compared to fiscal '20. From a cap allocation perspective, we returned $9.1 billion in value to shareholders over the fiscal year, which represents 61% of our free cash flow. That was comprised of $6.2 billion in quarterly cash dividends and $2.9 billion of share repurchases.
We also increased our dividend for the 10th consecutive year in fiscal 2021, reinforcing our commitment to return capital to our shareholders and our confidence in the strength and stability of our ongoing cash flows. We remain firmly committed to maintaining a strong balance sheet to fuel our organic and inorganic growth initiatives, as well as continuing our cap allocation strategy of returning a minimum of 50% of our free cash flow to shareholders annually.
To summarize, we had a great Q4 and a solid fiscal year, with strong operational execution. We're seeing returns on the investments we're making in innovation and driving the continued shift to more software and subscriptions, driving more recurring revenue, delivering growth and driving shareholder value.
Now, let me provide our forward-looking guidance. We are pleased to initiate the additional practice of providing an annual outlook to complement our regular quarterly look ahead for fiscal year 2022. As successful transformation we've been executing around driving a higher proportion of our revenues from subscriptions, recurring and deferred revenue is affording us additional visibility into our outlook for future growth. Please note, our guidance is subject to the disclaimer regarding forward-looking information that Marilyn referred to earlier.
Our financial guidance for Q1 is as follows. We expect revenue growth to be in the range of 7.5% to 9.5% year-on-year. We anticipate the non-GAAP gross margin to be in the range of 63.5% to 64.5%, reflecting the continuing increase in supply chain costs we are incurring, as we protect shipments to our customers. Our non-GAAP operating margin is expected to be in the range of 31.5% to 32.5%. Non-GAAP earnings per share is expected to range from $0.79 to $0.81.
Our financial guidance for the full year fiscal '22 is as follows. We expect revenue growth to be in the range of 5% to 7% year-on-year. Non-GAAP earnings per share is expected to range from $3.38 to $3.45, also up 5% to 7% year-on-year. In both our Q1 and full-year outlook, we are assuming a non-GAAP effective tax rate of 19%. Looking ahead, we're excited to host a Cisco virtual Investor Day on Wednesday, September 15, 2021, which we will webcast live and hope you can join us.
I'll now turn it back to Marilyn, so we can move into the Q&A.
