Company plans to lay off up to 6,000 employees, or about 8 per cent of its global workforce

John Chambers, Chairman and CEO of the U.S.-based networking major Cisco, on Thursday, exuded confidence in the new Narendra Modi led-government to “turn around” India.

“I think Modi in India is going to turn around that country. You can see the enthusiasm both the citizens and the businesses there are betting on a single emerging market.” Mr. Chambers said while talking about emerging markets over an earnings conference call.

He added, “I would bet on India right now in a big way.”

Cisco has seen mostly negative growth in emerging markets. Two key markets where it suffered were China and Brazil, which declined by 23 per cent and 13 per cent, respectively.

On the other hand, India, as a market, bucked that trend for Cisco. India grew at 18 per cent, even as emerging countries in Asia (excluding China and India) declined 34 per cent.

“We saw the impact of economic and geopolitical challenges in China, Brazil, Russia, Argentina, Turkey, and Thailand and in a number of emerging markets that many of other peers are seeing. These declines are reducing our growth by several points from what was expected and typically seen. Unfortunately as we look out we don’t see emerging markets growth returning for several quarters and believe it possibly could get worst,” Mr. Chambers said.

The company also announced plans to lay off up to 6,000 employees, or about 8 per cent of its global workforce, in the coming months. While the company did not comment on the impact on the Indian operations, according to industry experts, given the size of Cisco’s workforce in India, some impact is likely. In India, Cisco employs over 10,000 people across cities such as Bangalore, Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune and Hyderabad. Of these, 8,000 people are part of the R&D set up.