Everything Cisco Is Saying About Emerging Markets Is Depressing

"Latin America declined 6% with ongoing pressures in some of the largest countries including a decline of 13% in our business in Brazil," said Chambers.

China got slammed with sales down 23% in the region.

As a global provider of networking systems, Cisco serves as a valuable bellwether of economic activity.

It's worth noting that Cisco's operations in China have more to do with industry-specific woes rather than broader economic trends.

"Cisco executives have publicly blamed the company's disappointing results, in part, on disclosures about surveillance activities by the National Security Agency, which they say worry Chinese customers," said CNBC's Mark Berniker and Josh Lipton.

Looking forward, Chambers warned he saw no material rebound in emerging market conditions.

"Unfortunately as we look out, we don't see emerging markets growth for several quarters," he said. "We believe it possibly could get worse."

Barron's Tiernan Ray, who was also listening to the call, noted that in the emerging markets "15 of the nations there collectively declining in order rate by 9%."

Once the world's most reliable source of growth, the emerging markets have run into all sorts of problems in recent years with growth slowing while inflation remains high.