Alcatel-Lucent narrows quarterly loss significantly

Alcatel-Lucent reports that its first-quarter revenues rose by 15 per cent to €3.74 billion (US$5.52 billion), and it just missed breaking back into profit after its loss of €10 million for the quarter, compared to a loss of €515 million a year earlier.

Ben Verwaayen, CEO, commented: "We have started this year the way we ended the last, increasing growth, profit and global strength, and to do so in the first quarter is particularly pleasing."

"Market momentum remains robust, driven by demand for more capacity and service delivery capabilities in many geographies. While we are facing some difficulties with our supply chain, we believe those challenges will have a limited impact on our business performance thanks to rapid actions taken,” he added.

With a strong start to the year, Alcatel-Lucent reaffirmed its full-year outlook to grow faster than its addressable market with an adjusted operating margin above five per cent of its 2011 sales.

The company’s networks division saw a strong year-over-year increase in revenue with all divisions growing. IP revenues maintained a very strong pace of growth with an increase of more than 20 per cent as did wireless with an increase close to 34 per cent driven by 3G technologies.

The optics division posted sales growth both in submarine and terrestrial transmission, and wireline benefited from good growth in GPON and IPDSLAM.

Applications revenues posted a year-over-year high single digit increase with Networks applications growing at a double digit rate and Enterprise applications increasing close to six per cent. Services revenues grew at a low single digit rate with strong double digit growth for Network & System integration.

From a geographic standpoint, growth in North America accelerated again this quarter at 40 per cent year-over-year, Rest of world grew at a low double digit rate driven by Brazil and Mexico. Asia Pacific grew slightly thanks to China, somewhat compensated by lower sales in the rest of the region and Europe declined one per cent year-over-year with Eastern Europe and Western Europe declining at roughly the same pace.