PARIS-Alcatel announced that its preliminary second-quarter earnings would be better than expected due to strong mobile-phone sector growth, sending shares in the French firm to a four-month high, climbing to $3.82.
The firm said its revenues would be 8 percent higher than the same period last year.
“Growth was significantly stronger than the market had been expecting,” said Jean-Pascal Beaufret, chief financial officer at Alcatel. Beaufret added that market expectations were for sales growth of 2 percent to 3 percent.
“This higher-than-expected revenue growth resulted from a strong momentum in IP routing and optical transmission, mobile communications, and enterprise solutions,” Alcatel said in a statement.
Second-quarter operating margin amounted to slightly above 8 percent of revenues, which Alcatel said also was ahead of expectations.
The company attributed the improvement to a positive impact from tax income and a gain from the disposal of a holding in a central European operator.
Alcatel said that growth in the mobile telephone sector had been stronger than expected over the quarter, boosted by demand from emerging markets, while the fixed-line sector had declined at a slower rate than had been expected.
The company said it expects double-digit earnings growth and an operating margin of 10 percent for the full year.
Alcatel said it would provide more details of its performance when it reports second quarter results July 28.
