The overall first-quarter picture looks dim for Lucent Technologies Inc. Although its wireless business is humming along, Lucent’s wireline business is the drag.
The company reported a net income of $174 million or 4 cents per diluted share.
This is in sharp contrast to the most recent fiscal quarter when it netted $1.21 billion in income, or 23 cents per diluted share. In the year-ago period, the company also performed better with a net income of $349 million, or 7 cents per diluted share.
The result sent the company’s shares spiraling downward to $3.43 from $3.70. The company’s shares have declined 93.6 percent during the past five fiscal years.
The company recorded revenues of $2.34 billion for the quarter, amounting to a 3-percent drop from the previous quarter. It had revenues of $2.40 billion in the fourth quarter and $2.26 billion in the year-ago quarter.
For its mobility business, it had revenues of $1.15 billion, which was a 19-percent rise from the year-ago period, although flat compared with the previous quarter.
“This quarter, we continued to achieve strong results in our mobility business where the migration to 3G is ramping up, and our services business generated more than half a billion dollars in revenue for a second consecutive quarter,” said Chairman and Chief Executive Patricia Russo, noting Lucent’s wireline business overshadowed its wireless upswing.
“While the wireline market remains a challenge in the near term, we continued to execute on a long-term strategy of investing in areas that are critical to our vision of convergence such as next-gen optical, VoIP, broadband access, and mobile high-speed data, as well as services, government and emerging markets,” she said.