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Lucent hits profit despite revenue decline

Lucent Technologies Inc. is riding a third consecutive quarter of profits as indicated in its fiscal second-quarter results with a net income of $68 million, or 2 cents per diluted share.

In its wireless business, however, the vendor grappled with a decline in revenue.

The company’s net income falls short of its first quarter when it had a net income of $338 million, or 7 cents per diluted share. In the year-ago period, Lucent suffered a loss of $351 million, or 14 cents per diluted share.

The company’s overall revenue fell 9 percent to $2.19 billion compared with $2.40 in the same period last year. Its operating expenses also fell 3.9 percent to $623 million.

“At this point, we now expect annual revenues to increase on a percentage basis in the low single digits for the fiscal year,” noted Frank D’Amelio, chief financial officer for the company. “While we may still see some quarterly fluctuations, we continue to expect to report a profit for the year, excluding any additional impact from a revaluation of the warrants.”

Lucent Mobility revenues for the quarter were $951 million, a decrease of 1-percent sequentially and a drop of 13 percent from the same period last year. The company highlighted its CDMA2000 1x EV-DO contract with Verizon Wireless, its rising CDMA 450 MHz profile, as well UMTS activities buoyed by its alliances with Novatel Wireless in PC modem cards in deals with European operators in Italy, Spain and Germany.

“Our Mobility business remained strong .,” said Patricia Russo, chief executive officer of the company. The vendor also benefited from rebuilding Iraq’s infrastructure, while listing contracts with companies such as China Unicom, China Telecom, Telefonica and T-Com.

She also said professional services enjoyed more traction and cited the increasing bundling of voice, video and data services.

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