Lucent Technologies Inc. unveiled its second consecutive quarterly profit in its first-quarter results with a net income of $338 million, or 7 cents per diluted share.
This builds on the supplier’s fourth-quarter result of a net income of $99 million, or 2 cents per share. In the year-ago period, Lucent suffered a net loss of $264 million, or 11 cents per share.
“We continued to generate positive momentum in the first quarter of fiscal 2004,” said Lucent Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Patricia Russo. “We remain focused on expanding our revenue sources by pursuing opportunities in services, the government sector and outside the United States, as well as in areas like metro optical, broadband access, voice over IP and mobile high-speed data.”
The company’s revenue jumped to $2.26 billion an 11-percent increase sequentially and 9 percent from a year ago. In the fourth quarter, it had revenues of $2.03 billion and $2.08 billion a year ago. Gross margin for the quarter was 41 percent of revenues compared with 43 percent in the previous quarter.
In its mobile business, the company enjoyed a 51-percent rise sequentially in the quarter to $960 million. It represents a 32-percent increase over the same period last year.
Lucent has been racking up contracts in CDMA and UMTS in the United States and Asia. It also is involved in professional services with companies such as Qwest, Verizon, CODETEL, Portugal Telecom and Bell Canada.
The company, however, does not expect to raise the tempo significantly in the coming quarters. “We still expect annual revenues to remain essentially flat or to increase slightly year over year,” said Chief Financial Officer Frank D’Amelio.
