After meeting with CEO Mike Zafirovski recently, Merrill Lynch analyst Vivek Arya decided to lower his 2007 revenue estimate to $11.48-billion from $11.78-billion amid concerns the company will see a 12% to 15% decline in wireless sales, which accounted for 44% of overall sales in 2006. Arya also reduced his 2007 EPS target to 68 cents from 74 cents (compared with the average estimate of 75 cents), and his 2008 EPS forecast has been dropped to $1.48 from $1.55.
Not surprising given Nortel’s growth issues. The key thing to watch for this year with Nortel is net cash flow. Nortel is in a cash crunch and from what I’ve heard thru folks that work there, Mike Z is looking for different ways to deploy the R&D budget in order to grow sales more quickly. I’d look for more inorganic R&D growth and more R&D job cuts.
UMTS
In Nortel… There was “tel” for telecom… And to make it really clear, since several years it was Nortel-Telecom!
But now? Don’t focus on the brand, nortel have externalized or sold all this! Wireless was a key nortel revenue for serious infrastructure… But now they go to Wimax, a kind of wifi+, still with no mobility (and it will not be an easy feature!)??!!
So they will become a company like lynksys, just for little SOHO equipment… if they succeed: When you’re the last on a market, you don’t cut R&D costs!
many
I always thought “nortel” was an ancient aboriginal word for no dialtone
Again and again nortel concentrates on the infrastructure technology rather than the applications and applications interaction/behaviour/interworkings. I argue that the infrastructure has been dumbed down and it is a commodity business. Applications is where the future is. Nortel can’t seem to develop traction here though and I do not understand why. I know the talent is there.
Anonymous
Many – you make an excellent point. I’d say the reason why Nortel can’t develop traction there is because it takes a different set of skills as a company to think of applications rather than infrastructure. Also, Nortel is extremely late to the applications segment relative to competitors after spending much of this upcycle in technology spending working thru their accounting and financial issues. Having 3 CEOs in 4 years really doesn’t make for much direction as a company. As an investor, I still don’t understand Nortel’s strategy or where they are headed.
many
I no longer hold any Nortel, nor do I short them.
I will say that I have attended standards bodies meetings IEEE, MEF, IETF and ITU with their employees who seem bright, energetic and very capable. I think the skill set is there. There is a political element to their presence, sure but they are primarily technologists.
I can only assume that the weakness is in the CTO office. Mumford was an empty suit. Roese is a low level hardware/firmware guy from Broadcom. I don’t think he gets it. They need someone looking at layer 3 & above. They need a product with *both* a switching and a routing fabric.
Perhaps they need to make the CTO office a layered affair like the protocol stack
Merrill Lowers Revenue, EPS Targets
After meeting with CEO Mike Zafirovski recently, Merrill Lynch analyst Vivek Arya decided to lower his 2007 revenue estimate to $11.48-billion from $11.78-billion amid concerns the company will see a 12% to 15% decline in wireless sales, which accounted for 44% of overall sales in 2006. Arya also reduced his 2007 EPS target to 68 cents from 74 cents (compared with the average estimate of 75 cents), and his 2008 EPS forecast has been dropped to $1.48 from $1.55.