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Alcatel Scrambling Too
By Mark Evans | October 5, 2007
As much as the spotlight has been on Nortel’s ongoing efforts to restructure itself and reduce operating costs, it’s not the only telecom equipment supplier scrambling to remain competitive.
Alcatel-Lucent, for example, is struggling to reduce costs and deal with unions not particularly overjoyed about the prospects of watching jobs eliminated. Since Alcatel and Lucent were merged (aka Alcatel bought Lucent), the company has issued three profit warnings, and seen revenue growth stall.
For Nortel watchers, one of the Alcatel-Lucent’s trouble spots is its wireless business. In particular, its WCDMA division appears to be a bit of a mess right now given it has three products - one from Alcatel, one from Lucent and one from Nortel, which was acquired last year.
In a lengthy Financial Times article, Nomura analyst Richard Windsor said Alcatel-Lucent’s GSM and WCDMA units will have an operating loss of about €800m in 2007. Yikes!
Topics: Financials |