Lucent Sees Another Revenue Slide

Things will get worse before they get better at Lucent(LU Quote).

As expected, the telecommunications-equipment maker posted another multibillion-dollar loss Wednesday, as the slump among major carriers that is leading it to slash another 10,000 jobs continued to eat into revenue.

Lucent added that it sees a 10% sequential revenue decline in the current quarter.

The Murray Hill, N.J., company lost $2.88 billion, or 84 cents a share, on revenue of $2.28 billion in the latest quarter, compared with a loss of $8.8 billion, or $2.59 a share, on revenue of $4.75 billion a year ago. Excluding items, the company lost 64 cents a share in the latest quarter, roughly what analysts were predicting.

Lucent expects first-quarter revenue to fall to about $2.05 billion to $2.28 billion before bouncing back to $2.5 billion in the second quarter. The company is hoping to post that level of revenue in the fourth quarter of 2003, a goal that it says will produce break-even profitability in that period.

Analysts were expecting Lucent to post first-quarter revenue of $2.27 billion, according to First Call.

Lucent also said it expects to end fiscal 2003 with more than $2 billion in cash down from $4.4 billion at the end of last month and enough, it said, to fund its business plan.