Alcatel-Lucent CFO Affirms Forecast
Alcatel-Lucent
(ALU)
shares traded higher Friday after the company's chief financial officer reiterated its full-year outlook.
Dow Jones
reported that, during the company's annual shareholder meeting, Alcatel-Lucent CFO Hubert de Pesquidoux said he continues to expect full-year revenue to be down in the low- to mid-single digit range. Pesquidoux cited the significant deterioration in the euro/dollar exchange rate, repeating the same comments made in the company's first-quarter earnings report.
For the previous year, Alcatel-Lucent had revenue of 17.79 billion euros. For the current year, analysts expect revenue to decline to 17.4 billion euros, which would be a decrease of 2.2%. Traders took the news as positive, however, as the company didn't further cut its outlook. Shares of Alcatel were adding 19 cents, or 2.6%, to $7.58.
Previous to the company's first-quarter earnings report in April, Alcatel-Lucent had said it would expect revenue to rise in 2008. "While the long-term prospects for the industry are positive, the current macroeconomic environment remains uncertain, leading the company to continue to be prudent in its market assumptions," Alcatel said in first-quarter report.
Additionally, Pesquidoux said Alcatel expects gross margin of about 35% for the year, which is in line with what analysts are looking for.
Analysts hope the company will snap a string of five straight quarterly shortfalls when it reports second-quarter results at the end of July. A Thomson Reuters poll shows that Wall Street expects, on average, that Alcatel will notch a profit of 3 cents a share.
Turning to other networking equipment makers,
Cisco
(CSCO) - Get Report
was tacking on 0.8%, and
Nortel
(NT)
was climbing 0.6%. Meanwhile,
Juniper Networks
(JNPR) - Get Report
dipped 0.9%, and
Ericsson
(ERIC) - Get Report
was down 0.4%.