Alcatel wireline pushes revenue gain

Alcatel today reported fourth quarter sales of 4.094 billion Euros ($4.951 billion), up 7.6% from the same quarter last year. Partly on the strength of its fixed-line group, the company said its full-year net income was 931 million Euros ($1.13 billion), up 61% from 2004.

On a quarterly basis, the fixed line group posted fourth quarter revenue of 1.72 billion Euros ($2.1 billion), compared to 1.531 billion Euros ($1.85 billion) in the same quarter of 2004. On the year, the group posted revenues of 5.213 billion Euros ($6.3 billion), compared to 5.125 billion Euros ($6.2 billion) in 2004.

The company, which is the primary supplier to AT&T’s Project Lightspeed, said the turnaround in wireline revenue is attributable to carriers’ deployment of triple play services. The growth should continue into at least the first half of this year, said Serge Tchuruk, Chairman and CEO.

“We anticipate that the carrier market will continue to grow in the mid single digit range for the full year 2006,” he said in prepared remarks. “The wireline market should accelerate with the deployment of IPTV services and the transformation of carrier networks towards IP. The wireless market growth rate will most probably slow down compared to last year, and will be focused on emerging market needs and new applications across all geographical regions.”