Level 3 beats estimates

(Telephony) Level 3 Communications posted a narrower than expected loss for the fourth quarter of 2000.

For the quarter ending December 31, the company posted revenue of $433 million. Net loss was $552 million, or $1.50 per share, compared to a loss of 56 cents per share year over year and slightly ahead of consensus analyst estimates of $1.53 loss per share.

Communications revenue from the quarter, which excludes the unrelated operations such as Level 3’s coal mining interests, was $853 million, above the announced estimate of $825 million. The gross margin for the communications business was 27%, also exceeding the announced estimate of 25%.

Level 3’s total revenue for all of 2000 came out to about $1.19 billion, with a net loss of $1.46 billion, or $4.01 per share.

“Over the last year, [even] from the smallest base among our competitors, we had the largest absolute increase, $700 million, in revenues,” said James Crowe, CEO of Level 3.

Despite that increase, Level 3’s growth was slightly stunted by its lack of collocation space, something of which Crow freely admits the company “missed the significance.”

“The demand continues to be extremely strong for both IP and collocations services…We had a shortage of collocations space in the fourth quarter.”

The company, however, is adding new collocation space that should help alleviate the shortage throughout the course of the year. “Collocation is a long term and strategic part of our overall network assets,” he said.