Lucent posts 23 per cent profit plunge

A disappointed Lucent yesterday posted a 23 per cent fall in profitability yesterday when it announced the results of its first quarter of fiscal 2000. The comms company said it made $1.25 billion during the three months to 31 December 1999, though after one-off items, that figure falls to $1.18 billion. This time last year, it posted an income before charges of $1.52 billion. Revenues for the quarter totalled $9.9 billion, up on Q1 1999's $9.8 billion. And the quarter proved to be the three-year-old company's second best ever for income and revenue. Lucent blamed the downturn on weak software revenues, delays in customers' network roll-outs and the company's own inability to meet demand for high-performance fibre-optic equipment. The company's chairman and CEO, Richard McGinn, said he expected to have fixed its manufacturing and shipment problems by the end of the current quarter. ®