Earnings from technology heavyweight Intel, data storage group EMC and telecoms equipment provider Lucent Technologies yesterday went some way to offset concerns for the sector following the poorer than expected figures from IBM earlier in the week.

Intel the world's largest chip maker, yesterday reported a rise in quarterly profit as revenue reached the second-highest level in the company's history, helped by strong demand for its Centrino notebook computer chips.

Net income in the first quarter ended April 2 rose to $2.2 billion, (€1.7 billion) or 34 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier profit of $1.7 billion, or 26 cents a share. Sales rose to $9.4 billion from $8.1 billion, slightly below the all-time company record of $9.6 billion set in the fourth quarter of 2004.

Lucent Technologies, whose chief executive Patricia Russo is in Ireland this weekend to address delegates at the IMI annual conference, reported a fourfold increase in profits over the three months to the end of March, its second quarter.

Strong sales of wireless network products and services drove profits after tax to $282 million or six US cents. That compared to $68 million or two cents a share in the comparative quarter last year. The latest figures were boosted by two cents per share due to a tax refund.

Lucent, which employs around 400 people in Dublin, had sales of $2.34 billion in the quarter, unchanged from the previous three-month period but 6 per cent higher than the year ago period.

The figures were in line with Wall Street expectations.

Elsewhere, data storage giant EMC, which employs more than 1,200 people in Cork, saw quarterly profits nearly double to $269.8 million, or 11 US cents per share, from $139.8 million, or six cents per share a year earlier. - (Additional reporting, Reuters)