French-American telecoms equipment group Alcatel-Lucent today posted an operating loss.
Alcatel-Lucent, the world's second-largest supplier of telecoms equipment, posted a €244 million operating loss for the three months to March 31st compared with a profit of €246 million a year earlier.
The company, which issued a sales warning last month, said it expected full-year sales growth of between 4 and 6 per cent at constant exchange rates, in line with the carrier market.
The group's $13.4 billion transatlantic merger, announced in last April and completed in December, has created uncertainty around its future strategic technological choices, worrying customers and leading some to delay long-term investment commitments.
Alcatel and Lucent, which both restructured after the burst of the technology bubble, have issued a number of profit warnings in the past two years as they have struggled to adapt to the market's fast-changing dynamics.