Another Alcatel report from CeBit today.....
Hanover, Germany, March 23 (Bloomberg) -- Alcatel SA, Europe's fourth-biggest phone-equipment maker, said it expects the market for some of the high-speed Internet equipment it sells to expand by 40 percent to 45 percent a year through 2004.
The Paris-based company, which controls about half of the global market for so-called digital subscriber line equipment, yesterday said it won a ``major'' such order from China Telecommunications Corp. DSL gives people high-speed Internet access through their traditional copper telephone wires.
``I'm quite confident we'll keep up our market share, but obviously we'll have to fight hard,'' Martin de Prycker, chief technology officer at Alcatel, said at a press conference at the Cebit trade fair in Hanover, Germany.
The company in January said it plans to sell between 10 million and 12 million DSL lines this year, compared with 6 million lines last year. Alcatel is depending on rising demand at its networking and optical units to help offset a drop in sales of cellular phones this quarter.
Alcatel's shares rose as much as 2.97 euros, or 8 percent, to 39.97, in line with a 6.8 percent increase in the Bloomberg Telecommunications Equipment Index. The stock has declined 34 percent this year. |
