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delayed 20 mins - disclaimerThursday January 21, 11:50 am Eastern Time
Lucent falls on slower-than-expected revs growth
NEW YORK, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Shares of Lucent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:LU - news), the world's largest maker of telecommunications equipment, fell 5 percent on Thursday after the company's first quarter revenue growth fell short of analysts' expectations.
Lucent, the second most active issue on the New York Stock Exchange, was off $5.21 to $109.75 in early trading.
Lucent's fiscal first quarter profits beat Wall Street's expectations, but its revenue growth fell short due to a delay in finalizing some contracts, analysts said.
Some revenues Lucent had expected to record in the first quarter were delayed into the second quarter, which caused a shortfall of about $800 million, analysts said.
''People are wondering whether this is a timing issue or a demand issue. But since (Lucent) management was very specific about their expectations for the year, it seems to be just some logistical issues,'' said Alex Cena, an equipment analyst with Salomon Smith Barney.
''The concern (among investors) is that maybe there's a slowdown in business among U.S. service providers. But management was careful to say that was not the case. Management says it still expects very good demand,'' said David Toung, a telecommunications equipment analyst with Argus Research.
''Customer demand remains robust and we continue to take (market) share,'' Lucent said in a statement. ''In fact, Lucent has booked over $1 billion in revenues thus far in January, getting the fiscal second quarter off to a very fast start.''
Lucent said it expects its second quarter revenues to increase about 30 percent from the year-ago quarter, and earnings per share to double from the 14 cents reported a year ago.
For the full year, Lucent expects earnings per share to increase about 35 percent on revenue growth of 19 to 20 percent, slightly better than Wall Street had expected. |
