Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Alcatel-Lucent Reports Free Cash Flow in Q2 -- a first since 2006

Despite an overall soft spending environment,  notably in North America, Alcatel-Lucent reported revenue of EUR 3.450 billion for Q2 2015, excluding Managed Services and at constant perimeter, an increase of 6% year-on year. At constant exchange rates, Group revenues, excluding Managed Services and at constant perimeter, were down 8%.


The weight of next-generation activities continued to progress, representing 76% of revenues compared to 70% in the year-ago quarter. Next-generation technologies revenues increased 15% year-over-year at actual rates and declined 1% at constant exchange rates. Gross margin reached 34.8% of revenues, expanding 220 bps year-on-year, driven notably by improved profitability and favorable software mix across several business lines.

Commenting on the results, Michel Combes, CEO of Alcatel-Lucent, said: “Our second quarter 2015 results represent a significant milestone for Alcatel-Lucent, reflecting the first Q2 of free cash flow generation since the merger of Alcatel and Lucent in 2006. Alcatel-Lucent’s financial results for the first half of 2015 clearly show that the company has delivered on the key objectives of The Shift Plan, launched two years ago. The company is now well on track to complete its turnaround by the end of the year.

Core Networking

  • Core Networking segment revenues were Euro 1,675 million in Q2 2015, up 22% year-over-year at actual rates and up 10% at constant rates. 
  • IP Routing revenues were Euro 659 million in Q2 2015, an increase of 17% at actual rates and 3% at constant rates, when compared to Q2 2014. The business witnessed double-digit growth in EMEA and CALA, resilience in North America and declines in APAC driven by a continued spending pause in Japan. Revenues from non-telco customers grew at a double-digit pace year-over-year, at constant exchange rates.
  • 7950 XRS IP Core router saw strong year-over-year revenue growth and registered 5 new wins in Q2, for a total of 44 wins to date.
  • Continued momentum in virtualized routing both in and outside the telecom service provider space with 8 new customers for the Virtualized Service Router (VSR) in Q2 2015, bringing the total to 16 deployments and over 75 trials underway, including our NFV trial with Telefonica which includes our VSR.
  • Nuage added 5 new customers, bringing the total to 25 wins, including China Mobile, and announced collaborations with both Arista and Mirantis as part of Nuage Networks ecosystem program. Nuage also introduced the Virtualized Services Assurance Platform (VSAP), which addresses the need for visibility and correlation between the virtual networks for applications and workloads and the physical connectivity provided by the datacenter network infrastructure.
  • IP Transport revenues were Euro 630 million in Q2 2015, up 30% at actual rates and 21% at constant rates, compared to the year-ago quarter. Terrestrial optics revenues showed strong double-digit growth at constant rates, as WDM witnessed strength in EMEA, CALA and APAC. 

ACCESS

  • Access segment revenues were Euro 1,772 million in Q2 2015, a decrease of 7% year-over-year at actual rates and a decrease of 20% at constant rates. In Q2 2015, segment operating income was Euro 23 million, compared to a segment operating income of Euro 11 million in Q2 2014, reflecting improvements from both Wireless and Managed Services, in addition to continued double-digit margin contribution from Fixed Access.

  • Wireless Access revenues were Euro 1,148 million, a year-on-year decrease of 12% at actual rates and 27% at constant rates. Marked by a difficult comparison base in the year-ago quarter, the sales decline was driven by lower spending in the US and project timing in China. 


https://www.alcatel-lucent.com/press/2015/alcatel-lucent-reports-q2-2015-results