Nortel expected to report lower than expected revenues

Nortel Networks has announced that it expects to report lower than expected revenues of around $2.9 billion for the first quarter of 2002.

The company, which has a plant in Monkstown, County Antrim, expects to report bottom line improvements for the first quarter, compared to fourth quarter of 2001, in line with its earlier expectations.

Commenting on the company's expectations, Frank Dunn, president and chief executive officer, Nortel Networks, said: “As we indicated on February 12, 2002, customers were showing more resolve than originally anticipated to minimize spending in the near term. For the quarter, we saw limited capital expenditures by customers, resulting in a sequential decline in revenues of approximately 16% compared to our previous guidance of approximately 10%.

"We continue to work our business model and drive significant improvements in our bottom line performance. We are very pleased with our continued success in cash management and we are driving momentum in the market by making significant inroads with key customers as they continue to demonstrate their acceptance of our industry leading portfolio.”

This latest news from the company follows their talks last month with employees following the announcement that the company is to introduce a fresh wave of voluntary redundancies at their Monkstown plant.

David Silke, Press Relations Manager for Nortel in Ireland, said they anticipated that around 50 jobs in the plant’s operations area would go as part of the jobs cuts.

This latest round of redundancies follows last year’s massive job losses in which the Canadian-owned company axed almost half of its workforce.

Over the past twelve months Nortel’s workforce in Northern Ireland has fallen from 2,150 to 1,150.

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