Lucent posts tenth straight quarterly loss

Lucent Technologies today posted a $2

Lucent Technologies today posted a $2.88 billion net loss, its tenth straight quarterly loss, as customers continued to slash spending and warned sales may drop by as much as ten per cent in its current quarter.

Lucent has borne the brunt of the steep downturn in the telecom market, earlier this month it lowered expectations for its fourth quarter a second time, warning it would report a wider-than-expected loss.

"We have sufficient liquidity to fund our turnaround and make it through this prolonged down cycle," Lucent chief financial officer Mr Frank D'Amelio said in a statement.

Lucent also said earlier this month that it would cut another 10,000 jobs to match its shrinking revenue base, helping drive its stock to an all-time low. When its job cuts are complete, Lucent will have cut two-thirds of its work force since it started restructuring in January 2001.

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Lucent expects its latest restructuring actions to yield savings of about $1 billion. Since it launched its restructuring, the stock has fallen about 96 per cent, analysts said.