Laser manufacturing expansions

Job cuts at Lucent, Nortel; slowdown til1 Q4/2001? For fìscal Q1/2001 (to end-

Also, just a month after in

December)LucentTechnologies

January confirming

(Murray Hill, NJ, USA) suffered

target of 30% growth for 2001,

losses of US$ 1.02bn(on sales

in February Nortel

of US$5.84bn,

(Brampton,

28% down on

Q1/2OOO).This compares

with

Networks

Ontario, Canada)

fiscal Q1/2001

sales

down 23% from earlier fore-

profïts of US$ 1.2bn for its

casts to US$6.3bn

whole fiscal 2000. Excluding

forecasts

its earlier

forecast

the initial public

and cut its

for 2001 to 15%

growth in safes and 10% in

offering by end-March of the

profït.

chip spin-off Agere Systems (whose sales were up 50% on

“We are nou, seeing a fmter and

Ql/ZOOO to US$l.lSbn),

more severe economie down-

“seven-point

a

restructuring

plan”

to save US$2bn by tìscal Q4/2001 wil1 tost US$l.2-1.6bn

in fïscal

Q2/2001 and cut 10,000

turn in the US” and Vnore prudent equipment spending _V telecom compunies”, said CE0 John Roth. In January telecom

jobs

(9.4% of staft). Lucent wil1

carriers

expand plans to use contract

ets which had already been

manufacturers,

approved before end-2000.

with 6,000 fur-

started to review budg-

ther staff soon working for dif-

“That is a new behaviour

ferent companies

we haven’t seen before...We

as Lucent

nies to sell al1 or part of its fac-

now expect

tories by end-September.

slowdown

Excluding Agere’s 16,500

staff,

that

the US market to continue

well into

Q4/200 1” Nortel now intends

Lucent’s staff wil1 shrink from

to cut not 4,000 but as many as

123,000

10,000

to 90,500

by Autumn.

Laser manufacturing To help quadruple ing capacity years

mamtfactur-

over the next two

Agilent Technologies Inc

will complete

by December

new US$20m, 80,000

a

jobs (out of 94,500).

expansions

* Sales were eI46.Im Q4/2000

for

(up 126% on Q4/99)

and a record e432.3m

for full-

year 2000 (up 144% on ‘99).

ft2 fibre-

optic R&D building at its

“We’ve been successful in mov-

Ipswich Components

Operation

ing up the vertical chain into

in the UK (part of the Fiberoptic

integrated subsystems and in

Communications

entering the passive market”,

Division and

the source of its medium- and

says CE0 Jean-Christophe

long-haul laser-based fibre-optic

Giroux. Its external customer

tmnsceivers

base is now 33% of sales (up

and submarine

pump lasers). It expects

to add

500 staff to the existing 1,000. Alcatel Optronics @aris,France) has inaugurated

a e15m exten-

sion of over 20,500

ft2 (with

1100 ft2 of cleanrooms) production

at its

facihty in Lannion,

Brittany for laser sources

and

from 18% in ‘99). “We are stil1 seeing strong demand across al1 product lines, driven by sustained growth in terrestrial and submarine DWDM systems and the widening acceptance by Alcatel Optronics”.

pump laser modules (for terres-

Q1/2001

trial and submarine

than average”, but Alcatel

applications).

fïbre-optic

Over 150 jobs

have been created.

of

Raman technology, pioneered

wil1 be “a bit slower

Optonics still expects growth close to 100% over Q1/2000.