The telecommunications equipment supplier Alcatel Standard Electrica SA moved into profit last year after spending the previous three years in the red, and the company’s turnover increased by 45% to $870m. The success is due partly to the general increased demands from Telefonica de Espana SA, to which Alcatel supplies PABXs, but also stems from the company’s own diversification to industrial electronics, as well as its export activities. With competition from the likes of the AT&T Co-Amper SA joint venture, which although created in April last year, is already the third biggest exchange supplier, added to the inevitable threat to its market share posed by liberalisation of the telecommunications market in Spain, Alcatel sees its future in diversification. To this end it has invested $35m in updating its industrial plants and $71m in research and development. The company also signed agreements with two Spanish companies establishing both computer security and intelligent buildings as a corporate activity, as well as getting into the manufacture of DEC VT-compatible monitors. This year the company hopes to increase its sales to Telefonica by 40%, but in the long run it will try to reduce its turnover dependency on Telefonica from its current level of 80%. Meanwhile Alcatel’s subsidiary Sitesa SA is hoping to make a range of domestic phones in its Malaga factory by the end of 1989 if the proposed deal with Amstrad Plc comes off – Amstrad would then distribute the phones via its extensive network.
